26.

  Faelwen

  Cold fingers clamped around my throat and crushed me into the earth as I fell back on the ground. Mud seeped through my clothes, cold and lingering, as the wraith’s weight pinned me down. I felt my lungs burn.

  “Where… is it?!” She howled. Her voice haunting and cold, her razor sharp teeth snapping close to my face.

  My hand struggled to find the dagger at my side. After failing twice, my fingers finally curled along the small hilt. I tore it free and drove it upward into her ribs.

  Once. Twice.

  The blade met resistance at first, then sank in deep, but her grip only tightened. Time seemed to slow as the world blurred at the edges of my vision. Air refused to come. Stars flared behind my eyes, bursting like stars in a dying sky. Through the haze I saw Artemis, a flash of fur and fury, tearing chunks from her shoulder, but even that didn’t stop her.

  A voice broke through the rush of blood in my ears, sharp, commanding, unmistakable his.

  “Artemis, move!” Ash’s magic came alive a heartbeat later. Red tendrils burst forth, coiling around the wraith and wrenching her off me. She screamed in anger, a sound that ripped my ear drums, her nails carving lines of fire across my neck before she was dragged away.

  I rolled to my side, choking, lungs scraping for air. The world spun, but breath returned. And I had never been happier for the oxygen giving me strength.

  “You okay, little fox?” Spook’s voice broke through. I nodded weakly. His hand was warm and steady, as he pulled me up. He gave me a quick smile then he was gone. I turned around and saw him darting forward like lightning with a blade’s gleam in his hand. His strikes came fast. Two clean cuts across her torso, but she barely flinched. Shadows rippled around her before she tore free from Ash’s tendril, screaming, flying at the culprit of those tendrils.

  Ash was already moving. His dark magic surrounding him summoning a dark wraith, born of his own essence, slamming into the woman with a sound like silk being ripped apart. Sparks of magic bled into the air as he continued chanting. His voice low and deliberate, while his hands traced a sigil across the shattered wood of the door. I steadied myself, opening the gates of my mind just enough to let the current in. Remembering the words of Aeon Tempus, The Returner. “Magic is alive, Faelwen. It listens. Sometimes, all it takes is intent, the clarity of what you want.”

  Magic stirred around me, in the air, in the ground I was standing on. Electric and alive. It threaded through me like a storm remembered. I called on the lightning I’d drawn from the sky in Eryndalis, felt it hum beneath my skin. But then my mind drifted off to the time I send a boll of light to the Vexmaw. And when I released it, it wasn’t lightning that flew from my fingertips… it was light itself, charged with lightning, a sphere of raw power bursting from my hands nearly knocking me back. I felt the magic deplete me instantly. Felt it drain my strength, my mind, my soul. And instantly I knew I couldn’t use any more magic. If I would I might end up in the Nether realm.

  The ball screamed through the air, past Spook, and struck the woman square in the chest. The sound was horrible, like a sword slashing clean through bone and marrow. She staggered, her chest glowing where it had torn through. But she was still alive and the ball of lightning…

  “ASH!” I cried.

  He barely dove clear before the spell collided with the wall behind him. The blast shaking the stones. Debris fell in a shower of dust and ash. I was shaking, trembling from the drain of magic and the panic I felt a minute ago.

  When the haze cleared, the wraith’s head turned, slowly and mechanically, until her dead eyes met mine.

  “Murderer…” she hissed, and then she flew at me with terrifying speed.

  I ran. Gods, I ran. Artemis barked, falling in beside me, his paws splashing through the mud.

  What are you doing, buddy?! Attack it! I threw the thought at him.

  Look who’s talking, you scared chicken. You’re running too!

  He wasn’t wrong. The wraith’s spectral hand brushed my shoulder. Cold dread sank into my bones. I veered hard to the left, nearly slipping in the wet earth, and sprinted toward Ash and Spook.

  “Quickly!” Ash roared. “Inside!”

  I didn’t hesitate and dashed through the blackened doorway, Artemis right behind me. Ash and Spook followed, slamming it shut. Red light flared around the frame as the runes on the other side ignited under Ash’s breath.

  The wraith collided with the door. She howled in frustration, her nails clawing the wood, but the barrier held. For now.

  “I can’t hold this for long,” Ash growled through clenched teeth his hands outstretched at the door. “Find the black stone… Now!”

  We scattered into the pitch-black mill. The air stank of rot and damp flour. My hands slid across rough, cold stone as I searched blindly until…

  A shiver. Ice down my spine. The darkness thickened, coiling around me. Fingers, ghostly and icy, brushed the skin on my face. I screamed, stumbling back. Two yellow eyes glinted through the dark, startled, then almost… confused.

  “That’s mine,” Ash grunted, red mist pulsing from his outstretched hands. “Just ignore him.”

  The wraith’s grin widened as if feeling my unease and enjoying it. It drifted closer. I backed away fast.

  “You search that side,” I hissed to Spook when I reached his side. He scowled. “Not a chance. I’m not getting near that thing.” He motioned to the wraith still hovering in the shadows across the room.

  “That wraith is not looking hungrily at you! Don’t be a coward, go there.”

  “Coward? You’re the one hiding behind me!”

  “Hey, I just had one choking me earlier, thank you very much.”

  “STOP ARGUING!” Ash’s voice cracked like thunder and I flinched. “Find the damned stone!”

  Artemis barked once, sharp, triumphantly. We all turned.

  Found it.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  His voice sang in my head. Ash’s head snapped toward him. “Thank the hells. At least one of you is productive.”

  I rolled my eyes and Spook huffed next to me.

  “Get ready to run,” Ash continued. “We’ll have maybe five seconds once the portal opens.”

  We gathered near Artemis, the other wraith summoned by Ash guarded the door. Awaiting the devilish woman. The woman’s angry shrieks tore through the wards. Cracks were forming in the sigil light. Ash let go, sprinting towards us with the keystone in hand. He pressed it to the air and with a resonant hum, the portal bloomed open. The familiar golden path stretching before us.

  We ran. All of us into the darkness.

  Behind us, the door burst open. The two wraiths collided in a blaze of red and shadow, and then the portal sealed shut. Leaving only silence.

  ? ? ?

  The portal brought us to an unfamiliar place. We stumbled into a garden, wild and untamed, lying behind the shell of a long-abandoned mansion. The air was heavy with the scent of decaying leaves and wet earth. Looking up, my gaze found the white moon. Serene and constant, her familiar constellations threading across the sky like silver embroidery.

  We were back in the Mid Realm. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, a tremor of relief running through me as the portal shut close behind us. Leaving only a moss-covered boulder, overgrown with weeds like a forgotten sentinel among the trees.

  “What is this place?” Spook asked, his voice low and quiet as though the silence itself demanded caution.

  “I don’t know,” Ash admitted, stepping closer to the mansion. His eyes traced the crumbling walls before falling to three gravestones, half-swallowed by grass and autumn leaves.

  “Sir Ludwich Blackthorn,” he read aloud. The name pulled at something in the back of my mind. Barnabas’ notebooks. Artemis nudged my hand, a subtle reminder. My fingers fumbled in my backpack.

  A pang of grief sliced through me when I thought about the fact that everything had been left behind in the Marshes of the Fiend. Barnabas’ notebooks, the bow he had crafted for me, my mother’s music box… all gone. I swallowed hard, letting the sorrow settle behind my ribs like a stone, and stepped toward Ash and Spook.

  “Barnabas wrote about this family,” I murmured, voice trembling despite my effort to sound steady. “They had a gemstone. Cursed, according to the townsfolk. All of them… they took their own lives. And Barnabas locked the gemstone with the help of other sorcerers in a box in the attic.”

  “That must be the bloodstone the woman screamed about,” Spook muttered, eyes dark with realization. Ash nodded grimly.

  “I say we leave. This place… it gives me the creeps.” A shiver ran down my spine, the kind that claws its way into your very soul. Artemis agreed with a soft growl. Spook, too, fell in line. We followed the old, overgrown road toward the town below, and the sight that greeted us turned the air bitter in my lungs.

  The town was a husk, abandoned and ravaged by time and war. Evidence of the battle was everywhere. Shattered buildings, bodies long since claimed by decay.

  “Elora said the Fiend’s armies passed through here. We must not be far behind their lines,” Spook murmured, his voice tight with sorrow. “They were at the border with the Primordial Lands last time she was in touch with her family.”

  His gaze lingered on the destruction, haunted. “I wonder what the other towns look like… Dew, Townhaven…”

  At the mention of my hometown my chest tightened. Would it be as destroyed and forsaken as this place?

  Ash’s voice pulled me back from the spiral of thought. “Any idea where we are on the map of the Ancestral Region?”

  I shrugged. Spook’s brow furrowed. I turned to Artemis, seeking guidance. He paused, calculating, then whispered into my mind: if I remember correctly, the Blackthorn mansion is near the river that borders the Primordial Lands or Fae lands as the elves call it. That puts us roughly 200 to 210 miles from Townhaven that lies in the west.

  I relayed his words. Ash pinched the bridge of his nose; Spook’s jaw slackened in disbelief.

  “Nearly five hundred miles from Westray,” Spook muttered. “Let alone Caradsher?n. And we’d have to cross a lake to get there!”

  Ash’s eyes narrowed. “Then we can’t aim for Caradsher?n. We go straight to Westray. I hope some elf magi are there as well. If we find horses, we could reach the Temple of Herdus within three weeks.”

  Artemis winced in my mind. Riding the entire day with little rest.

  I nodded, I wasn’t looking forward to that either.

  I assume you don’t have a better idea, buddy?

  He sighed and shook his furry head.

  “Alright,” Ash decided, determination sharpening his tone. “We head on and find horses. The closer we get to Townhaven, the more likely we might find surviving ones from abandoned farms that have come back after the fights.”

  The path ahead was uncertain, but the world, even in its ruin, was alive with possibility. The wind whispered through the trees, carrying the faint scent of another rainy day, and something else… something that made my pulse thrum with both fear and fragile hope.

  Burning wood.

  ? ? ?

  It took us five days of trudging through sodden meadows before we finally stumbled across the remnants of abandoned barns. The sky hung heavy with rainclouds, the sun dipping behind them in a muted, bruised glow. I walked hand in hand with Ash, the lingering heat from last night pressing against my skin, a secret ache that still throbbed between my legs. My mind drifted automatically back to him. His laughter like music in my ears, the brush of his soft lips across my skin, leaving me hollow, yearning and alive with desire. Even in the darkest of nights his love for me burned bright.

  “Are those… horses?” Spook’s voice yanked me back to the present. Ash squinted at the horizon. “Four, I think. Or… maybe a cow?”

  I turned in the direction he and Spook were watching and spotted a burned farm to our right. Only the skeleton of the stables remained, and beneath them huddled a cow and three horses, wet and trembling, seeking shelter from the rain. We approached with careful steps, soft words and gestures, trying not to startle them. Among the debris we found rope and an old halter. Spook quickly fashioned another with the rope, and with Ash’s quiet guiding presence, managed to capture two of the horses.

  The following days stretched endlessly as we rode west, rain drumming on our backs, chilling us to the bone. A vague pain began to stir in my lower stomach, a warning I tried to ignore. Perhaps my period had come early this month. I never was regular so it didn’t surprise me. I shoved the thought aside, unwilling to entertain it.

  By the second day, we came to a familiar intersection. My pulse quickened at the sight. The road to the left led to Townhaven and the road to the right…

  Home. Or what little remained of it. A wave of homesickness swelled inside of me. Thick and bitter. I longed to see it, even if only ruins awaited. My heart ached for Mira, lying in the earth there, and for Barnabas, who deserved a stond to mark his memory just like my parents, a tangible piece of them in this fractured world.

  “We need to find shelter!” Spook shouted above the rain’s relentless clatter.

  “I know a place!” I called, pointing toward Townhaven. We rode a few more minutes until the faint outline of Thalor’s and Gwen’s home emerged against the grey horizon. My breath caught. The house was a ghost of itself, blackened and abandoned, the surrounding meadow a swamp of rainwater. My heart sank at the desolation and destruction. We tied the horses beneath the remains of the stable and approached the house.

  “Just…ehm give me a minute,” I mumbled, holding the boys back, and slipped inside, Artemis padding silently at my heels. My chest tightened, the familiar thrum of fear and sorrow catching in my throat. The living room, once warm and inviting where a fire always promised comfort, was a barren wasteland. Broken furniture lay scattered across the floor, wood charred, the air thick with damp decay. My vision blurred with unshed tears. I blinked the tears away and managed to scan the room.

  No bodies.

  Relief was a small, bitter thing, but it filled me enough to move. I edged toward the kitchen, nothing there either. In the hallway, I found the stairs, only the first few steps intact; part of the second floor had collapsed. The roof caved in letting the water drown out the memories.

  Do you think they were up there, buddy? I mean when the armies of the Fiend attacked.

  I hugged myself. Would they have been sleeping when they came?

  Knowing Thalor, I don’t think so. I can’t smell any dead creatures either. They likely left, Artemis whispered through our bond, grounding me.

  I drew in a steadying breath and called for the boys. We sat up a small campfire in the living room, beneath the remaining roof. Huddled close, the warmth of its meagre flames offering some comfort against the wet chill.

  “If this is the havoc these armies have left behind… then I don’t even want to imagine what’s left of my home,” Ash whispered, shivering beside me.

  “Where do you live?” Spook asked, poking at the fire.

  “Across the lake from Townhaven close to a small farming village on the hills,” Ash replied, passing me some dried fruits and meat. Spook fell silent, his gaze distant. “They did reclaim Dew as I remember correctly… but everything before that…” His words trailed off. We all knew. Ash’s shoulders stiffened, hood pulled low. “I’m worried about my family,” he muttered, voice muffled, almost lost. The room fell quiet, broken only by the crackle of the fire. Around us, the silence pressed in, heavy with the truth. We had stepped into the remnants of a war zone.