Page 8 of Where the Shadows Land (Garden of Hope #1)

“Don’t look at us like that, little vixen.

It is no worse than your kind deserves for all the gardens they have destroyed,” the Rholctai growled.

“You would be wise to remember where you are, and how lucky it is Fate brought you here when it did. If you arrived by morning light, your blood would’ve soaked the dirt in full by now. ”

“Fate is cruel to have forced me to live this long.” Astoria glared at the wooden post in front of her.

“If you wanted death so badly, why agree to our pact?” Mairuk rose to their full height and positioned her between them and the wall. Their clay-drenched fingers held her by the chin and forced her to meet their eyes.

A twist of emotion spiraled up Astoria’s stomach and settled in her throat.

Her heart pounded, and her lungs twisted up in knots.

The chill of late winter air raised the goosebumps to sharp points all across her skin.

The truth was a brutal thing, but a lie wouldn’t bring her comfort when she knew the facts.

“I am a coward and I am afraid of death.”

“Leave it to a human to fear the only promise life offers.” They huffed and dropped her face. Mairuk turned back to their work. “Pathetic.”

The fire burning in her blood snapped into the scalding red of heated metal and burned in the space between her ribs. “What is pathetic is living alone in an abandoned, dead village. You must be so cruel that even your own kin cannot stand you!”

“You know not of what you speak!” The monster above her released a wet, grumbling roar as they screamed the words into her mind.

“If this is how you treat others, I am not surprised that you are alone. Resorting to binding a human to you because you’re too hateful to find a com panion with any semblance of a heart!

” Astoria poked Mairuk in the chest, her words burning on her tongue.

“I may be a coward, but at least I had a family.”

Mairuk rose to their full height and snarled. “Silence!”

The venom-soaked ache of the overlaid voices in her mind dumped frozen water on her anger, and it fizzled out as fast as it arrived.

Mairuk stormed off with a growl and ate up the distance with long strides until they eventually vanished out of sight.

Their snarls faded into the distance too, and Astoria was alone and adrift in a haze of grief.

Astoria looked off in the distance, beyond the wall.

I could run and be long gone before they caught up.

Running would only last a few days at best. The pink webs on her arm were a beacon to her location.

The sigil burned under her skin as if a reminder.

She scratched at it with her dirty fingers. How would they kill me?

Astoria considered all the ways the monster she bound herself to would send her into the oblivion she was too terrified to leap into herself.

None of the ways Mairuk promised to kill her seemed pleasant.

Wet blood stuck to her fingers, and she looked down at the raw, bloody skin.

Despite the blood and ripped flesh, the glowing pink sigil was unmarred, as if it lived in her very essence.

Daydreaming of death and facing the grim reality of it were two different things.

Astoria didn’t want to become a corpse, but death was easier than aching all the time.

She burned to lay the pain in her chest to rest and put all her grief in a coffin.

She was too afraid to die, but she didn’t want whatever her existence became after her losses, either.

How would she live in a world post-grief?

Could she live without the ache that was her constant companion for the last two years?

Astoria turned away from the horizon. Getting eaten by a monster was a dumb, unpleasant way to die.

She made her way back to her designated house where Bastian waited for her at the front door, a dead rabbit in his mouth.

Astoria pet him, took the dead creature, and opened the door.

She set the rabbit on the wooden work table and sank onto the couch .

Her thigh burned and her arm dripped blood freely all over the dark brown fur covering the seat below her.

Her throat was dry, her stomach was so empty it growled, and a thick layer of grime covered her body.

She needed to answer the demands of living.

A headache bloomed behind her eyes and she covered her face with her hand.

Every step involved in one of those tasks was a mountain she needed to climb.

All of them would take far more energy than she had available.

It was easier to suffer. It didn’t take as much effort to sit, close her eyes, and accept misery as punishment from the gods for her failure. She failed as a wife, a mother, and a friend. She failed being alive, yet she was too afraid to die. The monster is right. I am pathetic.

The sound of cloth dragging against the ground and four little paws made Astoria open her eyes.

Bastian brought her pack to her feet. Healing supplies, basic tools and rations were all available within.

He nudged her hands until she took the pack.

With tears in her eyes, she picked up both her companion and the bag, clutching them to her chest.

“Thank you, Bastian.”

He nuzzled his face against hers, then hopped into the space between her good thigh and the arm of the couch.

He settled in and watched her open the bag.

Inside, Astoria found a full canteen of stale water, and she drank deep.

She took a fistful of dried fruit pieces and a stick of meat and shared her meal with Bastian.

She lifted the healing kit out of her pack and something fell out alongside it, clanging against the floor at her feet.

Astoria set the kit and pack to the side and reached for the object. Cool metal prickled against her palm and goosebumps bloomed up her arms. She lifted it into her lap, her tears blurring her vision as she took in the dagger her husband gifted her on their wedding day.

The fox carved into the wooden tip had mother-of-pearl eyes and a silver tip on the tail.

Sharp enough to cut bone, the blade itself was one of the finest Damien ever made.

It carried a hint of his magic and the enchantment hummed against her skin with a memory of him.

His lips against her head, and his soft, warm voice in her ear.

She wished she could smell him. The forge, his sweat, and the bar of spiced soap she bought only for him.

Instead of with her husband, Astoria was alone in a vacant village with a cruel monster as her captor and only company.

Sobs wrecked her body as she realized she would’ve lost this precious dagger had Fate not had her leave it in her bag.

One memory of many that tethered her to the past, reminding her with clarity so sharp it burned that all she lost was real.

She clutched her locket between two fingers.

Astoria escaped with the only remains of her family she had left.

Astoria scooped Bastion into her arms and cried into his fur until exhaustion took her under.