What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(26)
Another pair of amber eyes stared back at me: the only bird that didn’t flee in terror. The eerie eyes of the blight gleamed in the darkness before it took off into the sky and was lost to the night.
“We have to keep moving,” Brann said, pressing forward and dragging me along with him. My steps were slower, and dread settled over me for the day when I would need to say goodbye. Because the emotion I’d seen in his eyes only confirmed what I had already known in my heart.
We both knew parting would be inevitable.
His golden hair gleamed with the colors in the sky every time we came to an opening in the trees, and I tried to focus on him. On his strength beside me, pushing and pulling me to keep trying.
A scream pierced the air far behind us, drawing a shudder from him.
“We’ll never outrun them,” I said, knowing it would be pointless in the end. Even without knowing what kind of magic they had that would enable them to travel across the human lands, we were on foot. We were tired, and we were not used to walking long distances, let alone running. The arduous pace we’d set at the start of our journey hours ago wasn’t sustainable.
But even if it had been, it wouldn’t have been enough.
Brann nodded, seeming to accept the truth as I spoke it. We kept walking through the woods, staying as quiet as we could, as we both understood that any noise could be our downfall.
After what felt like an eternity of walking in silence, the colors in the sky disappeared in a slow wave of black that seemed to swallow the rest of the light from the world. My stomach clenched inside me, tightening as the black swirls on my arm felt as if they writhed in response to that eerie darkness.
“He’s here,” I whispered, turning to look for the brother I couldn’t see, as the woods were plunged into darkness once again.
“Who?” he asked, his voice so quiet that I knew instantly he already knew the answer.
I didn’t know his name—this faceless Fae who thought to claim me through magic.
But I felt him, pulsing inside me like an infection in my blood. It was different from the knowledge that the Wild Hunt were hunting through the Kingdom, the howl of their hounds and stomp of horse’s hooves echoing through the air.
I’d felt the moment his feet touched the human realm, treading upon the soil of Nothrek. I felt him inside my skin, my Mark writhing as if it could reach out and call to him.
“Him,” I said, and Brann’s presence at my side disappeared as he stumbled. Just like that, he was gone, lost to the night in a way I didn’t have a hope of finding him by sight. “Are you okay?” I asked, lowering myself to a crouch and feeling around the ground. The dirt beneath the layer of leaves on the forest floor was damp, the soil rich and hearty as my fingers dragged through it to feel for my brother.
Something slithered over the back of my hand, all smooth and scaled as it went past me without stopping. I squealed, lifting a dirt-covered hand to my face to cover my mouth and muffle the sound. “Brann!” I whispered, spinning around in my crouch and trying desperately to find him. Panic coated my skin, waiting for his answer, and then finally he groaned.
“I’m here, and I think I fell into our hiding place.” Something touched my ankle, reaching under the hem of my dress and grasping it. “It’s me,” Brann said, holding me steady when I tried to shake off his grip.
“You scared the—”
“Give me your hand. I’ll help you down,” he said, and I did as he bid. He helped me step down off the ledge I was standing on, the moist decay of a tree root touching my free hand when I lowered myself into the hole.
Sitting beside him and leaning my back into the dirt and roots behind me, I couldn’t stop the hysterical giggle that bubbled up in my throat or the feeling of Brann’s incredulous eyes trying to glare at me. “How are we supposed to know if we’re hidden, when we cannot see?” I asked when I could finally breathe past my laughter.
He snorted, dropping his head to rest on my shoulder as he shook it from side to side. I curled my legs into my body, hugging them tightly as he wrapped his arms around my shoulders to keep warm. With the frigid night air surrounding us, the lack of movement made freezing to death a very real possibility. We needed a fire, but nothing would attract all manner of predators from the woods like a flame in the night.
Would the sun rise in the morning? Or had the Fae plunged us into an eternal darkness that we would never escape?
My eyes drifted closed as the exhaustion became too much for me to bear. Longing for the feeling of the sun on my skin, I drifted into the realm of dreams, where monsters didn’t threaten to take me to a world of mystery and enchantment, and the most dangerous being in my life was the lecherous Lord who wanted to make me his wife.
And I slept.
My eyes flew open. The press of a hand at my mouth jolted me awake and tore me from my nightmare. A shrill scream burned its way up my throat, clawing to get free. “Shh,” Brann whispered in my ear, his voice trembling as I nodded frantically against his hand, which was covered in dirt and smelled of rotting leaves and decay.
He pulled his hand away from my mouth finally, and I lifted my own to cover it. I didn’t know what had made Brann wake me so fearfully, but I did my best to muffle my breathing. My own skin bore the metallic scent of blood along with the dirt that caked my skin, while the crumble of fallen leaves dusted my wounds.