And all things nature's given, she takes all things back from the living.
slight TW for gore
~)(~
My feet went numb hours ago. My pants had ripped at the knee when I tripped over a rogue root that was the culprit for many stumbles. I didn't keep track of how long we had been walking, but it felt like a day of nothing but moving.
The camp was set up only after the sunset. From the looks of it, the High Lord would've made us continue walking if the night wasn't so dangerous. I had heard about what could be hiding in the night on the continent, things more terrifying than those that walked on Prythian.
I sat next to the fire and pulled off my boots. My feet finally started feeling again, tingling nerves and aching a beat that matched my heart. Nalia sat beside me and looked over at the two soldiers sitting across from us. It was a mortal and an Illyrian.
I looked up at them and said, "So, what makes it dangerous to move at night?"
The mortal lifted his head from the dagger he was sharpening. "I've never seen anything."
"That's because it's your first time here," the Illyrian said with a smile, his wings rustling. "Everywhere is dangerous at night—especially during a war."
"But we're in the middle of nowhere," I said, leaning my head on an arm that sat on my knee.
The Illyrian's smile dropped. "What's your worst fear?"
The mortal huffed a laugh. "Don't scare them."
The Illyrian paid him no mind. "The forest we're in right now... there is a creature in it, and that beast takes the shape of your worst fear. It hunts you, though, by showing you the thing that gives you the most comfort."
I glanced at Nalia, who wasn't paying attention, her hands deep in needlework for a new embroidered hemline. But her face was pale. The fire flickered again, casting more shadows around.
"That sounds like a fairytale monster you use to scare kids," I said, a forced smile on my face.
The Illyrian shook his head. "Fairytales come from truth."
Nalia lifted her head finally and said, "We should go to bed now, my lady."
I watched her and saw the dread on her face. "Yes, I'm exhausted. Let's go."
I said goodnight to the two soldiers and followed Nalia back to my little tent a few steps away from the fire. She lit an oil lamp that hung on the wooden post in the center of the space, holding up the middle of the tent. She folded her embroidery and set it down on the bench before picking up my nightgown and laying it flat on the bed.
I helped her untie and remove my dress and corset. The smooth fabric of my nightgown was welcomed on my sore body and sunburned arms. Nalia sat me down and unknotted my hair, so it would fall free along my back.
I reached up and stopped her hand from leaving my hair. "Nalia... I'm sorry."
"Whatever for?" She asked, looking at me.
"For making you follow me here," I answered, releasing her hand.
She dropped to her knees beside me and held my hands. "There was no other place for me to go. You and I, we stick together. We can only trust each other, and so that means wherever you go, I follow."
"What would I do without you?"
"You would keep living. And keep fighting," she said, squeezing my hands in hers. "Now, you and I both need to sleep if we are ever going to survive this trip much longer."
I watched her exit the tent, and before she was out of view, said, "Thank you, Nalia. For everything."
She smiled back at me. It lit up her face. "And thank you for being my friend."
I was left alone in the tent to finish my nightly routine before sleep. I always tried to braid my hair before I went to bed. It was this little ritual that helped calm me down, and I needed it right now.
I slipped into bed and blew out the light. The room turned pitch black in a blink, the only light coming from the moonlight that slid in from the closed tent flap. It was cold that night, so cold that I was bundled up in a cocoon of blankets.
My eyes snapped open as the air skidded to a halt in my throat. There was a humming outside. It echoed into my tent like it wanted me to hear and recognize it. That song, only one person knew that song—my mother.
I kicked the sheets back and stood up fast enough for vertigo to hit my head and make me sway a little. I pulled on my coat and stepped outside into the quiet night. There were no fires lit, and barely any soldiers walking around.
That humming came from within the forest. I knew I shouldn't follow it, but I had to—needed to. It was my mother's voice urging me onward. I couldn't turn back from that voice.
My bare feet snapped twigs and pine needles that poked my ankles as I walked. I didn't care about how the rocks slid around my heels and scraped my skin. This voice, this humming song, wrapped around and pulled me deeper into the forest. It was a lure of light that would surely bring me to happiness.
I wanted. I wanted to see my mother again. My mother's sweet face, her soft smile, and kind eyes. I wanted to see the only person with a face of beauty and pure joy.
Someone grabbed me by the upper arm and pulled me to the side so hard I slipped and almost fell with a yelp. A hand pressed hard against my mouth, and my back pressed against someone's front.
No, no, no. Get me out of here. Stop. Get me away. I needed to run. Stop. I needed to scream and hide. Stop it. Get me out, get me away. Please stop.
This potent scent of smoke filled my nose like alcohol. My whole body relaxed the second that smell landed at the bottom of my lungs. Of all things, his scent should be the last thing telling me who he is.
I stuck my tongue out and Azriel's hand flew off my mouth to wipe on his pants while he grumbled a curse. I spun around and glared at him.
"What the hell are you doing?" I hissed.
"Hunting," he responded.
"Oh, what an informative response. Yes, of course, you are hunting in the woods at night—where people often hunt."
His jaw clenched as he looked down at me. "We are hunting a creature."
"Who's we?"
"A couple of other males that don't get scared easily."
I hummed. "Well, have fun with your little hunt. I'm going back to bed now. Goodnight." I turned on a heel to leave.
He grabbed my arm and spun me back around. "I can't let you do that."
"If this is gonna be one of those 'I don't trust the others' situations, I will punch you."
He chuckled, and it skidded through me in a way I didn't want. "The thing we're hunting has been following us the past few days. It finally picked a prey."
"Don't you dare say—"
"You."
I let out a string of curses that could rival the dirtiest of tongues and sighed. "Okay... okay, this is fine. Totally fine. We'll just kill it and move on with our lives."
"Easier said than done—"
"Shut up."
His smile widened enough to show his sharp canines. Teeth that had nipped between my legs days ago—nope. I mentally slapped myself.
I took a deep breath and looked around. "So, have you gotten any closer to catching it yet?"
When I looked back at him, he was still staring at me. "Well, I was close until you showed up and scared it off."
I rolled my eyes. "Gods, you must think you're so interesting."
Azriel opened his mouth to reply, but a snapping twig shut us both up. I spun around to the sound and stepped closer to Azriel. After all, he was the one with the weapons.
That humming returned, this time even louder. It made my heart ache. My mother died long ago, and now a monster was imitating her. That could make me tear this entire forest up in search of the creature, but I held strong. There was no point wasting energy on something so small.
"So... do you hear what I hear?" I asked in a hushed voice.
He nodded. "It chose you to manipulate, not me."
"Sometimes I want to slap you. I hope you know that."
He only grinned down at me, his eyes narrow slits.
The more I listened to that humming, and the closer it got to us, the more I could hear this quiet growl beneath the singing. It was close, and it was probably furious and starving. Not a good combination.
Something moved in the night, I was sure of it. Something skidded through the trees in front of us. It was silent and moved with the wind. My head spun around with it, but it disappeared in the black before I could figure out what it was.
It must've circled us, because I saw it again, this time clearer. A wisp of black skidded through the trees like moving smoke. It looked... almost identical to Azriel's shadows. Shadows that stilled along his arms as he noticed what was in front of us.
The humming stopped, replaced with utter silence. Then there was a growl. It was deep and much closer than I expected, blowing hot air onto my face. The trees disappeared in the inky darkness that moved towards us like a wall.
Something moved in the darkness, and an enormous claw of black broke through the wall and crashed down onto the dirt, throwing up dead leaves and sticks. The claw scraped at the earth and pulled a serpent-like head from the darkness. White eyes opened and blinked with a translucent film, and from its mouth came a snake's tongue.
I froze. I don't think I breathed or thought. Perhaps my heart has stopped as well. I couldn't move, couldn't get myself to move. I screamed in my head to move with every ounce of speed I had, yet my shoes remained planted in the dry dirt.
Azriel pulled me away by the arm, and I slid and twisted around to follow him before he shoved me out of the way as another claw came crashing down beside me. Now was time to run—thank the Mother for that.
But before I could sprint out of there, I had to make sure Azriel was okay. Of course I did. Because how could I not? It's not like I absolutely despised him sometimes. Even if I told myself how badly I wanted him gone and dead, I couldn't actually let that happen.
I grabbed his arm and ran into the forest. The monster was slowly getting closer to us, moving at such a speed that I thought it had to be pulling something behind it. Something heavy.
I turned back and said, "Get us out of here."
"That defeats the entire purpose of this hunt," he argued.
Our pause in running gave the creature enough time to get close enough to break out into a run, separating itself from the wall of black behind it. It was a serpent body with only two arms and a tail that writhed behind it as it bolted forward. Straight towards me.
Azriel pushed me, and I slammed into the closest tree. The monster ran right between us and barreled into a tree. The base lifted right out of the earth with roots as thick as my forearms. Its head snapped towards me and it used its tail to kick off the ground and turn into the perfect line straight for me.
I ran back across the clearing and almost slammed into Azriel. He used his Illyrian powers to throw the thing a handful of yards away from us. I almost forgot he even had magic. He rarely ever used it and seemed to prefer his shadows instead.
I gulped a breath and said, "We aren't dying today, so fly us the fuck out of here. Now!"
Azriel huffed a sigh, then looked at the creature. It shook its head after hitting a tree and snapping it right in half. It hissed and growled, using its large claws to pull itself forward and inch closer to us.
His wings flared and stretched behind him. "You're gonna be the death of me," he said.
I let him pick me up and patted his shoulder. "So far I have saved your life multiple times simply because I have a little sanity—"
Azriel didn't answer with words and instead cut me off by taking off from the ground so hard and fast that the trees shuddered from the beat of his wings. I clung to him like a wildcat stuck in a tree. My nails were probably digging holes in his leathers with how hard I clung to him.
The creature had run for us again and then changed its trajectory into a jump. A claw swiped up and I let out a scream that rattled my vocal cords. A sharp pain skidded up the leg I tensed as the claw pulled down from where it had impaled my calf. I could feel—hear the ripping and pulling apart skin and muscle.
Azriel pulled out his sword from between his wings, which tried to keep us airborne. The weight of that beast dragged us down like an anchor in the water. He slashed at the claw, making it move and poke deeper. I let out another scream as the pain grew so intense that I couldn't really feel it anymore, just knew it was there.
Another swipe of the sword, and the claw released me. Because his wings were already beating the air so hard, as soon as the weight cut off, we shot up and straight into the clouds. I knew my leg was bleeding a lot, could feel the hot blood trickle down and into my shoes to soak my socks.
My stomach rose to my throat as we descended again over the lights of the camp. From this height, I could really see how large it was and get a glimpse of how many soldiers there were around me. It was... a bit frightening.
It was a rough landing—very rough. There wasn't really any space to land with all these pine trees. It was hard to tell what got us to the ground, but I know at some point a tree snapped in half and a family of foxes was disturbed.
The air was knocked out of me upon impact. I opened my eyes to see that Azriel was atop me. He lifted and stared down at me for just a moment before he pulled himself off.
I tried to get up, but my leg burned, forcing a cry out of me. I twisted my leg around and inspected the wound. It was bad. The blood pulsed out of the slice and covered the ground.
Azriel unbuckled and pulled off his belt, then lifted up my nightdress and wrapped my thigh with the leather just above the knee. He tightened it as hard as he could, making me hiss in pain.
"This could've all been avoided if you let me go back to bed," I said through gritting my teeth.
"Where's the fun in that, princess?" He smirked at me while lifting me up so I could stand.
I stopped him from picking me up. "I've had enough of you carrying me like some wounded baby."
"You're not a baby, but you are wounded," he said, dipping low enough so I could wrap an arm over his shoulder and ease some weight off the leg that only dripped a little blood now.
My healing was working hard to close up the cut arteries and would soon start on the tissue. The most painful part would be when it started on the top layer of skin and all the nerves that followed. It always felt like a thousand needle-pricks when my skin healed anew.
He walked me into an empty healer's tent. We only put up one whenever we camped and just stuffed all their stuff inside. I pulled myself up to sit on the table and then brought my leg up, twisting it a little so the wound was fully visible. Azriel left to wake someone, and I was left to stare at my slowly healing leg.
I was one of those weird children who enjoyed observing ants as they worked. When I was very little, I would lie down on the ledge in the gardens with my head propped on a folded arm and watch the ants follow a straight line across. They often carried with them tiny bits of dirt or food, and would always bump into each other as they passed.
Now I sat here and stared at my healing leg. It was quite like the ants. Slowly, every cell built itself again, and with my eyesight, I could make out each line of muscle slowly covering the exposed bone again. It hurt like lava in my skin, but I could drown out the burning with the focus I had on the healing.
The problem with letting my body heal itself, instead of a healer, was that it drained my energy. It drained most of my energy to heal a wound as bad as this. I needed that energy if I was going to survive walking another day. On top of that, if I let myself bleed for much longer, I was going to become anemic. Blood doesn't duplicate as fast as it drains, unfortunately.
The tent flaps opened by two stretched arms and a huffing sigh of annoyance as Miryam walked in. Her robe wrapped tight around her midsection, a basic cotton nightgown underneath. Her hair was tied in a messy bun of dark curls.
"I swear there isn't a second of sleep for any of us when the two of you are left alone," she said, leaning down to inspect the wound.
"It's not my fault he's an idiot," I said, hissing when she pressed a finger to an edge to get a better view.
Azriel huffed a laugh from his corner. "If I recall correctly, you were the one following a humming into the woods—alone—at night."
"Mother bless me. You two are children," Miryam said. She picked up a bag from one crate and pulled out a set of tweezers. "A piece of... something is stuck in there."
I put my hands over my eyes so I couldn't see, but my fingers betrayed and left me just enough room to see her push those tweezers into my leg. I bit my lip as shocks of pain skidded up and down from where I could feel the metal touching tissue.
She wiggled it a little and pulled something out that released a new gush of bright red blood. Miryam pressed a hand over the wound and started healing it as soon as her other was free. The warmth of her power spread through my calf, and I could feel the skin stitch back together at an impressive speed.
She lifted the tweezers to better see the thing she pulled out. "Is that a thorn?"
"It's probably part of a claw," I groaned, leaning back on an extended arm while she quickly healed my leg. When she lifted her hand again, only a pink and slightly raised scar remained.
Miryam let the piece of claw drop to the ground and cleaned off the tweezers. "I'm not even going to ask what the hell you two were doing in the woods." She untied the belt, and I had to sit straight up while the blood rushed back to my foot.
Azriel coughed from his corner, and I swore I heard him say, "A lot of things." If he had, I would slap him sideways.
Miryam sighed heavily while rolling her neck and said, "Are we done here? Good. Both of you to bed now. I won't say it again."
I knew from the way she looked at us she was a mother or governess in another life. She stared at the two of us with that unmistakable and unexplainable look that only a mother figure possessed. It was—quite honestly—absolutely terrifying.
As soon as that look was given, I was walking out of that tent in a straight line to my own. If she wanted me in bed, I was going right to bed. Azriel started walking beside me and avoided meeting my gaze.
"I don't need your impeccable protection right now," I said in a hiss. Too many people already knew we were walking around together at night. I didn't need it to become a whole scene.
"That creature is still out there. I'm only making sure it's not already hiding under your bed," he said, smirking slightly.
I rolled my eyes and started walking faster. As if that would be enough to remove him from me. I waited until he had caught up again to say, "I loathe you."
He grinned, showing perfect white teeth and sharpened canines. "I take that as a compliment."
We had finally reached my destination, so I shoved him aside and said, "Go annoy someone else, you child."
"I have to finish my hunt," Azriel said, smile fading slightly. "It is my duty to ensure the princess has a good night's sleep." He sketched a mock bow before spinning on a heel and walking away.
I couldn't help but laugh when I went inside the darkness of my tent. Mother strike me down. I was falling much too fast. It was all like a butterfly found home in my stomach.
I fell down atop the cot and let out a long sigh until my lungs were entirely empty. Was it a horrible thing to think that I might actually like him? I only say I loathe him so I can attempt to convince myself of the hate. But then he does these things and I just... I flutter my wings like a butterfly.
-Authors Note-
hi i'm back and alive yay!!! I was really sick for a week—like bedridden sick, it was the worst. but i'm better now so here's chapter 19 for all of you! I had fun writing it, but not much happens here—its a lot like a filler chapter, but also fun.
we're at a point now where the next few chapters are mostly set up for the end of act 1 (yes there are multiple acts this thing is way too long) I'm very excited to just destroy you.
anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter and let me know your thoughts cause I love comments way too much, and I'll see you next chapter! have a great rest of your day/week!!