Page 11 of Wraithwound

Eleven

She dreamt of her mother. Dressed in black with her hair pulled back and a gleam of determination in her eyes, she bustled about the kitchen, collecting several items for the day ahead. Lena watched her pack several days’ worth of food, some bandages and salves from the shelf. Just in case, she had said as she grabbed an extra cloak. She finished up by sheathing a dagger at her waist and kissing both Lena and Henry on the cheek.

She’d been adamant it was important to retrieve a healing crystal for Neema. The elderly woman had lived many years. Like most who grew up when the healing spring existed, the citizens of Reimar enjoyed long lives. But after the healing spring dried up, many succumbed to old age or illness.

Neema had left behind many valuable items when she fled and asked Lena’s mother to go get them after being sick for months. While it was possible the items had been looted long ago, Neema seemed confident her family’s stash of healing crystals would still be there. Marisee hadn’t hesitated.

Lena burned with shame after suggesting to her mother that, perhaps, it wouldn’t be worth the risk only to lengthen Neema’s life for a little while because while the crystals healed sickness, they didn’t prevent death from old age. Her mother had been horrified at Lena’s suggestion. She had never forgotten the way her mother looked at her. But even at Lena’s most impulsive, when she was younger and felt invincible, she had never dared enter the city.

The scenes playing in her mind seemed to freeze, focusing on the look of farewell Marisee gave them before she left. It was the last time she would see her mother. Marisee had never returned, and Neema had died almost three years later, having survived longer than anyone had guessed she would.

The headache Lena woke up to had a life and rhythm of its own. She went to reach for her head but quickly pulled her hand away, afraid she would cut herself. Looking down at her hands though, there weren’t any visible claws. But her skin was filthy, her right hand more so than the other; it was sticky with dried blood and dirt. And then the memory returned. It was the hand she’d used to⁠—

As if summoning the pain with her focus, her fingertips began to throb, and she looked past the dirt and blood to realize she’d lost her fingernails. All of them. Cradling her hands against her body, Lena looked around. The sun was low in the sky. She estimated only a couple of hours before the sun set, blanketing the forest in night. The insistent buzzing of insects nearby made her turn, trying to locate the sound. Then her stomach clenched. Behind her was the body of the man still crumpled on the ground. The man she had killed.

Bile rose in her throat, and Lena vomited, heaving the contents of an already empty stomach onto the earth in front of her. Shock blanketed her senses as she sat there, willing herself to breathe. Careful not to use her hands, she wiped her face on her sleeve and stood. She took a few stumbling steps away from the corpse behind her before the pain in her body eased the state of shock.

Tightness up by her eye and cheekbone, plus the stinging in her lip, reminded her she’d received a hard blow to face. Then, her attention shifted to the pain in her ribs, and she knew one or two might be broken after having been kicked. She had to find a way to stabilize her injuries but not here. The death in this place called to her, and that was frightening.

Lena pushed on, still cradling her hands as she wandered through the forest. She had to find a safe place to rest for the night. Emotion clogged her throat as she took step after step. She missed her mother and brother so fiercely she felt her heart might stop in her chest. Why had she ever thought she could do this?

Lena tracked the sun in the sky as it continued its descent. The silence was deafening, highlighting the absence of normal wildlife in the woods. She would be alone in the Overgrown Forest at night. Lena shuddered at the thought but pushed it away, shifting her focus to what she should do next. She wondered briefly if she should head toward the road instead, but Leonid’s warning echoed in her mind. No. She would take her chances in the forest.

Tired and aching, Lena trudged on until twilight greeted her beyond the branches above. The stars looked closer somehow, brighter, although she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it or if it was a side effect of being concussed. She looked around at the trees nearby, hoping to find safety at the base of one of the towering giants, but when she started clearing some of the leaves on the ground near the roots, a chittering from above had her thinking better of it. Instead, she decided to climb a large boulder that protruded from the forest floor.

By using the deep grooves and cracks in the face, she used her forearms to pull herself up, making sure to avoid the tender tips of her fingers. The boulder was about twice her height, and the top was somewhat flat, offering a place to sit or lie for the night. It would also give her a better vantage point of the forest and keep stinging bugs out of her clothes.

Lena settled on the rock, pushing her back against a piece of stone that jutted up from the boulder. She had just enough light to tend to her hands, using the water in her pack to rinse off some of the blood and grime and add a disinfecting salve. By the time darkness fell, Lena was ready for it, having steeled her resolve. She was surprised to learn the darkness wasn’t as impenetrable as she thought it would be. Lena spent the night scanning the forest, repeating her mother’s words for comfort.

Our worst moments don’t last forever. Eventually, they retreat, making space for something new.

Her mother had whispered these words to her almost every night after her grandfather died. Lena had never realized that perhaps her mother was saying them for herself too. Lena had adored him. Everyone had. He had filled the role of a father since hers had abandoned her and her mother before she was born. And then one day, he was just gone.

Lena had endured so much loss. She would not lose Henry too. She put her hand over her heart, imagining that’s where Henry lived inside her, but then the memory of the dead man’s heart beating in her outstretched hand flashed in her mind, and she pulled it away. He would have killed her, she reminded herself, and killed Henry if the wraith hadn’t taken over.

Lena released a shuddering breath and pulled her knees up to her chest. Exhaustion pulled at her, making her eyelids feel leaden and her head loll. She considered closing her eyes when a small flash of light deeper into the forest caught her attention. She blinked, wondering if she’d just been imagining it—but no, there it was—they were again. Were the lights twinkling? As they grew closer, they disappeared momentarily and then reappeared. Immediately, she recognized a pattern. Lena’s heart started to hammer in her chest. Because those weren’t twinkling lights; they were eyes.

Lena pressed herself farther back into the stone as she watched the creature get closer. It blended in almost entirely with its surroundings. The only thing that gave it away were its eyes and the ferns that swayed as long jerking limbs disturbed the greenery. Lena realized then that the sky had gone black, the lighter colors and bright stars having winked out, taking the light they offered with them. The temperature dropped suddenly, and a cold mist drifted in. Lena didn’t dare move, didn’t dare tear her gaze away from the creature, not even to pull her cloak tighter around herself.

It continued to stalk toward her, the mist slowly closing in behind it. Lena held her breath, hoping the creature couldn’t scent her or the blood she’d washed off her hands earlier. But a sinking feeling in her stomach told her that was exactly what had drawn this monster to her.

It halted. Even the ferns stopped swaying, and she lost sight of it. It was so dark. Without the glowing eyes, she had no idea where the animal was. Lena scanned the forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of it, of a swaying fern, anything, when the creature emerged from shadow to stand on a fallen log, its eyes trained solely on her. The thing roared and crouched down on its haunches, preparing to jump when an enormous root burst forth from the soil and came down on the animal from above, silencing a piercing screech. Lena clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming and watched, eyes round, as the root came up again before slamming into the log once more, burying it and the remains of the creature below the earth. And then the forest floor rearranged itself, the ferns crawling around, tree roots slithering beneath the surface as if to hide any evidence of what had just occurred.

Lena sat atop the boulder, shaking like a leaf as realization descended upon her. The rumors about the Overgrown Forest were true. Lena looked down at the forest floor once more, now clear of the eerie mist, the sky brighter with the reappearance of the stars above, and wondered if that would have been her fate tonight if she hadn’t decided to climb atop this boulder. Because as the creature drew nearer, she had sensed a familiarity, something known to her, although it had felt different, wrong. Whatever that creature had been, it was infected, corrupted. And the forest had known.

Lena spent the rest of the night shivering atop the boulder despite the absence of the strange chill, continually scanning the forest for other creatures that might be drawn to where she sat.

When the sky finally began to lighten, she felt the silence retreat as well. It was still deafening but not as pointedly, no longer dangerous. Still, she waited a while longer before she tentatively hopped down, ready to climb back up the boulder if anything moved. When nothing happened, she set off into the forest, praying to the Goddess she wouldn’t have the misfortune of encountering any more men or monsters.

Chapter

Twelve

The next night, Lena easily found a large boulder to rest on and despite hearing disturbing noises in the forest, she hadn’t seen any creatures or been witness to the forest’s magic.

The night after that, though, Lena had difficulty finding an elevated spot and ended up having to backtrack, sprinting through the dense foliage to a spot she had marked earlier that afternoon. She had just hauled herself up the large stone, fingertips screaming, when the silence grew deeper and the last of the day’s light winked out. Every day, the pain of her wraithwound intensified, the flesh hot and tender to the touch. Each time the fabric of her tunic brushed against the bandaged wound, she had to bite her cheek to keep from crying out.

When she finally caught sight of the road that would lead her into Enora the day after, she almost wept in relief.