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Chapter Ten

Fated

Rythos

The Mourning Woods darkened the horizon, and despite the late afternoon sun drenching everything in golden light, there was a coolness to the air.

We rode towards the unnatural place, where the veil between the Seven Hells and Lumireth were thinnest. Where monsters crept from to prey on innocents.

Umbra whinnied beneath me, already unsettled despite the distance between us and the woods.

I had lived here for the first fifty years of my miserable new life, until Cerilla had found me.

I forced the memory down and focused instead on the steady thrum of hooves against sodden earth.

After an entire day of riding, we had fallen silent and I had steered Umbra a length in front of the others.

Even Solas had stopped his exasperating whistling, and the prince his endless questions. Caelum, who usually preferred silence as much as I did, had indulged him earlier. But not here.

The woods had a way of stealing sound.

An unnatural shiver passed through me as we crossed the threshold. The air shifted instantly, thick with the scent of rot and damp earth.

The trees loomed around us, skeletal and wrong. Their trunks twisted skyward like reaching hands, bark split and blackened as though something beneath the surface had tried to claw its way out. No wind touched this place, yet the branches creaked softly, whispering to one another in a language even I did not understand.

I pulled on Umbra’s reins, and he stopped with a huff and a shake of his mane.

“This place is…” Aldric trailed off, looking around with a displeased expression. Despite riding horseback since dawn, the prince looked as though he was still living in a palace. Apart from the deep purple smears under his eyes that proved he hadn’t slept.

“Terrifying?” Solas finished, flashing him a grin. “That’s because it is.”

I swung off Umbra, boots hitting the forest floor with a dull crunch. I ran a hand down his neck, feeling the tension coiled beneath his skin.

“Water the horses,” I ordered without looking back. “The forest is too thick for them beyond this point.”

The faint scent of sulphur curled through the air, pulling me towards the Fire Fates.

I knew the path all too well.

“I am coming with you,” Caelum said, falling into step beside me and running a hand over his stubble.

If it were a question, I would have told him no. But the firm tone in his voice was one I had no energy to challenge.

We walked in silence through the Mourning Woods, the quiet so complete it seemed to press against my skin. Even our footsteps felt too loud beneath the dead branches. But the most unsettling part was the absence of heartbeats.

“They are gone,” I muttered, eyebrows pulling together. Even between Maraveth’s life cycles, monsters still infested theses woods.

“The night Lyra was taken there were multiple villages attacked,” Caelum said, sliding his sword back into its sheath.

The darkness inside me coiled around my heart and squeezed at the mention of her name.

“I fear they are not here anymore, because they are destroying everything else,” he added solemnly.

Mere months ago, the prospect of my Kingdom crawling with monsters would have made my blood boil. Lumireth and my family were the only things I cared for.

Now, the truth made guilt churn in my gut. I would burn it all down myself if it meant saving her.

Perhaps that made me no longer fit to rule. I would be dead soon anyway, and the man next to me was the only one I would trust on my throne.