Page 155 of Keldori By Daybreak

Thin strands of mycelium hung from ridges and criss-crossed between stacks of fungi, creating a web of fungal roots that caught the glow of the spores. They looked like amorphous ghosts, hauntingly beautiful in the humid mist, but not frightening enough to worry about.

I craned my head back to search the gills that fanned out on the underside of the upper mushroom canopy. There were no monsters lurking there, either, and the farther we ran into the strath, the more at ease I felt.

Whatever rumors surrounded Mycastrath had to be just that—rumors.

Every running step of Una’s brought us closer to saving our friends, and every running step proved that there was nothing dangerous about this forest.

“That’s weird.” Ciarán chuckled behind me after a while. He pointed at a fungus stalk as we passed. “Did you see that?”

“See what?” I twisted around, but Una was moving too quickly.

“It was a starfish! Look, there’s another! Up ahead!”

I squinted through the haze.

“They’re actually sea stars, not starfish,” I mumbled, still scanning the fungus. “Where?”

“What do you mean where? They’re all over!”

I twisted around to frown at him, but he was beaming at the surrounding fungi. I looked again, but there were still no sea stars.

“Ciarán—”

“Look! Did you see how many legs that one had?” His smile slipped from his face. “You don’t think the strath floods with sea water do you? Maybe it’s connected to the ocean somehow.”

“I’m pretty sure fungus and salt water don’t do well together.” I squinted at the passing messes of folds and delicate gills, still not seeing Ciarán’s sea stars.

A pale face with her mouth drawn open in a silent scream stared back from the bright shadows, there and gone again in a blur of fungal growth.

I startled sideways, and Ciarán lunged to try to grab me, but we both fell from Una’s back. The soft ground cushioned our landing, but we hit in a mess of limb and cloak. I scrambled to break free of Ciarán and run back over the loam to where I’d seen the face.

My heart hammered in my throat, threatening to choke me.

It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.

“Wren!” Ciarán yelled after me, but I called out for someone else.

“Linsey!” I scanned the formations, trying to bat the spore-heavy haze out of the air ahead of me. “Linsey, where are you?”

Ciarán grabbed my hand and yanked me back to him. “What are you yelling about?”

I pushed away, pointing into the gloom. “I saw her! Linsey! She’s not a rotsbane. She’s here, in the strath. We just passed her!”

Ciarán held me back with an arm across my chest as he peered into the haze. Una cut into the pressing silence, whining softly behind us.

“Do you still not see the starfish?” Ciarán whispered. “They’re everywhere, Wren.”

He held out a hand and let a spore land on his palm.

“It was Linsey. I know it was.” A cold realization washed over me. “What if that’s the secret of the strath? The souls of the Nightmares who turn into rotsbane are trapped here somehow.”

I shrunk against Ciarán, preparing to see the haunted faces of other lost Nightmares lurking in the dark.

“That’s not it.” Ciarán dropped his spore. “Keep steady, Wren.”

“What—” My stomach lurched, and my vision shifted. I was staring at the same fungal forest, but from behind Ciarán’s long nose.

And the strath was covered in sea stars of all colors. Orange, purple, reds, some with five arms, others fanning out like sunflowers, all stuck to the fungi from their bases and up into the gilled canopy.