| |
DARYNA
Daryna opened her eyes, finding herself in complete darkness, reminding her of the day she’d awoken without a leg. The air was stagnant and heavy with a citrus scent. She should have been panicked, but being alone never fazed her. But she wasn’t alone.
“Pavla?”
“You can call me Pav, you know,” he answered, nearer than she would have liked. “We need light around here.”
After he said the word “light,” a white spherical shape appeared on his palm, illuminating the room as he floundered backward. Across the roof of what had to be the inside of a cave, dark shadows slid and swirled.
“Light,” Daryna commanded.
An alabaster orb with a blackened flame burst to life in the center of her palm. She couldn’t make out what the shadows across the ceiling were. Some held the form of a human with long thick horns attached to their head, while others crawled on all fours with a beastly shape.
Pav didn’t appear frightened, more in awe than anything as he scanned the walls with his head tilted all the way back and his mouth partially open.
“Are you ready to move on, Pav?” Daryna asked. “Or do you only want to keep watching shadows with the two days we have?”
Tearing his gaze from the moving shapes, he focused on her and lowered his brows. “Why didn’t you tell me about Maryska beforehand?”
“I did.” She shrugged.
“Yes, right before you drank the tonic.” His facial features relaxed as he seemed to go deep into thought. If she could guess, he was probably overjoyed that he didn’t have to search outside of Kedaf to find Maryska, when the woman could very well be here somewhere in Torlarah.
“Because it’s more of an instinct,” Daryna said. “That odor permeating her cottage is one of life and death. And I would bet all ten of your pretty fingers that she’s down here.”
“I need all my pretty fingers.” He flashed the hand holding the orb in front of her, surveying the wall again. “The shadows truly are interesting, though.”
Daryna arched a brow. “You’ll have plenty of time to visit the afterlife once you die.”
“Not anytime soon, I hope.” He formed a tight-lipped smile. “Let’s try to find Anton first.”
Daryna wasn’t a fortune teller, so she wouldn’t be able to read what Pav’s future would behold. But if he continued to watch shadows all day, it might take place sooner than he expected.
As Daryna breathed in the scent of Torlarah, something about the place felt familiar to her, as if she’d been here before or seen aspects of it in her dreams. Perhaps she’d once been inside a cave similar to this one, in the parts of her life she couldn’t recall.
Daryna touched the sword at her hip, confirming it was still there. She was relieved that by attaching swords at their hips, the weapons came with them. Pav’s blade hung at his side, slapping his thigh as he moved forward.
As they trailed deeper into what she still believed to be some sort of cave, the room lightened with orange orbs near the roof. Sharp and rough edges created the ceiling, but along the dark walls, a lazy movement caught her attention.
“Are those hands?” Pav asked, sneaking closer to the wall.
Daryna snatched him back by the collar. “What are you doing? Trying to get taken?”
Pav’s green irises slid to hers, his freckles appearing dusky under the light. “I was only going to confirm my suspicions that those are indeed hands.”
Squinting, Daryna held the orb up to the wall, and her heart lodged in her throat. Hands—hundreds upon hundreds of them—crawled along the wall, covering the rough surface, the sight of them sinister somehow.
Daryna blinked, shaking off the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. But Pav stood in awe again.
“If you die here, you’re going to awake before you ever get a chance to talk to Anton. And that means missing out on Maryska with me,” she seethed. “As one of your tasks, you’ll watch me put a blade through her heart.”
“All right, as you wish.” The edges of his lips tilted upward, even though his eyes remained heavy with burden.
Before she could feel sorry for him, Daryna stomped away. When they came face to face with Maryska, she was certain there wouldn’t be any sign of a smirk from him unless the woman was dead.
“Don’t go too far ahead, because you might die and wake up, remember?” Pav called.
“If we do die, I don’t have a way to get us back here again either,” Daryna replied. “That particular remedy only works once, the body can’t handle it, and I don’t know any other similar spells.” She hadn’t even known if she could really get them here in the first place. Most of it had all been wild hope on her part, but it had worked.
Under the flame-colored light, Pav’s skin paled. “You didn’t say that. I assumed if we woke back in Kedaf, then we could return here.”
She frowned and pursed her lips. “That’s what you get for assuming and not asking beforehand.”
He stayed silent for a while after that, but not as long as she would have liked. As they moved on past stony walls, her wooden leg dug into her skin, the recognizable throb of pain there. While they were in Torlarah, she thought perhaps it could be possible to have two legs for once, but that pesky attachment was still there. Forever a reminder of something she couldn’t remember. One day, she would burn the godforsaken thing, not caring if she’d have nothing there to support her leg.
“Have you ever been in love?” Pav interrupted her thoughts, reminding her once again that he couldn’t keep quiet.
“Only with myself.”
His familiar smirk formed. “Really?”
“Pav.” She sighed. “Not all of us have lovely redheaded girls vying for our attention.”
“Ah, so you prefer women over men.”
Daryna wanted to go back to her cottage in Kedaf, away from this conversation. “No, I prefer neither.”
In their own ways, women and men both looked fine, but she would never know if she was being deceived or not. She could only ever trust her own mind. However, there were times she’d dreamt of a man with braids and dark skin, running his hand up her naked body, then down between her thighs. She shoved him to the back of her mind, where she always kept him hidden, because he didn’t exist.
“That’s interesting,” he said, bouncing his orb up and down.
Her gaze stayed snared on his single juggle as she turned their chat back on him. “We both know how you feel about a certain girl.”
His eyes seemed to sparkle under the light with bright red hearts. “That could one day be a strong possibility.” Judging by his expression, the day had already arrived.
Daryna chose not to tell him young love typically doesn’t end well. For some reason, she didn’t want to let that light shining in his eyes flicker out.
“You know, Pav—”
He stuck his arm out, causing her to cease moving forward. “What. Is. That?” He spoke softly, so only she could hear the alarm in his voice.
Straight ahead, through the poorly-lit cave, she couldn’t see anything except for gray stone speckled with brown.
“Not ahead,” he whispered. “The hideous things against the walls.”
Daryna stepped closer to examine where he pointed, and gasped, stumbling back. The walls were not walls at all. Human bodies, blended together, made up the structure surrounding them. Legs. Arms. Torsos. Naked skin of all colors and ages intertwined together, a massive wave of flesh, ready to come crashing down on them.
And not a single head.
She shivered, thankful no eyes were there to stare at her from amongst the horrible sight.
Who would create something like this? And why?
“Retrieve your sword,” Daryna said, coming back to herself, then turned to the orb. “Off.”
She dropped the orb to the ground, watching it vanish while Pav did the same. As several gangly bodies, with thin skin, stumbled from the wall, she tightened her grip on the sword. Three headless bodies jerked and swayed, as they moved toward her and Pav.
The orbs running along the ceiling gave Daryna and Pav enough illumination to see that two were male, and the other a female, their flesh a murky color matching the walls. She would have expected some sort of rotting smell, but there was still only that citrusy scent combined with something not from the world of the living.
Daryna held her sword high, prepared to fight. Except Pav leapt in front of her before she could perform the duty, his blade easily slicing the male in half.
“That was mine,” she said with a dry tone, scanning the other direction. “You need to focus on the one coming at you.”
Lunging forward with precision, Daryna thrust her sword into the chest of the female, striking her heart. The body slumped to the ground with a soft thump.
As she turned to the side, she found Pav already beside her, holding up his blade with dark thick sludge running down it. Daryna was not only surprised by Pav’s skills, but impressed. She’d assumed he would have stood there the entire time smirking at the headless creatures. But he could perform a task when needed.
A similar thick consistency coated the edge of her sword, and she rubbed the tip of her blade against the leg of her trousers, wiping it clean.
Pav focused on the walls, watching for any sign of more bodies that chose to come forth. “Anyone else?” he called.
Daryna scowled at him, nearly jumping out of her skin when a light scrape on the ground came. It took her a moment before discovering the first body Pav had torn into was attempting to claw its top half back to the wall.
“Let’s move,” she said.
Not waiting for Pav’s answer, she hurried past the wall of bodies and his steps stayed in sync with hers. The shade of the walls faded into a clear color, closer to murky water. More movement, as though something was swimming inside.
A hand slammed against the surface, the sound recoiling through the cave. Pav darted in front of Daryna to try and protect her. She shoved him away. He needed to stop doing that and watch his own back, otherwise he would end up dead. Although not truly dead, but back at her cottage.
Silhouettes of heads pressed against what appeared like glass, but was more of a clear stone. As the things crept closer to the wall, Daryna noticed they were without eyes, ears, noses and mouths, their entire facial structure a smooth skin surface. The skin along where their mouths should be was stretched and pulled back, as though calling out for help. There was no way for her or her magic to help them.
“What if one of those is Anton?” Pav asked, a look of horror crossing his face.
“I think if Anton was in this part of Torlarah, he probably deserved it.” She paused, her gaze locking with Pav’s. “He wasn’t a terrible person, was he?”
“No.” His voice quavered. “My brother was the best.”
“Then he won’t be here.” Daryna wondered what would happen once she died, since she’d done some pretty awful things in her life. Never with malice. But did that make a difference? “We’ll eventually make it to a more flowery territory for you.” Or, at least, she hoped so.
“If we don’t die first,” he pointed out.
“I think you have it handled. You’re quite good with a sword. I’m amazed, actually.”
“I am, aren’t I?” He gave her a half smile. In return, she frowned at him.
When they approached a wide opening, the cave walls stretched to a heavy shade of gold. It could possibly be a way out, and guide them to Anton or Maryska.
Ignoring the bite in her leg, Daryna quickened her pace and came to a halt when she reached the mouth of the cave. Before her, a thick blue-black liquid swirled around, continuing on for a good span, leading to what looked to be trees and hard ground on the other side.
Pav placed his sword back inside its sheath, then held out his hands toward her, preparing to be a hero. “Let me carry you across.”
Squeezing the bridge of her nose, she shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I don’t know how deep it is, though. Can you swim?”
“Yes, can you?”
She could, even though it would be a challenge with the wooden leg. “Yes.”
With resignation, she pushed the tip of her boot into the liquid. It easily broke through, so she slid into the blackness, holding a consistency which felt like softened mud combined with too much water. Pav pressed in next to her.
Despite trying to seem nonchalant, Daryna’s heart sped up with each step they took, sinking deeper and deeper down into the mud. At the halfway point, the black sludge now rose up to her waist. Her insides quivered as the mud neared her breasts, and she no longer found herself confident as her breaths increased, coming out unsteady. She needed to get out. She wanted to cry. She yearned to break something to distract her.
“We’re almost there,” Pav panted, taking hold of her upper arm with a concerned expression.
Daryna wanted to rip her arm away, but she tried to relax and let him guide her until they reached the other side. She inhaled and exhaled when she realized they were indeed almost there. The thickness of the mud had increased and brushed all the way up to her neck. The force of moving through the slosh was drinking in all of her energy.
A stinging sensation struck her right ankle, and Daryna flinched. Before she could say something to Pav, a strong hand wrapped around her leg and yanked her beneath the surface. She tried to scream, but the mud filled her mouth. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t even hear anything but the squishing motions, and perhaps the heavy beating of her heart.
The hand crushed her ankle harder. The panic within her boomed and boomed again at the possibility that she could potentially lose her good leg. Gathering a storm full of fury, she kicked and tried to reach for her sword but couldn’t.
Two arms wrapped around her waist, squeezing hard. They tugged her upward, until she felt the release at her ankle. She continued her rise toward the surface until she met the shocked and worried look on Pav’s face. Splotches of wet dirt covered him too. She couldn’t get the words out to thank him for helping her, not because she hated saying those words but because she was still struggling to catch her breath.
“Swim, run, whatever you have to do!” he shouted, dragging her forward.
He didn’t have to tell her twice. She thrashed her arms across the black pit, splashes hitting against her eyes and mouth, until her hand met dry ground. Hauling herself up, she leaned over and clasped Pav’s hand to help pull him up before something took him down.
Heavy, relieved breaths escaped her mouth as she shuffled backward, staring out at the black sludge and pressing her hands to her lips. As if a demon had cast a spell, heads and more heads bobbed up from the slosh, same as the featureless ones that were inside the cave walls. If the mud connected to the cave, which had to be the answer, perhaps they’d followed them.
Daryna unsheathed her sword, but the featureless people didn’t draw forward, only seemed to study them from beneath their thin skin.
“You frightened me back there.” Pav stepped in front of her, worry lines creasing his forehead.
“You, frightened? What about me?” she asked, incredulous. Not wanting to think about the touch of the thing’s hand that had been on her ankle.
“The both of us then.”
“Thank you,” she muttered the words late, but they were there.
Smiling and biting his lower lip, Pav curled a hand around his ear. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
Daryna wouldn’t repeat the words a second time, but she was thankful he’d pulled her out and not left her behind. She didn’t know how long it would have taken her to die down there and return to Kedaf, but it would have destroyed her chance at getting vengeance against Maryska.
“What’s this?” Pav asked.
Daryna turned to find Pav standing in front of a forest covered in bright oranges, yellows, and browns, specifically a tall tree with a wooden door in its center. The forest was like autumn, and that season always reminded her of dying, the slow death before a chilly winter wiped the world clean, allowing a rebirth to come in springtime.
Squaring his shoulders, Pav inched toward the trunk and rapidly tapped the door twice. To her astonishment, he did it again, and then one last time.
Daryna shot forward, tugged his hand away, and whisper-shouted, “Why did you do that?” She didn’t want him to draw in unwanted attention from any more creatures.
“To see if anyone’s home?”
Why did I bother asking? “You’re like the brother I never had and never really wanted.”
A shuffling sound came from the other side and Daryna swung up her sword, prepared for who—or what—would answer.
