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Days pass as we let my wound recover.
Kane makes the shed a little more livable, cleaning out some of the tools, making my cot fluffier, and clearing a spot for us to eat dinner. He cleans my ankle a couple more times and continues to keep an eye on it to make sure we avoid infection.
Today, he went back into the cellar and brought back a couple books that Wyatt kept locked away. He spent hours reading to me in a deep, soothing voice. If the story wasn’t so wonderful, I would have fallen asleep. It’s about nine children that get taken from their home, separated, and forced to travel to different worlds. The entire time they thought they were kidnapped out of cruelty, but the worlds were beautiful and full of magic. They later learned of their purpose to unite the nine worlds again. When we finished the book, he had been reading for nine hours, with a couple of breaks here and there.
“That’s my favorite book,” I yawn.
He smiles, looking up at me from the book. “Mine too.”
A creak comes from the door and we both whip our heads to investigate the sound. A broadly built DaiSzek stares at us, taking up the entire doorway.
“And that’s our cue to get moving again.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“He may not have found any threats within his perimeter run, but a RottWeilen knows when dangers are coming.”
I sigh. “Yeah, I think I’m ready. Can you help me stand?” Kane puts an arm around my waist and lifts me to my feet. I add pressure to my foot. It still feels a little swollen, but it’s bearable enough to make another journey. I may just need to take more breaks.
“I almost forgot…” Kane walks outside and brings back a long wooden stick, sturdy and solid. “To help you walk.” He passes it to me. I test out the effectiveness of this concept, limping out of the shed to the grass. It’s just enough support to take some weight off of my foot.
“I like it!”
Luckily for me, we were only a few miles away from the spot in the mountains where the Demechnef Defects were staying. I wanted to ask him what’s the plan when we find them? How are they going to help us? What happens if Demechnef finds us there and we out everyone?
And why don’t we just do as the Nightamous Horde told us and find the next colony?
Something has shifted with his mood. He seems overly cautious. I try to be as vigilant as he is. I scan the area and keep my feet from snapping any sticks. But he is on edge. He keeps stopping us midmovement to stare ahead. It’s a mutual understanding that we don’t speak the rest of the way there.
Only a few yards away, the sanctuary is hiding among large, overgrown pine trees, just like at Kane’s childhood cottage farther back. Here there are hills of snow and ice. Kane holds his hand up in front of me to stop us. This time, his face isn’t cautious. It’s a sudden awareness of a threat. He holds my gaze with a warning that we can’t make a sound.
We close the rest of the distance and worm our way through the sharp pine trees. The clearing appears with huts, sheds, and what looks like a food market.
It’s so peaceful, so quiet, so beaut—
My mouth cracks open to scream.
But one hand flies across my vision and another secures itself over my mouth to keep me quiet and blind to the frozen horror.
Bodies everywhere, hanging from the trees. By their toes. Men, women, children. Dogs. Cats. Babies. Blood gushing through the white fur they wear on their bodies. Dripping down their necks, into their eyes. Their mouths gape open, without tongues, without teeth, without any screams left.
All of them, dead.
I buckle over in agony. My own arms circle my core as a way to put a perimeter around the pain. A pair of lips brush against my ear and whispers, “We’re not alone.”
Dessin. I stiffen. Whoever did this is still here. The agony clings to the air, fresh, new like bacteria to an infection. I want him to remove his hand so I can look around and seek out the threat he knows is here. But I never want to see the landscape of death again. The blood staining the snow, like spilled ink on white parchment.
“Keep your eyes closed, love.” The rising heat in his whisper tells me he’s about to act.
Dessin steps forward in the snow, dropping both hands from my face. Crunch. And I know I should listen. Close my eyes. Pretend like I’m somewhere else.
But in panic and fear, they snap open. There’s a movement behind a pine tree to our right. Dessin doesn’t turn to look at it but I know he’s aware. He reaches back and grabs my hand.
“Stay here.” Dessin places an old rusted knife with a wooden hilt in my palm, closing my fingers around it. To protect myself if he can’t get to me in time.
Adrenaline courses like a choppy river through my bloodstream and the drums of war come alive in the base of my chest. Dessin steps away from me, walking out into the small, dead village. An open target. A beast born and bred for destruction, for a smooth, calculated massacre.
He stops in the center of the clearing. Waiting. Breathing in the flow of his plan with ease, seeming to know where each man hides.
