“Then we’ll deal with it.” I turned to Elle. “These are the people who’ll keep you alive. Maybe. If you don’t do anything catastrophically stupid.”
“Define catastrophically stupid.”
“Trusting anyone. Including us.” I started walking deeper into the forest. “Especially me.”
Behind me, I heard Bryx whisper to Elle, “He’s actually much worse than he seems.”
“That’s oddly reassuring,” she replied, and despite everything, I almost smiled.
Almost.
4
Elle
“Camp,” Kaelren said, the word sharp as broken glass. “Now.”
We’d been walking for what felt like hours but was probably less—time moved weird here, stretching and compressing like it had its own agenda. The Thornwood, as they called it, around us had gradually thinned, opening into a clearing where several structures that might generously be called tents were already set up. They glowed faintly in the eternal twilight, made of something that definitely wasn’t canvas—more like spider silk woven with moonlight.
“Inside,” Kaelren ordered, grabbing my arm and steering me toward the largest tent. Not gently—his fingers pressed hard enough to bruise. “You need to be examined.”
“I’m fine—”
“You’re carrying marks that shouldn’t exist, you’ve been conscious for less than six hours in this realm, and you just summoned things from the ground to attack someone. You’re not fine.”
He shoved me through the tent flap, and I stumbled inside, catching myself against something solid. The interior shimmered with its own faint luminescence, casting everything in a pale blue glow that made me feel like I was underwater.
Five members of his crew filed in behind us. I’d been introduced to them hours ago, but everything had been a blur of exhaustion and terror. Now,forced to be still in the tent’s close quarters, my brain actually registered what I was looking at. They all moved with the predatory grace of things that knew exactly how dangerous they were.
The insect one—Bryx, I remembered—tilted his head, compound eyes reflecting my face in a thousand tiny mirrors. When he smiled, it was too wide, showing too many teeth.
“Human,” he said, antennae twitching. “You smell like Earth. Like… what is that? Carbonated sugar water?”
“Dr Pepper,” I said automatically, then wondered why the hell I was discussing soft drinks with a bug person.
He laughed, a chittering sound that raised every hair on my arms. “Dr Pepper! I knew someone who loved that stuff. Said it tasted like carbonated prune juice but somehow good.”
“That’s… actually not a bad description.”
“I have my moments. Usually followed by much worse moments, but still.”
“Stop scaring her,” said another figure, and I had to look twice to make sure I was seeing correctly. This one seemed to be made partially of mist, his edges constantly shifting between solid and vapor. Patterns moved across his skin like living tattoos, and his eyes were the color of fog at dawn. His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.
The third was easier to look at—pale as winter moonlight, tall and willowy, with softly glowing runes traced along his arms. He moved with a healer’s careful grace, already pulling supplies from a pack that shouldn’t have fit through the tent opening. When he looked at me, his eyes were kind despite being an unsettling shade of silver.
“You’re wounded,” he said.
The fourth made me sneeze. She was surrounded by a cloud of golden pollen that sparkled in the tent’s strange light, her face hidden behind a veil that seemed to be made of flower petals. When she moved, it was with a deliberate sensuality that felt calculated, like she was always performing for an audience.
The fifth leaned against the tent wall, and I recognized her voice beforeher face—the one who’d muttered about me getting them killed. Sarnyx. She had thorns growing from her arms like they belonged there, and her eyes were the color of dried blood.
I looked down at myself, taking inventory of the damage I’d accumulated in just a few hours in this nightmare realm. My jeans were torn in three places, my t-shirt was more holes than fabric, and I was pretty sure I had moss in my hair. There were cuts I didn’t remember getting, bruises already turning purple-green, and my collarbone where the mark spread was still burning with that radiant fire.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“You’re not,” Kaelren said flatly. “Eltrien, check her wounds. Vashael, find her appropriate clothing. Nimor, scout the perimeter. Bryx, watch for Crown scouts. Sarnyx, sharpen your thorns—we may need them before dawn.”
“With pleasure,” Sarnyx said, and the way she looked at me made it clear whose flesh she’d prefer to test them on.
