Tayna! My teeth grind painfully. I cannot let this happen.
Trying to put some distance between us, I navigate the fog carefully, blending in with the surroundings. A wide puddle of dark water gapes before my boots—it looks like one of the deadly ones that could swallow whole horses. Interesting.
“Fancy armor, fancy magic, and yet here I am, still standing,” I taunt. “The Flint still around my neck.” Just as predicted, my voice lures the blonde woman, and she charges at me, her silhouette cutting through the fog.
“Don’t follow her! She’s tricking you!” the Odryssian warns her with a snarl.
Very well. Those two are really easier to confuse than the Tainted wolf. All I have to do is take a step to the side and let the fury of the WPP do the rest. She splashes into the murky lake, and as if orchestrated by Seuta herself, a low, menacing growl rumbles from the mist nearby.
“Tomira! Where are you? The wolves aren’t real! Find her! She has the Flint!” the Odryssian shouts, panic rippling his voice.
The thick, reeking water rapidly devours his friend. Her scream for help ends with a bloodcurdling gurgle.
“Tomira? That’s not funny!”
Oh, I disagree.
From the shadows, a pack of frenzied Tainted wolves emerges, their eyes glowing with an unnatural light, teeth bared and dripping with black, venomous ichor.
And I know very well they are not an illusion.
“They are not real!” The Odryssian’s voice has dropped to a whisper. “The wolves are not—”
Pressing my palms to my ears, I run, stumble, fall, then rise and run again as far as possible from the fountains of red blood slicing the fog and the sounds of crushing bones and tearing flesh and sinews.
When his desperate screams and pleas die out in the distance, I realize that dreadful as it is, his death has saved me.
My heart is in my throat, and my legs are about to give in, but my mind is strangely clear. Blood trickles down my thigh.
Away from the mist, near the sea, I drop to my knees to wash my wounds and come up with a plan. Where am I? The rotting boats and piles of wood and algae appear the same, but this part of the beach is new to me.
The cut is deep and throbs in a very bad way. The salty water makes me gasp and nearly collapse in that foamy area where the sea bites the land with primal ferocity.
Clouds gather above, and the wind howls, whipping loose strands of hair against my face and tugging at my doublet. The waves swell from the depths, hurling themselves at the beach like vengeful sea demons, all teeth and claws.
The sea can be fascinating and terrifying at once. The ghostly bones of the shipwrecks scattered in the bay are still there, but something—
Something is different now. It’s faint at first, like the flicker of a dust speck in the sun.
The silvery lake inside me swells. It senses it, craves it, and reaches out to it.
My laugh is long and bitter, like that of a madwoman, and it scares the seagulls dozing on the beach. The flatter of their wings and their outraged cries are swallowed by the wind.
It’s there, on a half-sunken ship deep into the bay. Its stem piercing the starry sky, mocking me. The shimmer of ancient magic is brighter now. There, deep underwater, close to the keel, is the candle of Azalyah.
Too bad I cannot swim.
The Prince
The Monster from the Depths
It stinks of sulfur like the hell pits of the Underworld, and death lingers everywhere. Bones crunch beneath my boots, and my senses catch echoes of the laments of the lost souls who found their end here.
Aernysse claims that the Elders themselves give her the tasks for the Trials, but I have my doubts. She is coming up with these twisted scenarios by herself. And she’s tasked us with collecting these cursed artifacts because she needs them for something. Something not good. Some trap by the old hag probably to get rid of the throne heir? Surely, my brittle parents are easier to manipulate and would trust her venomous lies. She has tried to hurt Talysse, to wring out my secrets from her, and for that, she’ll be punished. When all this is over, I’ll have some questions for her myself.
When all this is over.
The thought is poisonous like a viper’s bite, it nags on my heart, rotting it from the inside.
