Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 109477 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109477 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
He huffed out a laugh that turned into a series of coughs. He put his weight on her, and she held on to his arm to keep from reaching around his side and coming into contact with more of the ooze. Her knife was tucked away, and she held his in her free hand. She’d drop him like a sack of garbage if she needed to meet an attack.
A sack of garbage? he thought as they reached the end of the tunnel. I thought the human saying was sack of potatoes.
Another saying is—when the shoe fits. Pain still thrummed in her back, somewhat localized but making her vision distort in pulses. That probably wasn’t good.
It’s happening to me, too, he said as he pointed southeast. Only, it’s darkening my vision, like it’s threatening to cut out my ability to see entirely.
Not good.
Probably not, no.
The night lay still and dark around them. The land curled up into a bank on their right, where strange trees with twisted trunks towered over them. Their branches reached out like skeletal arms, their leaves long, weaving together like an oddly colored quilt. Light fog hazed the uneven path, hiding sharp rocks and loose logs so that travelers might stumble and hopefully fall. Once they were on the ground, they were easier to deal with. Easier to bleed.
Fangs brightened her mind’s eye, sharp and dripping with saliva. Red eyes, the pupils circled with yellow. Bristling bodies. Hair tipped with razors, watching them. Waiting for them.
One was sick.
Another was weak.
The eating will be good.
Are you hearing these thoughts? she asked him with a slight quickening of her heart. Or is this the poison presenting me to myself and I’m just now realizing I should’ve been going to therapy these last few years?
It is not the poison. It is not your thoughts, and I am once again surprised and impressed. You have an innate ability to understand the subtle or hidden atmosphere of your surroundings, it seems. Or maybe you are meant to be in Faerie.
I am most definitely not meant to be in Faerie, and I’d greatly love some insight into what’s going on.
He coughed again, his body heaving. There are any number of creatures around us that could be thinking those same thoughts. Your mind is giving the consciousness of the wylds one face, when in reality, it presents as many faces. The trees there drink the blood of the fallen, rejoicing when death soaks into their roots. A great many things in this area kill for sport. Many more feed on only rotting carcasses. Still more will enchant you and lead you away to dance and play until you are dying of starvation and thirst, never having remembered to eat or sleep. Certain parts of the wylds are very treacherous. You must always stay vigilant.
She sighed and continued on. Same shit, different realm. She’d have to learn a whole new set of warning signals and danger beacons but…well, what else did she have to do? Might as well start now.
Start fast-thinking about everything you know, she said, stepping over a rock and feeling a sigh of annoyance that she should find it. They seemed fairly simple, these wylds. They must deal with stupid creatures fairly often if her seeing a rock was their big letdown. You know how you did in the Faegate, when you flicked through images and experiences and—
The memories came fast, almost faster than she could handle. Once she got into the flow of it, though, she was able to sift through his various experiences, noticing the creatures, their dangers, their tells. As they trudged on, tired, weary, soon-to-be half-naked because she could feel the poison soaking into her shirt and tingling her skin, she did her homework on this new and not-as-terrifying-as-she-had-previously-thought place.
The wylds are not terrifying, no, he said, the tone of his thoughts weakened even more. They are treacherous, as I’ve said, but then, so are we. So are you. They are beautiful if you see them the right way. Majestic. Really fucking disturbing, though, most of them.
So then…like you, she surmised with a grin, pausing to rip off her shirt, wipe him down with it, and toss it aside.
He didn’t so much as spare her near-nudity a glance. Like you. He paused as they reached a fork. He thought about the direction, leaning against her heavily. He was fading fast.
I’m good, he said, and if he thought his admission was believable, he was sorely mistaken. I’ll make it, he tried again, and maybe that was truer. It’s not far now. The wylds have rules, and the Celestials mostly do their duty in managing the balance. This part is a bit…deranged, which is why they end up in the catacombs, but that’s because it’s an extension of the fringe. In other parts of the wyld, there are some truly beautiful places with lovely creatures and kind beings. They’re in secretive places that not many of my kind know about.