But she couldn’t help it. She squeezed his antler, mostly because she wasn’t sure he could even feel it. If he did, he didn’t let her know. But his tail started to swish.
“The pollen,” he said as they started coming close to the nightbeast territory, which was marked by significantly fewer trees and a giant skull that they resided inside. “How is it?”
“It’s quiet today,” Ivy said. “Maybe it finally left my blood.”
Vale grunted. He stopped at the edge of the nightbeast territory. The giant skull where the nightbeasts resided sat in the middle of the suddenly sparse trees, stretching high above the tree line. It was so massive that Ivy hadn’t even realized it was a skull at first. When she first asked what the skull was from, Vale had mentioned a “Titan.” Ivy had never heard of them before, and Vale hadn’t explained.
Vale emptied his armful of ribcages into the nightbeast territory. As soon as they clattered onto the forest floor, a long, cat-like creature poked out of the giant skull’s eyeholes. Then another. One eyehole could fit at least a dozen of the huge beasts, which looked like they could take Ivy’s head off with one clean swipe.
Ivy held back a gasp as the nightbeasts headed for the ribcages. They looked almost identical to the panthers she had seen in illustrations, except their black fur and skin were transparent. If the daylight caught them right, she could see all their muscles moving under their skin and their blood moving through their veins. Then they shifted out of the light, and they were solid once more.
“They’re beautiful,” Ivy whispered. “Should we leave?”
As soon as she asked, she realized it was a ridiculous question. No animal would attack a Skullstalker. Especially not when they were connected to his void.
The nightbeasts ignored them. They stalked up and started gnawing on the ribcages, their strong fangs crunching into them easily and licking at the marrow. Some of them—the older ones, Ivy noticed, with stiff joints and scarred fur—kept looking around expectantly. Not for other predators, Ivy realized. They looked almost… hopeful?
Ivy tugged on Vale’s antler. “What are they looking for?”
Vale took a moment to reply. “The light-motes. They used to play with the beasts.”
“Light-motes,” Ivy repeated. “You mentioned them before. Your last assistants, right? A long time ago.”
“Centuries,” Vale said, watching the nightbeasts feast with distant eyes, as if he was remembering. “We thought it was a mistake when the first one died. Then they all started to dim. We never knew why. I asked for more, but the void never gave me any.”
“The voidgavethem to you?”
“Yes,” Vale said simply. “When I was chosen to come here, the void was overgrown. As it is now. The work was insurmountable. So, I asked for help. The void gave me the light-motes.”
Chosen to come here, Ivy thought. She had never heard about Skullstalkers being chosen before. Was he chosen likeshehad been chosen? The idea made her shiver. Just because the void was in her head, that didn’t mean she was eternally tied to it, right? Once her Circle came for her—came forhim—the bond would sever and she would go back to her normal self.
Right?
Vale turned so abruptly that Ivy yelped, clinging to his antlers once again. He strode back through the trees, one clawed hand coming up to grip her thigh. Steadying her, she realized with a rush of strange glee.
“You smell afraid,” he said. “There is no need to fear the nightbeasts. Like I said, nothing in this void will harm you.”
“I’m not afraid of them.” Ivy twisted to watch the nightbeasts vanish in the trees as the path closed up behind them. “I mean it. They’re beautiful.”
Vale grunted again. His tail lashed, and Ivy wondered if he was lost in thought. His tail often moved when he was trying not to say something.
He had not let go of her leg. Ivy held her breath as they walked, relishing the feeling of his sharp claws twisting in the fabric of her shockingly clean dress.
“We will weed the teeth-lilies next,” Vale said suddenly. “Then untangle the skull-saplings. Then tidy the bog. And we should ideally clean the castle?—”
Ivy sat up, startled. “Castle?”
“Yes.”
“You have acastle? Why?”
“It was here when I arrived,” Vale replied. “There is only so much we can do. It crumbles more with each decade.”
Ivy thought back to the castle she had spent her younger years in. The wide halls and gleaming marble floors, the lush carpets that were still not as lush as the fur lining Vale’s nest.
“I grew up in a castle,” she admitted quietly.
Vale hummed. “Were you important? Mortals consider castles important, yes?”
