She followed the horse’s brays tangled with the husky male shouts. The duo songs of agony, anger, and loss were emotions she could relate to; they felt familiar.
Yet her enchanted surroundings felt foreign—claustrophobic and dark. The airtight canopy overhead stretched on as far as the eye could see. Sunrays pierced through intermittently, warming the sooty ground cover that sifted across her feet like a low tide. She skirted the areas of light as she tromped onward, discovering that even through her bandages they seared her skin. Strange, vicious puddles appeared out of nowhere and followed until she outran them. She made a note to anticipate them by their stench.
Closer now to the duel cries, she rounded a bend. A new smell assaulted her nose as she tripped into a thicket of briar vines where the canopy hung low. Unless one was a small woodland creature that could weave in and out of the prickly maze, there appeared to be no clear pathway. Thorns snagged the girl’s bandages and gown, piercing already tender skin. She yelped soundlessly, thinking to back out, but stopped in her tracks.
Just ahead, a black stallion struggled to get free from a gurgling bog in the midst of the thicket. A silvery light glowed from within the sludgy liquid, seeming to rise from the bottom. The domed thicket absorbed the light, making the surroundings brighter than the journey here.
The horse’s front hooves, coated in muck, pawed for purchase on the bank. A giant bracken had sprouted from the depths, wrapping around his neck. The fernlike leaves worked with the mire to drown their prey—like a frog’s tongue might capture a fly.
Already, the ooze had claimed his tail and flanks . . . the rest would soon follow, as with every movement he sank more. The horse might manage to climb out if she could free his neck.
Stop moving, please. She couldn’t say the words, could only think them. But the horse stilled in response.
His graceful neck craned. Across the short distance, a fire ignited within his eyes’ dark depths, orange and flickering behind the whites of rage and fear that rimmed them. A reflection of the same orange sparks flickered within his mane. The girl stared, gaping, as cinders stirred at his withers where something unfurled.
Magnificent wings, gilded with orange-and-gold embers, opened and flapped wide. This was no common horse. He was something rarer than a black pearl . . . he was a Pegasus.
This detail revived her determination. She wrinkled her nose, strategizing. Though the briar’s vines hung too low for him to fly, his wings could aid his escape; with their thrust, he could drag himself out of the bog if she untangled the binds around his neck.
She made her way forward, pressing through the thorns that ripped her gown and bandages until the cloth hung in shreds. Fresh blood slicked her feet and skin. She winced instead of whimpered, and plunged through to find herself face-to-face with the Pegasus, a few steps from the swampy pit. His hot breath overpowered the bog’s stench with a fusion of musk, charred grass, and sweet clover.
An indignant nicker greeted her and again she heard the voice, gruff and masculine: Danger. Kill. Fly. But it wasn’t aloud. It was inside her head. She could hear his thoughts . . . as he could hear hers.
His wings labored with loud thuds—a futile attempt to escape the monstrous bracken clutching his neck—and sent gusts of wind across her scalp. She rubbed her nape with a bandaged hand. The baldness felt peculiar and out of place. She didn’t have time to consider why because the Pegasus’s efforts to escape had sucked him deeper.
Stop moving. It’s pulling you under. Holding out five bloody fingertips, she tried to calm him. Do you have a name?
He snorted, curls of sooty smoke rising from his nostrils. I require no name. I am destruction. I am flame. Step back.
I only wish to help you. She exhaled a shaky breath.
I need no help. I will save myself. Step back or I will scorch you to scars.
His wild beauty fascinated her, and his arrogant pride made her forget the blood dribbling from her fingertips, the agonized throb of her flesh. Then I have nothing to fear, for I am already one big scar. She suddenly remembered how to smile. I will call you Scorch. And once I rescue you, you’ll belong to me. The possibility gave her hope, to have a companion she could ride upon—to fly above all this desolation. To leave the confusion behind.
His head reared up, flinging goopy sludge across her face. I belong to no one but the sky.
The goop leaked into her mouth and she spat out the taste of rot and dying things. She braved grasping a thorny vine in her hand. Unsung wails clumped in her barren throat as she wound the length around her waist to form an anchor line.
Scorch grew still once more, watching her. Witless mite. You’re much too small to rescue anyone.
Ignoring his disparagements, she huffed. Well, your beastly brawn seems to be more a detriment than a help. Small could be the advantage here. Why are you in this mess to begin with? She wasn’t trying to distract him as much as herself as she slipped into the cold, slimy liquid and the spikes at her waist punctured her flesh like angry talons. The anchor allowed movement without being sucked under, holding her secure as bones floated around her within the luminescent sludge. She shivered.
This place is called the moon-bog. When the Pegasus answered this time, there was something gentler about his inner voice, as if he sensed her pain and terror. It’s said to be a window to the night realm. I wished to look for myself. I live for adventure.
Well, you might very well die for it today. The girl managed the retort even as the thorns gouged deeper into her waist. Strangely, no tears would come despite how her eyes stung. Grinding her teeth, she towed herself toward the Pegasus. Upon reaching him, she tugged on the leafy tangles at his neck with mangled hands.
Scorch ground his front hooves deeper into the bank, but held his wings folded to heaving sides, waiting. She sensed his impatience in the twitches of muscle, his distrust in the huffs of hot breath. The heat radiating from his sweat-slathered coat and his immense size frightened her, but she didn’t shy away.
At last, she broke the bracken’s hold. He flapped his great wings, accidentally pounding her head. She capsized and her body plunged beneath the surface.
The Pegasus climbed free and the murk rose, buoying her to the surface. She choked for air. The thorns embedded deeper in her waist as something tugged on the vine, dragging her up.
She clutched at her anchor, letting the barbs grip her palms for added leverage. Once she emerged, she slumped on the bank next to prancing hooves. She laid there panting on her belly, clammy clothes stuck to her weeping flesh, one side of her face buried in ash.
You are fierce, tiny trifling thing. Scorch’s muzzle, bleeding from the briar vine he used to drag her out, nudged the odd necklace that draped the back of her neck. He snuffled upward to her head—gentle against her baldness. But I still belong only to the sky.
Just as she rolled over to argue, he reared, his hooves missing her skull by inches. Instinctively, her arms flew up for protection. Her fingers lit to a golden glow, startling both herself and the horse. Flame leapt from his nose, burning the skin in the spaces between her bandages. The tang of roasted flesh and singed blood filled the air. She coughed a silent scream. A flash of crimson darted in her peripheral where a fox wove through the briars toward them, snarling. Scorch whinnied and crashed out of the thicket—tail held high and wings trailed by glittering cinders. He offered one last nicker in the distance, this one rife with fury and elation.
The fox became an elegant man dressed in red fineries, though his ears remained furry and pointed. Upon seeing her state, his orange, bestial gaze narrowed. He dropped to his knees at her side, smelling of dog, feathers, and wind.
She was too weak to struggle as he cut the binds at her waist with a knife, then scooped her up and stood. Her eyes fluttered closed, her blood draining away in rhythmic drips at his feet.
“No. Look at me.” His voice wasn’t in her head. It was persuasive and silky—an irresistible command that echoed across the glowing moon-bog. She forced her heavy eyelids open, squinting at his unearthly perfection, at his sharp-edged teeth. “You will not die twice on my watch. I won’t have you costing me my wings again. Stay awake now, little Stain. The fates have grand plans for you.”
Part II
In Which the Forest
Swallows the Rose
9
Walls of Honeysuckle and Misery