“And I’m sorry I’m not someone else,” I continue. “Maybe, if I was, I would’ve stayed with you. Maybe Icouldhave. But I’m not built for this world, this…” I wave a hand at the forest. No one in Aethrolia would believe a place like this even exists. “…this wildness. I’m a child of Ishanna, of order. And staying here would change me.Youwould change me.” I can see how it would happen. I can feel it happening already.
His lips part. “Is that really so bad?”
A laugh curdles in my throat. “It’sterrifying. Going through this door actually scares me less. So…goodbye. And thank you. And I hope you get everything you want. You deserve to. You’re the best half of him.”
He blinks at me, his eyes too bright. “Princess?—”
I splay out a hand to stop the step he’s taken, the clawed hand that reaches for me. He sinks back again at my command, air jetting from his nose, tension vibrating through his body.
I stand there, torn. I almost wish I could touch him again, just one more time. But I don’t trust myself, don’t trust the mate bond not to lace itself around us, so I turn to the tree-door, kneeling down and pulling it open. A chute of some type awaits on the other side, spiraling down into darkness.
I have no idea where it leads, only that home lies through this door—my sisters, my goddess, my temple, everything I’ve ever known.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I wriggle through the doorframe, the rough bark scraping at my ribs.
I pull myself in and go sliding down into the dark, the Shadow’s stricken howls echoing behind me.
Chapter 14
Icareen through the blackness, air whooshing against my face as I spiral down, down, down toward…
Well, Ishanna knows what.
The atmosphere thickens as I descend. I whirl and bump my way through blackness, nothing to grab on to, nothing to slow me down. Then, without warning, I tumble out onto a stretch of leaf-littered ground. I roll to a stop, my belly swirling from my journey.
A few blinks, and the world swims into focus.
Trees surround me. Tall ones, like before, only these are darker, their leaves dull and dead and lusterless. In fact, hardly any light reaches me at all. The canopy weaves so tightly that starlight barely penetrates, and what does has a sickly greenish cast that makes my skin crawl.
This place feels wrong, somehow.
I push into a sit, my guts in knots, the skeletons of fallen leaves poking at my palms. I look around, but can’t tell how I arrived here. There’s no door nearby, not even a tree. As if I just…appeared. From thin air.
I frown. The door I came through must lead somewhere else now. Which…fine. I’m not going back that way, anyhow.
I pick myself up. The air hangs heavy and still, thick with a sweetnessthat coats my throat and makes it hard to swallow. No magenta sparkles wheel through the air, here. No bioluminescent moss glows invitingly underfoot. This place is a tomb—just shadows and silence and a hideous sense of wrongness, pressing in from all sides.
I turn a slow circle, trying to get my bearings, but every direction looks the same, dark and dense and oppressive.
Then I hear it—a faint howl, ululating in the distance. Another one joins in, and another.
My heart rate picks up. Something’s out there, and not just one something, but a pack. Of…wolves, maybe? I don’t know that I want to find out.
The howls multiply. I strain to pinpoint the source, but they bounce off the twisted trees, weaving around me, seeming to come from everywhere at once.
A cold sweat breaks out on my skin. I turn again, only to catch a shadow peeling from a nearby trunk. Eyes blink at me through the gloom, too many of them, arranged in rows down what might be a face. I can’t find a mouth, but the thing makes a sound—a wet, clicking rattle, like bones in a cup. Then howls the same cry that echoes in the distance. As if it’s calling to its brethren.
Fear floods my veins, cold and sharp. I don’t wait to find out what this thing is, or what it wants. I just bolt.
The forest blurs as my boots pound against gnarled roots. Howls rise behind me, swooping closer, reaching a fever pitch.
My blood screams, dead leaves bursting apart beneath my soles. I have no idea what’s chasing me, only that I can’t afford to look back. I have no desire to lock eyes with whatever’s behind me, anyway.
Fire blazes down my throat with every gasping breath. My muscles shout for relief, but I push harder.
The howls close in.
A root catches my boot. I stumble, then catch myself and continue, a stitch knifing into my side, sharp enough to make me gasp. I can’t maintain this pace, can’t?—
