Chapter Thirty-Seven
What Lurks Beneath
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Inerys struggled to parse her own identity from the maelstrom in her head.
Rhydian reached for her, and for all the concern etched into his face, all she could see was the man who had taken her life. The ghost of his cursed arrow bit into her spine as she scrambled away from him. Her attention fixed upon his hands, certain she’d find one of the silver heads poised to take her through the heart this time. She was trapped. She was at his mercy. He would kill her, he–
No.
No, he was her friend.
The man had saved her life twice over.
And she’d been in his mind, too.
She wasn’t sure how or why, but she knew the truth of it in her bones. She’d seen the world through his eyes, thought with his mind and spoken through his lips. He’d become familiar to her in a way she could not quite put words to, as if she had somehow become him. As if, at least in part, she had been within them both, for the broken mind she had first found herself in, despite being shrouded in delirium, had been just as tangible.
Was it possible what she had experienced were not dreams, but memories?
The implications of such a truth made her blood run cold.
If she was correct, it meant everything she had seen, heard, felt, had been real.
She fought to make sense of it all, her eyes dancing between Rhydian and Cydan without truly seeing either of them as her mind relapsed. She’d seen so many dead within those stone corridors, some of them children. Had she truly been responsible for their deaths? The horror of it filled her anew, stole the breath from her lungs. She’d slaughtered them all with her bare hands.
She remembered the presence, then. The entity. It had slithered through her head, infecting her with its foul thoughts, bending her to its will in ways that should have been impossible. No one, save Mraize, were strong enough to influence her. She was a monarch, not some foundling child.
The cycling of her mental core surged, fracturing the foreign mind to give way to Inerys’ own once more. The upset left her dazed and with far more questions than answers. What had that thing been? Clearly, it had driven the woman mad, but why? And who was Mraize?
Had he been the man she’d been so desperate to find? Some intrinsic part of her knew him, yet every time Inerys tried to recall why, she found nothing beyond an inkling of power so vast, she was nothing but dust in its shadow. The echo of it eclipsed even that of the otherworldly woman Rhydian had been meeting with.
The woman he was taking her to see.
The woman he didn’t trust.
The Wardeness.
Days before they had left Mistwatch for the spirit wilds, he had told her there were people who could help her, but he had never gone into any real detail. She had assumed them to be healers of some sort, sages beyond even Sorisanna’s impressive skill, not some ruler of unfathomable power. Now, she knew the truth of it, but what frightened her most was the fact he himself did not know what the Wardeness wanted with her. In fact, he feared what might await them all.
Why, then, did he intend on delivering them anyway?
The answers were buried among his memories, she was certain of it, yet she could no more control them than she could a tempest. Latching on to a single thought or emotion was like trying to catch the wind. They were there, teasing the edges of her sanity as they spun and spun. Everything she needed was right there, if she could simply focus.
Her passenger stirred and she instinctively bared her teeth, expecting the other entity to take hold. Only, it didn’t. Where the woman’s had slithered like cold oil through her skull, this one came from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It was familiar, dare she say warm, yet it still stoked her temper. She did not need its help a second time. There were too many voices in her head already, too many warring identities.
Her gaze snapped to Rhydian, whose rioting emotions she sensed as keenly as she did the wyverns’.
“Where in spirits’ name are you taking me?” She demanded.
He watched her with a newfound wariness.
“Cyllicia,” he said with a certain reluctance, searching her face, “But you already know that, don’t you?”
The name summoned forth a memory, a fragment. Cyllicia. The word alone had become a tether and through it, she saw the city and recalled the Wardeness’ instruction. Now that her body had been made whole again, they would take her to her. But how had he known what she’d seen? Why were he and Cydan in her tent?
“What’s happening?” She asked.
“We’re not sure,” Cydan said as the men exchanged looks, “Rhydian sensed something was off, so we came to check on you. You were thrashing when we found you, speaking in your sleep.”
“You were recounting meetings I know you were never privy to, Inerys. How did you do it? What did you see?” Rhydian pressed.
She huffed a laugh.
So it had been real?
“I saw that woman– the Wardeness, through your eyes. It’s like I was you. I– those were memories I saw, weren’t they?”
His expression tightened and he was silent for a long moment.
“It’s possible, though I don’t know how.”
Inerys had a feeling she did, though she refused to give it voice.
“Who is she, Rhydian? Why didn’t you tell me about her before?”
“I was planning on telling you after your ascension–”
“You should have told me before we left Mistwatch! You don’t even know what she wants with me. Who’s to say she’ll ever fix me, let alone send me home?”
“You’re right, I should have, but there’s nothing you or I can do to change it now,” he said, “but I told you I knew someone who could help. I never lied to you.”
She supposed he hadn't, he'd only been intentionally vague. What she didn't understand was why. He'd been forthright when it came to everything else. What made this different? Had he feared her reaction?
Or had he been too afraid to tell her the truth of her situation?
“Can she? Or have you led me along on nothing but hope this entire time?”
He flinched and she knew she’d struck a chord. Spirits, she’d been right, hadn’t she? Nausea welled and her heart sank.
“I wish I had answers for you, but I don’t,” he said quietly, “We’re all operating in the dark. We have been since the beginning. For better or worse, the High Wardeness is our best option. She’s the most powerful woman in the country and she’s been part of this whole mess from the start. If you truly witnessed our meetings, you know just how little she’s given us to work with. Given the circumstances, I understand her desire to withhold information. Communicating over distances isn’t always safe, but I’m confident she’ll share more of what she knows once we’re face to face.”
“How can you be so sure? I’ve been inside your head. I know you don’t trust her.”
He sighed. “Call it a feeling. Maybe it’s hope, maybe it isn’t, but I have to believe good can still come of this. She wants you safe and healthy, which means she has a vested interest in you. I’m not sure why, but I promise you I intend to find out.”
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A vested interest.
That could mean any number of things and Inerys wasn’t sure if any of them boded well for her, despite his words. Whether it was her own panic, or the vestiges of her sire’s, Inerys didn’t know. Though she couldn’t see it, an invisible noose was being wrapped around her throat. She needed air and space and silence; time to piece herself back together and purge the ghosts from her head. Maybe then she’d be able to think clearly again?
Before either man could protest, she rose on shaky knees and moved for the tent’s entrance. Cool air swept over her as she burst from the canvas, but she didn’t stop. Didn’t linger. Instead, she made for the sanctuary of the forest as she banished the tears from her eyes.
“Inerys, wait!” Rhydian called, but she didn’t look back.
Tanuzet made no move to stop her as she passed and neither did Inet. Were she in her right mind, she would have been thankful, but in those moments, all she wanted was to put as much distance between herself and everyone else as possible. Her ability to sense their emotions only fed the chaos in her head, as if every mental sense she possessed had been flayed open and left raw, just as her physical senses had been when she’d first changed.
She had to get a handle on it, for if she didn’t she would drown amid the influx.
Her pace quickened and soon, she found herself sprinting through the vegetation like she might outrun the foreign thoughts entirely. For all the changes her body had incurred, she neither tripped nor stumbled. She negotiated the terrain on instinct alone, leaping across hidden ravines and racing across open flats with a speed she’d never known. She used one clawed hand to control her descent down a steep slope, the soft, moist earth giving way beneath her feet. There was no hesitation, no sense of distance or time. She ran until her lungs burned and darkness crept in along the edges of her vision. Only then, did she slide to a stop in the midst of the forest.
She stood, quivering from head to toe as her talons dug deep into the mossy soil. The world spun and slowly, she sank to her knees. Her mental core cycled with a certain desperation, sorting and dispelling what didn’t belong. But there was so much. She held her head, trying and failing to regain some semblance of peace.
A familiar presence rose, tentative and wary. The brush of its consciousness was soft, yet clear, as was its unspoken question: would she lash out at it a second time?
The clarity behind its awareness chased a shiver up her spine.
Part of her wanted to smother it on principle. It was a parasite, an unwelcome guest. It didn’t belong inside her.
“What do you want?” She asked through grit teeth.
Her passenger watched her from some hidden hollow in her soul, wanting to reveal itself, yet hesitating. It didn’t want to be in pain anymore. It could be useful. It could help her, if she let it. If she promised not to hurt it again.
She shivered.
“What good could you possibly do?”
From somewhere deep, it reached out with a wispy tendril. Its gelid touch soothed the ache between her temples, dulled the noise. It assured her it could do more. It had helped her before, hadn’t it?
She thought back to the moments before her ascension. She supposed it had, but that didn’t mean she trusted it. It had only ever driven her to madness before. One good deed did not make up for its prior transgressions.
It was protecting her, it argued.
“Protecting me how, exactly?” She asked.
She sensed its deliberation, yet for all it tried, it couldn’t give her any one reason. It was simply protecting her. When it registered a threat, it acted.
“And you would have gotten me killed, had I not shoved you back into whatever hole you crept out of.”
It had been asleep, it told her. Awake, but not awake.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she muttered.
It wished it had an explanation. Everything was muddled and dark, but it wanted to help.
She was going mad, wasn’t she, entertaining this creature?
“Fine,” she said.
Delight radiated from her passenger as it crawled into the light of her mind’s eye. Where she had expected some sort of worm or scuttling thing, she found a formless collection of wispy shadows. It pooled as it settled, and urged her to take a meditative stance. She needed to relax and clear her head.
“That’s easier said than done, parasite,” she said.
The sooner she did as instructed, the sooner she would feel better, it thought pointedly.
Acknowledging this thing at all had been a mistake, but she did as it suggested. What was the point, though? She didn’t see how cycling her physical core would help and her mental one had been running itself ragged already.
She wasn’t going to cycle. She was going to meditate.
“Fine, but this better not be some trick.”
At this point, what did she have to lose?
Reluctantly, Inerys closed her eyes and allowed her passenger to guide her through the process. It was strange, listening to impressions and suggestions of thought rather than spoken word, but she managed. Breathwork and mindfulness were the last things she expected it to teach her, yet here she was, breathing in deep, steady intervals on its order. The techniques were new and she briefly wondered where it had learned such knowledge.
On occasion, she cursed her wayward mind for wandering back to the spiral of her own anxiety. It was an easy pitfall and one she knew all too well, for it had plagued her long before her change. Each time she strayed, the presence soothed her and brought her back to the present. She could acknowledge her shortcomings and thoughts, but it would not allow her to dwell upon them. The damned thing was a mother hen, scolding and praising her.
But its methods worked, she could not argue that.
Bit by bit, the voices, the noise, the incoherent images, faded. Her mind grew quiet and still and for a moment, she lingered in the peace it brought her. How long it had taken her to relax, she couldn’t say, but the world was still dark when she opened her eyes.
Her passenger purred its tired contentment.
Better, it wondered?
“Better,” she said quietly.
She could admit that much.
She still took issue with its choice of residence, but there was little she could do about it. Compared to everything else, it was a cursory concern, if she were honest. So long as it minded itself, perhaps there was no harm in letting it linger until she had the time and energy to sort it.
With an aura of satisfaction, its influence receded and her passenger returned to wherever it dwelled within her. Was that exhaustion she had felt before it slipped away? She tried to seek it out, confused, but its den eluded her.
“I would have said thank you,” she mumbled.
It would rear its head eventually, she knew.
In the meantime, she needed to figure out where she was, for she recognized nothing of the surrounding forest. Sighing, Inerys bit her lip. Much as she wanted to hide out in the woods for the foreseeable future, the others would begin to worry. Beyond that, the sun would rise soon enough and she was in nothing but a long shirt. She wasn’t keen to test the resilience of this new body either. The light was likely just as cruel.
She was about to rise, when she paused.
Her ears twitched.
When had the woods gone silent?
The hair along the back of her neck rose. She scented the breeze, wondering if one of the wyverns were responsible for the sudden lack of sound and movement. Though, she smelled nothing and heard no wings upon the wind. Which meant she was alone. And she was the prey.
A quick scan of her immediate vicinity yielded nothing of use, yet something watched her all the same. Its attention crawled along her skin, testing, weighing. Its touch was remarkably light and for a moment, she wondered if she had stumbled across someone, rather than something. The sensation was not all that different from when Sorisanna inspected her soul.
Inerys maneuvered herself into a crouch as she debated her next move, each and every muscle poised on the defensive. She could fight, if necessity forced her hand, but flight was likely the wiser choice. Without her ability to cast her awareness the way the others could, there was no telling what ascension her stalker belonged to. So, she would run.
Exhaling a careful breath, she straightened.
And the forest erupted.
Reflex had her dodging back and away in an airborne leap as a massive creature surged through the trees, jaws open. Its maw snapped shut over the space she’d been not a heartbeat before, its reptilian features at odds with its otherwise canine physique. While its scales and the shape of its head were reminiscent of a wyvern, it was the furthest thing from. She’d never seen anything like it. Whatever it was, its cognition must have been a near match to her own, for it was already twisting after her before she’d fully landed.
Gasping, she threw herself clear of its outstretched claws. She landed hard on her side, but hadn’t the time to recover before the beast was on top of her. She rolled and scrambled away on all fours, her own talons digging deep into the damp soil until she finally managed to find her feet.
She bolted back the way she had come, weaving through the trees in hopes of thwarting her pursuer. Most were too large to fully bar it from her, but the brief blind spots her quick redirections offered might be enough to break the creature’s line of sight or, at the very least, make it more difficult for it to run her down than a straight path. She hadn’t the faintest idea how far she’d fled from camp, but she hoped she’d draw near enough to the others’ range that someone would sense her coming. Rather than scream, she sent out a desperate emotional burst. She only hoped someone sensed it before the scaly beast caught her.
It slammed into the tree she’d ducked around and the resounding impact rattled the surrounding forest like a small explosion. Roots sprung free of the ground as the trunk groaned and pitched forward with the momentum. Inerys chanced a glance over her shoulder, but rather than split its head open, as she hoped it might, the creature barreled over the obstruction and used it to lunge down at her from above. The heat of its breath chased her around the neighboring evergreen and into a gnarled thicket, where its jaws closed around a collection of entwined branches.
She backed herself to the far side, eyes wide. The damned thing held two rows of razor sharp teeth in place of one and still bore the remnants of more than a few past meals between them. The stink of carrion had bile rising on her tongue. Wood crunched beneath the force of its maw and before it could chew its way through, Inerys fled. She needed to put as much distance between herself and that thing as she could manage.
She’d made it to the top of the hill further up the way before it bellowed its pursuit, crashing through the underbrush like the mad beast it was. Inerys choked on a dry sob, certain it would snatch her up at any moment. But then the air pressure changed and several objects whistled past her. Out of instinct, she brought her arms up to shield herself, but she quickly realized she hadn’t been the one in harm’s way. Half a dozen wet thunks issued behind her and the reptilian hound shrieked in pain. Wind buffeted her, right as a blur of white crashed through the canopy from above.
With a snarl, Ephaxus slammed down upon the beast with all the force of a raptor bearing down on a field hare. Its back buckled and before it could whip around to snap back at its attacker, he wrapped his jaws around the back of its skull. The pair struggled, vying for control and it was then that Inerys realized just how large the creature was. It attempted to roll onto its back to break the wyvern’s grip, but Ephaxus maintained the upper hand, talons buried in its back, wings beating wildly.
In her awed stupor, Inerys tripped and landed on her backside, though out of the corner of her eye, she registered the faint glint of metal along the periphery of her vision. Her attention flicked to the source to find Ayduin, bow in hand, watching her down the length of a notched arrow. Her breath hitched and for a moment, dread rooted Inerys in place. She could see the conflict in the woman’s eyes, weighing the risk of ending what she saw as a threat here and now. There were no witnesses, no voices of reason.
No one to protect her, not with Ephaxus engaged with what had now become the lesser of two perils.
Resolve hardened the woman’s expression and black hoarfrost quickly spread down the length of the arrow. Inerys whispered a prayer to whatever spirits might listen, but rather than pierce her heart, the reinforced projectile streaked past. It struck the creature in its soft underbelly as Ephaxus hoisted its front end up off the ground. Keening, its forelegs flailed for purchase when the arrow struck home.
Blood began to fountain from the wound, but Ephaxus ended the threat indefinitely with a clean jerk of his head. The resulting crack echoed through the night and stole Inerys’ breath away entirely. She sat, stunned, as the creature’s body went slack. The wyvern’s head dipped with the sudden dead weight and he released it, allowing the body to drop with a heavy thud.
Inerys sensed his rage quickly shift to panic as he sought her out, expression fraught with an almost wild desperation. When their eyes met, those feelings suddenly became her own. They surged through her, driving all else from her mind as she stumbled toward him. She needed to touch him, needed to comfort him as well as herself.
He practically threw himself before her.
Inerys, he breathed, dropping his snout and bringing her close.
Shaking, she leaned into the side of his chest, thankful for the protective wing that sought to shield her from the world.
I’m here, she said, cursing the tears that burned in her eyes.