Page 42 of Wraithwound

“Your strength lies in the parts of yourself that you keep in shadow. It’s time for you to bring them into the light. Trust that you are capable, Lee.”

Henry’s image faded slowly, and Lena stood there under the beating sun and arid wind before the scene around her faded along with him.

Chapter

Thirty-One

Lena awoke several hours later to the sun peeking in from the barren branches above. Her eyes were swollen, and her mouth tasted of ash. She felt frozen to the ground, but the cold didn’t appear to inhibit her movements or affect her as it had in the past. She didn’t want to think about why that might be.

Lena wondered if seeing Henry had been real or a projection of her grief. He’d looked like the man he would never have a chance to become. The ache in her chest deepened at the thought. She missed him so much it hurt to breathe.

She closed her eyes and stuck her hand into her pack; it’d been soaked through with mud and filth but, luckily, the wax-covered bag would have protected her supplies from the putrid swamp.

She rummaged through it as she lay there, her hand landing on the cool tin of the box that held the otherworldly flowers. Lena closed her eyes as she traced the edges of the box and considered what she might do next. Physically she was in bad shape, but she wasn’t sure if it was because of the transformation or the steady beating her body had taken since the inception of the nightmare her life had become.

She would never make it to The Whispers in this state. Just as she began to contemplate how she might tend to her failing health, a chittering in the trees caught her attention. She looked up, searching for the source of the noise when she heard the hooves of a horse, the steady beat getting closer.

Worried that it might be more of the Commander’s men, she scrambled to sit up when she noticed her mother’s cloak lying a few feet away. Without thinking, she snatched it off the ground and limped towards a copse of trees, her movements uncoordinated as she struggled to master the stiffness that had settled in her muscles.

The trees she now hid among were healthy and grew upright out of the soil, unlike the mangled, twisted trees near the swamp. The Twisted Forest. A chill crept up her spine as she realized she’d been in the cursed forest of the Drowning Woods. She must have crossed into a different area when she ran from the swamp. Or rather, ran from herself. How had she entered those woods and lived? No one escaped those woods . . . well, no human. She didn’t have time to contemplate this further as the sound of the hooves neared.

She caught a glimpse of the horse’s rider and noticed black, translucent shadows trailing behind him. It was the same thing she’d noticed before with Jessa but more pronounced. As he approached her location, the horse seemed to spook, perhaps sensing her presence. It became unsettled, refusing to take direction from its rider.

At this, the large man decided to dismount. He moved slowly, working to tether his horse and make camp. She watched as he set a pitiful fire ablaze before setting up camp. When he was finished erecting his tent, he fell more than sat onto a boulder that barely peeked from the cold earth. He sat there, seeming to contemplate something before he turned to the leather saddle bags lying on the ground behind him. He pulled out a small package and gently unwrapped it with his right arm. Pain marked his every move as he ate what was likely a cold, unappetizing dinner.

Lena remained as still as her battered and bruised body would allow, afraid to alert him to her presence. She watched him and waited, considering Henry’s message. In those still moments, she accepted what she’d known to be true since waking up at the edge of that swamp. She was dying.

Might it have been her soul teetering on the edge between life and death that triggered a manifestation in a form she was likely respond to? Or had he been real? She knew in her bones she wouldn’t be able to go on much longer without feeding the wraith inside her, but she also had to take care of her physical body. Disgust turned her stomach at the thought of aiding the monster inside her, if only to save herself. And Henry.

A thought crept in from the back of her mind, as her gaze lingered on the dying man. The minute it had finished forming, she was immediately repulsed by it. She couldn’t do it again. She couldn’t consume another soul. Despair began to worm in as she considered Henry’s message, but she wasn’t sure how she could live with herself knowing what it would take to keep them alive.

Lena watched as the soldier unsaddled his horse and removed the harness mount, brow mount, and reins, securing the horse only with a loose neck rope. He stood there scratching his horse before placing his forehead on the beast’s muzzle. Then, he all but crawled into his tent.

She could tell by the darkening aura surrounding him that death wasn’t far behind. She could wait until he died. Then, technically, she wouldn’t be responsible for his death.

A myriad of emotions rushed through her, the ones that seemed to linger the longest were guilt and shame. Emotions so familiar they might as well have been old friends. And yet, she didn’t move. She waited in the trees until it was dark, and she was sure he must be asleep.

The weight of the canvas was heavy in her hand as she pushed the tent flap open. Lena had inched toward the tent slowly, and yet she was surprised the horse did not stir, only eyeing her warily as she passed. Inside, the dim light from a gas lantern illuminated the space. At the center of the tent, the man lay on his back, taking up most of his bedroll. One muscled arm rested on his chest while the other splayed out, almost as if he had collapsed onto the floor that way.

His cotton tunic was drenched in sweat and clung to his skin, which displayed every dip and groove of his chiseled torso. He was beautiful, with dark hair and an angular jaw covered in stubble that gave him a rugged look. The aura of black that surrounded him seemed darker than before, and his breathing was shallow, which likely meant it was only a matter of time before he passed. She wondered why the wraith hadn’t attempted to wrest control away from her, but she sensed its diminished presence at the back of her mind.

Lena looked around the small space, wondering how he’d gotten here and what he was doing this deep into the woods when she saw it. Obscured by the shadows at the base of one of the tent walls was a sword, still sheathed in its scabbard, and beside it, a stamped metal badge the size of her palm. Lena’s eyes grew wide, and she froze as she realized she stood in a tent with the greatest threat to her life— to Henry, aside from the very monster living inside her—because before her lay a soulbound soldier.

Chapter

Thirty-Two

Lena took a step back on instinct, kicking over a tin cup that clanged loudly. She stiffened, preparing to flee, but the man did not stir. She allowed herself to take one breath and then another. After several moments, when the man had not stirred from his position on the bedroll, she cast her gaze across the tent once more. A satchel lay next to the man’s sword, and she reached for it, curiosity driving her recklessness. She wouldn’t normally sort through a stranger’s possessions, but part of her wanted to learn something about who this man was, the life he’d lived.

Soulbound soldiers were trained for one purpose: to hunt down wraiths. Whispers on the wind often spoke of them having otherworldly strength and abilities given to them by the sorcerer, but only after they swore their allegiance and bound their souls. They were brutal, vicious, and effective. Held in high esteem for coming to the aid of villages that found themselves under attack, they had many allies, perhaps with the exception of those whose turned family members they killed, and depending on the circumstances, the Commander’s men.

Lena gently pulled open the satchel and found a drawing of a woman. With soft eyes and a kind smile, she was beautiful. The simple, pencil-drawn sketch was almost pristine, as if the man had not dared look at it to avoid smudging the delicate lines. Underneath wrapped in parchment was a short piece of wood, symbols carved in a spiral around it. Lena held it up, and using the dim light in the tent, she could make out most of the symbols. A spark of recognition flickered in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t make out any words. At the bottom of the bag, she glimpsed a larger object, the dim light catching on a thin metal band outlining the hexagonal shape, when the man before her gave a shuddering breath. Lena quickly put his things back and waited a moment before making her way over toward him.

She’d seen death before, sat in its company and bore witness when her patients passed from illness or injury. As she sat there and took in the man’s declining physical state and the pain etched on his face, a pang of sorrow filled her chest. As a healer, it went against every fiber in her being to let a man die, regardless of who he may have been in life or what he’d done. Lena tried to remind herself that without this, without feeding the wraith inside her, she would most certainly die, and Henry’s soul, his sacrifice, would be for nothing.

This man had arrived at her feet at just the right moment. She wouldn’t have to kill him. He was already dying, and doing this would help keep her and Henry alive. It would give her the opportunity to keep fighting, striving toward a solution that might save him.

The aura that surrounded him was a deep black now. He was almost there, at death’s door. Almost at peace, free of his task. And then, she saw Henry, battered and bloody in her lap, heard the wet rasping breaths, and felt the soft exhale of his final breath on her face, and she knew. She knew she couldn’t do it. This. All of it. It was one thing to tell herself she could, to have killed in self-defense, and to have entered a city full of people with a wraithwound, but it was another thing entirely to have killed involuntarily, to have lost control over herself and committed atrocities with a body that had only ever worked to aid the ill or injured. To have killed people she loved in search of a different fate for her brother.