My eyes burned as I stared. I reached for my gunpowder, but it would be impossible to reload with this much jostling.
A ragged bellow rumbled beneath me, and Bastian’s shoulder squared. Shadows spilled from him, wispy at first, but they thickened and rose, until a wall stood between us and the Horror.
Pale and shaking, he threw me onto my stag and leapt onto his own. “Ride!”
25
Bastian
We rode hard.
The Horrors didn’t follow.
But I could still feel that place hounding my heels.
Tattered blankets lie in the street where they’ve been dropped by sleepy children. The silent but leaden footsteps of their parents, aunts, uncles, neighbours as they all file along.
Then and now flickered, overlaying each other and shuffling through my mind.
But one image kept coming back.
Bones piled up in the place where we’d led those people.
I try to stop it, but my beloved grabs my shoulder. Jaw solid, he shakes his head. “They will kill you,” he mutters. “We will stop this, but not here, not now. Give me time and I’ll save us both.”
I squeezed the reins. This was real. This. Now. The breath in my lungs. The sun above. Kat riding at my side.
She watched me, smeared with soot and ash, but I could tell from her crumpled brow that I looked far worse.
Haggard. Exhausted. Gripped by darkness I just couldn’t shake.
I should’ve stayed behind and let those monsters feed on me the same way I’d let them feed on the people of that town.
They struggle when we first bundle them into the pens, but the Horrors hold fast. One by one, the people fall, and the Horrors discard them in neat piles, their magic sucked up, bodies dried out to husks.
Bile rose in my throat.
My shadows curled around my hands, soothing, stroking, a reminder of where I was and when I was… and who I was.
They were not my memories.
I wasn’t even born when Innesol fell.
I clung to that fact as guilt and shame gnawed at me.
Kat steered closer. “Do you want to talk about what happened back there?”
“No.”
I didn’t look directly at her, but I heard the sharp breath in and the even sharper one out. She did ask.
By the time the thin crescent moon rose, we’d passed the cave, and our stags had slowed to a walk.
Kat’s stumbled, and she gripped the saddle’s pommel to stay on. “Bastian? I think we need to stop. They can’t keep going.” She cast her eye over me. “And from the look of it, neither can you.”
I wanted to put many more miles between me and that place, but she was right.
Besides, with those bloodshot eyes, she looked exhausted too.
We set up camp beneath a rocky outcrop. My feet dragged as I set the wards. They would keep us safe from most things. A Horror could break through, given time, but we’d have a warning.
When I returned, Kat was tending the fire, hunched over, face still sooty.
I shouldn’t have brought her here. I should have sent someone else. But I’d been so confident—it was only the edge of Horror territory, after all. We could sneak in, sneak out, and never even have to see one of the creatures. Quicker and quieter than a large group.
How wrong could I get?
“Get some sleep.” My voice came out husky—I hadn’t spoken in hours.
She flinched as though she expected one of the monsters. “Is your double back yet?”
“He’s dead.” I’d felt it, the Horror’s slice across his—our belly. They’d fed on our magic, adding to my exhaustion. I nodded towards the tent. “Go on. I’ll keep first watch.”
“But you need sleep. You go—”
“I’ll wake you when I’m ready to sleep.”
She sighed, shoulders sinking as she glanced at the tent. “I don’t want to go in there.” She shrank, breaking something in me—something that understood.
“You don’t want to be alone.” I passed her my blanket. “Sleep here, and I’ll keep watch over camp… and you.”
Her eyes gleamed in the firelight, and for a moment her chin tensed like she might cry. But she nodded and pulled the blanket around herself before curling into a ball on the ground beside me.
Somehow, my fingers found their way into her hair. There was a moment’s pain as our magic came together for the first time since sunset, neutralising the poison that would otherwise kill her. But I welcomed it tonight. Pain kept me here and out of memories that weren’t my own.
Then came the sweet pleasure of it, tight in my spine like a climax building. Eyes closed, Kat made a soft sound, eyebrows peaking. I pulled away, let our magic settle, then went back to stroking her hair until she fell asleep.
Nothing came in the night, but I’d never been so grateful to see the sun rise. Kat woke, bleary-eyed. She frowned from the sky to me. “You said you’d wake me.”
“When I was ready to sleep.” Not a lie. I didn’t want to sleep and get sucked into that place again. “Now, I’m ready to ride.”
She tried to insist I at least nap while she broke camp, but I shook off her protests.
“We need to put as much distance between ourselves and the Horrors as possible.”
As much distance between me and Innesol as possible.
Standing by her stag, our bags packed, she pursed her lips.
“Katherine.” I held her gaze until she finally huffed and mounted.
We rode. On and on until another sunset came. The stags took a slow pace, exhausted from last night’s wild flight. Kat’s had developed a limp. Nothing one of the handlers in the city couldn’t heal, but at this pace, we were still the best part of a day from the city.
Above, the thinnest sliver of moon remained. It would disappear entirely tomorrow night, and then the Wild Hunt would come.
They hunted the roads of Elfhame and Albion, banished to ride only under the shadow of the new moon. Those nights, their hellhounds sniffed out quarry—humans and fae foolish enough to be out after dark.
I’d heard the howls once.
They had burned my veins with cold fire, something like terror and desire, an odd energy that had pulsed through me.
That had to be how they tracked you—listening for your pounding heart, scenting your fear. Legend said once the Wild Hunt found their prey, they would pursue them to the ends of the earth. And once caught, they fed upon the poor unfortunate’s soul.
I kept us riding hours past sunset to ensure we’d make it home tomorrow. I’d have kept going longer, but I swayed on my saddle and Kat looked ready to drop.
When I led the way off the road into a clearing and dismounted, she didn’t land beside me. It was only when I peered past the curtain of hair into her face that I realised she had fallen asleep in the saddle. A true rider, she somehow still had hold of the reins.
It was the first time I’d smiled since before Innesol.
I slid her from the stag and gathered her into my arms. For a moment, she frowned and pushed, muttering, “No. You can’t take him.” But when I made a soothing sound, she stilled and settled back into sleep.
It saved me arguing with her about keeping watch.