Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(40)

It had happened so fast that I did not even have the wherewithal to shout, but Wendell did not hesitate. He lunged after Deilah, who was being dragged into the forest by two other corrupted deara. I could not follow exactly what he did, for he moved far too fast, but I saw the aftermath well enough: two heads went tumbling past me. He shoved his sister back, for another deara had lunged at him out of the mist, and she tripped and rolled down the hillside after the heads.

Lord Taran, meanwhile, was driving his sword into a creature I did not immediately recognize, which looked like a deer gone scabby and ethereal, like the others. The mist, meanwhile, was roiling like water in a heated pot.

I ran to Deilah’s side and helped her to her feet—the girl was gasping and clutching at her throat, which was developing a nasty bruise from the deara’s grip—and then Lord Wherry was there, dragging the both of us down the hill.

“Wendell—” I cried, still half stupefied. I kept thinking, Too fast. This has come apart too fast.

“The king can take care of himself, you silly creature,” Lord Wherry said. “We must get you two back to the horses.”

But we had travelled only a few paces before Lord Taran caught up with us. I thought for a moment that he’d joined us in fleeing the scene, but then, to my astonishment, he dealt Lord Wherry a backhanded blow that sent the man sprawling.

“What are you doing?” I cried. “He’s helping us. There’s no need—”

“Oh, but there is,” Taran drawled. “I have a great curiosity to see how this phenomenon affects the nobility. Councillors are easily replaced, my queen.”

Lord Wherry shrieked and tried to flee. Taran gestured, and a gust of wind knocked Lord Wherry off his feet.

“We can’t have that, my lord,” he said, and then, in a motion as casual as the one he’d used to crush the insects, he lifted his boot and stamped on Lord Wherry’s leg. A sickening crack resounded through the grove.

Deilah screamed—I pulled her to me and pressed her face into my neck. Just in time, too: though there seemed to be no need for it, for Lord Wherry lay still on the forest floor, moaning, Taran lifted his boot again and broke his other leg.

I choked down my own scream, bile rising in my throat. Lord Taran seized the blubbering Lord Wherry by the collar of his cloak and dragged him easily through the trees, and then he tossed him into the rippling dark.

Lord Wherry’s cries were abruptly silenced.

I felt as if I were rooted to the forest floor, staring dumbly at the place where Lord Wherry had vanished. The breeze smelled of smoke, and through the trees came a bright flickering. The guards had started a fire, but how long would it take to reduce this cursed place to ash? Wendell finished dispatching the deara, as well as several corrupted brownies, and left the remaining guards to handle the other spectral figures who rose up out of the mist.

“We’ve seen enough,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over Deilah’s sobs.

I nodded, because even through it all—the horror of the grove, the greater horror of Lord Taran’s brutality, Deilah’s blubbering—I found a theory surfacing in my mind, like a single bright fish rising through troubled waters.

“I think—” I began, but what I had been about to say next twisted into a shriek.

Lord Wherry had risen from the dark. He too was draped in mist now, his eyes unseeing. I could not make sense of it. Only moments ago he had been a living, breathing person, one whom I had been speaking with; now it was as if the vitality and substance, the very personhood had been drained from him, leaving behind only the outline of what once had been, like a shed snakeskin.

Wendell turned quickly enough to meet Lord Wherry’s sword—I use that word only loosely; it had the translucence of ice. That was the most terrifying thing about these wraiths—my rational mind kept telling me that they should not have been able to touch us; the mist seemed to transform them into itself as it claimed them. They should have been like the monsters under a child’s bed, a presence that could frighten but not harm.

Wendell parried and thrust his sword into Lord Wherry’s chest, and the man collapsed back into the mist.

“My curiosity has been sated,” Lord Taran said grimly. “Our kind is not immune to the corrupting influence of this grove. As I would prefer not to become an unthinking puppet in my dear sister’s revenge plot, I suggest we depart.”

It was as he spoke the last word that I heard a whoosh of air, and felt something solid strike me. Solid—and slightly bony. I rolled down the slope, having little idea what was happening. It was only when I came to a crashing halt against a tree trunk that I understood: Deilah had leapt upon me, sending the both of us tumbling down the hill, and sparing me from probable decapitation, for the whoosh had come from a sword.

I felt something warm slip down my forehead, and pressed my hand to it. I stared at the bright red staining my palm—the sword had cut my scalp.

“Emily!” Wendell shouted, horror sharpening his voice. He had locked swords with the person who had tried to maim me, and sent her reeling back. It was the guard who had been killed by the deara—the corruption had claimed her as she lay forgotten where she had fallen.

“I’m fine,” I called, trying to reassure him before I was even certain it was true. Fortunately, as I took stock of myself, I found I was right—the cut was shallow, though it was bleeding a great deal.