15.

  Faelwen

  The magic I had used to heal myself had sapped every ounce of my strength. I spent days drifting in and out of sleep, waking only when Artemis nudged me to eat or drink.

  At times, I caught Ash’s faint voice whispering to me, even when he thought I was sleeping. He said the he had started to worry the moment my eyes started to light up in a silver colour. Intricate elvish sigils had emerged across my entire skin like ancient warnings.

  Ash feared the Weave was unravelling me from within. But I hadn’t told him about the voice in my head or the binding spell that severed me from the Weave’s power. I knew I shouldn’t have used the residue of my magic to heal myself. The cost had been devastating.

  My body had wasted away in mere minutes, leaving me a shadow of my former self. It took days to recover. Exhaustion kept me pinned to the earth, indifferent to the sun’s punishing heat.

  Ash did his best to shield me, crafting a makeshift tent from my cloak and his tattered jacket. At night, when the air turned bitterly cold, he dismantled it to wrap around us, curling close to keep me warm. Artemis, ever watchful, stood sentinel during the dark hours, sleeping only when the sun was high.

  As days blurred together, I slowly regained strength. Ash began to share fragments of his past, and through his stories, I came to understand the weight he carried. We were huddled together around the campfire when he told me about his family.

  “Me and Maeve, my younger sister, were the only ones who had inherited the magical abilities from our father. But just like many magi, my father too was afraid to use it,” he said, staring into the flames.

  “Because of the Hunters?” I asked. He nodded.

  “Yes, and he wasn’t kind to us when we defied him. In fact…” he grimaced, “I’ve got the scars to show you.”

  “That’s awful. I can’t imagine a parent hurting his child like that,” I mumbled. Ash shrugged.

  “My father never was a man who could handle his emotions well. It got worse when my mother and Maeve fell ill. An illness that the healers couldn’t heal.”

  He fell silent, biting his lower lip as he turned his face away from me.

  “What happened next?” I asked hesitantly, afraid he might fall apart. I wrapped an arm around him, leaning my head on his shoulder. “You don’t have to tell,” I added.

  “No, it’s okay. I left when I was nineteen to find a cure for my parents. And when I thought I’d found it… I was too late and had worked myself in a bit of a…” he fell silent again. I waited, giving him the space to let his emotions be, whatever they might be. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he grabbed a stick and started poking at the fire. I felt like he didn’t tell me everything. Like he kept something important from me.

  “What about Orion?” I asked, hoping he would tell me more.

  “I was so angry. Blaming the High King for the death of my mother and of Maeve,” he admitted, his voice laced with regret. “I thought that they could make a difference, you know? Create a world where mages wouldn’t be hunted down. Where my sister could’ve grown up without fear. But…” he trailed off with a bitter sigh.

  “I understand. That must’ve been tough.” I said, sensing the ache in his voice. He turned away for a moment, shoulders taut. A quiet settled between us, until he turned back to face me.

  “Thanks.” He murmured, brushing a strand of hair from my face. “You know, I feel like you might be someone who would understand me.”

  His words surprised me, since we barely knew each other. But it also gave me a sense of hope.

  “You know, I thought you were going to bring more trouble than I can handle. I thought you were unreliable,” I chuckled, playfully nudging his side. “But you might not be so bad after all.”

  He didn’t return the smile, but kept staring at the fire.

  “Yeah.” Was all he said, leaving me with a strange feeling in my stomach and renewed doubt about his reliability.

  ? ? ?

  It took a total of ten days to recover fully. We had travelled little, moving slowly along the edges of the marshes. During those days, Ash and I had forged a fragile friendship. Even Artemis seemed to slowly accept him as part of our pack. The feeling of doubt, I had earlier, retreated to the back of my mind.

  We laughed at the relentless swarm of mosquitoes that left us covered in red welts wherever we went, some so swollen they made my knees look deformed. Ash often teased me about them, and I retaliated by mocking the massive bite on his eyebrow.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  We found small joys amid the hardship. Our plan was to speed up our travels and set out for Erandur the next day. But fate had other plans.

  I awoke abruptly to the sound of Artemis growling, low and sharp, a sound that froze the blood in my veins. His warning was clear: danger.

  Propping myself on one elbow, I nudged Ash awake with the other. He groaned, blinking groggily before following my gaze into the mist. Artemis crouched low, his hackles raised and tail tucked between his legs.

  Something dangerous is approaching. A demon. I can smell it. I heard Artemis’s voice resound in my head. My breath hitched. Images of the Black Widow, the half dead necromancer and Malignus flashed before my eyes.

  “Demon,” I whispered to Ash. He was on his feet instantly, gathering our belongings with practiced speed. I quickly got dressed and grabbed my bow.

  I notched an arrow, my muscles trembling with both exhaustion and fear. Whatever approached would feel the bite of iron before it touched us. The horse with whom we fled from the necromancers, started softly whinnying out of fear. But what emerged from the mist wasn’t what we expected.

  Ash stood behind me and I could hear him gasp for air. Out of the grey mist a boat glided silently toward us, spectral and deliberate, its silhouette faint against the pale marsh fog. My pulse thundered as dread clawed at my chest. Stories of the Fiend flickered in my mind.

  My arm started shaking and therefore the arrow too.

  Then came the voice.

  “Ash…” The air seemed to vibrate with its rasping croak. I glanced to Ash and saw pure terror etched into his face. He stared at the boat, pale as death, his breath hitching in shallow gasps.

  “Ash, my boy…” The voice was crooked and hoarse, scraping against the silence of the swamp.

  Wen! Artemis’s voice boomed in my mind, jolting me to action. I slung my bow over my shoulder and grabbed Ash, pulling him toward the horse who was frantically tramping the ground trying to break free. With one arm, I tried to steady the frightened animal. With the other, I tried to push Ash up the horse.

  “Come to me… Ash… bring me…” The voice continued.

  “Move!” I snapped at Ash, dragging him out of his stupor. Together, we scrambled onto the horse. Ash seized the reins and urged the beast into a gallop. The horse reared up and neighed before galloping away from the boat. Artemis running along beside us.

  The voice followed us, its final cry haunted us before disappearing in the sounds of the darkness.

  “THE ELFLING!”

  We rode hard until the horse and Artemis could go no further. The Marshes swallowed the world around us, a murky labyrinth of sinking ground and rotting vegetation.

  “Where are we?” I caught myself whispering, even though the boat hadn’t followed us. I still felt like we didn’t lose it completely.

  “I’m not sure. I think we ran more east. I can’t see the main road nor the hills anymore,” Ash whispered back. His voice still shaking from the shock. We continued to walk in silence, feeling a little numb.

  Exhaustion weighed heavy on us and we wanted to stop were it not for the treacherous ground, which suddenly became so murky the horse last its footing.

  Without warning, the horse’s legs buckled as the swamp began to claim it. Neighing in fear as his feet slipped away and he started to sink. I heard Artemis yelp and saw one of his paws slump into the slimy ground. He jumped aside to a dry piece of land and looked frightened at us.

  The horse is sinking! He yelled in my head.

  “Get off the horse!” I yelled. Ash leaped from the horse’s back. He landed in knee-deep muck, struggling toward solid ground. I cursed.

  “The ground is dragging me down as well!” Ash cried out. Panic started to rise in me as he started making his way towards harder ground, grabbing hold of a branch to pull himself out of the mud. When he was back on hard ground, he was covered in green slime from waist to feet. Here and there some plants and leaves slid down his waist.

  The horse thrashed wildly, its cries sharp with panic. I was clinging onto his neck and threw the reins towards Ash. He caught them deftly and started to pull.

  “Come on, beast! Give me all your strength.”

  The horse neighed and tried to wriggle itself free from the mud, but only sank in deeper. Artemis also grabbed the reins with his jaw and started pulling.

  You need to get off the horse, Wen. I heard his voice in my head. I looked down over the neck of the horse and saw the threatening green moss water bubbling. In that moment, I swore to never again travel through the Marshes.

  My nose filled with the horrific smell of rotting plants and animals that the Marshes seemed to spill out of its waters. I took a deep breath and let myself drop from the horse’s saddle. The cold, dirty mud surrounded me immediately. I instantly sank waist deep into it.

  The minute I slid off the horse, he got sucked in even more. His whole backside was gone into the slimy green mud.

  “No!” I heard myself cry. I made my way to his head and started pulling from there to try and get him out of it. But he only seemed to slip away more and more. Ash jumped in the water too and dragged all our bags away from the mud that threatened to disappear them in it. I looked back at the horse, his eyes widened in fear begging me to not let go of him.

  “We can’t save him, darling,” Ash said to me while he threw our bags on the dry ground. I studied the horse. Only half his front legs and his neck were still above the mud. I felt myself being dragged down further as well.

  “No!” I cried again. I grasped at its mane, pulling with every ounce of strength I had left. Its wide, terrified eyes met mine. My heart shattered.

  “It’s no use, Wen,” Ash said gently, making his way to me and prying me away. I felt Ash’s arms around my waist, dragging me away from the horse.

  “No! please! We need to help him!” I fought him, but he was way stronger than I was and easily dragged me along towards dry ground.

  “Darling, he’s gone.” Ash only said tiredly. I looked pleadingly at Artemis.

  I’m sorry, Wen. He’s right. We can’t help the poor creature. The mud will only drag us down as well.

  “I… I…” I couldn’t find the words. Tears streamed down my face as I collapsed on the ground, wracked with guilt. The horse, its desperate neighing fading into silence, as the Marshes claimed his life.

  There was nothing we could do as we stared at the poor creature. Becoming one with the Marshes.

  How could this have happened? Ash tried to comfort me, but the grief in combination with the exhaustion was too raw. Even after the horse was gone, its cries echoed in my mind, a haunting reminder of the cost of survival.

  We were alone now, stranded in the Marshes with no clear path forward. And the shadows of the Fiend still lingered in the mist.