Immortal Consequences(38)

She had to make a choice.

Left it is.

The path was dark and narrow, sharp branches protruding from the hedge. Every few seconds, she swore she heard something rustling just behind her, or maybe in front of her, but when she swung her light toward the noise, there was never anything there.

She had taken another left turn when something came hurtling through the darkness.

There was a flurry of movement. A startled gasp.

Wren stumbled backward as whatever it was smacked her hard in the center of her chest. A brief moment of confusion disrupted her senses as she regained her balance, hands frantically reaching out to take hold of whatever had bumped into her. And that was when she spotted the familiar face looking back at her.

“Masika?”

Before Wren could say anything else, Masika dove behind her, slapping a hand over her mouth, and pushed her to the ground. Wren let out a muffled scream and writhed against Masika’s arms in an attempt to break free.

“Shh.” Masika tightened her grip. “Please. Be quiet.”

The desperation in her voice startled Wren into silence. Before she could ask Masika what had happened, a strange whistle began to echo in the distance. It grew in intensity with every passing second, until the sound was so loud that it rattled the leaves dangling from the branches.

The hairs on the back of Wren’s neck rose in warning.

A set of bony, translucent fingers wrapped around the edge of the hedge, one finger emerging at a time, long and crooked. The hand was a sickly shade of white, light blue veins visible through the thin skin, which was coated in blistering sores. An eye appeared. And then another. And another. Until a face full of red, grotesque eyes stared back at them, the eyes emerging from the hedge one by one.

The creature stood at a terrifying height, nearly taller than the hedges themselves, and had long, slender limbs with pointed claws. Wren counted eight eyes in total—eight bloodred eyes glancing around in different directions.

She was certain it must have seen them, that there was no conceivable way it hadn’t noticed them crouched only a few yards off, but then she realized Masika had thrown her hand up, a golden sphere sprouting from her palm.

A cloaking enchantment.

They were invisible.

Wren held her breath as the creature stalked forward, its limbs cracking, each movement sickly and wrong. Though it couldn’t see them, the creature paused only a few feet from where they were hunched on the ground and sniffed the air.

They waited, the two of them not daring to breathe, not daring to utter a single word. And then the creature turned away, retreating down the path until it turned the corner and vanished into the darkness.

A few terrifying seconds of silence passed, nothing but the faint howl of the wind around them. Once it was clear the creature wasn’t coming back, Masika dropped her hand and Wren gasped in a strangled breath.

“What the hell was that?” she choked out.

“I have no idea.” Masika wiped her hands on her nightgown. She had clearly been snatched from her bed as well. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I…I remember getting to my room after being at Olivier’s.” Wren racked her brain, carefully skipping over the painful memories of her conversation with August. “I fell asleep. And then there were two figures hovering over my bed. I think…I think they sedated me.”

Masika crossed her arms. “Come on, Wren. Think.”

Wren’s breath hitched in her throat as the realization sank its claws into her chest. “No. It can’t be…Silas said we’d receive a letter. He said we would—”

“He lied,” Masika interjected. “This is the Decennial. This is the first trial.”

They stood there for a moment, eyes drilling into one another.

And then Wren asked the question she assumed they both were thinking. “Well…now what do we do?”

Masika pointed forward, into the darkness stretching endlessly in front of them.

“Now…we keep moving.”

* * *

Wren was beginning to lose her patience. It felt as though they had been walking for hours, each sharp turn sending them straight into another narrow path, endlessly walking through the tangle of vegetation and prickly branches.

“I’m not saying your advice to keep moving wasn’t sensible,” Wren huffed, crossing her arms over her chest, “but perhaps it’s time we consider some sort of alternative plan.”

Masika rolled her eyes, swatting away a vine that had begun to coil itself around her shoulder. “Well, go ahead. I’m all ears.”

“We could try relocating—”

“Already tried that,” Masika interjected. “There’s a spacial barrier around the maze.”

“Dammit.”

“If we had a weapon we could try to hack our way through, but…” Masika gestured to her nightgown. “I’m not exactly hiding a dagger under here.”

Wren chuckled grimly. Of course. The one night she decided not to sleep with her dagger nearby was the one night she desperately needed it.

“Well, maybe we should rest,” she suggested. “That way we can properly brainstorm a plan.”

Wren wasn’t entirely sure why, but Masika seemed instantly rattled by Wren’s suggestion, her eyes darkening.

“No.” She shook her head. “We shouldn’t stop. There’s no telling what else is out there.”