Hugging myself tightly, I took a seat on a fallen branch and waited, praying there weren’t any more creatures prowling theforest.
It took several agonizing minutes for Filip to reach me. Finally, his sprinting figure emerged through towering pines. He was breathless and disheveled and had torn his tunic to make a tourniquet for his injured arm. His weapons were drawn, ready to strike. His eyes widened when he caught sight of me. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head, words failing me.
With steely-eyed determination, he scanned the surrounding trees, swords still raised, assessing for a threat.
“The beast is dead,” I said, my voice flat.
He looked stunned, but lowered his weapons. “What happened?”
“Let’s get out of here, I’m freezing,” I said, rising to my feet. “I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
He handed me his cloak, which I gratefully accepted. As we made our way back through the tenebrous forest, I recounted a partly-true version of events. I told him that the creature had hit its head when it tackled me, then drowned in the stream.
He appeared to accept my story. If he didn’t, I had no doubt he would have let me know. Filip was nothing if not direct.
By the time I had finished my account, his brow was wrinkled. “I want to know what those…thingswere. In all my life coming into these woods, I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“And yet here they were, in the woods, ready to send us to Yvora,” I said. An impossible thought came into my head. “You don’t think they’re somehow connected to the murderer, do you?”
The creases in his forehead deepened. “Possibly,” he said, sounding doubtful.
Was it a fluke that the same day we went searching for answers about the murderer, we got stalked and attacked by monsters that seemingly materialized out of nowhere? I somehow didn’t think so.
“Think about it,” I said, unwilling to let it go. “A pair of bloodthirsty monsters you’ve never seen before happen to show up around the same time someone in the castle starts killing and attacking people. Isn’t that strange?”
“It is,” he agreed. “But maybe it’s just that—a strange coincidence.”
“It’s not.” I was right. I only needed to figure out how they were linked.
He looked at me sideways, one eyebrow raised slightly higher than the other. “Either way,there might be more of them out there. We need to warn people.”
I hummed my agreement and we continued through the dark forest in contemplative silence. For a while, all that could be heard was the sound of our footsteps under the muddied ground and the rustle of nocturnal creatures in the bushes. We both tensed at the noises, expecting more monsters to appear at any moment, but they never did.
I was fantasizing about a nice, hot bath when Filip murmured, “I never got to thank you, by the way.” He sounded uncomfortable.
“For what?” I asked, wringing out strands of my still-wet hair.
“For helping me back there. You could have run and saved yourself, but you didn’t. You stayed and it was incredibly stupid of you, but, if you hadn’t intervened with that beast…” He trailed off.
“You’re welcome?” I said, admittedly taken aback.
Our gazes met, and I glimpsed something like approval in his hazel eyes. “You weren’t lying—you are a fast runner.”
I came to a standstill, unable to hide my smirk. “Does this mean you owe me another life debt?”
He rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t push your luck.” Still, hecouldn’t hide the ghost of a smile on his face. “Come on, we’ve still got a long way to go.”
***
By the time we arrived, deflated and muddy, at what was left of the campsite, it was in a tailspin. Our absence had been noticed and, as a result, a party of guards had been sent into the forest to search for us.
We agreed that no one needed to know the real reason for our excursion. Filip had directly disobeyed orders and, with no solid evidence to come back with, he didn’t want to risk losing his position with the Royal Guard. I wholeheartedly agreed. The last thing I needed was the likes of Captain Hansen getting wind of my activities. I could only imagine how he’d react if he knew I was trying to solve the murder. He’d be like sea lice on salmon—a complete nuisance. I had no doubt he would try to stop me from getting involved. It was an extra headache I could do without.
For the few concerned guards and servants who had remained at the campsite to wait for us, we concocted a lie that I had gotten lost while out searching for birds, and Filip had happened upon me deep in the forest. As expected, people had questions about Filip’s injured arm. We decided to be truthful about that. We recounted the tale of how we’d been attacked by dog-like monsters and were met with mixed responses of both horror and skepticism.
Still, at our insistence, heavily-armed guards ventured back into the forest to recover their bodies. Only then did we agree to return to the castle so that Filip could be seen by a healer.
