The woman paid him no mind, like he wasn’t even there. And for all intents and purposes, maybe he wasn’t for her, because she only had eyes for me.
For the briefest of moments, I thought she was a Dark and that they were trying to take me yet again. I almost wanted to laugh at her audacity if that was the case, given how thoroughly we’d beaten the Darks last time we faced them and how there was a pissed-off Knight Commander standing right behind her in Castle Lockes, of all places. But there was something familiar about her, something in the way she looked at me that told me I wasn’t quite right. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw flashes of green and gold as I pulled my magic toward me, ready to knock her on her ass, when her other hand came up in front of my face, her thumb and middle finger rubbing together briefly before she snapped.
“Insolent,” she hissed. “Sneaking with your sneaks. Dilo. And here of all places. Like your dook could touch me, chava.”
My eyes widened over her hand.
Because I literally had no idea what she was talking about. Her voice was low and smoky, her accent thick and melodious, the words falling from her lips like musical notes to a song I swore I’d heard before. It was like she had felt my magic, which could only mean she had some kind of magic herself. Normal people could feel it if there was an extreme concentration of it, like the static in the air before a storm. But this had been subtle, low, just beginning to pull itself together. I was impressed. I was going to kick her ass, sure, if she meant to do me and mine any harm, but still. Impressed.
Ryan drew his sword. “Let him go. I won’t tell you again.”
Her eye softened slightly, like the threat was something sweet to her. “You are not what I expected. I don’t know why I thought you would be. There may be hope for us all yet. But I am sorry for this. I hope you remember that. In the end.” She leaned forward and pressed a kiss against my cheek. It felt almost like it was scalding.
And then she was just gone, like she hadn’t been there at all.
One moment she was pressed up against me, and then she wasn’t.
I stumbled forward, unable to catch myself before falling to my knees.
Except the ground wasn’t made of stone, like all the floors in the castle were.
No, my knees hit earth and leaves, wet and clumped together. The air was humid and thick, every breath I drew in harder than the one before it. From all around me came the sounds of wind blowing through trees, but that was impossible, because I wasn’t in the woods, I wasn’t in the—
I opened my eyes.
It was dark.
And I was in the woods.
“Well, fuck,” I muttered, pushing myself to my feet. I wiped my hands off on my trousers as I looked around, trying to get my bearings. The sky above was obscured by the canopy of the trees. I couldn’t see any landmark I was familiar with.
It seemed as if an old lady had transported me into the middle of nowhere.
“Oh my gods,” I growled to no one in particular. “I am so going to punch her in the godsdamned tit the next time I see her.”
The only response I got was the calling of birds in the trees, the singing of crickets in the tall grass that swayed back and forth.
There was a large hill in front of me, rising up and out of the forest floor, trees having grown around it. I thought it’d be best to climb it to get above the canopy and hopefully see the lights of the City, or at least some town or village where I could go to find out exactly where she’d sent me. Maybe I was closer than I thought I was. I hoped that was the case. The Dark Woods were an expansive thing right in the heart of Verania. I don’t know that any human had actually ever reached the true middle, though many had claimed to. And with those claims came stories of Dark creatures that caused insanity if one but laid eyes upon them. Bullshit, probably, but compelling bullshit nonetheless. Maybe I could ask Dimitri the next time he tried to make me marry him.
The hill, though. I would get to the hill and find a way to get the hell out of here.
If I hurried, it had absolutely nothing to do with being in some unknown part of the Dark Woods in the middle of the night. I just wanted to go home.
The closer I got to the hill, the more the wind groaned through the trees.
The more gooseflesh prickled along my skin.
The more I had the uneasy feeling of being watched by something.
The air felt lightning-struck, like electricity crackling unseen.
Like magic was building.
From the ground rose pinpricks of light, green and gold and white, and it felt like mine, it felt like it belonged to me. The lights flitted around me, slow and heavy like cumbersome fireflies late in summer. I raised my hand to them, and they brushed along my fingers, warm and weighted.
But it was more than that. This was magic, purer than I’d ever felt before, and it wasn’t coming from just me. If it was my magic, it was reacting to something already there. If it wasn’t mine, I was reacting to it.
I looked back behind me to see the lights trailing after me. Each footstep I’d left in the soft earth was illuminated and flickering, the little lights landing upon them one by one.
I felt… safe, oddly enough.
Like nothing here could hurt me.
Like I had no reason to worry. These lights, whatever they were, wouldn’t allow any harm to come to me. I didn’t know how I knew that. I just did.
And so of course, that’s when the little lights began to tremble and dim.
The wind picked up until it sounded like it was growling through the trees, like the Dark Woods were a thing that was alive.
Except… that didn’t sound like the wind.
I turned back around.
For a long second, nothing happened.
Then the large hill in front of me moved up.
Then down.
Up and down. Up and down. Slowly and with great deliberation, like the very ground beneath my feet was taking in a lumbering breath and—
A chill crawled down my spine like ice.
“What is that?” I whispered as I took a step back.
Because the earth wasn’t breathing. No. That wasn’t possible.
But the gigantic thing in front of me was.
And now that I was closer, I could see it wasn’t a hill at all. What rose from the ground wasn’t made up entirely of dirt and grass and brush. There was growth upon it, as if it’d lain where it had for centuries and the forest had continued on around it. But through the vegetation there was something else, something mottled white.
Something scaled.
The hill moved.
Trees crashed down off it.
The earth groaned beneath it as roots snapped and broke apart.