When all was done, we saddled up and Roman finally spoke. “I have been going over it in my mind this whole morning, and it seems there’s no other answer. I was already wary of the potential of this happening when we had to change course to come to Jebra. And it now seems we were fated in stronger forces. I believeyouneeded usbrought here,” he said to me. “Which means we were meant to save Agatha too.” He adjusted in the saddle and took a deep breath, nodding and reassuring himself. “For that many merl to come that quickly, they would have to be nearby. That, and merls never carry people away. Which leaves us only one option. Which is the option I did not want.”
Dion had been nodding to himself, and now looked down at his saddle, then up at the crisp sky. It was like he was praying.
“What option? Where do we need to go?” I asked.
Roman too looked to the skies now, before looking at me. “We chase another myth. We are headed to Mograaw’s Keep. The supposed breeding ground where Lady Skol keeps her merls. It is in this mountain range, in a crevice similar to the one we passed through. It can be the only reason why Lady Skol’s men were here too. And if the merls have taken Agatha? Surely it is the only place?” He looked me dead in the eye then. “But if it istrustthat you still need from us, then heading to Mograaw’s Keep is no better example. For it is heading towards certain death.” The last words were a snarl. Then he squeezed his horse’s ribs and moved forward.
Dion followed too, giving me a nod with no expression on his face. But I smelled his fear.
Mograaw’s Keep.The name echoed around my mind, drove a sliver of ice down my spine and made me shiver. I felt that I’d heard that name before… despite never having heard it at all.
The dreams I’d been having as of late, returned to my mind.
Chapter 18
DION
Something was wrong, it shouldn’t have been like this. One of the most dangerous, hellish places in all of the Warlands, and we were walking straight in. Surely it was a trap? The gates were wide open. There were no merls in sight, nor guards, and blood was everywhere.
I watched Feyra, who looked around constantly, looking for any sign of her friend. Roman continued to scan the compound, but I didn’t know how to feel about any of it.
To the people of the Warlands, Mograaw’s Keep was a curse that shouldn’t have ever existed. It was a place so vile, so evil, that it had been banished from nearly all village records. It had taken Roman years to learn of its proper existence. Why he’d learned about it? I had never known. And he’d only mentioned it once by accident as we passed the tip of the ranges many leagues away.
To get to Mograaw’s Keep we’d taken a similar crack through the mountain range, coming out though to a rounded bowl. It had been an impact site, Roman said. Where a large meteor had struck the world. But it was a terrible place. In that meteor, or maybe because of that meteor, the land had turned vile. Blackened. Died. Caused the death of all the living things in the wastelands. Its fingers reached far and wide, and what it touched, withered.
It was fitting that Lady Skol ruled it and its beasts. Which was why it made no sense that none were here.
We were completely alone. I couldn’t hear a single heartbeat, even with my senses tuned up.
Four towers and spiked walls surrounded us, charred bodies and fire pits covered the large area. There was no sense to the place. No organization. I couldn’t tell what I was looking at half the time, and what it would do the other. But Roman heeded everything to not be touched. Even the shoes we walked in would have to be destroyed afterwards.
But there was one area that made sense. Only one that Roman and I knew—the sacrificial altar at the center of the headquarters. It was a pointed wooden structure, raised off the ground with two rising pillars continuing further upwards. Ropes hung, covered with bright red blood, from each.
Feyra ran instantly for it. I felt the fear rise in her, the scream that tore from her throat when she gained the top matched it.
I bounded up the stairs and found her in hysterics, she knelt in a pool of blood clutching a severed hand. I held her and let her rock back and forth. The grief poured from her. Grief she’d been storing up for so long, grief she’d been denying for too long. It wasn’t just for her friend, it was foreverything.
She pulled back, took the bracelet gently from the hand, and then with a cloth, wrapped the hand in it. There was a mixture of teeth and hair around us. The smell of copper stung my nostrils, along with the smell of the merls’ blood too. However Agatha had died, she’d caused damage to them as well.
Feyra rose quickly, her face paling as she ran down the stairs. Roman stepped aside for her to pass, but she stopped just by him and fell to her knees, retching up everything.
I went to join her but Roman stopped me, shaking his head. We watched as she righted herself, adjusted her clothing, and walked straight out of the compound. Never looking at anything around her, refusing to smell the horrid smells that insisted on being known, and always, clutching the hand of her friend to her chest.
No one spoke for the rest of the day afterwards. We left the Keep, and soon the mountain range, just as confused as when we’d entered. We continued into the wastelands properly now. There would be no other towns or villages between us and Jebra, and the finality of our situation was driven home by the stretching plains going forward.
I reached out a few times to Feyra as we rode, but she was steeled away. There, but not acknowledging me. I couldn’t blame her. All I wanted to do was comfort her, but that in of itself could’ve been something to drive her away. I didn’t know and didn’t want to risk it, so I left her to her silence.
We rode until dusk, stopped only for a brief drink for the horses and meal for us, then continued on. Feyra didn’t want to stop. She wanted to keep going, to put as muchdistance between her and the keep of Mograaw. Neither of us could blame her. Even the stench from our burning shoes after we left had been like the smell of rotting corpses. The color of the place, the black of the blood and timber, was too dark for anything of our world.
We rode through the night, still no one spoke. Roman glanced at me a few times, wished to speak with me via our wolf connection, but I refused him. We had to give time for Feyra. She needed this time to accept how her life had changed. I’d spent my whole life being readied for it, she’d barely had a month. I gave her what no one else had ever given me. A chance to absorb that truth.
By morning, when Feyra was asleep in the saddle, we stopped. We brought our small train of horses to a stop by a small cliff face; it rose steeply and a deep crack extended on and away from it. Roman and I began pitching the tent. We let Feyra keep sleeping as we worked. Once we’d finally erected it, we both saw that she was awake. She watched us with dreary eyes.
“There is a hidden oasis here,” Roman said. “We can restock water and rest until this evening. See out the heat and travel in the cool of night.”
Feyra nodded, descended from the horse, and took the water skins. “I’ll fill these.”
We watched her go.
