Page 25 of The Ash Trials (The Septerra #1)

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T he tendrils of clouds began beckoning for us as we reached the edge of The Foggy Forest that awaited us at the top of the mountain we had been steadily climbing.

“What is this?” I asked as the clouds of The Foggy Forest wrapped us in their grip. The fog wasn’t like normal fog. It clung to us like a swamp.

“The realm is thinnest here,” Callum said. “It’s said that this fog here magical properties.”

“What kind of magical properties?” I asked, wishing I had grilled him on it earlier as our horse bucked and whinnied in fear as the fog climbed higher and higher. It had risen up to the chest of our horse, and was still creeping up like a rising tide. The prisoners riding on the narrow path ahead of us were getting harder and harder to see.

“It will try to convince us to stay,” Callum said, his jaw tight.

“Stay where?”

“Here. In the fog. Whatever you do, don’t get off this horse, Saffron.”

I gripped the saddle, and Callum tightened his hold on me. I cleared my head. I wanted to press Callum for answers, but I knew that it was better to stay focused. I kept my attention on the steadying climb of our horse’s footsteps against the ground. Callum’s strong body against mine, holding me tight. But the fog was starting to look more and more strange. As it floated by, I swore I could see… faces . Stretching and elongating into expressions that looked like they were mid-scream with hollow eyes—only to be turned into ragged whisps by the next errant breeze.

The fog crept higher until it blinded our horse and I choked back my fear. It was like that feeling of drowning in complete nothingness that often haunted me at night when I couldn’t sleep. Sensory deprivation so absolute that I was no longer tethered to reality, to myself.

“Hold tight, Saffron,” Callum said.

The fog consumed us.

I reached blindly for Callum’s hand, clutching it as he held the reins steady in the other.

“Don’t let me go,” I begged, my fear rising in my chest as more faces seemed to continue to appear around me—but this time, the faces seemed to grow hands, reaching for me.

“I’ve got you,” he said, but I felt my panic hammering my heart, causing me to suck in gasping breaths of air. “ Breathe .”

I did, trying not to grow too frenzied by the cage of floating white I found myself in. I raised a hand in front of my face—and sucked in a gasp when I realized I couldn’t see it, not unless I brought my hand mere inches in front of my face. I cowered back into Callum, my body trembling as I was faced with the void of nothing.

A void so like the emptiness of where my memories should have been.

Then, I heard it.

“Saffron. Don’t be worried, sweetheart,” a calm, clear voice cut through the fog. A woman’s voice. But not any woman?—

“ Mother ,” I sobbed, and in that moment, I knew it to be true. “Where are you?”

“ I am here, by the whispering wood. Come find me, daughter. Follow my voice .”

I felt Callum’s strong arms caging me into the saddle, but it was as if I were in a trance. I rocked back against him just as the horse let out a terrified whinny as it bucked at something none of us could see.

The fog was so dense it wasn’t so hard for me to slither underneath Callum’s grip as he tried to get his horse under control. I ducked underneath the reins and twisted out of the saddle as Callum yelled for me, but I dropped to the ground of the forest floor, determined.

My mother was here.

I found myself walking toward the voice, even though I couldn’t see anything.

“Mother!” I called out again, stumbling through the white fog. Pain ripped from me in great, heaving sobs as I threw myself at the white.

“ Here. I am right up ahead. Come home to me, daughter .”

As I walked, a great witch’s tree extended from the fog. The tree had spindly arms that grabbed for me as if it was trying to snatch me. Then, I saw other trees, bare and twisted like the mangled hand of evil crones. They emerged from the fog like ancient gods. Watching. Clawing for me… Or did they? I couldn’t tell if the trees were just swaying, or trying to swipe at me.

I tripped on one of the roots, skinning my arm as I landed in the dirt. The plants below my skinned arm seemed to absorb my blood, as if they were parched plants in the desert tasting water for the first time in months.

“ Hurry, daughter. I’m just up ahead. Run to me .”

So I stumbled to my feet and ran . Tears were streaming down my cheeks, and I was sobbing. Sobbing for a woman who I didn’t fully remember. Another void within the larger one that was threatening to consume me whole. I couldn’t bear the way the emptiness cleaved at my heart.

I chased after a breeze edged with the scent of freshly baked bread. The smell fit within the grooves of moments long since left blank. I felt a tug to something that began materializing in front of me.

That’s when I saw the bakery. It looked almost like what Callum had built for me in the meadow, but this was different. I saw her—my mother—standing in the doorway. Gesturing for me to come in.

For me to come home .

“Come inside, Saffron. It’s so dreadful out today,” she said.

“Mom,” I sobbed, and I threw myself step over step toward where an invisible thread was pulling me, until?—

—strong arms caught me, and suddenly my feet were dangling.

“ Saffron !” a familiar male voice called for me.

I cried out, and then realized my eyes were closed. When I opened them, I looked down—and the fog parted to reveal that I was dangling above a massive cliffside, right under my swinging feet. The fog had just started to dissipate, and I shuddered as my mind cleared. I had been just about to run off that cliff. I had ran toward?—

“Mother!” I cried out, looking around, but as I whirled to the owner of those strong hands, I turned and saw Callum as he set me back down.

“That’s not your mother, Saffron. It’s just the fog,” Callum said, pulling me into him.

My whole body trembled as the voice came through the fog once more, except this time it sounded monstrous, like the cry of the dead or the groaning sound of a tree about to break in a storm.

“ Come home, Saffron,” the eerie voice called out, but this time I heard it for what it was.

“No,” I said, not wanting it to be true. But Callum’s head suddenly swiveled, and I felt him go still against me. “What is it?”

“Stay here,” he said, unsheathing his sword.

“Callum…” I said, but I followed him in the fog, not letting it swallow him up in front of me as he stalked in another direction.

That’s when I heard it—the same ruined voice, as if nails scraping on metal could form words.

“ You were supposed to protect ussssssssssss ,” the voice said with a slithering sound, the syllables getting lost in the floating fog. “You were our leader…”

“I didn’t think I was making the wrong choice!” Callum suddenly called out in reply, and the pain in his voice had me stumbling a step as I tried to keep up with him. “Everything was falling apart. What was I supposed to do?”

“Callum, stop!” I cried, realizing he was being held captive in the same way I had just been.

But he just started walking faster, nearly picking up into a run.

“ You made the selfish choice. And we suffered for it !” the voice creaked.

“I did what I thought was right!” Callum shouted, his voice echoing in the soupy swell of the endless fog that threatened to sweep us away.

This was all wrong—just like what the forest wanted.

“STOP!” I screamed at Callum, and I broke into a run to try and catch him. But he was now running. Too fast—I wouldn’t be able to catch him. I had to stop him before something happened—“This isn’t real, Callum. You’re in The Foggy Forest!”

But Callum was deaf to my attempts to slow him down.

Finally, I pulled out the last card I could think of to try and snap him out of it.

“HELP ME!” I screamed, the shrill sound of my terror cutting through even the thickest of the fog trying to separate us. “CALLUM, I NEED YOU!”

Suddenly, Callum stopped…

…and swayed.

As I caught up with him, I saw why. One foot was on solid ground—the other was hovering above a pit covered in spears at the bottom.

He slowly pivoted to face me, stepping away from what had been certain doom a minute ago.

“Saffron,” he said, and I saw him become lucid once more. He fell on his knees before me, and he leaned his head against me as I twined my fingers in his hair. “You saved me.”

“As did you,” I reminded him, and I felt him take a shuddering breath underneath my touch. We had both been tempted by our pasts—and had both fallen prey to our desires and guilt. We would only survive The Foggy Forest together. Apart? We would have met our deaths screaming.

Callum seemed to remember where we were, as he stood and took my hand. “We have to get out of here.”

“Let’s go,” I said. I was eager to be rid of this place.

A deep rumbling sound filled the forest—underscoring my unease.

“Run!” Callum called and yanked me ahead.

We were sprinting side-by-side, and I was about to demand what we were running from—when I saw it. Those gigantic sleeping trees that stretched and grasped like the gnarled hands of sleeping witches? They were now moving. And reaching toward Callum and I, swiping for our bodies.

Callum dodged the trees, pulling me with him as great thick branches swung at us. I ran faster, trying to keep up with Callum as he sprinted down a hill, and I followed. Great clumps of earth were thrown our way as I skidded down a hill as roots sprung out from underneath me.

I saw it before Callum did. “Duck!” I yelled, pushing Callum to the ground just as a branch swiped the air above our heads, sending us rolling down the hill.

Breathless, I found myself tangled in Callum at the bottom of a grassy slope—with the rumbling now in the distance.

“Are you okay?” he asked, brushing my hair out of my face and looking for injuries with a concerned look.

“Are you okay?” I threw his question right back at him.

Callum’s gaze darkened as I felt him pull me closer to him, our bodies intertwined. “I’ll never turn down a roll in the hay with you.”

“Let’s get moving,” I said, and untangled myself from Callum.

As we rose, I heard another yell cut through the fog.

A flash of blue-green light through the fog had me moving toward who I knew was on the other side, but I felt Callum pull me back.

“Saffron, this way?—”

I hesitated long enough to hear a pained battle cry from Tristen—and an earth-shattering roar that seemed to hurl back at him.

“He needs our help,” I said.

Callum’s eyes darkened. “It’s his problem.”

“He saved me last night when Ajax came after me,” I said in a rush, Callum’s eyes going wide. “Don’t you think that’s a debt you ought to repay?”

Hurt flashed across Callum’s face, and I knew it was a low blow knowing how he had just lost himself to the guilt of those whom he couldn’t save just moments ago.

But to his credit, Callum took my hand and we started running once more—but this time into the direction of the sound of battle.

When we grew closer to the flashes of blue-green shadowfire, the fog became not a still slithering thing, but instead a twisting tornado, caught in a horrible vortex.

At the center of the swirling mist was Tristen, caught in a battle with a hooded creature made of shadows that was three times his size. It shot out at him with spindly arms, oozing toward him like some sort of nightwalker on stilts, tall and made of pure darkness.

Tristen was fast, but the creature’s arms were faster. Tristen’s shadows lashed out like hundreds of flying whips, but seemed to have no effect on the creature. In fact, the creature seemed to grow stronger from each attack, absorbing the shadows and dodging the shadowfire as if it knew Tristen’s power intimately.

“ Let me in, Tristen ,” the creature said in the same croaking voice of the island, but somehow it sounded like it was speaking from the core of the earth. “ Let me in and hand it over. I only want to wear it for awhile .”

“Stand back,” Callum told me, and for once, I listened.

Callum fell to his knees, crossing his arms over his head the way he always had to do in order to summon his shield. But instead of throwing his shield around Tristen, he tossed it around the creature, who turned its hooded head with a slowness that had my skin crawling. But underneath its hood was more vast night—and red eyes staring right at us.

Tristen snapped his head in our direction.

“We can’t fight him and escape. Send your shadows to get him out of here!” Callum bellowed.

Tristen didn’t need to be told twice. He raised his arms like a conductor of an orchestra of nightmares, and his shadows tensed. Then, he lowered his arms slightly and they all shot out— wrapping around Callum’s shield that was keeping the creature contained. Instead of attacking the creature, Tristen’s shadows lifted the orb, levitating it as they carried it up, up, up and away, the fog seeming to lift it into the currents of its strange breeze.

Tristen had sweat beading down his face, and Callum’s breath was coming in heavy pants as the two men worked.

“Almost… Far enough…” Tristen ground out.

“Any time now,” Callum said through gritted teeth.

“Now!” Tristen dropped his arms just as Callum did, the men releasing their grip on their magic.

Callum didn’t wait for me to run by his side, and simply scooped me up in his arms as he ran. Tristen didn’t give me so much as a glance as he ran by Callum’s side, and I almost demanded that Callum put me down—but my legs had gone weak from the horrors I’d seen in the forest, and exhaustion had pressed into me just as the fog had.

So I held my grip around Callum’s neck as he ran over branches and discarded swords. Finally, a dirt path was revealed beneath our feet, the thick fog finally lessening.

When we burst out of the wall of fog, I had never been more grateful for the sun and the cloudless sky above me than I was in that moment. Our horses were whinnying and stomping around in the grassy patch of sun—and from the looks of some of the other lost horses, it seemed like there were other prisoners still trapped in The Foggy Forest.

Callum set me down on the ground just as Tristen emerged from the fog steps behind us, his dark hair mussed and his bedroom eyes blazing.

Callum whirled on Tristen, and the two men stood face-to-face.

I scrambled to my feet, waiting for the moment I would surely have to throw myself between them.

But Callum simply looked Tristen in the eye. “Now we’re even.”

Callum turned and stomped away, frustration rolling off him.

But before he was out of earshot, Tristen’s voice rang out in the sun-drenched stretch of land.

“Thank you, Commander.”

Callum stiffened, but didn’t turn his back. “Don’t thank me, Assassin. I’m still plotting your death.”

Tristen didn’t say anything to that. His gaze just slid to mine, and I held it for a beat before turning and joining Callum by our horse. Callum lifted me up, setting me in the saddle.

We rode away, Tristen still watching us go, his back to the terrible fog still boiling behind him.