It was almost as if something else was playing with him, turning him around, getting him lost in this gods-forsaken forest. He cursed it, cursed his own rash decision to go after Gilliad on his own, cursed everything that had brought him here. And he wished he were back with Jeren. At night, he dreamed of her and woke up feeling even more desolate than before.
The voice was real, and harsh with terror. The voice he’d never expected to hear again. “Shan!”
Shan froze him in his tracks, stole all powers from his body. Only his heart responded, speeding up, thudding against his ribcage, in his throat, threatening to make his head explode.
Naul growled, a small bundle of fury between his feet. Shan closed his eyes, willing her not to be there, for this to be some new variation on his nightmares.
“Shanith Al-Fallion.” Cold fingers traced their ice on his cheek. She trembled, whether through fear or cold he could not say. But a leaf in a gale would be firmer.
She couldn’t be here. She was another ghost, but not here to help him as Anala had been. No. Ylandra would never help him. It wasn’t in her nature. She’d see even the need for help as a weakness.
He opened his eyes reluctantly and saw her—thin, so pale, her silver hair in knots, her cheeks hollow and her eyes—gods and goddess, her eyes were the worst.
Almost entirely black, with just a trace of their original grey around the edges. Dried blood smeared from her mouth to her neck, and she was clad in rags. Shadows seethed around the trees behind her, shadows that moved in ways no shadows could. He recognised a swarm of Fellna instantly. They’d brought her here, and now they were watching. Substantial enough to be seen, they could swarm again at any moment, taking the two of them with them, away to their dark nest. As they had before.
Shan could feel their laughter crawling across his skin on a thousand spiders’ legs.
“Ylandra?” He whispered her name and couldn’t keep the weight of pity from his voice. She flinched at the sound, but didn’t withdraw, almost as if she didn’t dare to.
“I thought you’d never come.”
“I didn’t.” He reached out to touch her bruised face and she pushed her cheek into his palm, like a cat starved of affection. Naul’s growls grew louder, but the cub was too afraid to move. “You aren’t dead. Did they bring you here?”
She frowned, a crease marring her smooth brow, and she glanced around the clearing as if only seeing it for the first time. She sighed heavily and looked back to him, resigned, defeated.
“I don’t know anymore... where I am from day to day, or even what day it is. I can’t tell. Reality changes, blurs, when there’s so much pain.”
They had kept her, used her for whatever dark purpose served them, or perhaps just out of pure malevolence. Her life force would feed them, so would her blood. And her suffering would delight them.
No, the Fellna would never kill her. Not on purpose.
But her eyes... Dear goddess, what had they done to her eyes?
“Where have you been? What have they done to you?”
She pulled away and the Fellna gathered around the edge of the clearing gave a series of chittering cries. Ylandra shuddered and pulled back.
“Don’t—” Her voice failed. She turned back to him, stark tears on her face. She spoke quietly so they wouldn’t hear her. Standing a hand’s breadth away from her Shan could barely hear her. “Don’t let them take me back.”
This was not the proud warrior he had known, beautiful, treacherous, so self possessed as to believe she knew better than anyone else. This was a mockery, and he pitied her. It clawed at his stomach.
“Tell me why you’re here.”
She dropped to her knees before him, wary of the furious cub, but all the same she knelt, with her head bowed, shoulders shaking.
And her story, broken and desperate, spilled out.
“They took me back into the darkness, after I failed to deliver Jeren. And they did things... terrible things. But now we’ve a chance, Shan. They’re offering me to you. You can set me free. Just... just turn aside. Don’t go to River Holt. You don’t want to be there, to see it. He’s mad.” She looked up, her eyes maddened with anguish. “He’s insane. Worse than them. He... he...”
“Gilliad?” He pulled her into his arms. Shook her gently so she’d pay attention, would stop the spiral into hysteria. “Did they give you to Gilliad?”
She nodded, swallowing her words and a chill passed through him.
“The Enchassa gave me a choice,” she managed to say at last. “Join them, become Fellna, give up all I was or submit to him. It’s so easy to fall, Shan. Just a touch and the infection crawls inside you. It burns. Burns like acid in your blood.” She stumbled over the words, they came out so quickly. “The right incentive, giving in to rage and despair, or just... just blind need. We hold ourselves so high, but it’s just a lie. Away from the Ariah, from our kin, from the rules we live by... we’re no different. We came from the same roots and the same poison rests latent in our hearts. She can bring that forth.” She gritted her teeth. “Just a touch,” she hissed.
Her eyes, so dark, like the Fellna, with only traces left of the Feyna she had been. He’d always suspected they suppressed their more violent emotions for a reason. They blamed magic, but Ylandra had none. Not like Indarin. And few of the Fellna he’d encountered had either, beyond their ability to swarm like a group. But their Enchassa and her direct servants were different. Like a Shaman or a Seer, like the Ariah.
“She’s been... changing you.”
“It’s too easy.” She pressed herself against him, her body so cold, as if she could drink down his heat. Like one of them. Her face turned up to greet his, her mouth opened. Hunger entered the bleak despair of her eyes. A strange, violent hunger that didn’t belong there.
One he knew. He’d seen it before, but not in her eyes. The Enchassa wore that look.
“Ylandra.” He could hardly bear to whisper the words. “What have you done?”
“Choose them, choose to be like them, or let them torture me? Let her pass me to – to him again? To the brother of your Holtlands bitch? Do you know what he did to me?” Her voice broke and she burrowed closer to him. “Do you know?”
He could guess. Goddess help him, he could guess.
“I can help you,” he whispered, not really sure that he could.
“Take me away from them. Don’t let them take me back.” She nuzzled against him, her hands travelling over his shirt, tugging at it to reach the skin beneath.
The Fell made a low murmuring, unease or expectation. He couldn’t tell. Didn’t care.
Ylandra’s touch addled his sense in a way she never could before, much as she would have wished it. His body ached for her. His lips parted, ready to kiss her.
She gave a gasp, of surprise, of wonder.
And he recognised the trap.
Like all the Feyna, Ylandra was born not with magic she could use and manipulate, but there was magic there all the same. Not born with magic but of magic, that was what the elder stories said. Jeren said she saw it as a light. And the Enchassa was not just a mistress of manipulation and torture, she was a mistress of magic.
They’d changed Ylandra, it was true. They’d brought out the magic, made her use it, made it use her. Transformed her, almost into one of their own. Legends said that once the Feyna and the Fellna were one. His people called them the dark cousins, and not without reason.
“What did they promise you, Ylandra?”
She tried to smile. “You.” But the expression faded as she saw the understanding in his face. “Shan... please...”