Chapter 20: Chapter 20

Lily

She was falling.

Not just physically – though she was, indeed, hurtling towards the ground at a sickening pace; something within her was lurching, changing, shifting. She squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to see her body plummet as her heart gave way, too.

Time stretched and warped as the wind whipped her hair behind her, stinging her cheeks and whispering in her ears. A branch smacked her face, and then time sped up. The pain brought tears to her eyes, but she did not let them spill.

She crashed through twigs and pine needles and thorns, feeling them scrape against and then through her skin. Her temple and cheek stung, angry heat pooling in a sharp line down them.

She smacked into the ground. It was like being struck by lightning, like colliding with a star. Every part of her burned, and she lay there for a moment, adrenaline acidic in the back of her throat. She clenched her hands and wiggled her toes, her forehead still pressed to the dirt.

Slowly, she opened her eyes. Blinking away tears, she nudged her broken body into action. Efaffion was just up there and, though she was terrified to look up at the bridge, to see the height from which she’d jumped, she made herself check to see if he, too, had flung himself over its edge.

Her stomach dropped as she stared up at its base, impossibly high, strung between boughs. Pain flared as she dragged herself onto her hands and knees, but she had no choice but to move. She couldn’t see Efaffion – yet. Still, she had no doubt that he’d follow.

She managed to crawl to a mossy patch of undergrowth, shaded from above by yawning leaves and scraggy curls of thorns. She took stock of her injuries and, as the shock abated, she was surprised to find that she was relatively unscathed. With a newfound, grudging respect for her werewolf body, she pulled herself to her feet.

But something – something in her heart was wrong. Not wrong, not exactly, but it certainly wasn’t right. She had to leave, to get away – but her heart wanted to tug her back towards Oakhame’s entrance. Despite the cold sweat she’d broken out in, her body felt comfortably warm, and even the eternal dawn light seemed to be shining brighter. Eyes flashed before her – grey eyes, steely as they met hers, but melting into a molten, swirling pot of radiant affection.

She shook herself. This felt – this felt uncomfortably like what she’d been through with Atticus. Huffing, she leant heavily on a nearby tree and hauled herself away from the eleves.

This was probably one of their tricks, anyway. Perhaps Efaffion hadn’t followed her off the bridge because his claws were already deep in her mind, making her see and feel things that weren’t true.

Brushing a hand down her throbbing cheek, she grimaced when her palm came away bloody. Deciding it was better to let it bleed and push away any dirt it might have met as she fell, she let the pain ground her, pulling her away from the direction her heart wanted to take her. The little nicks and bruises swelling on her arms and legs helped too. Gritting her teeth, she headed deeper into the woods.

As her panic eased – Efaffion was still nowhere to be seen – she became concerned over where that left her. Though she’d broken away from him, she was still left with no water, no food, and no clothes. Gasping, she grabbed at her hand. Relief cut through her. Her mother’s ring was still safely on her finger.

Cupping it in her hand, she stared through the trees, halting in a shadowed glade. The dawn light remained, hanging thickly in the air and creeping between every bough and leaf. Unable to pick out east or west with any certainty, with the sun stuck permanently scraping the horizon; though she hoped that it was glued where it would have naturally rested, spelled as it was, she could not entirely believe that it was where it should be. Sighing, she picked a direction at random, and began to walk from tree to tree in the straightest line she could muster.

Then she heard the voices.

“There’s a war brewing, apparently.” The voice sounded male, but Lily did not trust her senses. Not anymore. She crept closer, cursing every crunch beneath her feet.

“So the sea says,” another voice, this one brighter and sharper, said. “But the word on the waves cannot always be trusted.”

Lily’s eyes widened. Two eleves huddled on a log together, sipping tea from hollowed out mushrooms. One passed a steaming teapot, flicking his white hair over his shoulder as he did so. The other, brown skin gleaming and glittering, took it and refilled his mushroom.

The white-haired eleve snorted. “Where wolves are concerned, I’m willing to believe just about anything.”

His hair had fallen back, revealing pointed ear tips. Lily eyed them closely, an odd feeling brewing in her gut. Her heart thudded at the sight of them, and it yanked her backwards in a stumbling step.

She thumped into a fallen log and, as one, the eleves turned to face her.

And though her heart begged her to run, she stood firm. Though she was exhausted, her bones dragging across the ground, she would not lose herself further in the woods. She would stand her ground. She would fight.

She raised her fists. The white-haired eleve grinned.

“And what, exactly, are you?”

The brown-skinned eleve knocked his knee against the other’s. His hair – dark, but glowing with a strange, inner light – flowed down his back like water as he shifted. “Don’t be such a fool,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “This must be Efaffion’s plaything. Did you not hear him congratulating himself loudly as he re-entered Oakhame? His thoughts were broadcast so loudly I thought all of Eldda would have heard.”

Lily stood, frozen to the spot. Her fists wavered. No, she realised – she was no fighter. She was a struck deer, bound to the earth where she stood. She wet her lips, her mouth suddenly dry and aching for water.

“Poor thing,” the brown-skinned one added. “She looks terrified. I wonder what he did with her.”

The white-haired one tutted under his breath. “I wouldn’t feel too sorry for her. Smell that?” He made a great show out of sniffing the air. “That’s a werewolf.”

“Come now, Lynar.”

“Come now yourself, Petreen.”

They glared at one another for a moment, and Lily finally found her voice. “Leave me be,” she implored them. “I want nothing but to leave this place.”

“What know you of the coming war?” the brown-skinned one – Petreen – asked.

Lily shook her head. “Nothing. I – I do not know of any war.” And though her situation meant she would likely avoid any conflict, her stomach turned at the thought. Her father – her father would be alone, to suffer through without her. Perhaps… perhaps leaving had been a mistake.

But what good would she have been to him anyway? She, who refused to fight. She would be a hindrance to her father, not his saviour.

“She’s lying,” Lynar said, his lip curling. “All they do is lie.”

Suddenly, Lily could move. Her fists fell to her sides, any notion of fighting overruled by the urge to flee. Afraid and ashamed, she took a timid step back.

“Let her go, Lynar. She means no harm.”

“And should she leave here and tell other wolves of our precise location?” He said wolves as if he were discussing a particularly unpleasant bit of dirt on his shoe.

Lily held up her hands. “If it helps, I have no idea where I am.”

“Lies,” hissed Lynar. He stood abruptly, orange eyes flashing.

Petreen stood, too. He rolled his eyes. “Fine. She’s lying.” He stared at Lily, as if trying to convey something to her. They were strange, his eyes, unable to settle on one colour. Lily stared back, forehead crinkling.

Run, little idiot, she heard in her head. Unless you wish to be captured again?

Lily didn’t need to be told twice. She turned, and she ran.

* * *

She wasn’t thinking. Her body moved, towing her towards… something. Her muscles strained, the push and pull a pleasant ache in her limbs, despite her exhaustion. Her heart pulsed, and the ever-present dawn light was no longer oppressive or scary. It was beautiful.

Light flooded her veins, a glittering cobweb spinning softly alongside her bones. The faster she ran, the less she felt the exertion burning in her lungs and thighs. The ache was no longer pleasant; it ceased to exist. Thick bunches of thistles became blooming roses. Still, Lily ran.

As her heart pulled her, it healed. Every stride towards that unnamed something was another tug of the needle through her muscle, stitching the broken pieces of her back together. It would be forever scarred, each tiny white line spelling out Atticus’s name – a physical reminder of his rejection marked into her flesh. But the thought of him was no longer a sharp, stabbing pain. It became faded, a worn photograph crinkling at the edges, the detail in the image wearing thin. Bright colours turned to sepia tones.

Then she saw the leurcher.

Two long, gnarled legs stepped out of the undergrowth. Topped with pincers and oddly headless, the front of the leurcher alone was enough to make Lily’s stomach turn. As it scented her, gill-like protrusions down its legs flaring, it flapped its tail, the end of it so weighted down by the pincer adorning it that it struggled to raise it from the mossy ground.

Lily’s blood ran cold. The haze heating her heart stilled, her veins crackling with ice. She stared blindly at the creature; having only seen them in textbooks and in folk tales, she had no experience with them. Her mind went blank. All she could remember was that leurchers had no eyes. She wanted to scream at herself, utterly exasperated and too tired to think straight.

She’d learned her lesson with the eleves. She ran.

Its tail whipped her feet out from under her. Tumbling to the ground, she swore. Her left leg blazed with pain, the kind that made tears sting her eyes. Bottom lip trembling as she held in her cries, she rolled onto her back to face the leurcher.

It was even uglier up close. Brown skin twisted in unnatural shapes down its legs and tail, the three limbs joined in the centre in the most basic of mechanisms. The gills heaved – it knew its prey was near, and injured. Its pincers snapped, all three gleaming like polished steel.

She scrambled backwards, her left leg howling and protesting against every minute movement. A quick glance confirmed that blood had soaked through the leg of her trousers. She swore again, fear making her voice too loud.

But the leurcher did not flinch at the sound. Lily stilled, sucking in her breaths. Building her nerve, she spoke again.

“Hey!" She said it as loudly as she dared. "I’m over here!”

The leurcher’s gills flared yet again, but it make no movement at her sound. A slow smile spread across her lips. The creature was not only blind, but deaf.

Hauling herself to her feet, she leapt back just as it swiped at her. It moved unsteadily, wobbling from leg to leg with surprising speed.

Lily dove into the underbrush. She rolled through a patch of silken moss, wincing every time her movements jostled her injured leg. She didn’t dare look closer at it – not when such a pause could mean the difference between life and death.

Tangling herself in weeds and rubbing broken bark across her skin, she dodged lash after lash of leg and tail. The pincers came unnervingly close to her face, forcing her to redouble her efforts in covering her scent.

If she could at least mask it, just for long enough that she could get away – that would be enough. That would be okay.

Putting as much distance between herself and the leurcher’s pincers as she could, she writhed through the undergrowth. And, eventually, its steps began to slow. It turned its strange, long-limbed body in a stumbling circle, gills flapping uselessly, desperately.

Despite the streaks of lightning shattering her left leg, Lily didn’t wait around to find out if she’d foiled the leurcher. Grabbing at a low-hanging branch for support, she ducked further into the forest, her heart taking the lead once more.

It dulled the pain in her leg enough that, gradually, walking upright became bearable. She felt the comfort and safety of being held at night, even though she had not experienced such a sensation since the earliest days of her childhood. It felt remarkably similar to when Atticus’s heart had called to her own, but – but that was impossible. Wolves mated once, and they mated for life. If the sacred bond was broken, it was never to be repaired or replaced.

Shaking herself, Lily leant heavily against a tree. She’d lost her way, and, trick or not, the only compass she had was the steady, sweet thrumming of her heart.

At least if this feeling were Efaffion dragging her back into Oakhame, she rationalised, he’d probably help heal her leg. It needed wrapping, but she didn’t dare stop for long enough to fashion a tourniquet from her clothes. The leurcher couldn’t be far behind, and she doubted the moss and bark she’d rolled in would fool it for long.

And the leurcher was surely not the only contemptible creature in these woods. If the eleves were the lesser of many evils, Lily would simply have to take her chances with them. Besides, she reasoned, Petreen had seemed... nice, almost. And capable of critical thinking - unlike the leurcher.

Her legs began to move without her consent. This was no trap, they promised. This was the answer – every hope and dream she’d ever dared wish for danced at the end of the line. All she had to do was follow.

It couldn’t be true. Lily knew that, and yet – despite everything – she gave in.