Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Five

Kellan

The smell of fire woke me. There was a smoky haze that blanketed the land and made my eyes water when I finally pried my eyes open.

I'd spent half of the night worried about Josephine. Sleep did not come for me. Something was wrong. I could feel it deep down in my bones. Not being able to go see her had my body aching.

I felt sick without her. It was stupid, but my body yearned to find her safe. Rubbing my hand against my face, I noticed ash smeared against my skin. I glanced up at the ash falling from the morning sky. Deidamia was nearby.

She was in her dragon form. I looked around our small, makeshift camp and found Ernest asleep against the base of a tree. I stood up, my back crying out from the roots that pressed into me the entire night. I"d been too worried and tired to move or make me a bed of leaves.

I stood with dew-soaked clothes and walked over to Ernest. I kicked his foot until his eyes popped open. "What is it?"

I pointed up toward the sky. "The Wicked Witch is up."

He looked at the ash raining down on us and began to stand with the help of the tree. "It's ash. She's near."

A loud roar vibrated over the Dark Woods, shaking dead leaves from the limbs and sending them toward the forest floor.

I pulled my sword from the air and watched as a shadow blanketed the woods. What little light that was left vanished, and darkness settled over the woods as she slithered above us.

She was bigger than I assumed a normal dragon would be. She was easily the size of a building back home. There was nothing small about her.

Her underbelly was light with thick scales, and what I could see of her face was midnight black. Fire sprayed from her mouth, brightening her path over the darkness. The ease of her flying and dominating the woods sickened me.

She seemed so invincible. Like the greatest of warriors couldn"t hold a flame to her. She was evil and had darkness on her side.

Ernest and I stayed completely still. I was sure she knew we were near, even though we didn't see her stupid crow anywhere. Once she made it over us, and her tail disappeared from our sight, I dropped my sword and ran my palm down my face.

"It's dawn," Ernest said. "She flies at dawn."

I looked at him. "Meaning?"

Ernest groaned as he searched for his canteen. "That means we're going into her castle at dawn."

"I don't remember us talking that plan through together. You think going in there with no leverage is smart?"

Ernest stared blankly at me. "You expected to defeat her out here? She"ll eventually find us here. We need to surprise her."

I didn't know what to expect. My mind had been mush since Josephine left. I wasn't worried about defeating Deidamia at the moment. Sue me. I was set on saving Josephine. She needed me.

"I hadn't thought that far ahead," I mumbled, pouring some of my water onto the campfire. "I'm not sure being trapped in a castle we know nothing about is a good idea, Ernest. She knows every square inch."

He took a long drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's our only choice. We have to surprise her. She won't know we're there. It"s a better way of keeping an eye on her. When Josephine does come back, we"ll need her close to us and the castle. It"ll be easier to control the situation."

I rolled my neck around my shoulders and sighed deeply. "Surprising Deidamia sounds far-fetched to me." I grabbed my canteen and poured some over my head to wash away the ash lingering on my skin. "We don't have enough time to get there now. One night in the Dark Woods and then breaking in at dawn?"

Ernest smiled. "You're very easy to persuade, son."

I shrugged. "I don't see another choice at the moment. Plus, I'm too tired to argue. I didn't sleep well. I can't stop thinking about her."

Ernest nodded. "You said you had a feeling?"

"It's still there," I said, my voice lower. "I think she's going to struggle getting back to our realm. Something isn"t right."

Ernest looked over his shoulder. "She may, but I have faith in her. You should, too, Kellan. We need to move."

His nonchalance about her safety felt like nails underneath my skin. I wanted to make him care. Make him understand that my feelings were real. Hot tears pooled in the corners of my eyes.

I hated myself for feeling weak. I needed to be strong. We had another day's walk to the Dark Woods, and then we were going into Deidamia's castle.

Ernest started toward the Dark Woods without me. I swallowed my pride and followed him toward the darkness ... again.

***

I had another sleepless night. Josephine ran in my dreams like a scared child. Who was she afraid of? What had happened? I'd never wanted to learn dark magic in my life, but during that moment, I wanted to reach out to her somehow.

Ernest kicked my foot. "I'm awake," I said with my eyes closed.

"Get up. It's time," he said.

Dawn lingered nearby. The darkness of the night was subsiding as the sun broke free from its slumber.

I stood to my feet, feeling dizzy from the night, and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms. I felt nasty from the ash the day before and my inability to take a bath. What I would do for a nice hot shower.

Ernest cleaned up camp quicker than he'd moved the entire trip. Deidamia roared, and it sent shivers down my spine. I swung my canteen over my back, along with my backpack, and watched as the darkness began to shadow over the forest. It crawled like a creature sent to suffocate you.

Ernest walked toward the edge of the bayou that separated us from her castle and began to wade through it. "There are gators in there," I called out.

Ernest and I waded through the bayou. He seemed comfortable enough to do it, though it took him a while to get across it.

I stepped onto the ground and hauled Ernest out of the muggy water and to his feet. He was out of breath. Breaking into this castle didn't seem like a good idea.

"You can hardly move," I said.

He huffed and started toward the doors. Stubborn old man. The doors whined as I pushed them open and stepped inside.

It looked the same as the day I saved Josephine. Murky and cold. A true dragon lady's castle.

The crow landed on the stair railing and cawed at us. For the first time, I didn't want to strangle him. "Let's follow him," I said.

Ernest followed behind me as the bird led us toward two double doors on the opposite end of Deidamia's den.

I shoved open the large handles and stepped into what I assumed to be her bedroom. It was full of witchy stuff that I didn't like. There was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in one corner and a four-post bed in the middle of the floor.

A pitch-black chandelier hung over her bed, and two stained-glass windows brought in the morning light.

The crow landed on her nightstand. Her red eyes were curious. I wasn't sure the bird's angle just yet, but I pulled the book from beneath her and opened it.

It smelled old, and the writing was small cursive.

"A diary?" Ernest asked from the other side of the room.

"Looks like it," I said, flipping through the pages. "It dates back to the 1800s. Could she be that damn old?"

Ernest grumbled while opening the drawers of her dresser.

"You looking for her underwear, Pops?"

He tossed me a look.

A picture fell from the depths of the diary. I bent down and picked it up, holding it between my fingers. The little girl staring back at me was smiling. A woman stood next to her with a similar face shape and hair color. On the other side was another little girl that looked very similar. Did she have a sister? Fern hadn"t mentioned one in her stories, but that didn"t mean anything. Her past seemed to be lost in the years.

The life in her eyes looked full. This was before everything was ripped from her. One of the last moments she'd felt love.

The doors slammed downstairs, and I shoved the picture into my pocket and placed the diary back down.

Ernest looked at me and motioned for me to follow him to the closet's door. There was a small door in the back, hiding behind clothes and junk. He opened it, and a staircase led downward.

I wasn't sure it was a good idea to go down there, but it was better than running into her. The staircase curved into a spiral and the walls smelled damp like mildew and mold. The further we went down, the greater the stench of rot clung to me.

When Ernest stopped at the bottom, he waved his hand around and made light in the palm of his hand.

It was a dungeon. Chains hung from the walls. There were skeletons in the corners and dead rodents. I kicked one with my boot and held my nose. "Now what the hell are we going to do?" I asked.

Ernest waddled over to an empty wooden chair and sat. "We wait on Josephine."

My anger soared higher than before. "We don't know if she's going to make it back. I told you I had a bad feeling."

He glared at me. "You need to trust her, Kellan. And me. Josephine is coming with the spindle."

I screwed my eyes closed and leaned against the wall.

The fear of being in Deidamia's castle was nothing compared to the fear of losing Josephine.

I sent a prayer up that she was okay. Josephine was smart. She was strong. She had to make it back to us. We had no other choice.