He sighed. “You’re right, I did. I suppose I had hoped you would need my aid during the day, and certainly not within the Dead Woods of all places.”
“It’s not that scary.” In truth, the thought of journeying into the Dead Woods at night terrified Aloisia as much as it did Tristan. But her will to help Fynn was stronger than any fear she possessed.
“Don’t think you fool me, Aloisia Smith.” Tristan raised a brow at her.
She narrowed her eyes at him and stepped into the forest, trying to quieten her pounding heart. He trailed behind her, despite his reservations. The leafless branches creaked overhead, reaching out towards the night sky like bony fingers.
“What are we following?” he whispered.
Aloisia gestured to the flickering blue form, part hidden behind a tree. As the other one had the night before, the being had taken on a humanoid form. This one was smaller than the other, it’s light a little dimmer. Its body was translucent, dark as the midnight sky, with faint blue flames quivering across its body. The being peeked out from behind a tree trunk and gave a shrill, child-like laugh.
“Do you see it?” she asked.
Tristan nodded; his gaze fixed on the creature.
It darted through the trees, and they gave chase. Though Aloisia moved silently, Tristan was making enough noise for them both. Whilst its ethereal blue glow was dimmer than the being they had seen the night before, its form seemed more corporeal. A tinkling laugh echoed within the forest as it leapt, lightning quick, from trunk to trunk. It looked back to them every so often, as if it were playing a game, as a child would.
The deeper they ventured, the more glimpses of blue lights Aloisia saw. Out of the corner of her eyes, she would spot a flickering blue flame. Whenever she turned to find it, it would vanish as if it had never been there at all. The only thing which confirmed she wasn’t imagining it was the faint chorus of laughter building around them.
It felt too much like her dream.
Goosebumps shivered atop her arms, and her breath puffed out in a white cloud. Aloisia slowed. The creature ducked behind a tree, peering out at them. The further they had travelled, the more menacing the laughter had become, drowning out the child-like innocent giggles of the being they’d followed. More concerningly, she still could not catch sight of them.
“What’s the plan?” Tristan reached for her. “We’ve followed it. Now what?”
Aloisia did not have a plan. She had hoped, somehow, they could draw them out and talk to them. But, as far as they had come through the forest, the being was still so far ahead. And the others were not showing themselves.
“The Dead Woods are as big as Littlewatch, if not vaster. How far are we going to follow them?”
Still, Aloisia did not answer, her sight trained on the being before them. If she could just get closer, could speak to it.
“Lis?”
“Stay close,” she said.
Aloisia stalked forward, step by step, hoping she would not spook the creature if she approached slowly. To Tristan’s credit, his footfalls were quieter than before, yet still not as silent as her own. As she drew closer, the being’s face came into focus, flickering within the flames. Its eyes were round and wide, like a deer’s, taking up half its face. Its features were pointed and narrow.
Though the creature shifted back and forth, it remained hidden behind the trunk. It watched, unblinking, tilting its head this way and that as it considered them. Now only about ten feet away, Aloisia didn’t dare move closer for fear of alarming it.
“What are you?” she asked, her voice soft.
Its focus shifted beyond them. The glow across its body intensified as its wide eyes lit with fear. Its human form vanished, shifting into a small orb of light before disappearing.
Aloisia sighed in frustration. Turning her attention behind them, her irritation dissolved. She grabbed Tristan, clamping a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet.
Shadow creatures lumbered along the forest floor, only about twenty feet away from them. Aloisia tugged Tristan behind a tree, watching as they moved southwards. Their limbs moved as if bound by a great weight. The surface of their skin rippled like oil, like mist, in the wan moonlight filtering through the branches. They ranged between opaque, seeming to swallow the surrounding light, and almost translucent, like a thin veil. They roamed in a pack of about ten. Some towered near the treetops whilst others were squat and closer to the ground. Their shapes seemed humanoid yet distorted, as they had appeared the night before in the brief flash, their limbs either too long or too short. The effect was a monstrous imitation of the human form.
Aloisia and Tristan waited for what seemed like a lifetime, frozen in place by terror, watching until long after the shadow beings had gone.
“I think it’s time we made our way back to the guild,” Tristan murmured.
Aloisia sighed. “Come on. We can’t give up now. We were so close.”
“Yes, so close to being killed by those shadow monsters.”
“I bet we could find one of the blue flames again, ask it questions.”
“We’ve been out here for too long.” Tristan gripped her arm. “Let’s go back. We can always try again tomorrow.”
