The Complete Set

by Ainsley Shay

  “Then, I think we should go back with Kenyon for tonight and start out again in the morning.”

  “Don’t I get a say in any of this?” Chandler complained. “No offense Kenyon, but it’s been a couple of hundred years since I’ve seen you, and how do we know that you can be trusted?”

  “You don’t.”

  Chandler threw up his arms in a surrendering tantrum. He looked at Blacwin. “And you’re just going to follow him wherever he takes us?”

  “We have few options, and this seems to be the best one.”

  Chandler wasn’t going to easily back down. “A few minutes ago, you were marching your way right into the castle. And now that Kenyon freaking comes out from nowhere and wants to take us back to his lair—” Chandler’s gaze shot to Kenyon “—how did you know we were here?”

  Kenyon’s voice remained steady and calm, and eerily deep. “Your stealth could use improvement.”

  Even with only the light from the moon, Chandler’s face was easy to make out. His mouth opened to say something, then closed into a thin line. He repeated the motion three times before grinding out through clenched teeth, “Fine.”

  Kenyon turned and began the journey into the woods. Blacwin took my hand and we followed. By the low but audible rants, I knew Chandler was behind me. Like Chandler, I wasn’t crazy about the idea. I tugged on Blacwin’s hand for him to slow, and put a little more distance between Kenyon and us. “How do you know our guide?” I whispered. If Blacwin had trusted him enough to take his advice and follow him into the woods, then maybe—

  “He doesn’t,” Chandler answered. “No one knows Kenyon, or trusts him, for that matter. He’s a creepy tall creature-guy, who might or might not be a warlock, who lives in a hollowed out tree in the woods.”

  Any reassurance I’d gained had all just been erased and replaced with uncertainty and fear. A warlock? “What does he mean, possibly a warlock? Isn’t that like a man witch?”

  “Yes,” Blacwin said. “Chandler is right, no one really knows. Kenyon has been part of this forest since I left Skelside. He’s a mystery no one has ever bothered to figure out.”

  “That’s sad,” I said. Kenyon was a good distance in front of us now.

  “To be fair, I don’t think Kenyon wants to be figured out,” Blacwin whispered.

  I tripped over a root and almost went down face first before Blacwin caught my fall. “Thank you.”

  He leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “You’re welcome.” Even though it was just a kiss on the head, I felt his passion and the love for me in that simple and innocent kiss.

  “There’s something in my gut telling me we should be going in the opposite direction. Nothing about this feels right,” Chandler said from behind us.

  “Nothing about any of this ever feels right,” Blacwin said. “That’s why we’re here—to put an end to it all.”

  A small light grew the closer we came to it. When I saw the dwelling that must surely be Kenyon’s, my steps shortened into paces that a baby could make faster.

  “What’s wrong?” Blacwin asked.

  I couldn’t believe what I was staring at. “It’s exactly what Chandler said it was... a hollowed out tree.” A lantern hung from a branch. Its soft, fiery glow lit a tall arched door.

  The door brought back a memory I hadn’t thought of in years. When I was small, maybe four or five, my dad made a door that looked like the one we stood before now. The only difference was the one my dad made was only about five inches high. I remember him taking my hand and leading me to the backyard, where we stopped in front of the large oak. My dad bent and nailed the tiny door to the base of the tree. He pulled me onto his lap and gestured to the door. “It won’t take long for the fairies to find their way to our garden. Once they do, they’ll have a new place to play,” he had said.

  “One day you’re going to start listening to me,” Chandler said, breaking me out of my past.

  “I listen to you. I just thought you were going a little over the top with the description. Like, it was really a log cabin or something.” When I realized I was rambling, I shut up. To even give in to my thoughts as to the real reason he brought us back here, was too much to think about. I rubbed my arms to chase away the chills and calm the internal ones racing through me. Chandler was saying something behind me, but I was so fixed on the site in front of me, I heard none of what he said.

  Kenyon’s hunched form was silhouetted as he turned to face us. Down the center of his back, along his spine, were jagged bumps that could be seen from under the robe. In the light of the lantern, I saw his long skeletal-like face with sunken cheeks that were drawn in by high cheekbones. His nose was wide and flattened, as was his mouth. His skin was very dark and slick, like he had just gotten out of the shower. But, I had a feeling that was not the case; this was the way it always looked. All of his features were off and not quite human. But, it was his eyes that were the most disturbing to look at; there were none, only deep hollow cavities. I covered my mouth with my hand and looked away. If he were to detect me, I’m sure my disrespect would not be taken lightly. When I turned around, it was as if I was staring at a two-dimensional drawing that had been smudged and altered, transformed into something else with remnants of what once was. Blacwin felt me tense and curled his arm around my waist.

  “Is there something wrong, child?” Kenyon asked.

  I dropped my hand from my mouth. “No.” How could he see me without eyes?

  Kenyon’s thin mouth slid outward until I thought his grin would slide completely off his face. “Oh, come now. Lying does not suit you.” His tongue traced tiny stump-like teeth that lined his lower jaw.

  I wanted to run. This was not good. None of this could be good. I felt it in every rigid muscle that ignored my pleas to run. They simply refused to obey. I was here to kill a powerful fallen angel who drank human blood and had reinvented himself as a self-made monster. But as I stood paralyzed, unable to tell Kenyon the truth—that he was a grotesque fucked-up species, who I hoped was the only one of his kind so he could never reproduce—I wondered how I could commit murder.

  “Kenyon,” it was Chandler who spoke, “leave her alone, she’s new here.”

  His head moved to Chandler as if he could see him. I had never felt sorry for myself for not being able to see color; it got a little frustrating when trying to pick out clothes, but to have no sight at all was unfathomable. I watched their interaction, Kenyon and Chandler. It was odd, Kenyon, even eyeless, seemed to have been studying Chandler’s face. “Chandler, you and I have a history that you would be wise not to repeat.”

  “Can you see?” I blurted it out. What was wrong with my mouth tonight? Nobody could stop me. It was too late. The words escaped the cage of curiosity that held them.

  The dark man-like creature moved his unseeing stare from Chandler to me. He lifted his head and sniffed the damp forest air. Slits under his chin opened and closed. He wasn’t breathing through his nose, but gills. “We’ve wasted too much time already.” He turned back to the tree’s entrance. “Soon, they will know you’re here.” He lifted the knotted piece of rope off the deliberately cut limb to the left of the door. The high arched door creaked open, revealing only darkness.

  From the corner of my eye I watched Kenyon blow out the flame in the lantern just outside the door. He nudged us inside the tree and closed the door behind him. I felt Blacwin’s hand tighten over mine. There was the sound of a match scratching a rough surface before it hissed to life. I followed the light of the flame as Kenyon lit a lantern on a small table.

  I scanned the room. Dumbfounded, and feeling like I had lost all sense of what was possible, I took a step back. My back hit the wall and I gasped for a breath of fresh air. Kenyon’s home should have been the size of, well, a tree. But it was much larger. The room seemed to go on into the depths of the forest. I glanced around the vast space. It was filled with statues. Species of every kind, big and small, predator and prey were scattered throughout. To the r
ight, there was a sitting area where only one pale and delicate statue stood in the corner. My backpack dropped to the ground in an echoed thud.

  If there were any sounds that could have been heard over my screams, it would have been the mouse rustling at the feet of the statue of Snow.

  2

  Blacwin spun me around and buried my face in his chest. His arms held me so tightly that even if I wanted to turn around and face the horror of seeing my best friend in that frozen state, I couldn’t. “Don’t look at her,” he said into my hair. “It’s better she’s here than in the Darenfys’ dungeons.” I wanted to say something to agree, but my breaths were ragged and I was unable to speak. Of course he was right. But, if we didn’t find the Carving Witch, Snow would forever be one of Adelina’s masterpieces.

  Chandler was the first to turn on Kenyon. His fists were clenched tight. “How is it that you’re involved in Adelina’s shit?” I was still in Blacwin’s embrace, but could see both of them from where I stood. Chandler’s commanding tone had no visible effect on Kenyon. “Better yet, why are you involved with that crazy witch?”

  Kenyon motioned for us to have a seat on a long carved-out tree trunk. Blacwin guided me to it and we sat. He made sure Snow was not in my line of sight. His arm was draped over my shoulder, holding me hard against his body. The heat coming off him, and his scent, calmed my nerves enough that I was able to take an actual breath. Slowly, I let it out, took another and another, until I was able to steady my breathing. Chandler did not sit. He paced the room. Each time he passed, his path shortened until he stopped in front of Kenyon. Chandler was almost two heads shorter than Kenyon, and he had to look up to meet his eyes. “Answers. Now!”

  Each day I had gotten to know my newly acquainted brother a little more. And by now, I knew the smoldering heat and fury dancing in his eyes was a side of Chandler that was not to be challenged.

  Kenyon’s un-seeing gaze fell exactly onto Chandler’s face. His voice was low and even. “I will do anything the Carving Witch asks of me. I would slice my own throat with the sword of The Fallen, if that is what she requests of me.”

  No one in the room was prepared for his answer. His response had sucked all of the power from us. It had become a weapon all of its own. He was not, nor would he ever be, our ally. Even more discouraging, if he was willing to take his own life at her request, it was obvious we had nothing to offer Kenyon to diminish his worthiness to the Carving Witch and help us.

  But why?

  Blacwin repeated Chandler’s question, the one we all wanted to know. “Why are you so loyal to her?”

  Kenyon stepped back from Chandler and folded his arms. As if he were sheathing weapons, he slid his hands into the opposite sleeves of the robe, and his blinded gaze looked away from all of us. “She made me who I am today.” There was only tenderness laced within those few words.

  Chandler huffed out an unamused laugh. “You’re certainly not a statue, so what the hell did she make you?”

  Kenyon was unreadable. Dark lines deepened around his wide mouth. “The Carving Witch wasn’t the first, nor was she the last who had stopped to feed their curiosity. But, she was the only one who trusted her need to understand us and realize there was more to us than swamp creatures.”

  Swamp creatures? What in God’s name was he talking about? I wanted to ask, but decided staying quiet was in everyone’s best interest. I inched closer to Blacwin. He instantly understood and his armed tightened around me. The inside of the tree seem to shrink as Kenyon became the main focal point as he continued to explain.

  “I rose out of my black depths and broke the surface when I sensed her. The Carving Witch has a very distinct scent.” He sniffed the air. His gills opened and closed searching for her familiar scent. His tone was lost and faraway, like a distant memory. “Her skin smells sweet, like a lavender flower’s nectar, while her magic’s perfume is primal like that of a wild animal, complex, instinctual, and fierce.” Kenyon was one with the memory of her. Each word he articulated when he described her was woven with trust, admiration, and respect. He loved her. Truly loved her.

  I became lost in my own thoughts of her. The passion she splayed in my nightmares and in her journals I had read will forever be seared into my memories. Thunder boomed, shaking the tree house. I jumped and gasped. Blacwin jerked his head toward the door. Kenyon’s keen senses immediately picked up whatever Blacwin’s had. He tilted his head from side to side as if listening. Even in his blinded state, he knew something wasn’t right.

  “What’s wrong?” I said to anyone who would answer.

  Chandler moved closer to my side. “Shh.”

  “They may have picked up our trail,” Blacwin explained in a low voice.

  I started to stand. Blacwin tightened his grip on my waist and Chandler put his hand on my shoulder. The two of them held me in place. “Wasn’t that thunder?”

  “It doesn’t rain here.” Kenyon’s gaze never left the door.

  “Thunder can happen without rain,” I offered. Frustration was winning over any fear I should have had.

  “It was a canon,” Chandler muttered.

  The feeling of flight invaded my body. Canons? I felt trapped in Kenyon’s house and trapped under Chandler’s pressing hand. “We need to get out of here.”

  “No. Darenfys’ guards will no doubt find us out there. We’re safe here,” Blacwin said.

  It hadn’t felt safe to me. I snuck a peek at Snow and wish I hadn’t. It—she reminded me why I was here and why I couldn’t run. Darenfys wasn’t the only reason I had come to Skelside. There was much more at stake now.

  “If they knew we were here, they would have stormed us already.” Blacwin’s grip around my waist hadn’t loosened. I was grateful for that. His words also brought me comfort. We were here to rescue and defeat. And, I needed to stay strong enough to do both.

  It turned quiet outside the tree house. Kenyon’s blind stare returned to us and he continued his story of how he came to be what he was, because of Adelina. His voice was so tender when he spoke of her. “When the Carving Witch fled that night, her heart was crushed into infinite pieces I could never count. She crossed over the bridge, my bridge. And, slithering below...was me. She could have chosen any one of us—yes, we are individuals and not a mass of disgust.”

  I felt guilty for thinking the thought. From what I remember from my nightmares, Kenyon was one of the creatures that lived blindly in the murk of a moat, slithering amongst others like him. I hadn’t thought they were their own. I hadn’t known. I hadn’t cared. I wasn’t sure if I was impressed or wanted to vomit in my mouth.

  “That night, when I rose out of the water, she caressed the spines lining my back, stroked my smooth leathery flesh, and drew me out into the open field.” He took an audible breath through his gills. “She cast a spell that bound me to her. It was a spell that shifted her pain onto me; therein I became able to live among you...with her pain—”

  “You carry her pain?” I asked.

  Kenyon’s dark leathery face looked directly at me. “Every day I am grateful to carry her pain, as to not live in those depths of shadows and unknowing.” He adjusted his arms in his sleeves before he continued. “She stroked my back and repeated the spell over and over. When she raised her carving knife I remember feeling the heat from the blade as it touched my center, my soul. My body broke in ways that were impossible, and changed into what you see now.” There was a long pause while he pondered and reminisced.

  Her powers were stronger than any of us ever knew. Something Adelina had written in her journal came back to me with a force that conveyed its twisted meaning now...if I have learned nothing else, I have mastered that hatred can crush every other feeling, even love. Adelina was a fraud; she never mastered anything, Kenyon was proof of that. She learned magic could force her pain into others.

  “That is enough about me. My witch said The Lord wants something from you.” He shifted his eyeless gaze to me. “What is it child, what does he want from
you?”

  I had a feeling he already knew the answer, but I answered anyway, “My heart.”

  “To love or to eat?”

  His question should have shaken me to my core, but it hadn’t. It was just that answering it would bring the truth to the surface. “The latter if he doesn’t acquire the former.”

  3

  We left Kenyon’s before the sun had risen. Having to leave Snow there had torn a new hole in my chest. I vowed to her we would be back with the carving knife and Adelina’s blood, the only two things that could save her. None of us had slept, so our journey would be tiresome and long. Once we arrived at Skelside, there would be no rest. We would be fighting for our lives and the ones we loved. We would be murdering the ones who had held us captive for far too long. Our fight was for our freedom.

  Blacwin and Chandler had agreed, for once, we would take a short break before we left the protection of the forest, and set out into the open fields that lead straight to Skelside. Kenyon was short on information. He hadn’t known if Lord Darenfys would be lying in wait for us, or if we had the element of surprise on our side. A slithering feeling in my gut told me The Lord knew the precise moment we would arrive. And, he would be more than ready to take us down. I wasn’t scared so much for myself, knowing he wanted to spend the rest of our days in loving bliss, but I was deathly afraid for Chandler and Blacwin. The Lord would show them as much mercy as a cat to a mouse.

  Blacwin sat, and leaned against the thick trunk of a tree. I leaned against him. Chandler handed out granola bars for breakfast. I wasn’t hungry but I ate it, knowing I would need the energy, especially if I had to fight. I closed my eyes and thought about my nightmares. I tried to dissect each one where I was in the castle and where the corridors led. The main room that stood out in my memory was the enormous room with the painted dome. Multiple halls led off from it in various directions; all leading to different parts of the castle: the dining hall, what once was my bedroom, the descending stairs to the dungeons, and outside to the courtyard.