“What the hell was that?!” I gasped.
Rufian smirked. “The end of our days.”
“That didn’t look like no fae guardian!”
“It wasn’t. It probably was the same thing that got to Nicott. A harbinger of death.”
I shuddered at the thought.
“Signs of crops and cattle suddenly dying have been reported all around Thalian, hero. Worse things such as abnormal humans and goblin mutants as well. Volcanic activity, earthquakes, and sudden storms have become more frequent too. It seems that the world is on the brink of collapse.”
I looked at Rufian, the gravity of the situation weighing down on me. “We need to find out where this thing came from,” I said, determination filling me. “We need to track it down and stop it before it's too late!”
He snickered. “Why fall off the rails for one harbinger of death where there can be many?”
“What?”
“That idea had never crossed your mind? This specter is a result of the dungeon core dying. Even if we did find that one and somehow stop it, I am sure there are others. And we just don’t have the time to stop them all. So we keep our heads in the direction of our target, the prism. And we do not detour, no matter what. That is how we will save Thalian, Silas.”
No detours… but something didn’t feel right in my gut.
I just couldn’t take my mind off of what Rufian and I just witnessed. A part of me felt like that might have been Alzera-Kar or something, I wasn’t sure. That would explain why I hadn’t heard from her for so long. Maybe she went dark in her distressed state. Maybe she gave into her defects and curated her powers to be a force of death and destruction.
Or maybe she is broken beyond repair…
Shit, I was spooking myself out.
I shouldn’t talk like that.
We’d fix her, as soon as we got the last two crystal shards. We’d put her back together again and we’ll save Thalian.
We couldn’t afford to stay in one place for too long, not with the death fog rapidly spreading and consuming everything in its path. But there was something gnawing at the back of my head telling me to lean toward the mountainside, and I didn’t ignore it.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“I want to check something out.”
Rufian sharpened his eyes on me. “We agreed, no detours.”
“It’ll be quick.”
“Silas, this is a bad idea. We should be pursuing our target. We are spent on time already.”
I looked over my shoulder at him with a stank eye. “We took a couple hours for you to get laid. All I’m asking for is a few minutes.”
He sighed with a cheeky smile on his face. “Very well.”
Rufian followed behind me for as long as my gut feeling allowed. Something was telling me to follow this trail. The specter of death left me more than uneasy, and I was anxious to find out more about it. But instead of finding the ghost in the white dress again, I found myself being swallowed up by a god damn animal net!
Zip, line, and sucker—I had stepped on a trap and realized it a second too late. The mesh rope net swung me up and over a tree limb, and I was suspended there like a sorry sack as two kids made themselves known.
“Batto, I got one!” the little brown-haired boy with a flux hawk and a short hair tail said as he popped up from the bushes. He held his bow and arrow up, cheerful about his catch.
“Finally, food! We gotta make sure it’s not diseased,” the other smiling boy, who looked like he was a few years older than the first boy, said in a less prepubescent voice. They looked like brothers, Batto probably 14 and Creed probably nine.
Batto, who held his spear, jumped out of his hiding spot behind a tree to claim their prize, until that smile on his face faded, Batto realizing that what he caught wasn’t an animal after all.
“What the?” Creed cried, the disappointment on his face mirroring that of his older brother's. They clearly weren't expecting a fae to be caught in their snare.
I hung there, upside down, frantically trying to get out of the net as they approached. Rufian on the other hand stood a distance behind me chuckling to himself, while I tried to reach for my short dagger wedged between the edge of my boot.
“Hey, a little help here?!” I grunted, struggling to get free.
Batto and Creed exchanged a look of confusion and surprise before Batto stepped forward and climbed the tree like young Tarzan. He reached over me and sliced the suspended rope holding me up, and I dropped down like a sack of potatoes on the hard ground.
Rufian snickered. “So worth the scenic route.”
“I’m glad you think this is funny,” I groaned as I stripped the net off of me. Once I brushed my clothes off, Batto and his brother approached us, the looks on their faces asking over a million questions.
“We’ve never seen you two before. Are you travelers?” Batto asked.
“That we are, young man,” Rufian replied nicely.
“Are you fae?”
I raised an eyebrow to that question. “Don’t we look like fae?”
He scoffed. “As if that means anything here,” Batto emphasized. Both kids appeared to be village boys, wearing simple clothing. Batto wore a dark brown tunic made from coarse wool, with a layer of animal hide on the bottom for extra protection. His face was painted with ash to protect him from the morning chill, and he had several pouches hanging off his belt. Creed also wore rugged clothing, consisting of deerskin trousers that were held up by a leather belt with bronze buckles. He had a long sleeved tunic made from cotton and hemp patched together in shades of yellow and brown. He also had several pouches fastened to his belt, filled with god knows what. Their fur cloaks draped over their shoulders warded them against the cold mountain winds, but also camouflage them during a hunt.
