The royal city of Port Cressida has a new King.
Casper Ashe.
After spending years chained to the floor of a dungeon, haunted by visions of a beautiful woman, Casper is finally free. As Port Cressida's new King, he has two priorities: restore peace t...
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The Royal Hunting Lodge
Sophie Reese
The next few hours flew by.
Guards combed every inch of the forest, inspecting each tree for any strange markings or symbols. I stayed with Nico and Casper to help coordinate the team's efforts. I showed them the darkened area between the pines where we had heard the woman screaming, and then pointed them in the direction of where the cloaked woman had left. The guards searched for both evidence of the cloaked woman and monster.
However, after hours of continuous searching by the guards, all that remained of the cloaked lady and her monster was snow stained vivid red by fresh blood.
The guards crowded around the scene where the young girl had sacrificed herself to the monster. Nothing except her blood remained at the scene. No one had found her body.
"It must have dragged her up the mountainside," One guard remarked.
"Perhaps," Nico replied.
I shook my head and pointed at the large inhuman footprints that led into the darkness, "If that thing had dragged the body up the mountainside, then we would see a trail of blood and we would smell it."
"She's right," Nico said. "I can only detect the scent of blood here. I can't smell it anywhere else."
"Then where the hell is the body?" The guard replied.
Shining my torch over the frozen ground, a thought crossed my mind.
"Perhaps, there isn't one, anymore," I said.
"What do you mean?" Nico asked.
"Perhaps it ate the body."
"That thing would need to be huge to eat an entire person in a few bites."
"It sounded big - much bigger than the Wendigo I fought and killed."
Nico rubbed his jawline and shook his head, "I've never fought an enemy like this before. We need to collect more evidence and send it across to the scholars at the Royal Archive. If we can work out what this thing is, then we can kill it."
For a second, I thought about echoing the same doubts Sally had voiced earlier about the scholars. The scholars could only research what had been recorded in the archives. If the archives contained no literature about this monster and the magic that was being used in the forest, then we would hit another dead end.
At that point, our final hope would sit with Sally and her witch contact who lived on the far side of the mountain. Both Blood and Sally had left a few hours ago to find her. Nico had sent a few guards with them, just in case the monster made another appearance.
Anxiety gnawed at my insides. I hated the thought of Sally wandering the mountainside with that thing running around out there.
"We should return to the lodge," a soft breath whispered in my ear.
