Page 67
“We need to go.” Kelaros gathers our scattered supplies with frantic efficiency, his fingers shaking as he stuffs crystal fragments into his coat pockets.
“What’s happening?” I throw the strap of the makeshift pouch holding my supplement crystals across my chest and rise, my hand on my knife hilt.
Kelaros doesn’t pause in his packing. “We’re about to be attacked. Again.”
“You said the one we killed would scare off the others.” Suspicion, always at a low simmer, flares to life. “Your exact words were ‘we should be safe until daylight.’”
He flashes me a tight smile. “I know what I said before. And that’s usually the case.”
“Usually?”
“The court has tasted your blood.” He gestures toward the crimson veins branching through the Great Hall. “It changes things.”
“How?” I demand, suspicion snapping into place.
He tips his chin toward my makeshift bandage, where blood has seeped through in a starburst pattern. “The court is starving. You’ve given it a drop of what it craves most.”
“And what’s that?”
“Life.” He stands, slinging his makeshift pack over his shoulder. “Royal blood would be better, but any will do.”
I turn back toward the light. The crystals shimmer with the same distortion as heat rising from sun-warmed pavement, warping reality into strange, elongated shapes. The distortion thickens, solidifying into a stag with legs too slender for its massive frame.
Each limb gleams with faceted crystal, which splits light into rainbows where it touches the ground. Its body rises taller than any natural deer, antlers branching toward the sky in crystalline patterns too perfect to be born of nature.
Its ribs form an open latticework cage, revealing empty space where organs should be. Only its heart exists, suspended within the hollow cavity, a pulsing crystal lantern shifting through every shade of opal light.
Its face bears no flesh, no muscle, only a skeletal structure of translucent crystal. Where eyes should be, empty sockets burn with pale fire that casts no warmth.
It watches us with ancient hunger, its ribs expanding and contracting with steady inhales and exhales, though its breath forms no fog despite the biting cold radiating from its form.
“Is that what I think it is?” I whisper, not daring to break eye contact with the creature.
“The hollow stag.” Kelaros backs away slowly, one palm raised in warning. “Don’t run yet.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
I grip my knife tighter, assessing the creature’s structure for weaknesses. The joints where crystal meets crystal might give way under my blade, or perhaps the glowing heart is vulnerable.
“We can’t fight it.” Kelaros rushes to my side. “It doesn’t tire. It doesn’t suffer. It will run us until our hearts burst.”
I risk a quick glance at him. “Then what’s your plan?”
“There’s a passage nearby that should be too narrow for it to follow. We need to reach it before it charges.”
The stag takes a single step forward, hooves ringing on the crystalline ground. The sound catches in the vast space, multiplying until it sounds as if a herd is coming toward us.
Kelaros tenses beside me. “Time to move. Now.”
As I take a cautious step backward, its antlers tilt forward in answer, poised to strike.
“How fast can you run with that wound?” Kelaros asks.
The gash in my side throbs. My magic did enough to keep me from bleeding out but not enough to fully heal the damage. “Fast enough.”
“On my count.” He shifts his balance onto the balls of his feet. “The passage is behind us, third corridor on the left.”
The stag remains unnervingly still, watching our preparations with what could almost be amusement.
