“No.” Abruptly serious, Ash stood, offering a hand to pull me to my feet. “It wasn’t you. Something spooked them.” He gazed around slowly, hand dropping to the sword at his waist. Around us, the wyldwood was still and dark, as if the inhabitants were afraid to move.
I looked behind us, where the trunks of two trees had grown into each other, forming an archway between. The space between the trunks, where the trod lay, was cloaked in shadow, and it seemed to me that the shadows were creeping closer. A cold wind hissed through the trunks, rattling branches and tossing leaves, and I shivered.
With a frantic rushing sound a flock of tiny winged fey burst from the trod, swirling around us in panic and spiraling into the mist. I yelped, shielding my face, and Ash’s horse screamed again, the sound piercing the ominous quiet. Ash took my hand and pulled me away from the trod, hurrying back to his mount. Lifting me to sit just behind the saddle, he grabbed the reins and climbed up in front.
“Hold on tight,” he warned, and a thrill shot through me as I slipped my arms around his waist, feeling the hard muscles through his shirt. Ash dug in his heels with a shout, and the horse shot forward, snapping my head back. I squeezed Ash tightly and buried my face in his back as the faery horse streaked through the wyldwood, leaving the trod far behind.
We stopped infrequently, and when we did, it was only to let me and the horse rest for a few minutes. As evening fell, Ash pulled several food items from the horse’s pack and gave them to me; bread and dried meat and cheese, ordinary human food. Apparently, he remembered my last experiment with eating faery food, which hadn’t turned out so well. I nibbled the dry bread, gnawed on the jerky and hoped he wouldn’t mention the Summerpod incident and the embarrassment that followed.
Ash didn’t eat anything. He remained wary and suspicious, and never truly relaxed the entire journey. The horse, too, was jumpy and restless, and it panicked at every shadow, every rustle or falling leaf. Something was following us; I felt it every time we stopped, a dark, shadowy presence drawing ever closer
As we rode on through the night, the eternal twilight of the wyldwood finally dimmed and a pale yellow moon rose into the sky. Ash and the fey horse both had seemingly unlimited endurance, more so than me, anyway. Riding a horse for hours and hours is not easy, and the stress of being chased by an unknown enemy was taking its toll. I struggled to stay awake, dozing against the prince’s back, leaning dangerously off the sides until a jolt or sharp word from Ash snapped me upright.
I was dozing off once more, fighting to keep my eyes open, when Ash suddenly pulled the horse to a stop and dismounted. Blinking, I looked around dazedly, seeing nothing but trees and shadows. “Are we there yet?”
“No.” Ash glared at me in exasperation. “But you keep threatening to fall off the horse, and I can’t keep reaching back to make sure you’re still on.” He motioned to the front of the saddle. “We’re switching places. Move forward.”
I eased into the saddle and Ash swung up behind me, wrapping an arm securely around my waist, making my pulse beat faster in excitement.
“Hold on,” he murmured as the horse started forward again. “We’re almost to the trod. Once we’re in the mortal realm, you can rest. We should be safe there.”
“What’s following us?” I whispered, making the horse’s ears twitch back. Ash didn’t reply for several moments.
“I don’t know,” he muttered, sounding reluctant to admit it. “Whatever it is, it’s persistent. We’ve been keeping a pretty steady pace and haven’t lost it yet.”
“Why is it following us? What does it want?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Ash’s grip around my waist tightened. “If it wants you, it’ll have to get past me first.”
My stomach prickled, and my heart did a weird little flop. In that moment, I felt safe. My prince wouldn’t let anything happen to me. Settling back against him, I closed my eyes and let myself drift.
I must have dozed off, for the next thing I knew Ash was shaking me gently. “Meghan, wake up,” he murmured, his cool breath fanning my neck. “We’re here.”
Yawning, I looked at the small glade ahead of us. Without the cover of the trees, I could see the sky, dotted with stars. The glade was clear, except for one massive gnarled oak in the very center. Roots snaked out over the ground, huge thick things that prevented anything bigger than a fern to flourish. The trunk was wide and twisted, like three or four trees had been squashed together into one. But even with the oak’s size and dominating presence, I could see that it was dying. Its branches drooped, or had snapped off and were scattered about the base of the tree. Most of its broad, veined leaves were dead and brittle; the rest were a sickly yellow-brown. The glade, too, looked withered and sick, as if the tree was leeching life from the forest around it.