considering that the ravagers had been a plague. Terror slipped up her spine as she imagined entire towns filled with dead people, their flesh torn, and their souls ripped away and consumed.
“Your fear is climbing,” Silvas observed calmly.
“For good reason. I’m fucking terrified. Now I wish you hadn’t told me. It would be easier to face all of this without knowing just how terrible these things are. They will destroy what is left of us, won’t they?”
“Perhaps,” he acknowledged. “But we will not let them. Humanity is favored among the gods. If you believe nothing else, believe that. They love you dearly, more than any of their creations. Although they are limited in how they may act, they will not allow your kind to be wiped from the face of the Earth. Believe that. They preserved your species from the wulkwos, or ravagers as you call them. They will not allow the Tainted Ones to end your existence.”
She swallowed the terror that beat at her. She had to have courage. For some reason, his words gave her a glimmer of hope, and she was able to find her inner strength. Just being near him seemed to help. But she had to know…
“The silvanus who was dead in the woods… did he look like that because his soul was eaten? Is that how all the victims of the Tainted Ones appear?”
Silvas looked at her sadly and shook his head. “The silvanus appeared that way for the same reason a faun might, or one of the lesser spirits… Because while we are material substances, we are not technically flesh and bone they way mortal beings are, despite our similarities. The bones that remained were compression of his being at the moment his soul was destroyed.”
“So a human would be…” She gagged on the bile that rose up her throat at the thought of encountering rotting human remains, horror frozen on their face from their final moments as their soul was torn out of them. Tears trickled down her cheeks, and her throat burned as her entire body began to tremble.
The sound of rustling fabric and soft jangle of metal didn’t prepare her for the sudden presence of the lucomo. Dropping down at her side, his arms banded around her and pulled her against his chest. Although he held her stiffly, his words gave her some measure of comfort.
“We will destroy Cacus. I swear it. There is little I can do about the creatures outside of my domain, but I will make certain that this threat, at least, is neutralized. The Eternal Forest will not be a source of suffering and destruction.”
She leaned against him, pressing her cheek into the tunic covering his chest, and she mutely nodded. It was no guarantee, but it was something—and she would take every fighting chance that came her way.
Slowly, his warmth penetrated her, forcing her body to relax.
“Sleep,” he whispered down into her hair. “We have far to go. Another day of travel and then we will be entering the Hyperborean Mountains.”
“I’m afraid a wyrm will return if I fall asleep,” she whispered, hating her weakness.
She felt his hand touch her hair before stroking through it. One stroke followed another until he was soothingly petting her in a way that had her relaxing even further into his embrace.
“It can’t creep up on me. I will smell it. You can trust your safety to me while you slumber.”
Diana looked up to meet his colorless eyes. His gray pupils appeared even larger in the dark. “You promise?”
“Yes,” he murmured.
She believed him.
Chapter 17
The mountains were brutal. She thought that traveling through the forest had been rough, but it had nothing on the mountains. Miles of blinding white stone stretched ahead in an unwelcoming craggy landscape. Worse, as they climbed higher, the temperature gradually shifted to a bitter cold. She was certain that soon the rock would give way to snow and complete her misery.
It was bad enough that the cold wind seeped into her bones. Diana was besieged by tremors that shook her entire body in an attempt to keep warm. She cursed the mountain and wanted to curse the stubborn silvanus. She missed the warmth of Silvas’s body now that she trailed behind him. After they left the foothills, they started the climb on foot once Silvas considered it too unsafe for her to remain clinging to his back. The distance between them grew as the hours of silence continued to lengthen, broken only by orders the lucomo