Page 3

When she finally decided to listen, to follow where it led, it was either the best or the worst thing that ever happened to her.

More than a century later, she would look back and still be unsure.

✧ ✧ ✧

A lock of Ygritte’s copper hair had attached itself to Eira’s face, Ael’s steady breaths fluttering the strands from behind his mate. If nothing else, that little, incessant irritation was enough to motivate her.

Careful not to disturb them, she slid out from beneath Ygritte’s slim arm and onto all fours, gritting her teeth against the press of the hard ground on her protruding bones.

They wouldn’t understand why she was leaving them. Sweet Sisters, she hardly understood herself. All she knew was that it would be easier to go in secret than to sit there and try to explain her slow descent into madness.

If they were going to die anyway, she may as well take the chance.

Crawling out from beneath the tree’s gargantuan roots, Eira took stock as she shivered and stared into the night. At least, she thought it was. Time was somewhat irrelevant in the Forgotten Lands.

Everything was at the mercy of the shadows’ whims. They swept in whenever they wished, the descending fog blotting out the sunstar and twin moons in turns with no rhyme or reason. If she was being honest, Eira sort of…liked them. They struck her as curious, somehow, always looking but never touching—something she related to far more than she wanted to admit.

If anything, it was the air that wasn’t quite right. It didn’t satiate the way it was supposed to, every breath coming up a little short. Still, she did her best to draw it deep into her lungs.

“I’m ready,” she rasped to no one. A lie, but she had nothing left to lose.

Like a gentle hand, the wind pushed against her back in answer, propelling her forward. If she veered the wrong way, it pulled her rightly. If she went too slow, it picked up and grew insistent. That uninhibited excitement was infectious and it wasn’t long before she was sprinting across the miles for all she was worth, her laughter bouncing in disjointed echoes as the voices inside mimicked the sound.

A sudden gust surged directly into Eira’s face and she skidded to a stop. Another swept the fog away and revealed rock like smooth bone beneath her feet, the edge of an ivory cliff mere inches away. One more step, and she would have plummeted to her death.

“T-Thank you,” she whispered to the wind, her heart pounding as she took in the vista below.

Five monolithic, obsidian shards rose out of the charred ground like claws, their glassy surfaces reflecting the moons’ light in chipped patterns. Taller than any house, than any tree, they encircled a deep, infinite pit of blackest night.

Nothing grew in its vicinity, but it had life of its own. She tracked the shadows as they raced down into the valley, heading straight for that welling darkness. They crashed like a mighty wave when they hit, churning the writhing whirlpool of gloom before shooting straight upwards. The mass paused as it hit its zenith, rolling into a careless free fall towards the ground. Except, just as it would have landed, it blasted out and up again.

Heading directly for her.

Eira barely registered a faint touch of familiarity before the first spark of alarm as the shadows wrapped around her. The cyclone tore at the rags of her dress. Battered against her sensitized skin. Tangled her white hair around the lengths of her alabaster horns.

It was curious in its violence, though. Emboldened by that, she reached out with trembling fingers for a skating touch. An ancient thing within her cracked open one eye in response, peeking out from the recesses of her mind. Silly, that she’d never felt it there before. It was so obvious now, more her than she was, but…waiting for something.

No, not waiting. Asking. Offering.

Eira wanted whatever it was with every fiber of her being.

At the thought, the shadows froze, so instantly that it left her stunned. There was a question in the way they hovered, looking but not touching anymore. Not unless she said so.

Head filled with their wailing cacophony, Eira said, “Yes.”

The darkness consumed her, lifting her body from the cliff and gently carrying her into the valley. As Eira’s feet touched down at the edge of the abyss, the beast waking inside of her rose with a great, curling stretch, and she felt its grin stretch across her face.

Perhaps Winnie had been right. Perhaps this was for her own good. Perhaps he’d planned this all along.

Pressure filled her skull to bursting, the pain a white hot iron as the voices converged into a single bass note.

“Ah. My darling own, you have finally come.”

A sob ripped free of Eira’s lungs, too many emotions bubbling up at those tender words. How broken she must be to feel such a desperate draw to that strange claiming, when the wounds of her abandonment were still seeping and sore. How absolutely bloody stupid, when she’d sworn mere weeks ago to never trust anyone but Ygritte and Aelthys again.

But she was too young for such things, too innocent, and didn’t yet know to listen to the twist in her gut trying to tell her she was making a mistake.

“Yes, but…” She swallowed, hugging herself tight. “Who are you to call me to this place? What am I doing here? Why do you know me?”