Chapter 80: Chapter 80

Elijah

Dawn light spilled into the clearing. Elijah scratched a hand through his dark hair and stared without seeing at the dark swathe of bottle-green pines surrounding them. Pale, fractured sunlight caught the tips of needles and the bends of boughs, highlighting the remnants of birds’ nests and the red belly of a lone robin.

He dug the toe of his boot into the dry dirt from where he was sat, his back pressed at an odd angle against a fallen, moss-covered log and his knees bent, pulled up close to his chest. He was supposed to be sleeping, but thoughts and hazy imaginings of what Lily could be doing – or what could be being done to her – had plagued him ever since night had fallen, and continued to do so as the sun had risen. Sighing, he turned his grey gaze to his Gamma.

“I know you aren’t sleeping. I’m on watch – and there’s no point us both being awake. You’re moping,” said Caslein, arching an eyebrow at Elijah. “Again. Stop it.”

Elijah’s throat bobbed. “No, I’m not. I’m thinking.”

“Po-ta-to, po-ta-toh. Same thing. Look,” he added, before Elijah could interject, “you’re doing everything you can for Lily. There’s no point thinking or plotting or planning, because half the time your plans go to shit anyway.” He wrinkled his nose. “No offence.”

Elijah huffed out a humourless laugh. “None taken. But–”

“No buts, either. Go to sleep. I imagine you’ll be marching me across Eldda within the hour, so you need a bit more rest if you plan to be as domineering as you were yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before–”

Elijah waved a hand at him. “You go to sleep. I won’t be able to.” His lips twitched. “And you’re quite right, Cas – I will be marching you across Eldda within the hour, so you need all the rest you can get if you plan to keep up.”

Caslein puffed out his chest. His pale yellow eyes narrowed beneath their thick brows. “Like it’s hard?”

Elijah’s smile widened into a grin. “You’re the one making out that it is.”

For a moment, the knot permanently tied in his chest loosened – if only a little. As much as he wanted Cas to rest, he was dreading the silence that would ensue. Silence had never sounded loud before, but without Lily he could hear every beat of his heart and every weak echo of hers. His thoughts grew louder, louder, louder, until they eclipsed the last vestiges of his logic and sent him into a spiral of panic. He saw her wide, side eyes, her thin frame, the way her shoulders poked out, bony, from beneath her wan olive skin –

“I don’t need to sleep, actually.” Caslein shook out his long legs. “Sun’s up. We may as well be, too.”

It took conscious effort, but Elijah smoothed out his features. “No, we can wait,” he said, even as his foot started to tap.

Cas rolled his eyes and stood, brushing debris from his trousers and cloak. “We’ve got a long way to go yet. Let’s get a head start.”

Elijah shot up, groaning as blood rushed into his stiff arms and legs. “I suppose it’s not a terrible idea.”

“High praise.” Caslein snickered.

As had become his habit over the last few days of travelling, he ran his fingertips over each of his rings, checking they were still in place. Then he opened his satchel and pulled out a hunk of bread for them both; he shoved a lump of it into his mouth before offering the other half to Elijah.

“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”

Cas held it there. “You need to eat something.”

With a sigh, Elijah took it but made no move to eat it. “Thanks.”

Caslein tied off the satchel before coming over to him, crumbs spilling from his lips as he nudged him. “Go on, then. Tell me what’s bothering you today.”

They started to walk, falling into step as they crossed the clearing they’d spent the night in. Elijah worried his bottom lip and toyed with the hunk of bread, rolling it back and forth between his hands, feeling it catch on the garnet ring he now wore on his little finger. Shifting the bread into his other hand, he stared down at the ring. Such a small, innocuous thing – and yet so beautiful, with its red stone glinting in the pale morning sunshine.

He swallowed thickly and looked away. His gaze snagged on a nearby tree, its leaves starting to brown, and saw on its trunk a carving. His throat tightened. Two initials, an O and a J, sat within a painstakingly drawn heart.

Caslein dropped back beside him. “You don’t have to tell me, not if you don’t want to. But… If you do, you can. That’s what I’m here for.” He forced a weak grin to push at his cheeks, but it didn’t meet his strange, pallid eyes. “I mean, sure, I’m great at fighting, at being muscular,” he paused to flex his biceps, and his grin grew a little, “at being a weapon, literally, but my ears are just as big as my biceps, you know.”

Elijah couldn’t help but snort. “Your ears are as big as your biceps?”

Caslein somehow kept his face straight. “You’ve got it.”

Elijah shook his head. His gaze wandered back to the tree, to the carving, and a shuddering breath racked through him. “I… I checked for letters, before we left. She hadn’t sent me anything. And now… Now I have no way of knowing if she has. At best, it will take us weeks to cross Eldda and get to Blood Moon. Anything could happen in that time.”

“Exactly.” Cas nudged him. “Anything could happen. You’re only thinking of the bad things. But consider this: Red Ripper are being quiet. She got away from them, and they aren’t exactly tearing the countryside apart to get her back. They made some sort of deal for her. She’s safe, Eli.”

“If she’s still with Atticus, though…”

“What are you worried about? That she’ll fall for him?” He pulled a face. “There’s not a chance of that happening. Not a damn chance.”

“No – it’s not that. It’s just… Do you think he’ll take care of her?”

Caslein shrugged. “She’s safer with him than just about anywhere else, I reckon. You said he had some sort of alliance with Red Ripper, and not many other packs could take Blood Moon on.”

“It’s not the other packs and wolves that I’m concerned about,” Elijah muttered. “It’s him. Until we get there, I’m stuck in this awful, liminal space between when I saw her last and when I see her next. How can I know if she’s not sent word to me because she’s so busy, so happy, that she’s not thought of me once? And, to tell the truth, that’s the best option I could hope for. Because otherwise, she can’t write to me. And I can think of no good reason for that.”

“Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think that you think too much.”

Elijah huffed. “Yes, you’re probably right. Talk to me about something else, Cas. Distract me. My own mind becomes more insufferable by the minute.”

“I’ve been thinking, too.”

“Is that wise?”

“Definitely not.” Cas smirked. “I’ve had a headache for days.”

Elijah bit into his bread. It was dry, and it crumbled like dust on his tongue, but he chewed and swallowed it, and then took another bite.

“I wonder if my mate is in the Blood Moon pack,” said Caslein, after a moment’s pause. “I’ve never given it much thought before, but until Lily we’ve not had much to do with awful old Alpha Atticus, or his dad before him. Maybe she’s fate’s way of introducing me to my mate, you know?”

They chatted idly, amicably, about the myriad possibilities of mates and the Moon Goddess as they journeyed further into the forest. Elijah turned the idea over in his head, trying desperately to focus on Caslein and his potential mate rather than his own predicament. Still his mind churned over Lily, Lily, Lily, until he felt sick with worry over her.

“–And I told Ithia that I wanted someone like me, you know? Someone I can bounce off and chat to, just like I do to myself in my head.”

“You talk to yourself?”

“Obviously. And don’t give me that look, because I’ve seen the glazed look in your eyes that means you’ve been talking to yourself the whole entire time I’ve been talking to you, Eli.”

He offered him a tight, apologetic smile as they rounded a large bush. “Sorry.”

Caslein shook his head. “It’s fine. I know you aren’t fully present right now.”

“I am listening. I just… I can’t stop seeing the way she looked at me, right before they disappeared together. The fear in her eyes…”

Cas pulled him to a halt, his hands gripping his shoulders as he brought their gazes level. “She knows you would do anything for her. She knows you’re coming. I believe that, Eli, I really do. And you should, too.”

Silence swelled between them as they started to walk again, picking their way through a particularly dense patch of forest. Ivy coiled and trailed between laden boughs of orange-gold leaves, burning bright as the sun grew fat and heavy in the warm sky. Elijah stared down at his shadow, short and blunt, as it swallowed up fallen leaves and twigs; he twiddled the garnet ring on his little finger, its presence only affording him some small measure of comfort. It was a part of Lily, but it was nothing like her: it had warmed to his body heat, but it was not a being of heat itself, not fire and passion and stubbornness.

The forest closed in around them. The bushes grew thicker and taller, eclipsing the tinny daylight and shrouding the world in shadow. Vines writhed and wriggled like snakes in the underbelly of the auburn leaves; Elijah squinted down at the hedgerow, certain he could see movement but equally sure that his tired eyes were playing tricks on him.

“Did you see that?” murmured Caslein, and suddenly his observations felt real rather than silly.

“I’m not sure what I can see,” he whispered back, his throat raw and raspy.

Something dark and slimy slipped through the undergrowth. It moved fast – too fast for faelen or wolf eyes to follow it. Elijah grimaced, before drawing his sword and stepping closer.

A hand sprung from the ground. It was gnarled and bony, with dark brown skin –

No. Not skin. It was a branch. A branch with long twigs with fingers, reaching higher and higher from the hedgerow, reaching for Elijah. He darted back and sliced at the hand; it came free, only to wiggle back down into the foliage and reattach itself.

“Mossmen,” hissed Elijah. “Get back.”

Speaking their name seemed to draw more of them up from the earth. Creaking and groaning, that which had appeared to be nothing more than forest debris revealed itself to be a group of mossmen: leaves and twigs and rocks formed crude people, without eyes or noses or mouths, and yet somehow Elijah felt that all of them had their gazes locked on him and his Gamma.

He raised his sword. As the first mossmen closed in, more rose from the hedgerow.

Caslein flexed his muscles. “Come and get it,” he muttered, glaring at the animated twigs and leaves. Six of them rose from the ground, all mismatched in height and build. The one closest to him had a long mane of moss and ivy, which curled around its would-be head like a crown.

“They’ll drag you under if they grab you, Cas. They’ll turn you into one of them.”

Elijah side-stepped one neatly and sliced off its hand. It fell to the forest floor; the mossman it belonged to simply bent down and scooped it up before it reattached itself, wiggling its twig fingers as it reached for Elijah again.

And again.

And again.

They fell into a rhythm; Caslein and Elijah stood back-to-back, circling slowly as they fought to keep the mossmen at bay. But they fell for only a moment, and every time one hit the ground another grew from the hedge, bits of leaf and stone becoming fists and feet intent on dragging the two men under.

Elijah slashed his sword, blocking and ducking before stabbing mossman after mossman in their wooden hearts. Punches resonated from behind him as he and Caslein rotated; the vibrations of Cas’s fists knocking into branch and rock rumbled through his back.

Cas hissed out a breath between clenched teeth. “Shit, Eli.”

And then the warm presence of his back disappeared. Elijah spun around to help, slicing away a mossman and darting back to avoid it –

Another had Caslein gripped in both hands. It pulled him down towards the earth. More piled on top, forcing Cas onto his knees. No matter how hard he struggled, there were too many of them.

Elijah’s sword felt slack in his hand. He lifted it shakily, panic flaring hot in his chest. He slashed wildly, desperately, but there were too many of them.

Caslein tried to smile. “See you on the other side, brother.”

Then the mossmen closed in, pressing down on him so tightly that Elijah could no longer distinguish his Gamma from the monsters that gripped him.