“I can promise this is the first time I rescued a child from a vengeful forest. If luck continues to shine on me, it’ll be my last.”
“Come on.” Galen peeled himself off the floor. “We’ll find the headmaster. He’ll take over from here.” Galen put an arm around me, then frowned. “What’s that smell?”
“It’s the baby. They asked me for fresh swaddling for a reason.”
“But... that smells like...” Galen peeled back my jacket, releasing the ripe scent. “Sulfur! Aella, put it down! That’s not a—”
The child sprang out of my arms, screeching an ear-piercing, keening wail.
“Get down!”
Galen sprang between us and threw me to the floor. I bounced on the tile—flat-backed and in perfect view to see the child that wasn’t a child split its face open and roar through a maw of sharp, rotted teeth.
Galen’s hand snapped up and it seized his wrist, twisting it away and jumping off his arm. The creature grabbed his neck.
“Noooo!”
His teeth sank in and tore, ripping out his throat. My scream echoed through the parliament of gods.
The monster sprang off his chest, knocking Galen off his feet. He collapsed in my arms for I was there in an instant. “Galen, no! No, please.”
His jaw worked and breaths gasped. I pressed a hand to his ruined throat as if I could hold the blood in.
“L-look... out...”
A screech sounded behind me. I twisted as it leaped—its blood-stained mouth gaping and aimed at my neck. My hand flashed, cleaving the beast in three.
Its parts splattered in a mess of black-tainted blood and the now overpowering reek of sulfur. Head rolling, my knee stopped its escape—letting my shifting face be the last thing imprinted on its bulging red eyes.
I smashed my black scaled fist on his face, cracking open his skull better than any stone.
The world blurred in my rage, pain, and fear. I saw nothing—knew nothing—under my relentless tearing, smashing, and pounding.
“Yes, my pet. Give in to the grief. Surrender to fear and despair,” she whispered. “Demigods are coming. Kill them. Let them know our pain.”
I jolted to, ripped out of my fog. My claws and scales retracted fast—only blood and gore remained to prove they were there.
A sharp hiss of displeasure was her only acknowledgment of me. I was on my own, cradling Galen’s body, when a bunch of dripping wet demigods entered the atrium through another door.
“I’m sorry,” I cried, holding him closer. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey. What’s going on?”
“Who is that?”
“Isn’t he—?”
“Galen!” Thunderous footsteps, then I was shoved out of the way—into grasping hands. “Galen, no! Not like this, brother. Speak to me. Please.”
Those hands spun me around. Alexander’s pale face and oh-so-green eyes filled my vision. “Aella, what happened? My gods, Galen. What did you see? Who did this?”
The noise and screams and cries around me faded. I saw only Alexander as he came apart before me. His soul unknitting itself as if the threads holding it together unraveled.
It hurt me infinitely more than I could ever say.
***
“LET ME REPEAT EVENTSas you have stated them. You went out for a walk to clear your head, when you heard a child’s cries carrying on the wind. You went to investigate and found an abandoned baby being cared for by the dryads. You then stole the child back, which incited the dryads to attack and chase you out of the woods.