Page 37 of The Beginning (Covert Moon, #1)

Eamonn

The Fae Realm

* * *

W ith my first trip to the Human Realm a mere hours away, I found I couldn’t sleep. Despite everything that had happened today, I couldn't stop thinking about Logan, my missing Watcher.

Clearly, he was someone with a more flexible attitude toward his duties.

I'd gotten that impression from talking with Tobias and a few of the other Watchers.

The way they'd exchange glances when his name came up, the slight hesitation before they'd speak about him—it all painted a picture of someone who bent the rules.

But he was my responsibility, and he was lost. All the other guards said that despite his tendencies, he wasn't completely derelict.

He knew what he was supposed to do. And while he had a reputation for being late, the fact that he hadn't checked in for several days was a source of worry among the men.

I'd seen it in their faces at dinner, heard it in the quieter conversations that died when I approached.

The unease was spreading like ripples in a pond.

I realized that I no longer insisted on rigid adherence to rules.

The thought struck me as strange - when had that happened?

I didn't know whether to be glad of allowing myself more freedom or sad at the relaxing of standards.

That would be something to consider after I made it through this problem. Not tonight.

The walls seemed to close in around me as I tossed and turned in the darkness.

I could hear the faint sounds of the night - the settling of timber, the whisper of wind through the eaves, the distant call of some night bird.

Usually these sounds comforted me, but tonight they felt ominous, like harbingers of trouble to come.

* * *

I did eventually fall asleep, for when I dreamed, I found myself somewhere that I'd never been before.

The transition was so seamless that for a moment I didn't realize what had happened.

It was dark and quiet, but not the comfortable darkness of my room.

This darkness felt alive, watching. I could hear the musicians of the evening in the bugs and fauna that moved around during the night alone.

The familiar night sounds of crickets and rustling leaves created a symphony I'd grown used to.

But then, as I listened, the noise stopped.

All at once, as if someone had dropped a blanket of silence over the world. That was never a good sign.

The sudden quiet made my skin crawl. In nature, silence like that meant danger—predators on the hunt, death lurking nearby.

I looked around, trying to get my bearings.

A building sat in the distance, perhaps a hundred paces away.

It looked ornate, although not in the style that I was accustomed to in the Fae Realm.

The architecture was foreign, angular where Fae buildings curved, harsh where ours flowed.

It had a detailed window at the top, and the top itself came to a rounded point.

The window was almost a triangle, with large curlicues cut into the stone.

It would've been quite beautiful, except that it was a ruin—some of the stone carvings were broken away, leaving jagged edges and gaps like missing teeth.

The building had an abandoned feel to it, like something that had once been grand but had fallen into neglect. Vines crept up the walls in some places, and I could see where sections of stonework had crumbled and not been repaired.

I could hear something—a shuffling—something that sounded like voices. Everything was muffled, distant, as if coming from deep within the abandoned structure. The contradiction made me uneasy.

I looked around some more, taking in the strange landscape.

The grounds in front of this house were covered with stones, some of them in the shape of a cross like the one atop the building.

Some of the stones were flat slabs with square corners or with rounded tops.

They were arranged in rough rows, like soldiers standing at attention.

There was writing on them, carved deep into the stone, but I couldn't tell what was said.

It wasn't the language of the Fae Realm.

Then I understood: A graveyard. I realized with a chill that I was standing in a graveyard.

And it was cold. Colder than it should have been, even for night.

The chill seemed to seep through my clothes and into my bones.

I looked down, and I saw that I wore my normal Watcher uniform of cotton trousers, a white cotton shirt and my brown lace up boots.

The fabric offered little protection against the unnatural cold that seemed to emanate from the very ground beneath my feet.

A flicker of shadow moved off to the side of my vision.

I turned toward the building and saw nothing.

The doorway gaped like a dark mouth, but there was no movement visible.

As I looked away, I caught the flash out of the corner of my eye once more.

Something was there, just beyond the edge of sight, playing a game of hide and seek with my periphery.

My hand moved instinctively to where my sword should hang, but found nothing. Of course not - this was a dream, and dreams followed their own rules.

I turned, and the door to the building burst open with a bang that echoed across the graveyard like thunder. I stepped back automatically, my heart hammering in my chest, and a small figure—a woman—shot out of the door.

A flash of pink hair shone through the torchlight, the strands gleaming like threads of rose gold as they flew past the flame. Once in the moonlight, the color faded and her hair glistened as if made of silver.

I couldn't see her face, but her figure was lithe and her clothing was torn, and as she ran past me, I could hear the gasping of great exertion, or panic, or tears. I wasn't sure which, but the sound of her distress tore at something in my chest.

Despite her obvious terror, she had a grace that was unmistakably feminine.

She didn't see me as she weaved her way between the gravestones with desperate urgency.

Something about her made me worried. Not for myself, but for her.

There was something vulnerable in her flight, something that spoke of genuine terror rather than simple fear.

She was fast. Very fast. Faster than should have been possible for someone of her size. She was dressed all in black, making her look like a shadow in the night, but I could still track her movement by the pale gleam of her hair streaming behind her like a banner.

She seemed to sense me as I ran after her because she sped up. Her breathing became more ragged, more desperate. She was trying to get away. Away from what? What had driven her from that dark building?

As I got closer, I reached out a hand to grab her shoulder, her hair, whatever I could grasp onto.

My fingers were only inches from her when she made her move.

Why I reached for her, I didn't know. But it felt like what I should do, like I was meant to help her somehow.

I wasn't able to catch her as she made an abrupt turn to the right.

She reached out for one of the upright standing stones and used it as a fulcrum to help her make the sharp change in direction.

Her hand tightened on the stone, and I looked down to see that blood streamed from her hand, dark and thick in the moonlight.

I think she saw the blood as well because she screamed, a loud, high, nearly hysterical shriek of shock and pain.

The sound pierced the night air like a blade, making my ears ring.

It was the sound of someone pushed beyond their limits, beyond what they could endure.

My stride faltered. Then I gasped myself as I realized that the blood wasn't only coming from a wound on her hand but a wound where her finger had been.

Her finger had been chopped off, and not in the prettiest manner. The edge of the finger, her fourth finger, was jagged, as though someone or something had - had torn it from her. The wound was fresh, still bleeding freely, and I could see the pale gleam of bone at the center of the mangled flesh.

The shock of the coarseness of her wound, and the strangeness of this whole event didn't allow me to make the turn as quickly as she had.

My mind reeled, trying to process what I'd seen.

As I slowed and had to double back just a little bit, she got away from me, disappearing into the maze of tombstones like a ghost.

A howl filled the night, as eerie and mournful as the keen of a wolf, echoing across the graveyard. The sound raised every hair on my body, primal and threatening. And?—

I woke, sitting up straight in my bed, the faint lines of the dawn streaking through my window. My heart felt like it might burst from my chest, and my nightshirt was soaked through with sweat. The room was silent around me, except for my ragged breathing.

It had all been a dream. But it had felt so real, so vivid, that I could still smell the cold night air, still hear the echo of that woman's scream.

Despite my efforts, it was clear there would be no more sleep for me this night.

Every time I closed my eyes, I could see that woman's mutilated hand, hear her desperate breathing.

I forced myself to get up and began to ready myself for the day, going through the familiar motions of washing and dressing.