Page 20 of Queen of the Night
A feeling I can only describe as that of ultimate failure seeps through my body, traveling my veins like thick poison. All will to continue onward, to live, is numbed and slowly devoured by…whispers.
Rupi quills up and her feathers stab into my neck, giving me a moment of painful clarity as I reach up and wipe away warm beads of blood. My vision sharpens, and I find Ikar with a distant look on his face, eyes filled with despair that matches what still reverberates through me. We no longer walk, and I don’t know when we stopped, but I watch as each of the men relaxes the grip on their weapons as if they just lost a battle they desperately needed to win.
Their shoulders gradually lose strength… dropping beneath the weight of defeat in their eyes. I fight to keep my coherence even as I spy the shadowy appendages stretching out, wrapping around my comrades, only to look down and find one with wispy arms wrapped around my thighs and crawling up my body with glee. I attempt to step back, but my legs won’t move.
I grab Ikar’s arm and shake it. “Ikar!”
But he doesn’t regain focus. He mutters something about worthiness beneath his breath that I can’t make sense of. Myeyes widen as the hilt of his sword begins to slip from his fingers and look over my shoulder. “Darvy! Rhosse!” Panic and an unexplainable sorrow I still can’t shake tinges my voice.
No one so much as blinks in response, their gazes remaining distant and sorrowful, and I begin to lose the sharpness around me when my vision begins to blur again. The whispers grow louder as they drown out Rupi’s panicked chirping near my ear.
You are nothing. Your lucent is powerless. What’s the use in having it? Give it up…
The despair grows, drowning out all other feelings until I’m positive my soul will suffocate beneath it, until, out of sheer habit and instinct, I reach for the one thing that’s always been constant in times of darkness. It fills my body so easily and naturally; it’s as if it was intended to beat through my heart, the same as the blood coursing my veins.
I pull an orb of lucent in my hand, and I’m shocked when, immediately, the whispers cease around us as the light bathes us in its glow. I watch with shaky relief as the shadows are forced back, their wispy appendages shrinking back as if stung. Ikar, Darvy, and Rhosse snap out of the odd trance, blinking and frowning, regripping their weapons and looking around, the despair and pain still evident in the creases of their eyes. I don’t blame them. Having all your deepest doubts and fears played upon, that depth of despair… it does something to you. It still prickles beneath my skin.
“Whispers,” I tell them, refusing to douse the orb just yet. I may just carry it like this the rest of the way.
“They really sneak up on you, don’t they?” Darvy attempts a joking tone, but it falls flat.
I don’t miss the disconcerted look on Ikar’s face as he runs ahand through his hair, and Darvy blinks his eyes as if he attempts to blink away the entire experience.
I jump when Rhosse claps a firm hand on my shoulder, and with a somberness in his voice, says, “Glad to have you with us.”
I offer a tight smile. I try to be confident. I really do. But what if this was just a lucky chance? I pulled lucent without thinking. I nod anyway, accepting his gratitude with as much grace as I can muster after nearly dying of despair. Rhosse doesn’t seem the type to offer it freely, and I know I should feel honored. But really, I feel as if I just accidentally set a bar so high I’m not sure I’ll be able to reach it again.
I meet Ikar’s eyes and find warm admiration there, shadowed by something I can’t define. He’s always seemed to carry a weight on his shoulders that I don’t quite understand, but it seems as if what we just experienced made it even heavier.
He begins walking again, and I step close.
“They were all lies,” I whisper in an attempt to help him feel better.
He glances down at me for a moment before he looks straight ahead again, and a muscle in his jaw flexes. “That remains to be seen.”
I frown. That’s too cryptic an answer to respond to without prying, and while I crave to know more about him, I know it’s not my place to ask, so I press my lips shut.
We continue forward in silence. No one seems inclined to talk much about what just happened, and now that I know how sneaky this forest can be, I’m even more on edge. But instead of a hand on my sword, I pull a near-constant amount of lucent through my veins. Though they can’t see it, I’m as ready as they.
Chapter 13
Vera
Rupi sits perched atop a golden arrow that sticks from a half-dead tree, as smug as a pirate who just found a treasure, patiently waiting for us to see her as it comes into view.
“Well, it’s not three arrows… but it’sone. Does that count?” Darvy asks as we circle around the tree in the dwindling light of the three suns.
The arrow has seen better days. It’s dull as an aged coin, but with a little love, I see its potential to shine again. Ikar frowns, and I watch as he reaches within his armor and pulls out the small brown book. He flips through a few pages and begins to scan its pages quickly, as if he’s read it so many times he only needs to double-check.
I’ve learned over the past day that this is usually the moment where navigation discussion ensues to make sure we’re headed in the right direction. When I assisted hunters, I never worried much about the direction we took; I just knew they’d get us home since we both wanted the pay. I’m the first to admit that I’m not helpful with map reading, seeing as I’d probablylead us off a cliff unintentionally with my lack of talent in regard to navigation, but Imightbe able to help with something else. I’m tempted to take the easier route, fall into habit, take a seat, and let them handle it as I have the past two days and all the contracts I’ve ever taken before this… But this contract feels different, and I can’t say why, but I’m beginning to feel like maybe this time I should step up and attempt to be more a part of the team.
I watch as the small book that I’m beginning to grow more and more curious about is passed around between them. I bolster my courage and step forward. No one comments on my joining their conversation; they merely shift so that everyone can see the book Ikar holds out for us to see. Warmth floods my chest at their inclusion.
I listen as they discuss the path we took and flip pages back and forth. Rhosse points to one section of the aged writing, and Ikar angles the book toward him. “We traversed that path yesterday.”
“Wemighthave,”Darvy chimes in. “It’s been hundreds of years, and the field of pink flowers with all the boulders it mentions? We didn’t see that.”
“Of course we didn’t. There’s nothing pink in this forest anymore,” Rhosse mutters.
