RISING (#2, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 56

As the fog bled away, I felt refreshed and rejuvenated and heard the startled, joyful cries from those sitting with the wounded. I'd been awestruck at what Myrsst had done for us—Unnatural Healing.

But there was no more time to waste, so onwards I hastened under the cover of darkness to race through the Deniauds' elaborate gardens and plunge into the Hemmlok Forest. I'd skirted just inside the treeline before disappearing within its thick gnarly depth. For the past hour, I'd emptied traps and snares of small forest critters, slit throats, and piled the plastic bag that lined my canvas rucksack full of dead rabbits, squirrels, rats, and ferrets.

Outside the cave, I rose and pinched the flashlight from between my clenched teeth. The ivy was cool and soft as I pushed my fingers through the leafy vines and swept them sideways so I could duck inside. As I stepped inside the cavern, the faintest brush of wild magic feathered my exposed skin, followed by a stickiness that clung to my face and limbs. I swiped away at the webbing from across my eyes and nose as a blood-chilling shiver slithered down my spine.

Years ago, I'd set a magical stone I'd obtained from the Purveyor of Rarities into the wall of the cave, near its jagged mouth, to trap what I bred in here.

My flashlight panned the inside of the cave and it was one big messy nest of spider webs.

My heart pounded loudly in my ears and competed with the ominous noise of chittering and tiny feet scuttling on rock and along silver threads. The sound swelled louder as sinister critters scurried for the mouth of the cave, right for me.

The bloodhound growled, low and vicious—the inner sound a protective warning.

Krekenns.

They were tiny, and spider-like creatures with long hairless limbs. There was smooth skin where their eyes should be, and their mouths were full of deadly teeth. The otherworldly critters hunted in great numbers, and their prey was usually the homeless. The mortals would be swarmed, bound, and dragged down into the tunnels beneath the city where the krekenns nested, and consumed alive.

They stopped a safe distance away, chittering and swarming over one another like a roiling mass of ocean waves. Not once had the krekenns ever attacked me. I didn't know if they recognized me as other or if the dark magic inside me kept them away with its bared teeth and snarls.

I reached into the bag and my fingers brushed fur, velvety pads, and claws too, as I wrapped my hand around the dead animals and tugged them out of the bag to toss them one by one. The limp, neck-lolling rabbits and ferrets broke through the webbing or got tangled up in it, and the krekenns, with their murky-green skin, descended in an excited surge of rippling bodies, to bind them up with silver threads much stronger than silk, more like adamere.

Emptying the bag of the rats and squirrels, I left the krekenns to feast and pushed my way through the ivy, the vines swaying back and forth behind me. Thick spider webbing had stuck everywhere and I spent a fair bit of time peeling it from my face, hair, and body. I crouched down and stuffed the plastic bag into the canvas rucksack, wiped the blood from my hands with a soft cloth, and tucked it away. Doing up the clips once more, I shrugged the bag over my shoulders. With my flashlight illuminating the path, I carefully made my way back down the incline and headed back through the eerie forest to the Deniauds'. Later on, when the sun had risen and then set, the day over with and the full moon rising, fat and bloated, to sit in the sky, my aunt and I would return to the cave.

I snuck back into the mansion, stashed my rucksack away, cleaned my dagger, and washed my face and hands with soap. Then I joined the madness.

Most of the activity was centered around the Banquet Hall which had been turned into a makeshift infirmary. The tables that had held food and drinks for the dance were lined with the wounded, now fully healed and sleeping on after Mrysst's ministrations.