Dorian eyed the great bird before letting go of the torch.
Her nausea did not wane as she stretched into the darkness. She just wanted a moment to breathe without anyone being around her. She’d hardly been left alone since their deaths, and she was beginning to feel suffocated.
The continued howls sent a chill down her spine. She may not have been able to connect with their cores as Aydra had been able to do, but she could still feel the grief in their wailing… the angst of their pain—as though they’d lost one of their own. Which she remembered, they had.
The noise became distant as she walked, and she wondered if perhaps they were moving on to a different part of the forest, intent on catching a meal.
She walked until the fire where the others sat was a mere blip in the distance. But even as she decided to stop, the wind encircled her, and she found herself standing at the edge of the Forest of Darkness.
A whisper filled her ears.
The enormous tree trunks stared back at her in the navy of the firelight. Wind breezed over her flesh. Trees swayed with it, and the limbs knocked and cracked against one another. Eerie and yet, inviting.
The whisper came again.
She couldn’t tell what it was saying. As she looked into the abyss of the shadows before her, something tugged at her abdomen.
She knew she shouldn’t.
She knew it wasn’t safe. She knew it was more than likely a trick.
Possibly the Spy or shadow thieves preying on her vulnerability.
Her heartbeat picked up as she stood there, battling with her insides and the voices in her head.
Her golden eagle nudged her temple, and Nyssa’s grip tightened around the torch.
Stay with me?she asked him.
Evermore.
The long howl of the Ulfram sounded so far off now that she could barely hear her.
Nyssa took a last deep breath and pushed it audibly out of her mouth before stepping into the Forest of Darkness.
The wood was silent except for the wind and the crunch of chilled dirt beneath her boots. The navy light was her only guide as she trudged carefully over the roots in the direction of the whisper.
A glow caught in the corner of her eye.
And she froze in her step when she saw it.
Noirdiem.
Her heart constricted at the sight of them. The glowing deer’s skeleton bodies stood stark against the darkness. Their silver gleam bounced off the trees and lit up the forest floor around them. She wondered how they ate and drank or where it all went, as all she could see were the bones of the beasts glowing back to her.
But there they were. Eating off bushes between great trees in the middle of the Dead Moons cycle.
Nyssa could do no more than gawk at them as the herd of ten deer munched quietly on the bushes.
The one in the center lifted his head, and a great set of antlers rose with him. He looked at her with white-blue eyes, and when he shook, she swore she saw shadows move as fur along the bone-like structure.
Words she'd read about the beasts filled her mind. That they were the gentle Noctuans, Duarb's favorite of them behind the Rhamocour. He had loved how peaceful they were despite the appearance of their bodies. She remembered the passage Somniarb had written about them in the journal Nadir had shown her the night after the banquet. They had been Somniarb's favorite, and Duarb would spend hours waiting with them as Somniarb snuck out of her village to go see him.
But what Nyssa recalled most was how Aydra had spoken of them. Draven had called them when she was in the forest the night before taking her to the Berdijay.
She could still see the plastered smile on Aydra's face and hear the jaggedness in her sister's breath as she’d tried to tell Nyssa about them while she’d been hanging onto the stone wall and vomiting out of the window.
"Nys, I wish you could have seen them. You wouldn't believe how hauntingly beautiful they are," Aydra had told her as she sank against the ground. “The world seems so calm when they're standing before you. That singular soft glow in the void of complete darkness. Draven says they are more active in the winter, so this next cycle coming up should be a good time to see them. You can come with me next week. Sick or not, we'll go."
