It took them the rest of the day to reach Bedrani, having only stopped a few times during the day for water and food, and to give the horses a small break. Bedrani was a cluster of three great stones on a high hill, sat stark in the middle of the Haerland flats south of the Blackhand Mountains. It was the mark of the fork in the road from the south. If you took the path due north, you would find yourself the path of the Knotted Caves to the Blackhand Mountains. A treacherous journey, some would say, as the caves were not easy to navigate, and could easily consume you if you did not know the way.
The path northwest, the path they’d taken from Magnice, was the path most used as it was the path every Ambassador and Bedrani Council member took from their southern Dreamer towns to reach the kingdom of Magnice.
Aydra hadn’t seen the Bedrani boulders since she was a child, so when it rose in her sightline on the horizon, she had to pause. Her raven circled overhead, and she took a moment to take in the sight around her.
Dorian and his horse came up beside her, pausing for a minute as well. “We should do this more often,” he said.
“Yeah,” she agreed without taking her eyes off the horizon. “We should.”
They stopped and rested on the hill with the boulders. Because of the darkness, Draven insisted they start a fire and get some rest first, determined to not send the creature back to Duarb’s roots until the morning.
Once more, the tire of the horses filled Aydra’s core, and she hardly made it awake past dinner. Darkness consumed her body as she leaned back against the cold stone, and the next thing she knew, she was running again, the fire tickling at her feet on the floor of the castle. Every turn was wrong. It was an endless maze of fire and chills.
She bolted upright once more, and the fog on the ground filled her vision.
There was a violet hue across the landscape as the sun threatened to rise. Aydra cracked her neck and stood from the ground. The wet grass curled beneath her toes, and she inhaled the scent of the dirt she so rarely got to enjoy.
Dorian and Lex appeared to still be asleep around her.
What time is it?she asked the raven as it landed on the top of one of the boulders.
Hour to sunrise, it told her.
She curled her cloak around her arms and stepped around the boulder to the other side. A sudden chill ran over her body, and nauseating spell pulsed through her core. She blinked and looked around. It had felt as though she’d stepped through some invisible gateway, as though she’d stepped into a world not of her own.
“Interesting,” came Draven’s sudden voice.
Aydra nearly jumped at the noise of him, and she looked down to find him sitting against the rock just to her right, opposite of where she’d herself curled up for the night.
“What is with you and sneaking up on people?” she managed.
He looked as though he would laugh. “You live in darkness long enough, you learn to become one with it,” he replied cryptically.
Her jaw tightened, and she pulled her cloak tighter as she gave him a once over, noticing his whittling something with his knife in his hand, a new long pipe it looked like. “What is interesting?” she asked, referring to what he’d said.
“The shiver you felt upon entering my realm,” he answered without looking up. “Not everyone feels it.”
“Perhaps it is a warning from your giver for me to stay out.”
“Possibly.” He blew on the end of the pipe, blowing away any stray shavings that were left.
Her eyes narrowed at the construction in his hands. “Other pipe not working very well?”
“Not really your concern,” he said as he turned it over to inspect it. “Tell me, Sun Queen, are you ready to dispose of your beast or should I let you sing to the hills this morning?” he asked, finally making eye contact with her.
She felt her arms tighten across her chest. “Just show me how to get rid of it, Venari.”
She woke Dorian and Lex soon after their exchange. Draven pulled the body of the Infi off the horse and unfurled it from the blanket, letting its rotting corpse roll onto the grass at the bottom of the Bedrani hill. Aydra pulled the heart from her bag and tossed it to Draven’s open palms.
The moment he took the knife from it, it began to beat once more.
“The Chronicles do not speak of this part of the curse,” Aydra muttered.
“The Chronicles are lies,” Draven replied.
He shoved the heart back into the open wound of the creature’s chest, and stood back over it. Its chest rose off the ground, and its bones began to crack. Aydra took a step back and put a hand across Dorian’s chest. Draven went back to the horses, and a moment later he shoved Aydra’s bow and an arrow into her chest.
“Try not to miss this time,” Draven warned.
