PROMISE

CHAPTER 14

Forest light glowed dark red behind Hain's eyelids. Cold lapped at the wet tracks on his cheeks. His muscles sagged against his bones. He felt so tired, the sudden strength of the ring gone as quickly as it had come.

Falling asleep would be so simple, he thought. So easy to let the forest floor rise like the sea at high tide. To let the trees curl their roots about his chest, drawing him down into the deep and the dark.

But then, what of Aedan? What would happen when Sam's legion arrived in Sierra, armed and ready to lay siege to the haven?

Hain forced his eyes to open. Dust motes swirled in light streaming through the canopy, those glinting specks the only remnant of the fallen tree. The Godless remained unchanged.

He blinked, surprised. What had he expected to find? Blackened trunks? Hoarfrost wilted leaves? He wasn't sure, but he'd hoped for anything. Anything, he thought, but nothing.

Lilith sat up from beside him quickly enough to bring a surprised gasp from his mouth. He turned wide eyes on her. Her skin was the color of ash.

"It let us go," she said, and disbelief rode the words. "I don't understand. Why did it let us go?"

Hain breathed in long, labored gulps. His strength was returning, but his head still felt swimmy.

"I felt like it was trying to eat me whole." His throat felt dry and disused as he spoke. "Like it was trying to suck my brain through my ears."

"We can't stay here." Her eyes darted around them, the one bloodshot eye all the brighter against her bloodless cheeks. "We don't want to be here if it comes back."

Hain blinked. "Why are you acting like you know what it was?"

The undergrowth hissed as she rose. "Because I do."

Hain watched her stand. The act seemed to take every bit of her strength.

"What was it?"

"Something more than deadly," she said, wobbling on her feet. "Especially to anyone it catches in these woods." She blinked hard, then ran both hands through her shoulder-length hair. "I still can't understand why it let us go."

Hain felt cold rise from his crotch to his gut. "You knew something like was out here and you didn't tell me?"

"Can we not argue about this now?" Lilith shot him a heated look. "We got lucky, Hain. That's the only reason we're not dead right now." Her eyes darted around them again. "We won't get lucky like that again."

He might have told her then, about the ring, but the anger slicing through his muddled brain cut the line from whatever desire he might have had to do it. Instead he kept it to himself, burying the knowledge beneath frustration.

"Do you know how to keep us away from it?"

"I think so," she said, almost breathless. "But we need to move. Now."

Hain listened. He followed.

Birdsong split the air over the cacophony of their hurried pace. Fire burned in his thighs, and his hands hurt worse now than they had throughout the whole of their journey. His pack pressed him toward the ground, as though that sentient darkness clung to it, drawing him back with long, sticky tendrils. Still, he was thankful for the pace. Anything less would give him time to think. Time to remember.

Lilith slowed to a walk after a stretch, but kept silent as she led them toward whatever sanctuary she knew. They kept on long enough for Hain to feel as though they'd walked an extra day when she finally called a halt. Hain looked up from the ground as though startled. He'd kept his eyes down as they'd marched, feet dragging, body bobbing to the beat of his steps while his mind lived in those moments under the shadow's voice.