Page 176 of A Warrior's Fate

CHAPTER 37

Isla wasn’t sure if Ameera was right—if the Wilds were in fact worse than the wasteland—but she was certain of the way her skin crawled as she reached the precipice of the besotted earth. Certain of the way the air had changed. Gone stale. Gone still. Waiting for her next move.

The forest before this had been lush and full, and exceptionally green, given that autumn was fast approaching, but the hooting owls, cooing doves, and chattering bugs were no more. They’d faded as quickly as the sounds of Rhydian and Ameera’s paws against the ground once they’d broken in opposite directions. Now, the only thing Isla had was the lick of breeze that rustled her tawny fur and tumbled through the landscape before her and a grove of gnarled trees, their bark gray and peeling in ribbons from their husks. Their limbs stretched tall and were entirely bare, on the edge of brittle. They strained against the coarse wind, peppering small twigs and leaves around their bases.

They created a path with the way they curved towards each other. Not the path, she was sure, but still an entrance. Isla stepped forward on it, the ground solid beneath her feet, no vapors wheezing from the surface. It wasn’t horrible but…different. Enough to put her on edge and enough to have those demons scaling the walls of her mind.

Not the Wilds.

She’d been repeating the words to herself since they’d separated. Every move was an effort. Each one brought her closer to that mass of stone hidden within the shadow, looming larger and larger.

This is not the Wilds.

But she could still feel it.

As if it had left an imprint on her soul, as if a piece of her still lay in there, where her blood had soaked the earth, Isla felt the Wilds calling to her. Like it wanted her back. Wanted another shot at taking her life.

Focus.

The trees seemed to straighten as she passed them. The wood was alive. Aware. Too aware. Of who she was. Of what she was, where she’d been.

As she moved, Isla kept a keen eye on the shadows, ready for just about anything. This close to the Wall, and with the trajectory of everything in her life these past few months, nothing going wrong felt uncomfortably improbable.

She had to put herself in Callan’s shoes—while ignoring the fact she didn’t know where he was—and more than that, she had to think as Imperial Alpha Cassius would.

If this was the pass that Callan had been marking for him, how would that benefit Io?

A way to sneak into Deimos?

Even if they’d be able to march through Callisto without raising alarm, sending anyone through the Wilds to breach the pack’s border seemed like more risk than it was worth.

Isla’s stomach twisted.

They would not go to war.

They would not go to war.

A new mantra cycled through her head as she came upon a row of houses. The abandoned part of the village.

She paused at the end of the dirt road that connected them, taking in their exteriors. They were no larger than the other homes they’d seen on the way in. Barely any gaps lay between them. Their lights were eternally out, some windows broken. Their sidings, their doors, their fences rotted.

They were entirely ravaged by whatever had infected the expanse and a decade of neglect.

So why was it, when all had been ruined the same, one, in particular, had enraptured her?

Isla stopped before the house at the end of the road, a few yards behind it was an escape into lush forest once again. Her paws, possessing a mind of their own, traveled up its gravel walkway, stones shifting and crunching beneath her, echoing into the silence of the night, followed by the creak of the rickety wooden steps to the front door.

She called back her wolf, an action followed by instant regret as the feeling of being exposed fought whatever inclination had taken over. But she steeled against it and wrapped her hand around the rusted handle, jerking it and eliciting the harsh scrape of metal against metal. A soft breath passed her lips and she pushed.

The entrance whined as it opened, slowly at first, but then faster as it widened the gap, as though it hadn’t been attached properly. Isla hesitated on the doorstep, using the pause to pick up any foreign sounds within the space. But there was no light, no life, from what she could tell. Another groan, from the floorboards this time, filtered through the air as she stepped inside. It was colder in here than it had been outside as if the warmth didn’t want to enter or the house didn’t want to let it.

Why am I here?

The thought flickered, came and went.

But almost like a response, a chill ran down her spine. Something eerie tickled her bones. Called her. Whispered, sang, in a familiar way. But from where, she didn’t know.

Another step.

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