Malakai blinked, confused.
Faelin nodded, folding her arms. “He seems to be an exception.”
Malakai turned forward quickly, jaw tight as he focused on holding on to Nate. He wasn’t used to being treated as anything but a threat. The acceptance hit him like a punch he didn’t anticipate.
It made me smile faintly.
Lionel stepped into the center of the group, voice loud, steady, forcing the mood to rise by sheer will.
“Alright!” he called out. “Let’s get out of this cursed, miserable excuse for a forest. Whoever designed it has terrible taste.”
It wasn’t much, but the ghost of a smile flickered through the group, and despite our exhaustion and grief lingering beneath the surface, we pressed on.
The further we moved, the more the fog broke apart. Light filtered through, weak but real, and the trees thinned until finally, the dead forest spat us out onto open ground.
A lake spread before us just ahead. It looked normal, and I wasn’t sure if that was a relief or made me even more worried at this point.
It was encircled by sparse foliage clinging to life, stubborn enough to stay in the grey sand.
The air here tasted… different.
Eve inhaled deeply and muttered, “If this is heaven, it’s depressing.”
Malakai adjusted the weight of the still unconscious Nate in his arms and glanced at me. “Don’t even think about running to it. Next time you run towards danger—” he said, voice a low rumble only I could hear. “I’ll tie you to me.”
I chuckled at him.
We reached the edge of the lake cautiously.
The water stretched dark and still, smooth as polished obsidian. No ripples, no movement, simply our reflections staring back, tired, blood-streaked, and shaken.
Lionel found and tossed a small pebble into the water. It struck the surface with a clean ‘plop’ sound, sinking without anything leaping out to devour it.
“That’s the most normal reaction I’ve seen all day,” he declared. “I vote not cursed.”
“Low bar,” Eve muttered, but she dipped a hand in anyway, the rest of us following suit.
The water was cold. Not freezing, but the kind of cold that bit enough to remind you that you were alive.
After several tense minutes of scanning the shore, Jaden nodded. “Clear, safer than anywhere else, at least.”
We set up a perimeter at the shoreline where there was more open space. Malakai placed Nate carefully on a patch of sand, and Ashley instantly knelt beside him again, guarding his breathing like she could will life into him if she stared hard enough.
Once everyone was convinced the lake wouldn’t rise up and drag us to the hells, we agreed to take turns bathing. Faelin and Eve went first, bonding over their hatred of demons while disappearing behind a cluster of boulders further away, while the rest of us kept watch. It was far enough for us to not hear them, which was why we decided to bathe in pairs.
I stood by the open water, arms wrapped around myself, letting the quiet seep in.
And finally, the guilt.
Caleb’s face, the surprise, his fear. Images wouldn’t leave my mind. Nate’s blood had dried into my skin, rough and dark. My hands still smelled like regret.
How many more?
How many more would die because they followed me into cursed lands?
The thought dug into my ribs like claws.
Lionel moved behind me, approaching carefully as if worried to startle me. The mere sight of him almost made me chuckle.
