I felt the atern in my arm pulsate, interacting with my rising heart rate and readying to be made useful.
“We have to do something. We have to—”
“They’re impervious to magic, Lara. It doesn’t work on them. That’s part of what makes them so dangerous. Our best bet is to wait here and stay as still and quiet as possible. If they see us, it’s already too late.”
Just then, a loud chorus of chirps and flaps echoed through the air. Though I didn’t dare look up, I could hear the leaves of the trees rustling restlessly.
“What does that mean?” I asked, my hand tightening around Karr’s and my chest tightening.
“That—” He breathed heavily. “—means it’s already too late.”
Chapter 18
The caws of the unkindness echoed throughout the woods. Judging purely from sound, there had to be dozens of them, and they seemed to be right above us.
I swallowed hard, wondering what either of us could do to fend off flesh-eating bird creatures who were impervious to magic. It said a lot about my luck that, on the day I finally found myself in possession of a full atern band, I’d run into the only creatures I had ever heard of who could render that band useless.
“What do we do?” I asked, looking over at Karr. His breaths were steady, and his muscles looked tight as he glared up into the treetops.
My gaze followed his and, with a start, I saw the branches themselves were rocking. Perhaps I was wrong to think there were dozens of these things up there. From what it looked like, there appeared to be closer to a hundred.
“We run,” he said. “We run and we pray.”
I had never been much of a praying type person. I believed there was something after this life. At least, I wanted to. But the idea of throwing my hopes and wishes up toward the sky and expecting some benevolent creator to fix me didn’t feel right. If there was something wrong with me, I needed to fix it myself. I needed to save myself.
With my hand still in his, Karr rushed off, jerking me forward. My body snapped back as I began running, too, huffing to keep pace with him.
The rustle of caws and branches intensified as we ran, and I knew from the sound alone that the unkindness was on the move.
“Karr,” I said, my teeth ground together and my heart racing.
“I know,” he said. “Just keep running, okay?”
The sound grew louder, and the flapping of these things’ wings shattered the air around us. From the corner of my eye, I saw them nearing, flying down from the branches, cutting us off.
I gasped as the monsters came into view, swerving through my periphery. Calling them ‘birds’ didn’t do them justice. These jet-black flying creatures, with glowing yellow eyes and talons that jutted like razorblades from skeletal feet, were more demon than aviary. At least three times the size of a regular bird, I got the feeling a couple of these things could pluck me right off the ground and carry me off.
Maybe that was exactly what they planned to do.
Karr said the unkindness acted as spies for Westman. Perhaps he sent them here to scoop me up and take me to him. So much for Karr’s plan to get an army behind us.
Karr twisted his free hand, calling on the atern in his band. As it began to glow, a rush of heat came from the unkindness.
Why were these things hot? I wasn’t sure if it was a threat—if they might burn us if they ran—but it unsettled me.
A jolt of energy shot out from Karr’s palm, colliding with the ground a few feet in front of us.
“Hold on!” he yelled. Then he pulled me to a stop as we crossed over the plot of land the energy had hit.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked, looking at the monsters flying toward us.
One of them swooped for me, managing to slash me with its talon before I could duck out of the way. A sharp, intense sting ripped through my head, and warm blood streamed down my face.
I twisted my hand, calling upon the atern in my band, but unsure of how I was going to use it against magic-resistant creatures like these.
“No!” Karr said. “Don’t waste it! Just… just hang on!”
As the words left his mouth, the ground we stood on trembled, then shook. The man I used to love wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me tightly as the ground underfoot shot off with enough force to throw us right off.
It didn’t, though. A disk of ground, rising like a cresting wave, sent us barreling up toward the dark, nighttime sky.
“Don’t look down,” Karr said, his lips inches from my own. The breath caught in my throat as he held me.
“Come on,” I muttered nervously. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Though it had always been difficult to tear my eyes off him, I managed to do so, casting my attention down despite his warning.
The whole of the Box was now unfolded before me. The place was even more vast than I thought—an entire world of darkness, complete with huge mountains, winding rivers, deep valleys, and massive plain lands.
None of those were what struck me the most, though. The thing that caught my eye—the thing that sent uneasy flutters through my chest—was the huge, black, stone building set in the peak of one of the mountains. A single light, a bright and stark-like a beacon, shone from a window at the building’s top.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I asked, glaring at the thing. “That’s where he wants to take me.”
“I won’t let him hurt you,” Karr said, his breath falling warm against my cheek.
I didn’t see the need of reminding him of how helpless he was to stop it. We were dead in the center of the worst place in creation. Winged monsters waited just under us, ready to devour him and take me away. And I still hadn’t really forgiven him.
Yes, I knew the truth now. I knew he wasn’t himself, that he wasn’t in control of the power that killed Arbor.
They were his hands, though. Hands that now wrapped around me.
So I just sighed and asked a more pressing question.
“The unkindness,” I stammered.
“Couldn’t come up here if they wanted to,” he finished. “They’re not capable of flying this high off the ground.” He shook his head. “Nothing is really. Nothing save for us.”
I looked up at him again, his mouth still parted as though he wanted to say something. But before he could, my attention was stolen from him.
A pair of bright red lights flew right toward us. As they neared, I saw they were a pair of humanoids, each holding one side of a net which glowed golden with energy. They wanted me. I knew this as well as I knew my own name.
“Who in the faction are they?” I asked, literally grabbing Karr’s face and turning it toward the approaching pair.
“Ramblers,” he muttered, his expression tightening. “They’re Westman’s men, and they’ve come to the wrong place.”
Letting go of me, he twisted his hands again. Thrusting them forward, a wave of energy rushed toward the pair.
Insanely, they didn’t move. They didn’t so much as flinch as they flew in our direction, dressed head-to-toe in black. The only parts of them that was visible beyond the black bodysuit were their glowing red eyes.
The energy wave hit their net but without even reacting, the net threw it back in our direction.
I acted quickly, pulling the atern from my band and using it to create a shield surrounding us.
Karr’s energy slammed into my shield hard, shaking not only Karr and me, but the sliver of ground we were standing on. It tilted, throwing us on our sides.
I could feel the shield giving way. There was no way it was going to stand up to the Ramblers, not after what they’d just done to Karr’s attempt at an assault.
Which only meant one thing—if offensive magic wasn’t working, I needed to go on the defense—and fast.
Steeling myself, I pulled Karr closer, wrapping my arms around him.
“I think maybe it’s us who came to the wrong place,” I muttered. “Now it’s your turn to hold on.”
Th
en, taking a deep breath, I threw both of us off the disc and dove into the open air.
Chapter 19
Karr’s magic slowed our decent from a plummet to more a float, though we were still moving toward the ground faster than his magic seemed to keep up.
We wrapped around each other as if our entire lives hadn’t fallen apart, as if we were closer than we’d ever been before all of this. The warm night air enveloped us both, sending shivers down my spine and causing my muscles to lock in a way that wasn’t entirely off-putting.
If not for the fact we would likely be dead soon, it wouldn’t have been bad.
“This won’t stop them,” Karr said, his hands settled at the small of my back and his hair whipping around in the open air. “They’ll follow us all the way down if they have to.”
Looking up past him, I saw just how right Karr was.
As they neared, I got more and more clarity as to their size and shape. Though they were both covered from head to toe, I could tell that what I was looking at was both a man and a woman. The man was larger, with broad shoulders and arms which seemed to be corded in muscle. The woman, though not small by any means, was shorter than her male counterpart. Somehow, though, it was her eyes which shone the brightest, her red beaming pupils which sent the sharpest spike of pain through my heart.
The Ramblers darted toward us, magic keeping them afloat with more stability than Karr seemed capable of. That was it. They could fly—really fly—and we weren’t. There had to be something to that, something I wasn’t fully understanding right away.
“Then we’ll let them,” I said, making eye contact with their horrible, red peepers.
“What?” Karr asked, his eyes growing wide.
“You spent years here,” I said. “I have no doubt you spent that time learning every spell Westman’s people know.”
“What’s your point?” he asked as we whipped closer to the ground. If we hadn’t been so high up when we started this fall, we’d been ground beef by now.
“They can fly, but not together,” I said, swallowing hard. “There’s no spell capable of allowing you to levitate while holding onto me, is there?” I asked, leveling a gaze at him that told him he better not lie to me.
“It wouldn’t matter,” he answered firmly.
“It’s the only thing that matters!” I snapped back, a flicker of stubborn anger running through me. “You have to let go of me.”
“I’d rather die,” he said, and the assuredness in which he spoke lit a spark in my chest.
My heart fluttered despite myself. I took as deep a breath as I could, given our current situation and answered calmly.
“If you do that, Karr, then we’ll both die,” I answered. “They won’t let me fall. You just said as much. Westman wants me alive. If not, he’d have had you kill me alongside Arbor. They’re not going to let me die here, not before he gets what he wants.”
“Lara,” he stammered, his face dropping as he realized how right I was. Still, his hands held me tightly, unwilling to release.
“Karr, let me go, damn it! It’s the only way!”
Looking over, I saw how close the Ramblers were. If they caught us, they’d likely kill Karr, and then I’d be left without an ally or anyone to help me get away from them. We needed to do this now. He needed to be away from these people by the time they caught up to me.
“Karr,” I said, my voice dipping into desperation. “Please.”
He muttered something as his hands loosened around me. We separated. As I fell away, I thought I heard the words “I love you.”
My heart stopped, and not just because I was on my own now, plummeting toward the unrelenting ground quicker than I could think.
My plan had worked perfectly. As Karr finished the incantation, allowing him to take flight and reverse his rapid descent to the forest below, my would-be captors homed in on me. They straightened their bodies and dove forward faster than ever before. Judging by the way they were gaining ground, they were certainly moving faster than me.
The Ramblers were over me now, their glowing net expanding as it neared me. I saw Karr off in the distance, flying toward me in some ill-fated attempt to save me from what we both knew was coming. They were faster than him. Even carrying that net, they still flew at twice his speed and agility.
“No!” I heard Karr yell from a distance as the net encircled me, scooping me up into it. It wasn’t until I was surrounded by it, trapped like a boar in a hunter’s trap, that I realized just how close I’d come to colliding with the ground. I was mere seconds away from being transformed into a splat across the forest.
The net glowed brighter and brighter as I lay trapped inside of it, sagging under the Ramblers and looking back to see Karr rushing toward me, energy radiating off his body in waves that would have made even the shadow creature he was before bellow in envy.
Part of me wanted him to turn away. He might have been powerful, and I had no doubt he’d spent his years within this place training to combat and defeat people just like these Ramblers, but I didn’t want him getting himself killed.
I might have still been angry with him, but I wasn’t sure I was ever able to hate him, and I didn’t wish to see him dead. And I couldn’t forget what I’d thought I’d heard him say: I love you.
Had the man I loved, the boy I’d grown up adoring, told me he loved me? And, if so, what did it even mean? I wish it meant I could forgive him. I wished I could let go of the emotions tied to what I’d seen him do to Arbor. Although he hadn’t been responsible in the traditional sense, it was still his hands that had murdered my friend.
I shook my head. I couldn’t think about any of that right now. There were far more pressing matters. Twisting into the net until I was on my back, I stared at the Ramblers above me.
The glow of the net moved, narrowing from every inch down to a singular golden point right in front of me. Then, tingling like some sort of intrusive medical exam, the golden point leapt onto me, spreading across my skin and covering my body.
“What is this?” I asked, trying in vain to wipe the energy away.
“Shut up!” the woman said, looking down at me with those terrifyingly red eyes. “You don’t ask questions of us.”
“Don’t you think you should be nice to her?” the man beside her asked. “You know what his Majesty thinks of her.” He shook his head. “If she’s the person he thinks she is.”
His Majesty was obviously Westman. You don’t get a castle on the side of mountain and let someone else rule over it. But what did he think of me, and who did he think I was?
The woman scoffed. “Of course it’s her, you ninny! Look at her eyes.”
My eyes? What in the faction did that mean? My eyes had always been a strange color, but so had Arbor’s. It was the thing that had drawn us to each other as young, lonely orphans in House 1. I never thought anymore about it than that.
“That might be enough to convince a simpleton like yourself, but it’s hardly enough to convince me,” the man answered. “And if we bring back the wrong Blaster—”
“That’s what the net’s for,” she answered, looking down at me. “Isn’t it, Blaster?”
The list of things I didn’t understand continued to grow as the golden energy shimmered across my body. Whatever a blaster was, it seemed I was one of them. And I might be more curious about that if I wasn’t preoccupied with wondering how I was going to get myself out of this mess.
Yes, I’d allowed myself to get captured, but it wasn’t because I’d had any interest in staying that way.
I twisted my hands, calling forth the atern in my body and trying to use it to expel whatever this golden garbage was that I’d been infected with.
“Save it,” the woman snarled, still watching me. “This binding is immune to the sort of energy your people are raised on. You might as well sit back and—”
As the words spilled from her mouth, the spell I’d enacted took effect. It burst around my body in bright red tiny explosions. One
by one, the explosions rid me of the golden glow infection. It tossed it out of my body, but it didn’t stop there. Instead of allowing the energy to pool back up inside the net, I thrust my hand forward, igniting an explosion that pushed it out of the net altogether, forcing it into the sky to dissipate.
“What?” the woman gasped, her red eyes rounding out widely. “That’s impossible.”
“Maybe that’s enough proof after all,” the man answered.
The woman practically hissed at him. She was obviously unamused, and it took all of two seconds for me to realize why. This net was completely free of the magic that had filled it, the magic that had sent Karr’s atern rushing back at us like a destructive tidal wave. For whatever reason, my magic had worked… where his hadn’t… reducing the net to nothing more than tightly bound rope.
I could free myself of rope. Of course, looking down, I knew I didn’t want to. Not yet. I needed to wait for the right moment—the moment where escaping this net wouldn’t put me right back in the same place I’d been before.
As we flew over a large lake, I knew I’d found my chance. Twisting my hand again, I blew a hole right through the net. The damn thing fell apart, unraveling quickly, and the force of the blast sent each of the Ramblers careening off in separate directions, spinning out in the sky.
I fell again, wishing I knew the levitation spell which seemed to be very popular around these parts. Landing in the water wouldn’t kill me from this height, if I landed the right way. But I’d be at a disadvantage trying to swim to the embankment before the Ramblers righted themselves and came after me again.
So, closing my eyes, I muttered something, hoping it would work. And just as I did, a jerk pulled me upward.
But it wasn’t the spell.
Opening my eyes, I saw Karr over me, flying with a fistful of my shirt in his hand.
“Hold on!” he said, his brow sweating even against this wind and his face pained. “We’re going down!”
Harvest: Faction 1: (The Isa Fae Collection) Page 10