Page 274 of Cursed Evermore

Thinking fast, I swept my hand through the air, searching for lingering traces of the poison. Nothing was there.The poison had burned itself out.

I lowered my shield, and Bastian and the others stepped forward.

“We have to go,” I said before hesitation could steal our momentum. “Garrick, stay with?—”

“I’m going with you.” Garrick moved to my side, his face stern. “You expect me to let you rush into Gods know what alone? If anything happens, I’m the only one who can heal wounds carved by dark magic.”

He was right. I gave a short nod.

“I’ll stay with Elariya,” Arielle offered, rushing to her side. “Go. Quickly.”

My gaze drifted to Elariya. Her eyes were wide, her hands trembling. This was her first glimpse into the true darkness of my world.

“Be careful,” she called after me.

I inclined my head once more, then conjured the compass I’d received from Marcus, pulling it from its astral pocket. Its metal gleamed faintly in the sunlight.

With a flick of my hand, I portaled us to Kyphuus.

The compass led us right back to where we’d stood last week, but it looked absolutely nothing like then.

Last week, we’d roamed woods filled with tall evergreen and blue Sequoia, then we’d ended up in an ivy-covered grove. Now, we were surrounded by clusters of rotting skeletal trees that looked like they’d been consumed by hellfire.

It was definitely the same place. I could still feel the bitter edge of dark magic in the air, but now we were seeing beyond the glamour.

There was smoke billowing into the sky not too far ahead. We moved toward it.

The woodland path deceived us, appearing flat until we reached the lip where the forest floor dropped into a dell, steep-sided and cloaked in mist.

The wind shifted, clearing the mist, and we stopped short as horror revealed itself.

Broken bodies lay arranged in a perfect circle. At least a hundred of them.Or more.They were all Fae. Males. Females.Children.

"Sweet fucking gods," Garrick breathed, his hand moving instinctively to his sword hilt.

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. All I could do was stand there and take in the hellish desecration laid bare before me.

The dead Fae had been placed with ritualistic precision, as though some monstrous hand had set each piece of the offering with care.

Their faces were frozen in silent screams, eyes wide and staring at the mottled gray sky, as if they had stared at something none of us could see.

Fingers snapped backward at grotesque angles, forced into reaching gestures toward the circle’s heart. Bones jutted through skin, pale and sharp against the blackened earth.

At the circle’s center, symbols had been carved so deep into the soil they’d cut into the earth’s marrow. The lines bled smoke, thin, writhing tendrils that drifted into hazy shapes of twisted faces with hollow eyes and mouths open in soundless wails.

The stench hit next. Sulfur and scorched iron, undercut by the faint, cloying sweetness of rot. But not a single fly dared touch them. The air above the corpses hung unnaturally still, as if even nature recoiled from what had been done here.

These Fae hadn’t just died. They’d been desecrated. Sacrificed.

And they looked like they’d been dead for weeks.

I was right when I’d thought we were too late. We always were.

Chapter 55

Elariya

“What The Eyes Can’t See”