Page 58 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams
I offer her a small smile, and she returns it.
“Thank you,” she says. “That’s all I hoped for when you sent your message. But it’s not the only reason I agreed to help, of course. In fact, there’s something?—”
She’s interrupted by a series of yaps and whines from Dots, who comes running back down the line of riders. He circles my horse, his protests getting louder, making my horse shift from one hoof to another skittishly.
“There’s something coming this way.” Leon’s warning is calm and measured, but I can sense his alarm. Dots keeps darting into the forest and then back to us, as if trying to herd the horses into the trees.
“Dismount and get off the trail,” Leon instructs. The abruptness in his tone means none of us hesitate. He rides up beside me and swings down off his horse to help me lead mine in between the trees. All the while, he’s monitoring over his shoulder, back the way we were heading.
I hear it then: the rustle and snap of something big moving through the Miravow. Etusca gasps and snatches up a plant from nearby, shredding the leaves between her fingers. As we move deeper into the undergrowth, she frantically scatters the pieces of plant in her wake, whispering a prayer under her breath in Agathyrian. I only catch one line—something about protecting us from the touch of death.
We hit a patch of large, dense ferns, their fronds big enough for us to crouch down and be mostly screened from sight. The horses won’t lie down, too spooked by the rustling behind us that’s only getting louder, so the fae settle for hitching them to a tree a few yards away.
“Hurry,” Etusca murmurs, her whole body rigid as she beckons them back to the cover of the undergrowth. Leon crouches down beside me, and I feel the heat radiating from his thigh as it brushes against mine. I focus on that rather than my fear. Whatever’s out there, it’s enough to make a dryad like Etusca invoke her most powerful prayers. They believe in the cycle of life—that everything has a beginning and an end. She wouldn’t ask the goddess Viscalis to ward off death unless it’s a dark, unnatural force approaching us from the trees.
We huddle in silence, watching the trail ahead, until the light shining through the trees darkens. Something huge moves along the path, heralded by the snapping of twigs and a dry clatter, like chattering teeth or the wind through loose window shutters. There’s a smell too, the sweet scent of decaying fruit, and underneath it something more earthy and unsettling.
The creature moves along the trail. From here, I can only make out bits of it between the trunks—enough to know it’s not made of flesh. At least, not entirely. I catch a flash of pale bone, sickly moss, and the dark, uneven texture of rotten wood. It seems neither alive nor fully dead, but some poor soul trapped between the two. Leon’s hand finds mine, and he loosens the fingers digging into my palm as the thing shambles down the trail, out of sight.
Eventually, the rustling fades and the air clears of its stench. Etusca rises from the ferns, signaling it’s safe, but her expression is still tense and strained.
“Whatwasthat?” Mal asks, brushing leaves off his tunic.
“A mortifus,” Etusca says. “The magic in this forest is extraordinarily powerful—and that’s not always a good thing. If a creature here has a bad death, killed without the proper rituals, the Miravow’s enchantments won’t let it truly die, and the spirit of the dead thing lingers on in the husk of its body.”
“That’s horrible,” Tira says.
“It’s rare,” Etusca stresses. “Agathyrians are careful to respect the creatures of the forest, even when we hunt, but it happens.”
“Clearly,” Alastor says, staring off down the trail in the direction the mortifus went.
We move on, more quietly than before, all shaken up by our brush with the undead. I’m glad when the trees start to taper out and the sunlight brightens through the thinning canopy. The cushioned forest floor gives way to short grass and there, in the distance, the shape of towers rises up from above the tree line.
Starfall.
Our horses pick up the pace, sensing our excitement at being within sight of civilization again.
A low whine stops me short, and I turn to see Dots pacing at the edge of the forest. His tails are wagging, his tongue lolling with easy energy. He doesn’t seem to sense any danger, but he’s clearly trying to convey something. Tira stops too, watching him.
“What is it?” she asks the animal, dismounting. I follow suit, returning to where the korigos waits by the trees.
“I don’t think anything’s wrong,” I say. “This is just as far as he goes.”
Tira lets out a gasp of dismay as she understands what I’m saying.
“He’s staying,” she says, voice flat. I realize this loss, after everything, is hitting harder than she expected.
“This is where he belongs,” I say, reaching out toward the korigos. Dots steps forward and nuzzles my palm, and I’m hit with a wave of sadness myself. We’ve come a long way since we were both locked away in Respen’s palace.
“You know, when you were the Temple’s prisoner, some mornings he was the only thing that got me out of bed,” Tira says. “He’d jump on me and rip at the blankets until I was forced to get up or face trying to explain the damage to Heda.”
I laugh. “He’s been a good friend to us both.”
“But now it’s time for him to go home,” Tira says. There’s a wistful note in her voice, and I can guess the questions she’s asking herself.When will we get to go home? Where even is home, anymore?
I crouch down, looking into Dots’s dark, clever eyes.
“Thank you for everything,” I say. “We couldn’t have made it without you.”
