Chapter 21
Iopen my eyes.
It’s as if I’m underwater, as if I’m seeing through something thicker than air. But the darkness isn’t solid. Layers of shadow hang before me, like curtains of dark mist. They part for me as I step forward, each one leaving behind a veil of cold on my skin.
From both near and far comes a sweet song of heartrending longing: the voice of a mother singing her love to her child, the whisper of wind left in the wake of soul mates passing each other by, the muffled weeping of the newly grieving.
The Storm is alive. It sings of its longing.
A hand squeezes my wrist, pulling me back to myself. I follow the hand up to Dalca’s eyes, bright as beacons in the dark of the Storm.
Izamal has his hand on my left shoulder, and Casvian is on Dalca’s other side. We’ve all made it in.
“All good?” Dalca asks.
We all make sounds of agreement, though I’m not suregoodis what I’m feeling.Unsettledis more like it.Like I’m walking to my imminent demise,even more so.
The air is moist and cold in a way that sinks deep into my bones. There’s no sense of time; the light from our golden sun doesn’t reachinto the Storm. It could be morning, day, or night, but I have the feeling it’s none of the above. We’re in the belly of a once and future darkness.
Between one blink and the next, a blackened tree appears like a massive gnarled hand, beckoning us. The wrinkles of its ragged bark melt before my eyes, forming faces with howling mouths and agonized eyes. I blink—and there’s only bark.
It stands sentinel at the head of a path that rises from the darkness, stretching into the distance.
“Do we take it?” I ask.
They look at me as if they hadn’t realized there was another option. But I guess wandering vaguely into the darkness isn’t an appealing choice. Izamal breathes a laugh. He’s got a look in his eyes that scares me. There’s no fear in them, just cold determination.
“Yes,” Dalca says, decisive. “If the Storm wishes us on this path, we will take it.Go as far as you can, as deep as you can, into its heart.We must not stop until we find the heart of the Storm. No matter what the Storm takes from us.”
An echo of Pa’s words in his.
He takes the first step, a noble king leading the charge, with his army in tow. And what a scanty army it is: a rebel, a prisoner, and a sycophant.
A black forest rises before us, looming on either side of the path. The trees all have bark of darkest black, but they leak sap that glows molten silver as if the life is being milked out of them. The sap is the only source of light. It’s so dim that for the longest time, we don’t notice the figures in the woods.
Monstrous beasts, dozens upon dozens of them. My heart skips a beat. But they don’t move, don’t seem to sense us. I pray they’re asleep.
Within the cradle of trees slumber a menagerie of the fanged andfurious. To the right rest a family of creatures like those that attacked me in the fifth, when Dalca rescued me. Their chests rise and fall so slowly and evenly that I relax, assured the beasts won’t leap at the chance of finishing what they started.
“What is all this?” Izamal asks in a whisper.
No one has an answer.
We walk and walk. The back of my neck prickles with primal awareness—there’s a predator in our midst. Its eyes are on me.
I turn my head from side to side, hoping to catch it. The edge of an inky, slippery shadow glimmers in my peripheral vision. Even that barest glimpse gives me vertigo, as if I’ve found myself teetering on the edge of a precipice, bracing for a fall that’ll never end.
“You see it?” Dalca murmurs to me, his eyes carefully aimed straight ahead.
“Just barely.”
“We’re all seeing it, then?” Izamal exhales. “Thank the Great King.”
“What are you seeing, exactly?” Casvian says, his arm outstretched toward something only he can see. My fingers itch to snatch back his hand and keep him from touching the shadow creature.
“A child,” Dalca says at the same time I say, “A shadow,” and Izamal whispers, “A cat large as a man.”
“That’s what I thought.” Casvian’s voice would be smug if it weren’t so shaky. He draws his arm back, shoving both his hands into his pockets.