Page 41 of Demonic Affliction

Maybe if I had, things wouldn’t have gone so terribly, horribly wrong.

13

Rhune

I wake in the middle of the night to Kevin nudging my chest and bleating wildly.

It takes me a moment to place why he's so frantic. Then I feel the cold space beside me where Willow should be.

I sit up fast, my heart pounding as I search the furs. She is small and could easily get lost among them.

But no matter how thoroughly I look, I can’t find her. She’s gone.

"Nyx." My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. "Nyx, wake up."

I reach across the bed, but my hand finds nothing but cold furs where he should be. Dravik's spot is empty, too, the blankets thrown back as if he left in a hurry.

All of the familiars are gone, too. The only ones left are Kevin and me.

Panic claws up through my chest, and I’m on my feet before I realize I decided to stand.

"Willow? Dravik? Nyx?" I wring my hands together. “Anyone?”

Kevin bleats, frantically nudging my calves toward the doorway. "Is that where they went?" I ask. “Are they in trouble?”

Kevin doesn’t answer—of course he doesn’t. Still, it does nothing for the panic choking my heart. “Okay. Let's go find them.”

The air feels wrong the moment I step into the hallway. It’s heavier somehow, swirling with an invisible, dark kind of energy. Kevin doesn't follow past the doorway. He stops at the threshold, bleating once, then goes silent.

That’s… not a great sign.

I reach for the bond I share with Willow, closing my eyes and allowing it to lead me. It’s the only thing I trust right now.

The tunnel slopes downward the farther I go, the lanterns growing farther apart until I’m left entirely in the dark. The bond yanks harder, more insistent than I've ever felt it, and something cold and sick settles in the pit of my stomach.

Willow is in trouble. I know it in my bones.

My heart pounds in time with the tug of the bond, and I quicken my pace. My instincts are telling me to slow down, to turn back and run from whatever is causing this wrongness in the air—but my Willow is in danger, and I won’t leave her while there is breath left in my body.

The tunnel opens without warning into a massive chamber, and I stop dead at the threshold, unable to believe what my eyes are seeing.

Sitting in the center of the room is a massive pit, impossibly deep and overflowing with angry, pulsing red Welwig roots.

Willow stands at the edge of it, staring down into the dark as if nothing in the world could make her look away. The Welwig roots have found her, and the thick tendrils wind up her ankles, climbing higher with every heartbeat.

In the few moments it takes me to regain my bearings, they’ve already reached her hips and are coiling around her waist. All the while, Willow stands there, entranced by that horrible pit.

"Willow!"

My voice tears out of me louder than I mean it to, but she doesn't so much as flinch.

What… What is wrong with her?

I look around the room, searching for anything that might explain it, and that's when I see them. Dravik and Nyx are pinned against the far wall, each extremity held fast by a tangle of Welwig roots. Several smaller roots wind across their mouths, thick enough to muffle their cries for help.

Dravik struggles against his restraints, the veins standing out along his forearms as he fights with everything he has. But it’s not enough. The Welwig is stronger. It’s always stronger.

Nyx’s eyes find mine across the room, wide and urgent. Don’t get close to her, he says through our bond. That’s how it got us.