“Then this is part of it… the Nightboat is the start of the journey to the gem.”
The boat docks in a smooth motion, barely shaking us. The night has drawn in so heavily now that the drawbridge cannot be seen without my orb to light the way. We shuffle down steadily,cautiously stepping, one foot in front of the other, until finally meeting the sand below. It’s compact and slightly damp, so it crunches underneath our boots. The orb, though not as bright as it normally is, drowns out the darkness surrounding us, so a few steps ahead are visible, but then it’s just endless inky black. If the sun still hung in the sky, I wonder if we would see other footsteps etched into the sand, forgotten people that had made this journey before us, and if they ever made it back.
My eyes glare down at my boot print. This may be the last dent I make in the world, soon to be washed away by live waters.
The darkness is unsettling; it’s the kind of dark that you expect something to be hiding in—
Waiting.
It creeps up my spine and causes my head to swivel constantly, stifling my breath and clawing at my nervous system. Though the night may be the trap the Hollow set for us, I can’t imagine us all walking so blindly ahead if we could see the jaws we were heading into.
We were the mice, soon to be in the Hollows vice.
II
Part Two
Chapter Sixteen
The Hollow is quiet.
Too quiet.
My heart hammers in my chest, half expecting a creature to slip out of the shadows and shriek as the eels did. The branches cling to our clothes as if trying to warn us to return to the beach. We ignore their pleas and continue ahead.
My feet ache as we wade through the thick mud. It sucks at our heels, relentlessly praying we don’t leave its grip. It seems every part of this forest is trying to consume us, even the smell is overpowering—earthy, damp, rotting—making my eyes sting the further we roam into the gloom. The shade of obsidian takes my breath away; my light barely whispers through the thick of it, and what is not touched by darkness is devoured by dense fog instead. Each step is intentionally slow, not knowing what lies beneath the dark cotton blanket.
“How do you know we’re going the right way?” River questions, his voice in a low whisper.
“We don’t,” Ryder responds, hacking at the trees and creating a path ahead.
“Great.” River mutters sarcastically, and although I can’t see him, I know he is rolling his eyes.
“Our best bet is just going straight. We saw Mourn Peak in the distance. I’m sure it was this way,” I say as convincingly as Ican, but they know just as well as I do, this place seems to warp all sense of direction.
The cracks in the canopy above are few and far between and seem to catch the moonlight before it spills through the awning. Though the very few beams that manage to slip through the cracks glisten ahead like silver thread slicing the dark in half. I’m grateful for the splinters of light because my orb has blinked out twice now, and each time I’m sure my heart stopped beating for a second.
My orb is dimming; it tries to slay the dark, but it is winning—too thick, too strong, too absolute.
A few more minutes pass, and then my light completely dies out, sinking us into the coal black. It’s as if we had walked into the wide jaws of a beast and it swallowed us whole.
We stop in our tracks.
“What’s happened?” Ryder asks, though I cannot see him, I can feel his warm breath on my face.
“I don’t know, my Gifts, they’re not working,” I say, looking down at the faint outline of my hands.
“Oh Gods, mine are gone too!” River adds, worry claiming his lips.
“Shit,” Nala says, “me too.”
“You know what this means…” Ryder says, the group hanging on his reply.
“The light isn’t the only thing the Hollow consumes.”
“No one said that we would bepowerless!” River exhales a curse in a loud whisper, and the darkness around us seems tohearit—seems tolean in. My nerves are raw, electrified, jumping at every crack of a twig, every whisper of leaves brushing together.
No wonder no one makes it out alive.
