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Within seconds, my legs started to sting. I moved the leg of my pants upward to find my skin untraceable from the ants that claimed the surface of it.

1.Ezu (Eh-ooh): Heaven

Chapter nineteen

AURELIA

Being alerted awake, I sat straight up to Damian yelping. What was going on? I looked at him, and large blood-red fire ants were crawling up his body, clicking with each movement. Their beetle bodies were as big as my hands, pinching off pieces of his skin with their rigid red claws and carrying the fragments on their backs, then retreating to wherever they came from.

The ants were a fierce red, with antennas largely protruding from the tops of their heads. Their bodies seemed almost slimy, with an ooze dripping off them.

He was aggressively clawing at them to get them away. I jumped up, looking for something I could use to flick them off without touching them myself, wanting to help him. The large pinchers worked to grab more at his skin and then mine as I tried to help him shoo them off. There were about twenty wandering around his body, finding more skin to take with them to feed their queen.

After brushing them all off, he shivered in disgust. “OW!” He yelped again, holding his hands over his wounds. There were small chunks of skin ripped out along his neck, arms, and legs. They were pretty shallow and not bleeding profusely, but the bare skin was still pink and raw. “What were they doing? What were those?” His questions came fast, a hint of urgency in his tone. I responded with a simple shake of my head.

“I have no idea. I had never read about those.” I looked over to where we shooed them off, and they were trudging away, carrying the clumps of skin as prizes on their backs. The nasty sound of their pincers echoed in the quiet night’s wind.

I felt embarrassed that I had never heard of them before, as I was the one who studied about the Forbidden Forest my entire life. I was starting to wonder why I wanted to travel throughout the forest so badly and why it was a dream I had ever since I was young. Was I prepared for this journey?

My mind wandered back to the ants. If they were as big as my hands, then how big was their queen? Glancing toward Damian, his wounds were pink and freckled with fresh splotches of blood.

“Stay here,” I told him. He needed something to stop the blood from his wounds. Or at least for them to not get infected. Who knew what else we were going to find in the forest, and the last thing that we both would want was for him to get an infection. “If you get an infection, you will lose your mind. I have read too many stories about certain poisons seeping into wounds in the Forbidden Forest, making people mad.”

“Where are you going?” he asked, sheathing his silver knife and placing it back into his boot. Why was it out in the first place? I didn’t recall him using it against the ants, either.

“Trust me!” I called out as I went through the trees encircled around us. I knew that I saw some sage leaves around here, which were familiar from the literature I had read. The light of the moon ricocheted off the old trees. The onyx bark seemed toseep black goop down the sides of the trunks, the shine of the moon found in the thick liquid. However, it was bright enough for me to look through each plant to find what I was looking for.

I found the landmark of a jagged, weathered rock that we passed. The bluish rock glistened like a thousand diamonds from the dim light. Looking along the sides, I found a small verdant leafy plant nestled into the side of it. The leaves were in the shape of a heart and were cupped, holding small droplets of dew in between, the wetness gleaming. I memorized almost every plant in the books I had in my tower and knew that my knowledge would be useful out here.

Kneeling before the vibrant green plant, I plucked a handful of leaves, holding them up to make sure they were the ones I thought of. Each leaf felt damp, hinting at recent rainfall or lingering moisture. As I observed the stem, I noticed it beginning to almost wilt instantly, its vitality draining away as I stole the foliage. Making my way back to Damian, I needed to place the heart-shaped leaves on each of his wounds.

Glancing around the dimmed fire, and the logs of wood we put together for seating, he was nowhere to be found. My eyes glanced to my right where twigs snapped, showing that he was gathering large pieces of timber.

“I said to stay right where you were! This place is dangerous!” He waved his hand at me, waving off my comment. “Come here. I have something to help with the pain.”

He dropped the warm-toned wood he held in his hands and returned to the crackling fire that was growing dim. Seated beside me on the log, I tenderly positioned each leaf over the swollen, reddened patches where the large ants had inflicted their painful bites.

I couldn’t help but glance at the different onyx-inked tattoos trailing around his chest, arms, and back. Different images displayed across his body, too many to keep track of.

He winced as I placed the cupped leaves on his warm skin, but I could feel his body sigh with relief as the leaf clasped to the wound beneath it. The pain was diminishing.

After placing each leaf on the wounds, I slowly rubbed them into his skin. They started to attach to it, acting as if they were a bandaid to the wound, covering it whole. Even if he wanted to take them off, he couldn’t because now they were merged into his skin, as if they were a part of him all along.

“These will help with the pain. They should only last a day or two, and your wounds should completely heal.” I wanted to ask him about his tattoos but couldn’t.

“You must be magic, my Queen,” he said. His dark eyes made my heart stop for just a beat. “I can already feel them working.” I smiled, looking away from him.

***

Sleep overtook us as we laid down by the fire. Rustling, I was unable to get comfortable when Damian startled me with a question, “How long did we sleep? What time is it?” He sat up, looking upward at the sky. It was still obscure, the moon radiating with the hum of movement from the forest. I questioned the amount of sleep I got as well.

“Not tired?” I asked.

He glanced at me and then back to the fire. “It’s not that I am not tired,” he started, “but the fear of what I see when I sleep.” I took a few moments just to process what he had said.

“I also fear sleeping, wondering if I am just going to wake up in my tower day after day, never being able to leave,” I stated, leaning closer to him.

He looked at me, glancing kindly, listening intently. “How’d you leave?” he questioned, not minding my closeness.