“The horses stay. We need to travel a half mile up the stream. Get on my back,” he told her.
“Half mile seems excessive,” she argued.
“I will not take the horses into its territory in the darkness,” he said as he turned around for her to latch onto him. “Get on my back or crawl.”
The forest became thicker on either side of the great stream. She could feel Draven’s tense body against hers, squeezing her thighs once in a while as they walked along its bank. The air grew colder, the wind picking up as they stretched the length of the path. Birds no longer chirped above them. She searched into the wilderness for the cores of any creatures around them.
There were none.
The eerie silence rang in her ears.
“What’s the plan?” she asked after a few moments.
His heartbeat quickened beneath the hand she had on his neck. He slowed and then stepped into the water. When they reached the middle, he crouched down, and her feet hit the cool stream. It was the look he had on his face when he turned back to her that made a lump rise in her throat.
“I will ask you only once more,” he said softly. “Are you sure about this?”
The beat in his pulse throbbed beneath the fingers she had on his wrist. His breaths were labored as he looked down at her, eyes darkened, and a look of fear rested in his features that she did not know he possessed.
“I am,” she affirmed.
His weight shifted, and he swallowed hard as the wind gusted around them, causing a chill to pour over her bones.
“You will be on your own,” he told her. “I will go into the trees and call it.” He paused and shifted on his feet again. “You will be consumed into darkness. Its fog is thicker than the ocean water. He will bring your darkest fears to wrap you up and manipulate you—”
“If I am taken, make sure Nyssa gets my crown,” she cut in, her heartbeat starting to pick up. She turned away from him, forcing her feet to move in the water so she could face the end of the stream she knew he would be coming from.
She didn’t feel Draven leave her side as she stared ahead of her, her heartbeat beginning to pick up pace. She dropped to her knees then as a pain shot through her ankle, and the cold water met her skin beneath the dress. The sky was slowly turning a darkened shadow. She reached out again for any other creatures around, but was met with no response.
The sudden sound of the horn bellowing through the still air made her heart pause. It was a bone-tingling tremble that stretched from her muscles to her core. Her stomach turned sour, and she held in the turn, determined to keep herself together as the rotting of her bones marrowed through her.
The water stopped moving and evaporated into the earth.
Wet dirt wrapped between her fingernails. The wind blew her hair off her neck.
The ground shook.
And then the reality of what she’d asked for set in with a sink of her chest.
A dense black fog wrapped around her hands and knees. It tickled her skin, whispering in her ear as the moisture of it hugged her flesh.
The sunset she’d been able to see moment earlier was suffocated out.
Rupture and rapture
The surface breaks
Who dares ask for their escape?
The nauseating curl of his rasp repeated in her head. The void of her core felt of a hole tearing through her insides. She didn’t have to close her eyes to see into the core of this creature.
Rotten. Black. Necrosis. Disease. Pain.
Red eyes appeared out of the darkness.
And Aydra stood to her feet.
This was how she knew she was in the Berdijay’s grasp.
