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He can’t forget those. He can’t forgetme.
Loric’s eyes search mine, and before I can wrap my head around what’s happening, he breathes in deep. He exhales a frigid blast of air, and it fans over my cheeks. The world spins and my head lolls. My body goes numb starting at my feet and working its way up until my legs give out. Loric circles my waist, and I’m certain if he hadn’t, I would’ve hit the ground.
“What did you do to me?” I whisper, but I’m not sure the words come out right.
His mouth twitches into a wicked smirk. All I can do is focus on it as I fight to stay conscious. “Nighty night, princess.”
Two sets of hands, take me from him, carrying me away from Asmo. My eyelids feel as though they’re weighed down by anvils and the world fades in and out. No matter how hard I try to stay away, sleep continues to drag me under and I’m plunged into darkness.
Chapter 5
Calamity
The sounds of birds chirping filter into my mind, which oddly enough, isn’t spinning with nightmares.
For years, I’ve been plagued with dreaming of the white room. It's why Meg would read or tell me stories to get me to fall asleep. Without them, I used to force myself to stay awake until I couldn’t any longer.
After she disappeared, I turned to drawing or painting, trying to imagine her voice reiterating the same stories I’ve heard dozens of times. Putting them down into something tangible made them harder to forget and before I knew it, I was surrounded by fragments of her. Even though I was in the dungeon, and she was gone, I’d see them when I startled awake, and they helped put the nightmares to rest.
Not once, that I can remember, have I dreamed of nothing. The empty darkness that surrounds me is almost peaceful… and the birds singing makes it that much better. The birds never come near the castle, let alone the dungeon beneath it. It’s like they know evil lurks just inside the stone walls.
So, why are they here now?
I shift, turning over on my side. My bed is harder than normal, too. I start to fear that I’ve rolled off it and onto the stone floor when a man’s voice hits my ears… One that doesn’t belong to Asmo.
"Good. You're awake.”
Reality hits, along with memories of Asmo bringing me to the mountain top, of the silver-eyed man, and the last person alive who loves me forgetting that I ever existed. My eyes flare open as I shoot straight up, blinded by the light of the hell flame that was nowhere in sight when I passed out.
I blink in rapid succession and a small campfire comes into view, only a few feet away from where I’d been sleeping. All that’s left of the burning wood is orange embers and the thick scent of smoke. Hours must’ve passed, if not days. I twist, finding nothing but forest surrounding us. We’re nowhere near the cliff Asmo met them at. This is deeper in the forest. I can’t see the tree line.
Only the man is present, the leader…Loric.He sits across from me, watching my every move.
"Where are we?"
His lips twist into a lopsided grin. “In the forest?”
“That much is obvious. Which forest? And where exactly are you taking me?”
He rolls a berry around in his palm before popping it into his mouth and completely ignoring my question. “We’ll need to move soon. Are you hungry?”
Returning the favor, I don’t answer. I don’t need his help anyway. If I look hard enough, I should be able to figure out where we are on my own. Observing the trees, I note that vibrant green moss coats the south sides of their trunks. Asmo taught me that, among other survival tactics in case he died or had to sneak me out of the dungeon at the last second. He wanted me tobe prepared if the day came where I’d have to travel through the realm on my own.
Unfortunately, Asmo forgot to inform me that he had friends amongst the rebels in the outer realm. Here I thought he told me everything about his past, but not once did he mention the people he left me with or some servant woman. It makes me wonder what other secrets he’s kept from me.
I can figure this out… Even if everything feels foreign and looks nothing at all how I pictured it in my mind, I can do this.
Scanning the area again, I notice the brush looks to have been burned down around the fire, oddly enough in a perfect circle. Maybe it was to keep the fire from running away or to create a cleared area for their group to sleep. Though none of Loric’s friends are present, they can’t be too far. Their footprints are still pristine in the ash.
Had they been made more than an hour ago, the ash would’ve moved, and the sole prints from their shoes wouldn’t have crisp lines. I’ll never forget the day Asmo brought a bucket of dirt into my cell to teach me that. It took days to sweep it up.
Small purple flowers carpet the ground in clumps, and beneath the canopy of trees, the flowers almost glow. They’re beautiful… and entirely new to me, but all plants lean slightly toward the hell flame. They need light to grow, and since the hell flame has a fixed location, high in the northern sky, the fact each of the little flowers tip that way, confirms my north and south cardinal points.
Now, all that’s left is to figure out what side of the river we’re on. The west side is home of the enchanted forest—a place more deadly than the king’s dungeons. It’s riddled with monsters and everything within it wants to kill you. Even some of the trees.
The east side has the mountains, and it’s the side I’m used to seeing from my cell. Trees spill through the valleys between the peaks and carry up part of the rocky slopes. There are morevillages on the east side, which means there are less creatures lurking within the woods. It’s safer to travel through.
The ground seems mostly level, though, so if we’re on the mountain side of the river, we have to be in one of the valleys between them. And considering that the moss is green, we’re nowhere close to the ocean or the salty air would’ve turned the moss vibrant colors.
