over his ribs and across his abs. Whatever did that could have cut him in half. I gasp at the sight, coaxing a laugh out of him. “It hurt like a fucking bitch. Never get in a fight with someone wielding a chain whip.”
“Hell, Crius, do you ever stop braggin’ about yourself?” Nikos states. Stone chuckles, while Crius doesn’t seem to give a shit. He goes back to grab his backpack, talking crap back to them. But I’m not listening.
I’m staring at my hands and can’t help but wonder if that’s how he sees the mark… as a scar. I guess, in a way, it is. What else can it be called? I still have no idea why it happened after I was thrown off the cliff or how my magic saved me that day.
It isn’t long before we’re moving again, and the deeper we travel, the more the atmosphere changes. It’s like this place has its own weather system. Each breath I take grows easier, the air less stuffy, but the light is dimmer. Sunlight barely reaches through the canopy overhead. Down here, it’s shadows and barely enough light to not trip over our own feet.
“Is it strange that there are no animal or bird sounds?” Stone asks.
“They probably all ran for their lives like our wolves tried,” Ragnar responds with a dark mirth in his tone. I’m not sure if I should take that as ha-ha, let’s take another stab at Narah, or admitting they were actually scared, which caused their wolves to go into panic?
Ragnar strolls alongside me, both of us taking the lead. I keep glancing over to the dirt path farther to our right. As long as we follow that, we shouldn’t get lost. Though now I keep frantically double scanning everything around us for any traces of magic, for anything I feel that might be a spell.
I’m certain we’ve walked for half a day so far, though it might have only been an hour. It’s impossible to tell in here. There’s been minimal chatter, which is fine with me. I can only guess the way our wolves reacted has spooked everyone.
The farther we travel, the more the woods change. Gone are the tall pines and firs, replaced with twisted and bent trunks, their branches stripped bare of leaves and bark, like we’re walking through a graveyard of skeletons. While earlier the canopy concealed the sunlight, now a murky cloud covers the tops of the trees.
Foliage crunches under our shoes, dried like it hasn’t seen water for months.
“Is it just me, or does it look like we’ve entered a new part of the woods?” Stone asks.
“Keep an eye out for anything.” Ragnar states the obvious, and I’m scanning the surrounding land. Not a spark, nothing magical here.
“I don’t pick up on anything,” I say, stepping over a rock and bumping into Ragnar. He looks over to me as if I did that on purpose or out of fear.
He steps away from me, and at first I assume it’s to avoid me walking into him again, but he’s veering to the right, away from all of us.
“Ragnar?” I say, a shiver running up my spine that he’s been affected again somehow.
When he stops and looks down at something, we all join him, only to find him standing near the remains of someone. Bones are all that’s left, really, but by the skull with a jagged hole in the side of the head, and a rib cage, it’s obvious it’s a person and not an animal.
I turn quickly on the spot, staring in every direction, feeling like I missed something obvious and that we’ve just walked into another trap. There’s nothing around us, magic or otherwise, only broken trees and shrubs. Everything seems bleak and gray… not to mention it’s getting dark really fast.
“This sucker died from dehydration,” Stone says with confidence. Maybe he’s right.
“Doubt it,” Nikos adds.
My mind runs wild with thoughts that I underestimated how hard this mission might be. Doubts that I might not be up for the task especially when my magic is broken, and it’s not like I can use it for anything aside from detecting spells. Plus, what do I really know about witches aside from what my mother told me? And she went and died on us.
My thoughts race with how she used to tell us that she’d always protect us, and the memory brings with it a pain that burns across my chest. Grief washes over me like it