“Do you listen to nothing? We cannot be seen together! Now go! Under the Quarta Pars and do not stop for even a breath until you reach the cloister!”
Chapter 3
The Night Is Ours
“It’s been weeks.” Sesto pleaded with more annoyance than he had the will to temper. His peevishness had become his default state. His stomach gurgled from hunger, but keeping anything down other than mead would require a miracle. “Surely now he’ll hear us?”
“Weeks for us. We don’t know how long it’s been for him,” Daire said gently.
“You keep saying that, but as I think on it...” Sesto nodded vigorously as his suspicion ramped. “As I get to know you better, I see you’re holding back. You don’t know why it isn’t working.”
Daire’s fingertips brushed just shy of Sesto’s as he sighed. “There’s so much we don’t know about what Jesstin is doing, but it doesn’t mean it won’t work eventually.”
“Eventually.” Sesto snorted. “Comforting.”
“You must eat. You must build your reserves. I’ve told you, Sesto, this will require patience.”
“Something I lack and do not desire to gain.”
“I’d offer you my own if I could.”
“Spare some for me, will you?” Taven shouted from the stove, where he was warming more tea. He’d prepared enough tea in the past few days to quench the thirsts of everyone in Rivenholde. He could have returned home and should have, and the only motivation Sesto could ascribe was an unstable blend of denial and hope.
Sesto turned his gaze to the window and the perpetual darkness of Rivenholde. The gleaming eyesore at the peak of the hill. There, the shambolic investigation into Ryquin’s exploits continued. Everyone knew Ryquin had ordered Elloven’s execution, but he’d never face any consequence for his betrayal, for all the death. For the loss of the pretor’s own niece.
When Daire slid his hand away in withdrawal, Sesto reached for it and clamped his over the top. “He will come back... Won’t he?”
If Daire had an answer, he didn’t offer it.
Jesstin watched in sheer disbelief as Mon disappeared into the fog.
The coward had actually abandoned him.
It was an intriguing strategy, pleading with a man for help and then leaving him with no more than the clothes he was wearing, but Jesstin had tired of Mon’s nonsense before they’d even jumped into the pitiful canoe.
He passed under the arches of Quarta Pars, but when he turned back, they were gone, just like the shore had disappeared when they had launched onto the Desidero. A thick woodland bowed over both sides of the rutted path leading farther into the Infinitum. The pendant on his chest revealed his nearest surroundings, but the way ahead was the dark unknown.
“Normal enough forest.” Jesstin studied it on both sides before remembering Mon’s caution. He started with a light jog, but when a screeching howl rattled the trees to his left, he bolted into a full-on run.
He slowed long enough to throw a glance behind him, but he was alone. Perhaps he’d been a little too dismissive of Mon’s litany of warnings, and he found himself blanking on the parts he had been listening to. One thing he did remember was that darkness was supposedly when the “things worse than death” came out to play.
Those horrifying, inhuman shrieks escalated as violet replaced the last of the day’s light. Twilight then. Mon had said to look for the glowing signs on the havres and cloisters, but there was nothing, not a single sign or structure, nothing but trees, and if he was meant to go through the forest, he wasn’t sure he had it in him.
Jesstin’s thigh had bled through his trousers from the force of his scabbard slamming him with his stride. He’d forgotten to secure his belt properly, an embarrassing oversight, but something nudged him to keep moving and worry about his wounds later.
The lonesome path curved, offering more of the same. A bridge ahead offered a way across a narrow spot in the river, and beyond that, the muted glow of lanterns. At last, he’d found something. But before he could start the final push, a different light pulled his gaze to the forest. He couldn’t see the source from the road. There was no way he was going in there at night, except that was exactly what his feet did, compelled by an instinct outside of himself.
The flashing drew him deeper into the woods. The way split between rows of shadowy, towering pines, bowing to a wind sharper than it sounded.
When he could no longer see the road behind him, his tension curiously just... melted away, almost as if it had never been there at all. There was nothing to be afraid of. The trees were just trees, the brush just brush. And the light ahead, well, it was no more than a pond, moonlight reflecting across its serene surface. Beautiful, really. It was a place one might stop for a generous sip of water, maybe even a gentle rest, and he decided that sounded like a lovely idea.
He arrived at the pond, drawn by the magnetism of the gleaming water, a promise unspoken but so powerful, words would befoul it. His breath jolted inward with such unfulfilled expectation, he realized he had been meant to go there all along, and he knew in his bones that if he didn’t gaze into this exquisite pool of divine water, he would die for certain, then and there.
Something barreled into his left side, sending him flying into a thatch of thorny bushes. He was so disoriented he forgot where he was, but it returned like a board to the head. He thrashed around and fumbled for his sword, but it was snagged in a tangle of vines.
The vines were... wrapping around his scabbard and his ankles like fingers without end, like the ones from the labyrinth. Life pulsated through their fibrous limbs, sentient and consuming.
The pond’s glint called to him, but a harsh command broke the spell.
