Chapter 48

Rhordyn sets a rigorous pace over toppled trunks and big shards of blue stone, sometimes slashing through drapes of vines with his sword, the terrain a constant rise and fall. At times we’re forced to climb near-vertical cliffs, others we’re traveling down the spine of rocky gullies, ankle-deep in rushing water, pausing periodically to fill our bellies from the crispy streams.

Silence mulls between us like the hot, sticky air that clogs my lungs and clings to my skin as we weave deeper into the jungle, brushing past thick, waxy leaves, the canopy so dense barely any moisture seems to escape this humid hell.

I keep resisting the urge to close the distance between us and touch him. To make sure he’s really here, and that my mind’s not playing tricks on me, dragging me through the jungle by my withered heartstrings.

He doesn’t look like he wants to be touched right now—shoulders tight, movements stiff. Every now and then he clenches his hands into fists so tight I picture him strangling something.

Or someone.

I forge along behind him, gulping breath, my calves and thighs more wobbly by the second. My head feels light and airy—perhaps from the higher altitude. I rack my brain, trying to remember the last time I ate …

But I can’t. Since I woke on that beach this morning, I’ve been walking through a dream—the past few days a big, messy, hurting blur I don’t want to think about. Or talk about.

Ever.

Zane and Baze are okay. Rhordyn’s alive—brooding, but alive.

He’s here. With me.

I’ll never take that for granted again.

Keeping my stare firmly pinned to the back of Rhordyn’s head, I tug on my cupla, trying to drag it over my squished-up hand for the umpteenth time today. Unsuccessfully.

I want it off so I don’t have to look at it. Wearing a constant reminder of everything I gave since I stepped onto Bahari soil is not helping me avoid the messy forest of thorny emotion smushed inside my chest.

It’s doing the opposite.

After another painful tug, I sigh. If I keep it up, I’ll make myself bleed, and then Rhordyn will be all up in my face, inspecting the hurt. Then he’ll ask why I don’t just unclip the thing.

Avoid.

My full bladder makes each hurried step more uncomfortable than the last. Groaning, I slow to a fidgety stop, threading my fingers through my sweat-slicked hair and shoving it back off my face.

Rhordyn pauses, looking at me over his shoulder.

He’s not even breathing hard. If it weren’t for the shreds in his pants or the sweat beading off his sculpted panes, he’d almost look like he was taking a midmorning stroll.

He raises a brow.

“I need to … go.”

Frowning, his gaze drops to my shuffling feet before slashing a glance around. He points at a fallen log a few feet away. “There’s a perfectly good spot. I’ll give you my back so you have some privacy.”

I blink at it, back at him. That log has got all the privacy of the bucket the sailors used on the ship.

“I’d rather perish.”

He cuts me a look so damaging I feel it slice into my bones.

I wince.

Wrong choice of words after our earlier conversation.

Sighing, I massage my rumbling gut, though that only makes me want to pee more. “I’ll be right back. Just … wait here,” I say, threading between thick shrubs, feeling his icy perusal track me until I shift from his line of sight.

I blow a shuddered breath and edge down a slight hill, finding a sheltered spot tucked behind a rock where I can squat without the threat of losing my balance and tumbling to my doom. I’m just resecuring my sheath to my thigh, about to head back up again, when a soft voice comes to me:

The words feel like vines wiggling on the wind, hooking on my ribs and twisting around my spine. They give me little tugs.

Caught in the clutches of some kind of trance, my feet move of their own accord, easing me farther down the steep slope—running in places, dropping to my ass and sliding in others, a litter of dirt and debris chasing my swift descent through the humid murk.

I’ve heard bits of this song before … somewhere. Like drips of a dream that keeps slipping through the gaps in a clenched fist.

I want more—the rest of it. I want to collect every twirling lyric and pull them close to my chest. Let them whisper their secrets upon my skin.

The tune tapers, and I become suddenly aware of a familiar rattling symphony, like a sea of singing cicadas. I push free of the jungle near the base of a frail gorge pinched to the right, as if some mighty hands plunged down from the heavens, gripped the mountain, and began splitting it apart—then paused. Nuzzled within that split is a cavernous slash that’s tapered at the top, spewing a radiant gray light.

No sunshine filters through the connecting canopy above, as if the trees on either side are clasping hands. A huge pack of Irilak are huddled in the dense shadow at the cavern’s mouth, just shy of the spewing light, like slender slants of vapor caught in some sort of waving trance.

They’re watching that hole the same way Shay used to watch my mice treats before I’d toss them over my Safety Line …

A deep rumble belches from the cave, and my heart flops. The Irilak shift in unison, like they’re preparing to pounce, and I glimpse a taloned claw swiping at the prowling shadows like a threatened cat.

Realization slams into me.

Vruk.

More of that singing voice:

The melody is a silky serenade to my violent unraveling—my throat tightening, breath failing to wisp through and fill my aching lungs. I scramble back a step, another, noticing the strange terrain the Irilak are nesting on: dehydrated lumps of fur, claws, wide-open maws, and slack, fluffy tails.

A graveyard.

It’s a fucking graveyard.

That cornered beast snarls again, the sound a slash to my chest.

I spin, colliding with something hard and cold.

Rhordyn’s arms band around me, and my entire body trembles against the might of his embrace, a breath pooling into my lungs that’s all leathery, earthen him. His hand weaves into my hair and cups the back of my head, and I nuzzle against his chest—no longer ice cold, but warm.

Why is he warm?

Here.

He’s here.

He tightens his grip.

“It’s okay.” His voice is a throaty rumble, so much thicker than it usually is. Something settles inside me, like a freshly planted rosebush weaving its roots into uncharted territory.

He tucks me behind a tree, pressing his forehead against mine. “I’ll be right back.” Whipping around, he sprints over the morbid terrain of gray pelts before I have a chance to register what he just said.

The Irilak sweep aside like splitting water as he bounds from firm, fluffy mound to firm, fluffy mound, toward his one fucking weakness.

“Rhordyn!”

“Stay there!”

My heart does a nosedive.

If a talon strikes him through the heart this time, he’ll—

Visions flash of him standing on the edge of that cliff, blood bubbling from his lips, a talon punched through his chest.

Of him tumbling, his eyes flat, lifeless.

A lethal combination of fear and rage saws up my throat, making it hard to fill my lungs.

I look down at my hands, certain they’re covered in blood. That it’s drying, cracking. Those same cracks weaving through my chest.

Don’t cry.

That creature scurries out of my dusky chasm, plowing through my internal forest, not even flinching as it swipes its tail like a scythe, slashing my thorny vines and ripping them free with its rose-thorn claws.

Making space.

It uncurls twiggy wings, stretches them, then flaps, flaps, flaps—toiling up crystal debris and bits of wild emotion. It tips its head, cranks its maw, and shrieks.

The sound splits me down the middle.

Every vine of fear withers, turning crispy and black, freeing more room for my creature’s flapping wingspan. I rip my dagger free from my sheath and charge, barely feeling the lumpy terrain beneath my bare and nimble feet, pouncing from one macabre mound to the next.

I plow down the path Rhordyn already paved through the pack of Irilak who seem to turn in unison, their oily perusals scribbling across my skin.

I’m careful to avoid the tapered talons poking up from shriveled carcasses as the cavern belts out another rumbling belch, the smell of sulfur thick on the air. The Vruk is no longer at the mouth of it, swiping for release. It’s lumped on the ground with its throat slashed, the grizzly wound leaking a plume of black blood.

Rhordyn is nowhere to be seen.

My gums ache so much I grind my teeth together, reaching the rubbled slit, stepping around the beast and charging inside.

My creature calls to the haunting serenade—flap, flap, flapping. Whisking my insides into a churning mess.

The thick, rancid air vibrates against my skin with each roaring rumble that spews from the bowels of the cavern as I stalk over sharp shards of stone, barely feeling them bite into my feet, fist tightened around my tiny, charred dagger.

Don’t cry.

Rhordyn powers around a jagged corner, his arms and chest and face splashed in icky black stuff, eyes like ebony moons, widening. Narrowing on me—the darkness bleeding into the surrounding skin.

He snarls past long, pearly fangs. I return the fucking favor as he closes the space between us in a few powerful strides.

“How dare you stuff me behind a tree, then charge headfirst into possible death!”

“What the fuck are you doing? I told you to stay—”

“Like a dog!”

He slams into me, snipping both our rants as he tosses me over his shoulder, punching all the breath from my lungs. Still, I manage to lift my head.

A stampede of frail Vruk charge down the cavern’s luminous throat, galloping in jerky strides. Barging into the walls.

Each other.

Their maws are bared, fangs dripping strings of saliva, ribs and hips so sharp they almost poke through their dull, bedraggled coats. Some bear gory slash wounds, like they’ve been down there so long, hiding from the Irilak, they’ve been fighting amongst themselves. Perhaps picking off the weak and wounded in their efforts not to starve.

Rhordyn erupts through the entrance and into the shadowed gorge, one of the Vruk launching after us in a desperate pounce—paws outstretched, talons splayed, tail pointed. It collides with the ground just outside the cave’s illuminated embrace.

The Irilak surge like a locust swarm, smothering it, becoming a heaving, suckling mound of black vapor.

I shudder, losing sight of the feeding frenzy as Rhordyn bursts through the trees, charging up the bank so fast my surroundings blur. My creature tucks its wings and scurries through the mess it made, crawling back into my chasm with a swish of its leafy tail—sprigs of emotion shooting from the carnage, packing my insides full again.

We breach the ridge, and Rhordyn flips me off his shoulder. I stumble backward, catching myself against a tree, looking up. His features are a dark twist of wrath and feral condemnation, but it’s got nothing on the sawing fear and slashing rage ripping me up inside.

He could have died.

He could have—

His brows collide, and he peels my layers with a softening gaze.

I spin, giving him my back as I buckle into a knot, digging my hands through my hair, certain a fist is wrapped around my throat—tightening.

He’s okay.

Breathe …

I scrub my face, trying to loosen the snake bound around my neck, restricting my airflow, making my lungs convulse for breath that won’t come.

Breathe!

“Orlaith, open your eyes. Look at me.” He’s okay, he’s okay, he’s okay. “Listen to my voice. I’m here. Breathe.”

My head swims, eyes rolling back.

Weightless.

I become vaguely aware of my body being tucked against his rumbling chest before I succumb to the clawed clutches of my wild panic.