Page 87 of Fated to Monsters

“Are those…flowers?” Wes reaches toward them, but I grab his arm.

“Don’t touch them.” Something visceral within me wants to protect them, to keep them out of harm’s way. I don’t quite understand how I know, but I’m certain I’m supposed to follow them. Despite following a trail north, I step in between the glowing things and walk in the direction it guides me.

“Are you sure?” Wes asks skeptically.

“Yeah.” I meet his gaze. “Just don’t step on them.” Shifting my focus to Dash, I add, “Please.”

I shove the compass back into its home and put my faith in whatever magical miracle is leading me away from the north. Is it possible that I’m chasing a false hope that will get us killed? Definitely. But could this be the same divination that brought me to that book in the library at Harper Shadow Academy? I guess I’ll find out.

We walk silently through the wooded area for at least ten minutes, my heart slowing its pace with each step. I shouldn't feel this comfortable in wartime, but my body is strangely at ease. This is what I was trained for. What I'm known for. What I'm good at.

I am the furla ain, and soon, I will make Parla regret the day she ever came into my life.

The illuminating ground dies out completely, as do my steps.

“Where did they go?” Dash whispers from behind me.

“I don’t know,” I tell him, a strange unease trickling up my spine. “Over here,” I rush over to a nearby bush and cower beside it.

They join me a second later, almost entirely too late, as a group of half a dozen soldiers march by, their formation eerily perfect and orderly. The soldiers don’t look our way as they march past us like they don’t see or notice us at all.

“That was creepy,” Dash says the very thing going through my head.

“It’s like they’re mind controlled.” I shift my weight and watch them disappear into the distance.

“I think they are.” Wes leans in closer. “I mean, how else would she get full compliance from them? It has to be some magical mind control. Remember when…”

But he doesn’t have to finish his sentence for me to recall the memory of Parla using mind control to get me to kill Wes.

“I do,” I tell him, not needing the details repeated out loud. I am ashamed I allowed her to take control and almost succeed in forcing me to murder my beloved.

“How did you break it?” he asks me.

I hadn’t put too much thought into that part. “I don’t know, I just did.”

But that couldn’t be all of it, there had to be something I did to rid myself of that influence.

“Think, Wren,” Wes encourages. “You had the knife in your hand poised to my chest. I told you I’d find you in any life.”

I shiver at the image of the fear that had consumed me. I was terrified, quite possibly, for the very first time in my life—truly and utterly terrified.

“It was something she said,” I tell him. “She commanded me to kill the monster. But I never saw you as one. She was, at least, in my eyes. And then…” It was similar to what I felt when that magical torture device had been embedded in my skin. A flash of bright light, a welcoming and protective presence. Could that have been my hidden magic rising to the surface to save me? What else could explain what had happened?

“Wren.” Dash reaches across and catches the blood that trickles out of my nose. “You’re bleeding.”

I rise to my feet and wipe my face. "I'm fine."

Dash looks to Wes, who steps toward me.

“Come here.” Wes pulls me to his chest and mutters into my hair. He hugs me with a firm gentleness and kisses my forehead. “I need you to tell me if you’re feeling bad.” Wes releases me and stares into my eyes, his glowing orbs something that would have made me want to kill him in my past life, but now, all I want to do is spend every moment at his side.

“You have to promise me you won’t do that again. You must preserve your energy, Wes. I’m fine, really.” I avoid their pitying glances and step from around the bush that was concealing us. “We should get going. We’re running out of time.”

But when I take a few more strides, I smack into a large body I never saw coming.

His rough hands latch onto my shoulders and hold me firmly in place. Standing at least twice my height with antlers protruding from his bare skeleton skull, he growls. “You.”

Wes immediately ignites his entire body, his flames licking everything within a few inches of him. “Let her go or I’ll burn—”

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