Chapter 37

R esting in a tree turned out to be more comfortable than I imagined it would. Voror had found one that was easily big enough to accommodate me, a criss-crossing of heavy branches forming a sturdy platform well off the ground.

“Can bears get up here?” I asked, as I peered down at the ground. Inside the canopy of the tree, it was much darker, little of the twilight sky’s light getting through.

“Some could, yes.”

I looked at him, perched on a branch a few feet from where I was wedged securely. “Are we safe here?”

“I will alert you, should such a bear come.”

“Thanks.” There was a rustling noise, and my body tensed.

“A mouse.”

“How do you know?”

“My eyesight is excellent. As are my other senses. All superior to yours.”

“Oh. Good.”

The owl rolled his head slowly. “Except your magical sense.”

“You mean the gold-vision?” I suddenly became aware of the weight of the staff top in my pocket.

“Yes. What happens to you after you work with the gold?”

I swallowed. “I get fatigued.”

“And you prefer to be alone for this fatigue?” he sounded doubtful.

“Yes. I do not like to display weakness to others.”

“Ah,” he said, mollified. “I understand.”

I closed my eyes, trying to remember the details of the vision I’d had just before the attacker had given me a lot more to worry about.

Could that have been the Prince? And if so, had that been his mother?

Or, had the figure, emerging from the gloom, been him coming to kill whoever the woman and her son were?

If they find out what you really are, they will end you.

I couldn’t help the certainty I felt that she was talking about the Prince. I knew he was keeping a secret. Why the fates else would gold runes keep drifting from his skin?

She had mentioned his thirtieth birthday, and a mist-staff. I had never heard of a mist-staff. But could that be what the Prince was so desperate to use me to find?

Waves of tiredness washed over me, making it hard to think clearly.

“What will you do now?” Voror said in my head. “You had decided not to run, but here you are. Free.”

The same thought had been flying around my head from the second I’d stopped swimming for my life.

I was outside the palace. But everything had changed.

“I’m not free.”

“You are not bound.” My eyes flicked open at the word.

“That’s exactly what I am. Bound. To the Prince.”

Voror blinked at me. “You mean metaphorically?”

“Magically. I am his bound betrothed.” I let out a long breath. “I am bound to my friends, too. I made a promise that they wouldn’t be hurt. I can’t keep that promise from here.”

“You intend to return to the palace?”

“If I run, then I’ll be found. The Prince has made that clear. My friends will be killed. And even if I could live with that—which I can’t—and evade the Prince—which I doubt—your mysterious fae woman will probably show up,” I said with a shrug. “I can’t run from this.”

The owl moved his head slowly. “I agree. You have a fate to fulfill. Fate cannot be outrun.”

I closed my eyes. “So, here's a sentence I never thought I’d say. I’m going to get some sleep, and once I’m strong enough, we’ll make our way back to the Shadow Court palace.”

With Voror keeping watch and confidence in the branches holding my weight, I was asleep in seconds. Exhaustion made sure of that.

A sharp feeling in my arm jolted me from my deep sleep.

“Reyna.” Voror’s mental voice didn’t sound right. My body was stiff and sore, but my mind was alert quickly.

“What’s wrong?” It was dark, even the low light coming from the sky seeming dimmer, and I could only just make out the white shape of the owl.

“Something is coming.”

“Wolves? The bears who can climb trees?”

“No. Something much worse.” He sounded… scared.

My stomach knotted. “What?”

“I hope I am wrong, but the stench…. I fear it is unmistakeable.”

My skin felt cold. “Stench?” A cracking sound in the distance was followed by a long howl.

“Reyna, I don’t know whether you should stay here, hidden, or whether you should run.”

My eyes were adjusting to the gloom, and I could see his wings fluttering. There was another howl, which turned into a yelp, then cut off completely. Icy fear flowed through me.

“Voror, please. What is coming?”

“The Starved Ones.”

Blood rushed in my ears, my skin prickling with fear. “No. They can’t be.”

“Stay here.” He beat his wings, rising up out the tree.

“Voror!” I hissed, but he was gone. I rammed his feather into the waistband of my trousers, then rolled as quietly as I could into a better position, where I could see the forest floor below.

He must be mistaken. Nobody had seen a Starved One in years.

Other than the one you saw on the root-river, I thought, swallowing hard.

And the ones you see in your visions.

Rustling from above made me suck in a breath, then Voror drifted down through the branches.

“False alarm?” I whispered hopefully.

“You will not be able to outrun them.”

Numbness washed over me. “It’s really them?”

“Yes. More than I have ever seen together at one time.” The owl sounded as serious and as scared as I felt.

“Odin help us. Maybe they’ll go right on by us, if we don’t make a sound.”

“They will be able to scent your wounds.”

“What?” I stared through the trees branches at the forest below, my heart beating hard in my chest. Movement caught my eye, and it skipped a beat altogether.

Something dark was moving jerkily between the trees.

The humanoid form was just a black silhouette, moving as though it were dragging one leg, a pronounced hunch to its right shoulder.

A wail sounded through the trees, and every muscle in my body stiffened.

More figures appeared amongst the trees, all moving awkwardly.

Out of nowhere, a rotten hand burst through the branches below me, and I kicked out. My breath was coming so short that I was getting light-headed. Fear so intense it was almost blinding was engulfing my senses.

Cold, slimy fingers closed around my ankle, and tugged hard.

“Voror!” I screamed, as I was ripped from the branch. I reached out, trying to grab hold of anything but the grip was too strong. Tree bark scratched at my limbs as I was pulled down, bouncing off more solid branches.

Wailing filled my ears as I struggled, and the smell was overpowering. Rotten meat and putrid sweetness. The grip on my leg loosened, and my feet touched the ground, my view still obscured by dark-leaved branches.

I ran.

I couldn’t see properly in the gloom, and all I knew was that I was surrounded by the creatures, an eye here, a gaping jaw there, a sewn together arm or a skeletal hole coming into view before fading away as I ran.

They kept up with me. Grabbing at my clothes, pulling at my shoulders, yanking me back every time I moved forward. It was a game. They had let me run. They were hunting me, playing with their food.

Thick trees surrounded us, and every time I slipped from their grasp, I hit a trunk. My footing caught in a tangle of roots and terror washed over me as I went down onto my knees.

They had me.

I tried. I tried to get back to my feet. To keep running.

But they were over me in an instant, blocking out the light. Red maws, rotten hands, exposed teeth clicking in excitement. I was going to become one of them.

They would eat my flesh, tear me apart. Sew me back together with what was left of their other victims.

And I would become one of them.

Freezing cold washed over me, and I knew it was the end. Fear wouldn’t let me stay awake for this. I prayed for unconsciousness as pain tore through my shoulder-blade.

But it didn’t come. The cold intensified, and then the wailing got louder.

“Run!”

Numb fear warred with reality as the bellowed word slammed into me. The hands and teeth pulling at me all vanished. Light seeped back through the throng of monsters.

“Reyna, do you hear me? Run!”

The Prince.

As one, the Starved Ones surrounding me turned, hissing and gnashing their teeth.

An explosion of black snakes erupted from the ground, coiling themselves around the Starved Ones. I staggered to my feet, turning blindly. White caught my eye in the dark, and I pushed through the thrashing monsters, running for what I was praying was Voror.

I reached the owl, slamming into the tree he landed on, gripping it as I gasped for breath.

“He is strong. But I don’t know if he is strong enough.”

I turned, feeling sick, adrenaline pounding through me.

Prince Mazrith was standing in the clearing, and the sight of him made my ragged breath catch.

He was fucking godly .

His eyes were blazing ice-white in the darkness, his staff glowing with silver as shadows poured from it. They solidified as more snakes, wrapping themselves around the hideous creatures and dragging them to the ground. One of them launched itself at him, and a slither of shade shot out of the staff. When the stream of shadow reached the creature it entered the gaping hole in its chest. The Starved One froze, then exploded.

I gripped the tree trunk harder, pressing myself into it. “He looks strong enough to me,” I whispered.

A voice sang out into the darkness, and the Prince went still.

“Gold Ones, Dark Ones, Starved Ones,” the female voice sang. “Too bright, too blind, too hungry.”

The shadow snakes pinning the Starved Ones to the ground began to break apart, and the Prince snarled. More shade poured from his staff, and the hideous creatures began to make a new noise, a snickering, laughing screech.

My knees felt weak when the voice spoke again, and I saw a figure in the distance, through the thick trees. A large figure, as big as the Prince. “Are you hungry, your highness?”

“Leave my realm!” The Prince roared.

“You don’t know what it’s like, do you? To eat, and eat, and eat, and never feel the bliss it must be to be sated.” She gave a small laugh. “Only, maybe you do. What do you yearn for, your highness? Flesh? Bone? The screams of your enemies?”

The figure had stopped twenty feet from the mass of Starved Ones, most of whom had regained their footing and were staring at me or the Prince. Fear had my feet rooted to the spot. “Leave my realm, now,” hissed Prince Mazrith.

“Give us the girl.”

My stomach flipped, and gooseflesh tightened my skin.

“You will never have her.”

“You can have her back. When we are done with her.”

“You will never have her,” Mazrith growled. Shadows billowed out around him, and then swamped the crowd of Starved Ones.

Suddenly, it was too dark to see anything. I could hear wails and screams and the roars of the Prince, but I could see nothing.

“Up! Get up!” It was Voror, and I groped blindly behind me for the tree trunk, grateful for any kind of direction. My mind was a swimming mass of fear and confusion. All I knew for sure was that I couldn’t outrun them.

A new roar sounded as I pulled myself desperately up the tree.

I’d heard that roar before.

I risked a look over my shoulder and saw a bear, six feet at the shoulder, crashing through the trees towards the figure. Silver bands glowed around its shoulders and limbs, just like Jarl.

A colossal boom sounded, and then light exploded through the forest, right as the bear smashed into the figure. I turned my head, pressing myself to the tree trunk and shielding my eyes from the painfully bright light. A keening wail started, exactly like the sound I heard in my visions, and then cut off abruptly. A crunching sound was followed by a human-sounding moan.

I turned around slowly.

The Prince was standing in what was now a clearing. It looked like a fire had blitzed through the trees, the exploded parts of twenty or more Starved Ones littering the scorched ground around him.

The massive bear was behind him in the distance, ripping something off a body.

I moved my terrified eyes back to the Prince. His blazing ice-blue eyes bore into mine. “She is coming,” he said.

“Who?”

“The Queen. Run.”

Then he collapsed to the ground.