“Aeric…”
“Let’s go. It isn’t far now,” he said, clearly done with this conversation. The shadows along his face having nothing to do with the moonlight pouring over the forest.
The longer they traveled, the more she felt her mind was playing tricks on her. Shadows dancing in her vision creating figures that were not there, the trees appearing to shift at the mere sound of their presence as if they held a life of their own, the sound of twigs snapping. Eventually, they encountered a fallen tree that was blocking the path. The twins vaulted over it easily with Henry climbing up to turn and reach a hand down toward her. She took it, feeling thewarmth of his large hand sink into her as he helped her down.
As they walked side by side, he said, “If you do not wish to venture any farther, you can always change your mind, Anya.”
“You never talked about the Vedrans' village with me in detail before, neither did my father. Why?”
Henry’s face fell grim. “It wasn’t easy escaping the Watchmen. Our homes were burned down, and our neighbors were slaughtered. Children who Zara and I watched grow before our very eyes had laid dead on the ground on our very doorstep. Reliving such horrors…will never be easy for either of us. The least we wished to do was burden you and your sister with our past. Wellyn, too. I imagine your father and mother felt the same way.”
Anelize fell silent as they ventured the rest of the way until she saw a path that had become clear even buried beneath the snow. A road that led into the heart of the Vedrans’ village. She’d expected to see farms or cottages miles apart from each other. Only there had to be at least a dozen homes before her all constructed around each other, surrounding a large well with a stone wall at the heart of it. There were far more homes beyond that bled farther into the forest, more than she could have ever imagined. As if the Forest of the Dead had once been a city all of its own.
The men appeared to know their way as they entered the village. Their shoulders tense as they looked around, as if waiting for any signs of danger nearby. Meanwhile, Anelize felt her heart in her throat the entire time. Feeling an oppressive weight fall on her.
As they walked past the cluster of homes, she noticed some of them had been burned down entirely while others appearedto be intact, until she peered through the shattered windows, finding empty beds and overturned furniture. When she caught the first sight of dried blood splattered along the walls, she turned away and hurried after Aeric as he walked past her.
When they arrived at the heart of the village, they all stopped walking when they reached the well. Aeric turned toward her, his face indiscernible as he said, “Last chance to walk away.”
She frowned, then noticed Idris and Adan standing before the well. Their faces solemn, angry. Aeric watched her walk past him, toward them, and did not make a single move to approach them with her.
Adan slowly turned to face her when he heard her footsteps. “Do you know what happened here, twenty years ago?”
She nodded, albeit hesitantly.
“Do you know what they did with them after it was all done? The bodies.” A dark inky feeling settled into her bones as Idris turned to face her, his eyes distant.
“See for yourself,” Adan murmured before they stepped aside, waving a hand toward the well.
Every fiber of her being warned her against it. Screamed for her not to step up to the well and look down. She did anyway, despite knowing that what she saw would never be unseen again. It no less stole the air from her lungs.
Bones.
Those were bones. Hundreds upon hundreds, stacked together and strewn about. A labyrinth of bones of all sizes. This was no well. It was a pit meant for the dead. Opening her eyes to the horrible truth below them.
“What is all this?” she breathed out.
Adan’s voice was severe as he stared down into the chasmof remnants below. The light in his eyes swallowed by the night sky above them. Not even the full moon daring to touch him as it instead illuminated the ivory bones of the lives lost in this place.
“This is a graveyard. Used as a reminder to all Vedrans of the cost of opposing the king. They were the first examples, forever meant to be kept as they were. As they will always remain until we have all long since turned to dust. When do you think the burnings started?” When she didn’t answer he was surprisingly calm, not the least bit frustrated by her lack of response as he had been in the stables. “After the king sent his men to hunt down the book and killed the Weaver to obtain it, they came here. The Vedrans hadn’t anticipated the attack, tucked away in their beds. Ignorant to the destruction he had planned for them. That didn’t stop our people from fighting back until the last Vedran was finally slain. The one’s who hadn’t had the chance to run.”
There was an unmistakable silence that echoed throughout the square. If she listened hard enough, she could almost hear the whistling winds around them take the form of screams before they faded away.
Adan’s hands closed into fists at his sides as he stared into the pit. There was disgust for what had been done to his people, but there was also sadness. A sadness that in no way matched the feeling she felt, for it was so much more. Grief, she realized.
Anelize looked to him, her voice much softer than she intended as she murmured, “You lived here with your brother. Didn’t you?”
Idris said, “Adan and I had never been very good at listening when we were told to do something. But we had beenespecially troublesome to our parents. They were far more patient than they should have been when it came to us. That night, rather than heading to bed, we decided to have a bit of fun outside. We wandered into the fields where we goaded each other into using our gifts to play. I’d managed to capture a snowball the size of my face before tossing it back at him ten times harder.”
Adan gave a rare, fleeting smile at his brother’s words.
Anelize didn’t speak, didn’t bring herself to move. She feared if she did, then he’d revert back to being angry, throwing insults at her for not knowing the meaning of his suffering. Still, she wanted to know.
Adan’s smile wilted as he stared into the pit. “We’d been out there for mere moments before we heard the screams. The clashing of the swords. It had taken entirely too long to return, and when we did, it had been as though a storm had swept over our village. The bodies had littered the ground we had walked upon mere hours ago without a care in the world. Watchmen were everywhere we looked as we hid by the crates behind one of the houses.”
She shivered as a wind passed over them, but Adan and Idris didn’t move.
“We hurried to our home and that was when we saw them. Our parents. Our father was dead before we arrived, his body laying mere feet away from the door. And our mother…she had seen us as they dragged her out onto the street. They hadn’t appeared nearly aseagerto kill her yet. They taunted her for the destruction they brought upon us all, our so-called ‘allies.’” Adan scoffed on a broken sound.“I wanted to fight, to do something to stop them, but Idris was always the calmer of the two of us. More sensible. If it hadn’t been forhim, I’m sure my bones would be down there too along with our parents.”
