My gaze follows his line of sight, skipping over the grisly scene that leads to the fog-cloaked bridge. “I’ll make sure they don’t.”
“Do what you will to blockade it,” he says, and I see a hint of his fangs as he speaks. “But don’t get in my way when I’m using it.”
I swallow hard at the viciousness. “I won’t get in your way.”
Who really could?
He turns and walks over to his timberwing and starts running his hand down its feathered neck. The intimidating beast tucks his head toward him. Ravinger murmurs something to it, and the bird blinks and listens, as if it actually understands. It rumbles in response, showing its teeth for a moment before huffing. Ravinger gives it another stroke and then unbuckles its saddle, letting it drop to the ground.
Dommik and I exchange a look.
Then, Ravinger turns back to us. “Argo is staying behind. He’ll be going back to Fourth.”
I eye the bird warily.
The king turns and starts walking toward the bridge, and I follow, with Dommik by my side.
We track over clotted snow, passing by twisted, horrific corpses that make acid rise in my throat and threaten to spill. I sway on my feet, nearly stumbling, but Dommik grips my arm.
“Don’t look.”
It’s a hard command to follow, for the dead lie everywhere. Yet I lift my gaze and keep it on the bridge instead, not allowing my eyes to drop to the ground again. I blindly trust Dommik as he maneuvers us over every obstacle, whether it be a fallen fae or split earth. It’s so unnervingly quiet here, even the wind seems to be sucked toward the haze ahead.
My body shakes as we approach it.
We near the edge of the world, where snow and ice give way to a void of nothing. Where the land simply stops against thick sheets of mist.
And then my eyes fall onto the bridge of Lemuria. A path of gray dirt suspended in the air, with nothing below or above to support it. At its mouth, two intricately carved white pillars act as its threshold, with a stretch of splintered rope that extends from each one.
We come to a stop in front of it. The bridge’s length disappears into the fog that drapes over it like an eerie shroud. A colorless tongue spat out of a murky gullet. It chews me up, making me burn with bile.
The unhealed slices along my palms where I willingly gave the fae my blood start to sting. Throb. Shards of ice collecting along the gashes like sharp-edged scabs.
Is it the proximity to the bridge that makes them ache so, or is it only in my head? In my own guilt?
As if he can sense my distress, Dommik comes up and slips his gloved hand into mine. The supple leather sticks to my frosty grip, and he curls his fingers around my stiff ones until they finally stop shaking enough that I can grip him back.
A few paces in front of us, Ravinger stands and stares down the length of the bridge in silence. His black-clad form is all leather and spikes, onyx veins against pale skin.
Even without a crown, he looks like a king, for he stands proud and powerful. He looks into the endless eye of the unknown path, and he does not glance away from it.
He does not waver.
If it were me facing that bridge, knowing I needed to walk it, I don’t think I’d have the courage to cross it. I don’t think I could face myself in that fog.
Dommik and I are silent spectators, anticipation as thick as the snow beneath our feet as we watch him. Then he moves, taking a step toward the bridge.
His timberwing suddenly lands in a spray of snow with a keening cry.
Ravinger turns around and faces him, his expression stern. “No, beast. You have to stay.”
It lets out a low snarl.
The king goes forward, but instead of disciplining it, he strokes its neck, saying something. The bird’s snarl lessens, eyes blinking. Ravinger sets his forehead against the beast’s, and the move is so…soft. So unlike anything I’ve seen from this man before, that it actually shocks me more than the countless corpses at our backs.
To see this side of him is almost unnerving. It feels as if we shouldn’t be watching this private moment between them.
He murmurs something under his breath again, and the timberwing whines.
