Stone Sacrifice ✔️Chronicles of Grey BOOK ONE [COMPLETED]

Chapter Twenty-Three

The mist was too low to be natural, but too thin to be considered fog. It crept through the marsh and root and rot only a twig off the ground but the way it stretched and moved reminded me very much of the fog that had attacked me in Eastwood, though it looked nothing similar. In Eastwood, the fog had had crept forward like fingers of milk dancing thickly toward me, while this mist seemed to swell slowly in a low roll of a line, transparent as it came.

Completely different in the way it looked and moved... yet it was so similar in my mind. I felt no chill of ghost, none of watchful eyes, but I looked around warily just the same as if expecting attack.

"Let's move." Arion said, gripping my arm but then he let go and said instead, "Stay close" and reached for his sword instead.

It was impossible to run. In some places we were able to sprint a few moments, but then the mud would suck us up again, making even the Shadows audible - the only sounds at all where we were in the no-longer-glorious field. The horses occasionally became stuck and we had to stop to coax them to move another way carefully. The mist move slowly in from the south toward us, but the longer we took to walk the closer it came, and then I heard Jaz gasp and knew, even before she told us, that it was coming down from the north as well.

I looked behind us and nearly screamed. "It's at our heels!"

Mist was normal in marshes. Especially in spring when the temperatures were changing, mists were absolutely normal. It will not occur to me until much later that we had no actual reason to run from this mist. If it were somewhere else, no doubt we would have simply walked through it and complained later about our leathers getting damp. We could see inside the mist and we could see that there was nothing lurking in it. I felt no eyes so nothing was watching. I felt no chills so there were no ghosts. It was only a mist, that was all.

And when the mist creeped over the horses back hooves and the horse simply continued its laborious walk. This should have comforted us, for surly it wasn't a anything dangerous if the horse couldn't sense anything at all. Yet, when I saw the horses hind legs were in the mist, I leaped forward as I shouted in warning and grabbed onto Arion's arm. When he turned, sword raised as if to fight, and saw the mist as I saw it - he his eyes opened wider in alarm and he dropped the reigns, put away his sword, and grabbed me around the waist to lift me ahead of him and shouted, "Everyone leave the horses! Run! Get out of here!" As he pushed me forward.

We all ran as well as we could. Muck sucking at our feathers, gripping at our ankles until we yanked them out. With such a fear but without any panic, we were able to move faster then I had expected, and when I turned back next, I could see the horses slowly making their way far behind us, completely emerged in the mists but not at all afraid.

Again, seeing this sight did not comfort me. I did not know what was wrong with this mist, but I knew it was not right, and that was enough for me to rush forward through the invisible shadow under the hot and blinding sunlight that did not reach us at all.

I tripped but Arion caught me and pushed me forward again. "Keep going." He breathed. I was exhausted but I did, going as quickly as I could. I had run far longer distances, but the muck sticking to my leathers made each foot weight much more then they did, and the effort of pulling each foot out was making it even worse, as if there were creatures beneath the rot trying to grip onto my ankles at each-

Stop, Meira. Stop it now.

But we were racing it. And we seemed to be winning.

Until Jaz gasped, a few twigs to my right and just behind me, "It's closing in up ahead!" Then she fell and I gasped in fear, going to help her.

"Keep going, stupid girl. Aitch has her."