And The Forest Whispers

10

Shion rolled in and out of a feverish sleep for what felt like an eternity. Red and white stars danced behind his closed eyelids, pulling him deeper beneath the surface of a rough black lake.

          A collection of images rose to the forefront of his fever-stricken mind—hooded monsters stomping through the forest, capsizing trees miles and miles taller than themselves. A shrieking bird with a bald gray head and piercing red eyes. And at the end of it all, a willowy figure with flashing hands shooting down an army of glossy blackbirds with dark blue arrows of light.

          Shion awoke from the nightmares at least a few times, but the feverish state of mind that jailed his thoughts refused to let him separate reality from imagined danger.

          One time when he woke up, a dark figure loomed over him. He thrashed and screamed, wordless and petrified. The dark figure had latched onto his arms, pinning them down, whispering to him in low tones that sounded almost like the chanting of a spell.

          The next time he woke, he saw Yoming perched on the end of the bed like a hulking black bird. He smiled, his mouth painted in blood. "Don't worry, witch," he growled, dripping death onto Shion's unmoving body. "We'll find you."

          Shion tossed and turned miserably, prickling pain lancing through each nerve ending in his body. He ached, his hands thrashing out and scratching desperately at anything within his grasp. Anything to stop the fire burning in his blood. His throat hurt as if someone had poured boiling water down it. He was tearing himself apart, the particles making up his being fragmenting and splintering within him.

          In his nightmares, Shion walked alone in the heart of the forests. There were no roads here, nothing to mark that man had ever made their way into its depths. The thick trunks pressed together, cutting out the light from the sun looming overhead. In the depths of tree trunks and emerald leaves, Shion could feel raw magic bolting around him, energy that he could pull and twist beneath his fingers like thread, crafting something amazing and otherworldly with it.

          There were creatures hiding in the shadows, hunters with knives and arrows aimed at his back. Years ago, Shion might have thought these creatures were the Mao, stalking him and desiring to cut him to pieces. Now he recognized them for what they were—the villagers of the place Shion had once thought as home.

          Shion felt something solid beneath his spine. He gasped, and something firm and bitter jammed between his teeth to prevent him from biting down on his tongue. Shion's eyelids pressed together; he was too weak to pry them open and see what manner of torture device his captors were shoving him into.

          Sharp pains pricked up the soft flesh of his inner arm; Shion wrenched his arms away, curling over them to protect himself from the onslaught he couldn't see coming. He screamed again and again, the bitter taste of the device sliding out of his mouth.

          Cool hands brushed across his forehead, smoothing his bangs away from his burning forehead. Soft voices blurred around him, gentle hands caressing his neck and his shoulders, soothing voices calling to him from somewhere above the surface of the pitch black lake. Shion's heart hammered in his rib cage, his stomach clenching painfully tight. He would have emptied his stomach if there'd been anything inside left to expel.

          A crackling, elderly voice drifted in through his right ear and out his left. Shion didn't recognize it. He thrashed, the image of the priest's hideous glare rising in his mind's eye. Something strong but gentle clamped on the sides of his face, holding him in place as icy liquid spilled into his open mouth.

          Shion choked on it—and a calm, deep voice soothed him, brushing his hair out of his sweat-drenched face and swiping a cool cloth over his skin. He couldn't hear the words or understand what he was being told beneath the loud red thrum of agony, but Shion thought he recognized something in the voice that made him want to give in and relax. Panic bled out of him as exhaustion took hold, the icy taste of the strange liquid melting over his tongue, forcing away the fever that clouded his mind.