In the Shadows (18 page)

We walk purposefully slow and ever watchful for signs of an impending ambush from the Dark Elves.

A sudden movement in the trees catches my eye and is accompanied by a faint growling that breaks the silence. My head snaps up and I freeze, putting my arm up instinctively to stop Adele from running into my back.

“Did you guys hear that?” I ask, but of course they did and their eyes are already trained in the direction the movement originated from.

“What is it?”  I whisper. Even with the light I’m still straining to make out the shape of the unknown creature, when at least twenty birds, the size of German Shepherds, appear out of nowhere. Perched on the thorny white branches of the surrounding trees, they are eyeing us curiously.  They appear striking with black, white, and blue stripes and might even be kind of beautiful if not for their bright red, unnatural looking eyes. Their leathery heads are featherless and their bills are hooked like those of a vulture. They look much too big to be birds of flight, but how else did they get up in those trees?

“What do we do?” I whisper through tight lips, afraid that these creatures might respond negatively to any sudden movements. “Do you think they can see us?”

“I don’t know. Back away slowly,” Grey answers through his clenched teeth. He leads, taking a slow step back, setting his foot down as gingerly as possible but a twig snaps underneath his feet and we get our answer.

The feverish flapping of wings surrounds us from every angle and I’m reminded of the Alfred Hitchcock horror movie “The Birds” the way they’re all swarming around us at once.  I remember watching that movie late one night and laughing, not really understanding how people could find a movie about birds so terrifying back in the day.

Now I do.

The razor sharp beaks and talons slash at our arms, faces, and torsos. Everything’s a flurry of black and blue feathers and the red of terrifying eyes and blood from the gashes the birds are inflicting on our bodies.

“Run!” I scream, and we take off into the trees. There’s no way we’d be able to outrun these aberrant monstrosities but that doesn’t stop us from trying. We stumble across an old creaky bridge over a dark river with a rushing current.

“Over there,” Adele screams as she beelines toward the structure that could possibly offer us a little protection from the airborne attack.

“Get down!” Grey yells as he grabs a tree branch and starts swinging it in the air. He's successful in knocking down one heavy bird but his branch snaps in half in the process. He rips another one off of a nearby tree and swings it back and forth trying to scare off the fearless birds.

Adele and I hide under the lowest part of the bridge where the ground is still dry, but it doesn’t stop the birds from still trying to get to us. Their steel beaks pierce through the cracks in the wood planks like swords. We hunch down with our arms desperately covering our faces, knowing it is insufficient protection from the evil creatures.

“What are we going to do?” I scream out to Adele. She's covered in blood and looks like she was pushed through a stained glass window and I’m sure I look the same. 

“I don’t know!”

“We have to do something. Grey won’t be able to hold them off for long. What if they don't stop?”

“I know, just give me a minute to think—wait,” she says, lowering her hands. “I have an idea.” She starts to climb out from under the bridge.

“No, Adele, wait!” I call after her.

She steps out from underneath the protection of the bridge and the birds are immediately on her, picking away at her hair and skin. She grimaces in pain, but she doesn’t stop. She holds her arms out to the side like a “T” and closes her eyes in determination.

I hear the swooshing and rumbling sound of hurricane strength winds whirling around her. The birds are thrown unsteadily off their course, but she doesn’t stop there. Now that they’ve stopped attacking her she’s able to gather all of her strength. I can feel the change of pressure in the air as she pulls her hands close to her chest with her palms facing outward and with the grunt of a weight-lifter maxing out; she pushes the air away from her taking all the flesh-eating birds with it. She collapses to her knees and the forest is eerily quiet once more.

I rush toward her, followed by a limping Grey who falls to his knees beside her.

“I’m fine. I just need a minute,” she says breathlessly.

I nervously place my hands on her, wondering if it will even work, but taking the chance that I’ll be able to heal Adele despite being unable to do the same for Isobel. Immediately the tingling sensation takes over and I feel the golden liquid being siphoned out of me and into Adele as the gashes covering her body slowly vanish before my eyes.

Obviously, I'm not broken, I can still heal. So why couldn’t I heal Isobel?

“Thank you,” she says with a sigh of relief.

“No problem.” Then I do the same for Grey and finally myself.

“What were those things?” I ask once we’re all back in one piece.

“I’ve never seen anything like them.” Grey admits.

“How did they see us through the glamour? Are you sure you did it right?” What if the Dökkálfar will be able to see through it too?

“Yes, of course I’m sure,” Grey retorts defensively. “They must have been able to smell us or something.”

“Are you sure?”
              “Quite, thank you very much. I am so glad that after everything we’ve been through you can still doubt me.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you—” I sigh in exasperation. There’s no point wasting any more time.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I trust you. Can we just move on?”

I’m nervous to see what else awaits us between here and our destination—those mountains seem even farther away now somehow. But I also know that there’s no other choice. We have to do this.

I have to do this.

As soon as we’re all healed and rested we head out in hopes of covering a lot more land while there’s still enough light for us to see, and praying to Sól that the rest of the day is much less eventful.

For some reason, I doubt we are that lucky. I chalk it up to previous experience, but somehow I know that this scary stuff is just beginning.

“Does that bridge look safe?” I ask, eying the creaky old bridge that looks like it’s made from rotted wood.

“No,” Grey affirms. “But unless you want to cross through the river I suggest we give it a go.”

“Can’t we just transport to the other side?” I ask. “I mean, it’s right there, we can see it.”

“We could, but because there are three of us, it might cause a strong enough disturbance in the air that it could attract unwanted attention. Remember Dugan is a Spirit user, he’s particularly sensitive to things like that,” Adele explains. “We’d be better off traveling by foot as much as we can.”

“Grey and I transported together right into Dugan’s castle and went unnoticed,” I argue.

“Yes, but I believe Dugan and the rest of the Dökkálfar were a little preoccupied at the time, were they not?” Adele reminds me.

“Fine,” I say, grimacing at the memory of Jacoby being tied up from the ceilings in chains. Dugan was brutally beating him, trying to convince him to turn me over to the Dark Elves.

“I think we should cross one at a time,” Grey suggests. “I will go first.”

Grey takes a hesitant step and the bridge groans in protest. It’s narrow enough for him to reach both sides of the railing with his arms outstretched and he grips it, sliding his hands down the railing as he continues crossing slowly, one step at a time until he makes it to the other side.

Adele goes next, and once she makes it across, it’s my turn.

My instinct is to run across the dilapidated boards but I force myself to follow suit and take one slow step at a time.  The bridge is even weaker than it looks. I’m so distracted by the creaks and groans of the unsteady bridge below my feet that I’m not paying close enough attention to where I’m stepping. My foot catches on a slightly raised plank, causing me to stumble over my feet and land on my stomach just as three of the rotted planks break away beneath me with one violent-sounding snap. I hear Adele gasp but I dare not move for fear that any sudden movement would cause more planks to break away and to be honest, taking a plunge into the dark foamy river below isn’t exactly on my ‘things to do’ list today.

But I also know I can’t exactly just lie here forever; the bridge will collapse beneath my weight eventually.

Grey runs toward the bridge. When he steps on to it, the whole thing sways in protest.

“Don’t!” Adele yells out in distress.

Grey pauses, a pained expression of hopelessness distorting his otherwise handsome face. “Just transport.”

“You guys just told me we shouldn’t do that,” I remind him, careful not to talk too loud for fear that the simple rising of my chest will be enough to cause the bridge to deteriorate further.

“I don’t really think we have much choice. Just do it.”

I stare at the spot where Grey is standing just on the other side of the foamy river. He's looking at me with such worry in his eyes that it causes an ache in my chest. I memorize his face, using him as my focal point, burning the image of him in my mind.

I take a deep breath in preparation for transporting as the bridge finally gives away with one loud groan. I fall among the rusty nails and decaying wood toward the foamy river below, nothing but flailing arms and an earsplitting scream of turmoil.

I squeeze my eyes shut and then I’m there, in Grey’s arms, surrounded by the smoky, dust-filled air and reverberation.

We continue to stand there wrapped in each other’s arms, my heart beating wildly, too afraid to let go of this little piece of comfort when Adele clears her throat loudly.

Just like that I’m snapped back into reality. I take a step back, looking at anything and everything except for Grey.

“Sorry,” I mutter. “We should probably keep going.”

“We can take a minute if you need it,” Adele offers sympathetically.

“No, we need to get this over with as soon as possible so we can return to Álfheimr. Isobel and Jacoby are counting on us.”

I walk on toward the mountains, not looking back to make sure they are following me because, really, what does it matter? It’d probably be better if I stayed as far away from Grey as possible while we are down here. I don’t know what’s going on, or why Grey and I continue to find ourselves in such compromising positions, but it needs to stop. He's not the one I turn to for comfort any more. At least, he's not supposed to be and just because Jacoby isn’t here, doesn’t mean that Grey gets to take his place. I just need to keep my focus. 

So I trudge on purposefully, my right hand in the pocket of my jeans clutching the piece of paper Finnegan gave me.  My mind spins once again, trying to come up with a plan to ditch Grey and Adele and follow the map to the Black Crystal. The sooner I can heal Isobel and prove Jacoby’s innocence the better.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he three of us are tense and nervous when darkness starts to fall despite the fact that we haven’t been attacked by any more creepy birds or nearly plummeted to our death in the last four hours. The forest remains uneventful, but the sky is darkening. We will have to stop soon.

We didn’t make nearly as much progress as I had hoped. I thought it would only take a few hours for us to find the flowers but we’re barely halfway there. It’s disappointing.

“I think perhaps it would be best for us to call it a day,” Adele suggests, “while there’s still enough light for us to set up camp.”

A part of me just wants to keep going, but I think about the flesh-eating birds and decide that I really don’t want to see what other types of creatures go bump in the night.

I offer both of them one of my chocolate granola bars. It’s not much of a dinner but it’s better than nothing. So far we haven’t come across anything edible in the Underworld and we aren’t even sure if we would be able to eat from the plants here anyway. For all we know, the vegetation here could be as poisonous to Light Elves as the
Noctis vigeo
flower petals.

I nibble small bites of my pitiful dinner, staring into the small fire we started, hypnotized by the flickering orange flames. My thoughts drift back and forth between Jacoby, Isobel and Hannah and the pain in my chest becomes more overwhelming with each beat of my heart but I can’t stop thinking about them, fearing for them.

The threat of failure sits heavily on my shoulders, pressing me down to the point of collapse.

The shrinking fire flickers faintly before extinguishing itself completely. Grey tries unsuccessfully a few times to relight it.  It’s times like these I wish I had inherited my father’s elemental power of Fire instead of Spirit.  That would be a useful ability right about now.

“We need more wood,” he says, clearly annoyed with himself. “That’s why the flames died. We weren’t replenishing it enough.”

It’s pitch black again and apparently I’m not the only one too cowardly to venture out amongst the trees in the dark because Adele says, “We can’t go out there. We can’t see a thing.”

“I’m not sure what other choice we have.” Grey responds.

It’s seriously like they forget about me or just assume I’m completely incapable of helping in any way. I mean, I know that I can’t magically blend us all in to our surroundings like Grey. And that I didn’t help get rid of the birds. That was all Adele, even though Grey was very valiant in his own failed efforts, but I am the one who healed them afterwards. And that’s not the only thing I’m capable of doing.

“I could just, oh, I don’t know,” I say flippantly, “maybe harness the sun for light. You do know that I
can
do that, right?” I add arrogantly.

“You won’t be able to maintain it for long,” Grey points out.

“Long enough,” I challenge. How long could it take to gather up enough wood in a forest this dense?

“Grey, we do need the wood for the fire and we need the light to get it. It’ll only be for a few minutes. Just let her,” Adele bargains.