Page 24 of Hex
When Slash, Pierce, and Slay jump on the fenrir’s back and plant their swords in all the right places, I keep releasing my arrows.
But the fenrir is too fucking strong, too thick skinned. Too damn feral. He throws my brothers off him as he rears back and smashes himself against the side of the mountain. Pierce gets caught between the two masses, his grunt resonating through the space. Slash is thrown a few yards downhill, while Slay slides down the fucker’s fur but ends up stuck on one of its hind legs. I think he’s trying for the underbelly, and if that’s the case, he’s going to have a hard fucking time.
Meanwhile, Sage’s screams only get louder.
Then everything goes a bright yellow, as though the sun decided to shine all of its power solely on us.
When I turn toward the source, I realize it’s Sage. She’s the sun and its rays are coming from the palms of her hands. But that’s not the most shocking of it all, because when I look up to herface, her eyes are no longer their beautiful mismatched green and brown.
Sage’s eyes are completely whited out, and for the first time, my chosen scares the fucking shit out of me.
Chapter Ten
Sage
Watching the fenrir stalk toward me feels different this time. Hack is finally here, his brothers are here, and I’m positive the three women with them are valkyrie, meaning I don’t feel as royally screwed as before. But I can’t help the pang of guilt swirling in my stomach for Saffron.
The hope that she survived that thing back in the cave is strong, but she was already so battered and broken it’s difficult to imagine how. My heart aches for another lost friend, but it only makes me more determined to save them. The hints of conversation from the harpies about a vampyre being moved and kept somewhere else give me hope.
Arrows fly from Hack’s bow, sometimes four at a time, but they don’t seem to be penetrating the fenrir at all. The fear in his eyes as he turns to check that I’m still being held back by the valkyrie, Lathuneh, tells me that he’s ready to die for me today and I just can’t…I won’t.
How he has managed to live through my death, over and over again, across the span of two-thousand years, is something I will never understand.
If I had any way of helping, I would, but the knowledge Hekate embedded within me is useless in my still non-magical body. Staying here with Lathuneh, watching, is not my first choice, but I’m not about to be that girl who runs into the danger to try and help, only to cause more chaos on the way.
My skin begins to feel itchy, like bugs are crawling over my beaten body. I scratch at my arms, bend to scratch at my legs, twist to scratch at my back, but nothing is helping. Ugh, there’s nothing on me except crusted blood and dirt, which is peeling off in waves as I scratch more and more. It’s neverending!
“What are you doing?” Lathuneh creases her brow, curling her top lip in disgust as she stares at me.
“Fucking water skiing. What does it look like?” I know I should be nicer because she’s keeping me safe, but the aura she emits is all off. There’s something about her that I just don’t like and I don’t know why.
The itching intensifies, building to a painful pinch, and I let out a scream as electricity lights me on fire, burning me from the inside out, and everything turns white.
It feels like pain is all I will ever know as it courses through my body, claiming my organs, my bones, my muscles, everything is vibrating with a sharp energy. Then, as quickly as it began, it stops like it never happened, and I can finally breathe again.
However, it did happen, because I’m on the ground with my eyes closed and I must have been out for quite a long time because it sounds like the fighting has stopped, too.
The pain has completely disappeared. Like,allof the pain. My battered and beaten body, weak from malnutrition, suddenly feels strong again. The twangs of hunger, the dryness in my throat from thirst, it’s all gone.
Opening my eyes, I expect to find Hack and the others because I’m not on a soft bed. This is most definitely dirt beneath me so I can’t have moved far. Instead, I find a sparse landscape witheverything in shades of gray, void of all color. There are two paths ahead of me, both with arches of gray trees over them, and that’s it. Nothing else.
My heart begins to beat rapidly and tears prickle at my eyes, hopelessness settling in at my situation. Why can’t I have my happily ever after? It keeps being stolen from right under my nose and I’m pissed.
Standing, I realize I’m naked, the ripped and torn rags of my dress gone, along with the dirt and blood embedded into my skin from weeks of living among my own waste. It isn’t cold though. I’m surprisingly comfortable with no breeze to cause a chill.
The birthmark on my hip catches my attention when it begins to grow darker, from a faint light-brown to a deep blue-black. It doesn’t hurt, or have any feeling at all, but when it starts to protrude from my skin, my eyes widen.
What the fuckedy fuck?
A soft tug pinches at my thigh when it detaches itself and I fall backward, scratching my ass on the dirt path as I watch my birthmark shift and turn into a…myraven?
Moonlight shines from above, making the raven’s black eyes glisten where it hovers in front of me. It tilts its head to the side, like it’s inspecting me, sizing me up for I don’t know what, and I mirror the action because I have no fucking idea what the hell is happening.
I’m confused, I’m scared, I’m pissed, I’m devastated…a whole plethora of emotions are whirling inside of me and I don’t know which one takes precedence. The raven twists and flies toward the fork in the pathway, landing at the point directly between the two before a dark mist swirls around it, growing in size and rising to the sky.
I scramble backward, unsure whether this is something I should be afraid of or not. When the mist starts to clear, the raven is gone, and in its place is a woman with deathly pale skinand long, straight, black hair. She looks almost as afraid as I do with her wide eyes and open mouth.
She’s the only other thing here that isn’t in a shade of gray. Although, with how pale she is, she isn’t far off. She’s also naked, like me, but it’s not the strangest thing about all of this and I’m comfortable with nudity.
