Page 45 of Immortal Origins (Chronicles of the Immortal Trials #1)

“ F elius, no!” Ambrose tried to reach for him but Akadian quickly jerked her back to his side. As Felius disappeared into the trees, the screeching stopped.

“Stop! Remember what I told you, don’t leave my side,” he hissed into her ear.

“But Felius!” she cried, staring at the spot she last saw him. “We have to help him!”

“We will,” he promised. “But we have to be smart or we’ll end up dead.”

With the screeching now gone, the silence of the woods was deafening. Bodies of trees that shielded them from the horrors waiting inside them.

As quickly as it stopped, the shrieking started again, this time from somewhere far away. It was still ear-shattering but this time the sound was more manageable.

Akadian’s head snapped up with a look of terror on his face. “We need to move. Now!”

“What’s going on?” Podara yelled over the noise.

“I don’t know, where did Felius go?” Oryon cried from behind her as the cadence of their footsteps stomped the wet ground. Eurus trailed behind him, a hand on his brother’s shoulder so as not to get separated.

“We’ll find him later, but for now, we need to move,” Akadian ordered.

Pinpointing exactly what was making such a bone-chilling noise was impossible as the entire forest seemed like it was screaming.

“Is the forest making that sound?” Ambrose gritted out. She was sure her head would split open from the pain .

“It’s not the woods,” Akadian yelled. “It’s the Alkijin.”

They stomped their way down the trail following blindly into the dark night, with only the sound of broken sticks and fallen leaves to guide them. The limbs of the trees reached for them as though they had claws of their own.

“What in the gods’ names is an Alkijin?” Oryon shouted as he shook his head, unable to clear the ringing from it.

Akadian threw a worried glance back at him. “You don’t want to find out.”

The worry etched into the prince’s face made Ambrose’s stomach feel uneasy as a pit formed deep in her belly and her heart picked up a few beats.

If Akadian was this afraid, then whatever was in those woods was enough to make a royal scared.

She’d never seen a royal show outright fear before and it unsettled her more than anything she’d seen yet.

Akadian was the second most powerful being in the kingdom…

Ambrose remembered what Akadian had told her before they left the palace. Of creatures that can use and hide in the shadows, ones made entirely of them.

Which meant they were probably surrounded.

“What do we do?” she asked, terrified.

He squeezed her hand. “We run .”

They ran further into the woods, the screeches of the Alkijin came from every direction.

It was impossible to know if they were running away from death, or towards it.

Every step they took, every turn they followed, there was no escaping the horrible cries that echoed off the trees and the inside of their heads.

Akadian refused to let go of her. “The further away they sound we’re good. As long as it doesn’t get louder.”

His words were meant to comfort her but they offered none.

The woods had always been a place of safety and small freedom for her, but now, terror coursed through her like never before.

Her breath caught in her chest as she worked to keep it as calm as she could, her steps uncoordinated on the uneven forest floor.

The forest was the last place to start hyperventilating .

It was going to drive her mad.

“We need to find Felius.” She feared they might already be too late, but she couldn’t leave him out there alone to defend himself against the monsters hunting them.

The screeching grew louder than when it originally started and the party dropped to their hands and knees, screaming as they held their ears. The sound alone was enough to tear them apart from the inside out.

Ambrose couldn’t take it. How could anyone bear this?

She crouched with her head between her knees when the sound ran into the woods. As though whatever was making it was now running through the woods shrieking. As though they were following something else…

Felius!

Ambrose pulled her head up to see the rest of them still covering their ears in pain. She had to save him. They had to do something. Felius was completely alone.

Without giving it another thought, before Akadian could stop her, she pulled Eurus’ sword from its sheath and ran as fast as her legs could carry her in the direction the screeching had gone.

Stumbling mindlessly in the dark, she didn’t dare light a firelight, unsure if she even could. She tripped over logs and bumped into trees, branches scratching her face as she pushed her legs to move harder. Faster.

She had to reach him in time.

She couldn’t lose anyone else on this journey. Not when they were all out here because of her. No one else was going to die for her.

“Stay with the prince, young mage!” The voices cut into her head through the shrieks.

Ambrose quickly shoved them from her mind.

She ran, calling Felius’ name into the night, hoping he might hear her, but she doubted it. Nothing could be heard over the horrible sound. She’d find him. She knew she would.

She wouldn’t give up until she brought him home.

Cutting her way through branches that seemed to stretch and reach for her at every turn, she chopped a path forward and didn’t stop. Twisting her body away from shadows, unsure if they were just that—shadows.

She ran, screaming his name until her throat burned and her feet protested with every step. So far into the woods, she had no idea where she was.

Then, the screeching was right on top of her.

Head pounding, Ambrose raised her sword to fight as the hair on her arms stood on end.

An ominous clicking, something between a growl and the chittering of an insect mixing into a horrible scream that penetrated her to the core.

Vibrating against her skull. Sweat pooled on her upper lip as she prepared herself to face whatever had found her.

“Show yourself!” she screamed at the darkness.

The clicking intensified as though they were talking to each other. Taunting her. Then the shadows began to move.

They stretched towards her in unnatural ways, bending and breaking as though the physical world didn’t apply to them. Bringing her sword up, she sliced and hacked at them but her blade went right through them, as though they were made of nothing more than a whisper of smoke.

Her breaths came ragged as she chopped and swung but nothing connected with the blade. Swirls of terror reached across the ground, inching their way towards her as desperation took hold of her chest, squeezing it like a vice.

She shouldn’t have left the group.

She shouldn’t have run off on her own.

How was she supposed to fight something that didn’t have a body?

Cutting in every direction, she swung her sword around aimlessly hoping to make contact with something solid.

Shadows would take form for a moment showing creatures with glowing red eyes, a mouth full of long, sharp teeth in many rows, and horns that protruded from their heads.

Heads that no matter how many times she swung at, wouldn’t fall from the creatures’ shoulders.

With no other option, Ambrose ran straight into the trees, batting away any shadows that reached for her as long limbed creatures clawed at her skin, gouging her as she ran.

Talons raked every inch of her body, tearing flesh from bone as her screams were muffled with their excited cries.

The chittering vibrating her body as blood seeped from her wounds.

Every hungry swipe cut her deeper and her energy poured out of her with the blood that created a trail behind her.

The woods grew thick, making it harder to see as she tripped through the forest, holding her sword clumsily in her hand. A scream tore through her throat as her feet beat the forest floor and something large on the ground knocked her to her knees.

She twisted her body and even through the darkness, there was just enough moonlight to see two white eyes shining against the cold ground, and a red beard blazing against the grass.

Felius’s body was mangled almost beyond recognition.

Contorted in unnatural ways, his head was completely turned around to the back of his body.

Everywhere the eye could see, his limbs had been clawed to pieces.

Leg shattered and twisted in an unnatural direction, his skin had been peeled from his body.

If it weren’t for his bright green eyes and red hair, Ambrose would have had no way of knowing who she was looking at.

All traces of the fae ripped to shreds. His mouth hung open in his final scream.

She pushed herself away from him, her scream dying in her throat as she backed into something large and decaying. All around her bodies littered the ground.

When she turned to face the mound behind her, her eyes landed on the same sandy blond hair that Mary shared with her mother and ocean blue eyes like Antony’s.

There was no other way to know this was Artie’s missing son as his body had been so mangled, chunks were missing entirely, his skin filleted as his fingers clawed into the dirt as though he’d been desperately crawling for his life when he died.

Bile rose from the back of her throat and Ambrose released the contents of her stomach. She pressed her eyes closed, hoping that maybe it was all in her head. She was having a nightmare. She had to be. This couldn’t be real.

This couldn’t be real.

The chittering screeches closed in on her from all sides .

This was real.

She had to move.

“Run!” the spirit roared in her head. “Now, young mage!”

She was so tired but she picked up her feet and forced them to carry her away from the creatures. Away from Felius.

The claws reached for her, one tearing a gash in her thigh that surely had to have taken a chunk of muscle with it but she kept running, refusing to look at it as the pain crawled up her side with every forced step.