3. Annette

“There has to be… something.”

I push aside a large leaf, then step through more branches, careful not to scratch myself or ruin my dress. As much as leaving home devastates me, at least I get to be in the forest again, walking beneath the trees and crawling through their prickly intersections.

This really takes me back to simpler times.

The forest is still and quiet around me. There’s an eerie tranquility to the scene that is chillingly beautiful. Pale moonlight pours down from overhead, and pavo birds fly erratically through the branches, chirping wildly.

But as I prowl onward, finally finding the first hints of a clearing, I realize that the pavos aren’t enjoying the splendor of the moonlit forest. If anything, they seem panicked. When the first scents of iron reach my nostrils, mixed with a foul smell unlike anything I’ve ever perceived, I realize that something must be very wrong.

At first, I tried subtle questions to try to confirm Mellara’s killer, using my skills of deception to try to weasel out an answer before I had to leave.

But an instinct led me into this forest, and because I felt like I was running out of solutions, I decided to follow that instinct.

And it seems, as I retch and try to prevent myself from heaving from the scent, that my instinct was right. What I smell is certainly blood, freshly spilled and mixed with some other agent.

My mind turns toward victory. It feels nearly within my grasp.

I imagine the council’s faces when I reveal their true killer. I imagine the satisfaction of knowing that I prevented more pointless deaths.

But it somehow feels too easy. I follow the smell as best I can, trying to settle the contents of my stomach. The smell feels deliberately repulsive, as though designed to ward off people like me. The closer I am to the smell’s source, the more difficult it becomes to focus.

The clearing opens further, and as I get a wider view of the forest when turning the corner, I see a trail of sleeping animals lying still under the moonlight. The strangest thing is that it’s not a uniform arrangement of creatures, so I know that I haven’t discovered a pack. Creatures that naturally prey on each other are all aligned following the trees and the natural features of the landscape.

Also, my steps are not terribly silent. I wonder why so many creatures haven’t been jostled awake by my approach.

I let my eyeline follow the path of creatures and realize that the creatures at the farthest end away from me are mangled beyond recognition.

Here, the creatures look at peace and could easily be sleeping, but several dozen feet away, I see guts splayed open and blood splatters on the forest soil. The beautiful tranquility of the evening light in the grove is almost an affront, betraying the violent acts I’m now seeing secondhand.

I need to run away. I argue with myself about why I don’t sprint in the opposite direction, accepting my exile and moving on. Whatever killed all these creatures is beyond my power or my understanding.

But then I remember the shame I experienced when I left Mellara, and my fists ball up until my knuckles are white.

I need to investigate this if I want any chance of regaining my life.

Taking several hesitant steps, I lean over the dae closest to me and begin to take a whiff.

My mouth and my stomach burn all at once. As I figured, this was the source of the smell and probably also what terrified the pavos.

My eyes watering, I reach my hand down to the ground, finding a single droplet of dae blood that I collect on my fingertip. Given that I don’t know what attacked these creatures, it could be very risky, but I don’t have much choice.

I bring it to the side of my nose, letting magical heat sear through my skin as two words escape my mouth, and the smell is gone.

To most, it’s a mere party trick. But I’m glad to see one of my spells paying off.

Leaning down into the soil, I begin matting around the fur, looking to understand how these creatures died. In the dae, I find no puncture wounds, but as I reach around, feeling the dae’s stomach, a drop of black ichor-like substance grazes my finger.

It burns.

Kicking the dae over suddenly, its cold body hitting the ground with a thud, I find a pool of tar-like liquid covering the dae’s front. But there’s something else that escaped my recognition.

As I move my hand around the dae, feeling its muscles and skin, I push down lightly, and the skin nearly falls inward.

There’s no blood in this creature, save for the stray droplet on the ground.

Whatever killed this animal, and the many lining the path, progressed from mangling the corpses to removing all the fluids entirely.

My mind turns back to the council and what they told me about the killer. Dritz’s unsettling voice fills my mind. “Torn apart, flayed open, burned, the moisture sucked out of every orifice of their bodies…”

This must be the killer. Aside from the burnings, this matches their gruesome depictions perfectly.

Perhaps, if I can take a sample of this ichor, I can determine an identity and start proving my innocence.

But I need to act fast, lest the trail run cold.

Spurring myself into motion, I try to think of what spells I know that could help me here. I have a spell that can trace an object’s history, but it’s risky and I’ve never succeeded in casting it. Also, that spell isn’t necessarily designed for living matter.

Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes, letting my mind try to remember the images from the pages of my studies. My books are miles away, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving this scene.

When I think I have a memory of the page, with its numerous cautionary scribblings and disturbing images, I open my eyes, trying to hold the image in my mind.

My hands rummage through my rucksack, finding a silver dagger. The blade cuts me as my finger discovers it, and I now note that my bag contains several drops of my own blood.

But not from the right part of my body.

I look at the silver dagger closely, turning it around in my hands. “Not yet,” I tell myself. “That needs to be the final step.”

First, I take a vial out of my pack and do my best to put a drop of the ichor inside of it without getting it on my hands. It doesn’t seem like a big enough sample.

Then, I settle on taking out a pair of leather gloves and moistening the ichor with my canteen so that I can gather more of it. The ichor is goopy but easier to collect.

I rustle around the forest until I find the right kind of poisonous berries, putting ten of them in a pouch. Their blue-green coloration is well-hidden among the forest, blending in almost perfectly with the leaves.

Finally, I grab a pouch of silvery powder, which was very expensive and hard to find, out of my bag, as well as a mortar and pestle. I mash the berries in together with the powder, driving the pestle through counterclockwise.

I sigh, looking at the bowl in front of me and the dagger at my side.

“Here goes nothing, I guess.”

If I mess this up, I will die. There are no questions in my mind. My memory of the skulls on the page explicitly calls it out.

I almost talk myself out of it before I remember the scowls of the dark elves in lowtown. I run my hands along my cheek, still slightly sticky from residual tizret juices.

With no more hesitation, I bring the concoction up to my mouth and swallow it, tipping the mortar up as I tilt my head backward.

I start to gasp as the powder fills me up and my throat starts to close, already irritated from the poison.

I pick up the dagger, gathering what little strength my failing body has left, and pour the vial back into the mortar before taking the dagger and carving gently into my side, attempting to hold the mortar against my stomach.

A trickle of blood pours out from me, and the goopy, magical gel congeals with the ichor in the bowl, blending as steam rises out of it.

My vision blurs, my strength leaving me.

There’s still one step… One healing word reserved exclusively for this spell, that undoes the damage of the poison and seals the wound.

And I can’t remember it.

I can feel myself about to collapse onto the ground, about to be overtaken by either poison or blood loss.

The forest grows hazy around me, and memories play through my mind of climbing trees as a child. On one occasion, I climbed to the top of the tallest tree in the forest. I was so proud. I thought I might be able to impress somebody into being my friend.

Doubt overtook me when I remembered that I was alone, regardless of how many times I tried to prove my value. I wasn’t going to suddenly change anybody’s mind by becoming an expert tree climber.

My hand slipped, and I fell to the cold ground below before waking up in a hut filled with steam. That’s where I first read the spell, in a book beside the bed I woke up in.

“Havaernic!”

I gasp as the air returns to my lungs and my body snaps awake.

Knowledge fills my mind, coming from an indeterminate source. It enters me as though it is familiar knowledge I’ve known all along.

The ichor I found is demonic, coming from an ancient being. It was left here thirty minutes ago.

I squint as a hazy green fog enters my vision, seemingly leading me to the source.

This is my one chance to prove my name. Whatever foul creature committed these heinous acts doesn’t care for the sanctity of life and certainly doesn’t care about my well-being.

Despite every instinct, I need to be as cruel as the worst dark elf, showing no mercy.

I need to fight with everything in me.

I follow the foggy path deep into the woods, unsure of what to expect.