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Her molars, one by one.
Until she was an endless, gushing void, being swallowed by a scream that wouldn’t end.
She just screamed and screamed and screamed and—
“Lunara!”
Hands clamped on her shoulders and she thrashed against the hold.
“It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Nothing was okay.
“Wake up. It wasn’t real, open your eyes.”
Maybe it won’t be so dark if you do.
Lunara blinked, breaths spasming in and out of her. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t…couldn’t…
“Shhh, I know.” Fern’s face was inches from her own, her brow pinched with worry. “That’s it. Come on back now. Nice and easy, eh?”
“I’m—” She coughed against the razorblades in her throat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
That was when Lunara traded her screams for great, heaving sobs, the bone deep terror finding its own way out of her body as the nightmare made way for reality.
Fern held her through it, rocking back and forth, but the stress and fear and pressure, the exhaustion and loneliness, was finally catching up with her and…
Weeping, fucking moons, reality wasn’t much better.
Not without Brand.
Magnus and Lyriat barely found their balance before Araxis was gone again, dumping them unceremoniously in yet another ravaged field without so much as a word.
Wee arsehole.
—Language. That’s our brother, Maggie—
You’re right. I’m sorry. He’s a massive, gaping arsehole.
Mag felt Pet’s disapproving sigh all the way to his bones.
Lyriat, in his ever growing impatience, was hardly better. “Is this the place?” he asked.
“Well, seeing as the mist is still clinging to my balls, I haven’t yet had the chance to check. Give a wolf a minute, aye?”
Magnus called Pet’s senses to the fore and scanned the darkness of Thodelebor. He knew the spot described in Thad’s message well, but nothing looked the bleeding same anymore and the twin moons were on their wane.
What do you think, Pet?
—I think that jagged stump to the southeast used to be a mighty oak—
Aye, and the slope of the hill is off, but it’s in the right direction from the tree.
—Aye, Maggie. This is it—
“It’s right, which means we’ll find the old village between the ridges there.” Magnus pointed. “Do you see?”
“I do. Shall we?”
