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There was movement along the path ahead as Kah appeared, his head bowed. He was surrounded by more Bramblemen, each digging their spear tips into his thick fur.
“Kah,” Jeddak said, breathless.
“Drop. Your. Weapons,” the man repeated, holding up his hand to signal the bear’s fate.
With a growl, Jeddak raised his staff.
“Jeddak,don’t,” I whispered, grabbing his arm. “We can’t win this.” I let my knife drop from my hand to prove it. “Don’t make it worse.”
A frustrated sigh signaled his defeat. The moment his staff fell to the ground, they were on us. They shoved Jeddak to his knees and pointed a spear at my neck before taking our weapons, map, and the moonspar.
The Bramblemen ledus deeper into the spiny forest, navigating the complex maze of bramble like it was an easy woodland trail. They didn’t appear to keep their distance from the thorns, brushing up against them, weaving in and out of them. Thankfully, they maneuvered the three of us down the center of the path, meaning they wanted to keep us alive. For now.
As the hours passed, my energy wasted away until I could barely stand upright. If the two Bramblemen at my sides didn’t have viselike grips on my arms, my legs would have given out.
“Are you all right?” Jeddak called out from behind me when I began to stumble. His voice was thick with worry.
No.I shook my head. I felt like the bramble poison was dragging me back into a terrible sleep and I couldn’t stop it. I was struggling to stay conscious.
Finally, the Bramblemen stopped in front of what looked like a row of cells built into another cluster of large boulders. Instead of bars, thick bramble was used as a barrier.
The leading Brambleman used his bare hand to swipe aside the bramble vines like a curtain before shoving us inside a shallow cave. When the thorns fell back into place, we were trapped, closed in by rock walls on three sides and poisonous thorns on the other. Kah was forced into the cell next to us. The Bramblemen didn’t say a word as they left, disappearing like wraiths into the forest.
Without anyone holding me up, I collapsed to my knees. My skin was burning like someone held a flame to it, but underneath, it felt like my blood had frozen to ice.
“Raven!” Jeddak knelt beside me, brushing back my hair from my face. “Skies, your skin is hot. I don’t think the poisoncompletely left your body like I thought it had,” he said, his eyes shimmering with concern.
“I’m all right,” I lied, offering him a weak smile. I needed him to focus on getting us out of here, not on me. Otherwise, both of us would die here. “What do you think they want with us? Why didn’t they kill us back there?”
“I don’t know.”
Without warning, he lifted me into his arms and carried me toward the back of the cave, setting me down carefully. I rested my back against the wall and wrapped my arms around my knees to keep from shivering. A heavy nausea wracked my body, and my eyelids were getting heavier with every breath. I had to fight the poison. Now was not the time to pass out.
“Do you think they’re really cannibals?” I said.
He ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. “I don’t know that either.”
Blazenhell. This might be the chicken coop, not the prison. We might be waiting here to become their next meal. This place was worse than Malengard. At least there, I knew what my captors wanted with me. Here, the idea of being killed and eaten was quickly tearing off the mask of composure I’d been wearing since we stepped foot into these lands.
“We need to find a way out of here before they come back for us,” I said, though even as I spoke, I could feel the talons of the poison dragging me to the gates of no return.
“No, we need to find a way to slow the poison.”
“We don’t have time to worry about that now,” I argued.
“Skies, Raven, what good is it to escape if you’ll be dead by nightfall?” he snapped. I didn’t know if he was angry at me, at the Bramblemen, or just the whole situation.
“I’ll be fine …”if I can just get some sleep, I thought as I let my eyelids close.
“Raven, no, don’t …”
His voice faded into the blackness.
32
Jeddak
“Raven! Wake up!” I cried.
