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Far down below us, I can see everyone anxiously trying to devise a plan. I can see the ball of magic in Edith’s hand ready for her to launch her own offensive. The bonds wrapped around me tighten threateningly again, cutting off the circulation in my extremities.
That is the final threat to my existence my subconscious can seem to stand. Like a match to the tinderbox, the unstable power brewing inside me bursts forth like a blinding yellow light.
My explosion of power renders his hold useless—I can smell the singed skin on his front where my magic burnt him as I step out of his grasp. Balls of light still encompass my hands, and I hold them up defensively, pretending I know how to wield whatever new magic I possess.
But it doesn’t matter.
Screeching in pain, Darius backs away from me, the entirety of his front melted into a vile, blistered red mess. Bile rises in my throat at the hideous sight.
“Just stop, Darius! Just stop!” My pleas fall on deaf ears as he continues to stumble back away from me, too encompassed in his pain.
It is all for naught anyway; he backs up too far, too close to the nabras that have been watching him from the very edges of the rocky creek bed. They had patiently waited, biding their time, so their talons didn’t give them away by clicking on the rocks.
Help, that word again, slithers its way into my skull. The largest nabras rises to its full height behind Darius—who is gasping and wailing in his horrific pain—expanding its featheredwings and elongating its neck. It isn’t until the beast unhinges its jaw that my shock-addled brain understands what it is about to do.
I lunge forward, trying to grab Darius, but he jerks back, screaming anew, unaware of his fate, terrified of being burnt further by my hands.
As he jerks back, my screaming cries become choked by the vomit rising in my throat, and he tumbles back just as the nabras’s impossibly large beak descends, devouring him whole.
The vomit finally wins, and I unload my stomach contents onto the creek bed. It’s not the visuals, but the visceral wetness of the action, the gulping and swallowing that upends me. The nabras rises and for a moment, in my demented state, I almost expect it to burp like a character in one of the cartoons I watched in secret as a child.
But it doesn’t, obviously.
Instead, he raises his head, leaving a blank spot where my ex-lover, my kidnapper, had been.
Only dust, and the scuff marks from where he’d shuffled from me remain. He didn't even have a chance to scream in fear. Well, he had been screaming but because ofme, not the nabras about to swallow him whole.
It is the last thought that tips me over the edge, and I wrap my arms about my waist, my hands now extinguished of their magic, dropping hard to my knees on the stone.
Hysterical crying laughter overtakes me in gasping, choked sobs. I can hear the yells from below me, the rushing of the water, and the gentle trill of the nabras as it edges closer to me, brushing its hard beak lovingly over my tangled curls.
The noises are dim, echoey. I’m too consumed with the agony inside myself, expelling the pain inside in gut-wrenching tears. The nabras envelopes me in its feathered wings, using its warmth to shelter me from hurting myself further.. Itwarbles softly, a vibration through the cocoon in which it has encompassed me.
You can only cry in terror for so long before exhaustion claims you, and so it comes for me, too. Sucking the fight from me, leaving me with sweet, sweet nothingness.
Roan
“Theo!” My bellow ringsthrough the trees of the Woods surrounding the Falls, and echoes the other searchers, our friends, and patrons from the tavern as we scour the paths together. Panic and rage claw at my insides, the last threads of my control frayed, my berserker-self only reined in by the constant reminder from Mauvy that rampaging through the Woods and tearing them to shreds until I found him would onlywastetime.
Mauvy hasn’t left my side since Seldon returned and told us that Theo and Darius were nowhere to be found. Even her usually gentle and reassuring presence is vibrating with anxiety, but still, without my tiny platonic life partner, I no doubt would have lost it entirely by now.
I’d lost my shirt when I’d raged out a little too quickly and the thing had shredded under the strain of my expanding muscles. Sweat slicks down my back in the sultry heat of the Woods as we make our way up the gently sloping incline.
Seldon and Seff, who we’d finally gotten in contact with, had quickly shifted into their animal counterparts to better tracktheir possible location. They are now in the lead, circling back to us impatiently every so often to round us up, to move us along faster.
The entire tavern had cleared out to help with the search, only Woodsy and one of the casuals staying back to manage anyone who came while we were gone. The Woods behind the tavern, my once peaceful sanctuary, are now crawling with a few dozen beings, all hollering for my Theo.
I was frantic when Seldon told us the news—only Tor had beaten me to the house to check for ourselves. We ran as fast as we could, bursting into the house screaming his name. I think we actually broke the door off its hinges.
Tor was tearing at his hair by the time the others reached us. I could live a thousand lifetimes and be happy to never see the tortured look on his face ever again. He’d collapsed into Caelan’s arms, body heaving with heart-wrenching sobs when the group finally reached us. Mauvy had carefully pulled me into her arms, whispering softly that we would find him, but still, the anger and fear had exploded into my body.
I’d workedso hardmy whole life to not let my feelings get the better of me, but Theo, the idea of losing him, was my complete undoing.
“Roan.” Mauvy had actually kicked me, hard, with her cloven foot to get my attention. My vision had been a stark reddish blur at that point, but I’d managed to see the outline of her. She kicked me again for good measure. “Youcannotgo off half-cocked. We will find him, but you willfuck this upif you donotmanage your emotions.BreatheGodsdammit.Emotions are fine. Rampaging is not.”
It was what my mother used to tell me when I was emotional as a child and would become a little berserker causing a storm in her house. As always, my little faun managed to pull me back from the edge. Edith and Tarook, in a worrying alliance,had taken charge of the situation, gathering the patrons and organising the search.
The end of the path is nearly visible, the sounds of the Falls piercing the yells of the searchers. Memories of coming here with Theo for the very first time flit through my mind. Kissing him on this path, sharing this secret place with him.
