"What the fuck is that thing doing here?" Jace demands.
I stick my hands out, stopping him from stepping any closer. How am I supposed to explain any of this to Jace when I don't even comprehend it, myself?
"I really don't know where to start," I say.
Jace shakes his head. "Just—start with why you brought that fucker in here."
I nod and look back at Nightclaw. "He. . . he talked to me," I say. "I can control him."
"What?" Jace breathes.
"That guy Niko told us about—Sukumar—he sent this thing here to kill me."
All of you.
I spin around to face Nightclaw. "All of us?" I ask.
Jace steps forward, grabbing my wrist. "All of us what?"
"Sukumar wants to kill all of us," I repeat after Nightclaw, staring up at Jace. "Because he wants to overthrow Vriabbedolon."
"And what the fuck does that have to do with us?"
I pull my hand from his grasp. "We're the heirs to the thrones of Vriabbedolon."
Jace scoffs and throws his hands up, walking away. "Insane," he mutters, brushing past Niko. "Fucking insane."
Niko stares at me, then at the dog sitting behind me. "So it's real?" he asks.
I nod. "Apparently."
"We don't have time to fucking deal with this!" Jace hollers from the top of the stairs. Breanna and Dakota break in their tracks behind him. "We already have to find a way to wake up the whole fucking world, I don't have time to deal with supernatural shit on top of it."
"Maybe it is the supernatural shit," I say.
It is.
I turn to Nightclaw and relay his message to the others. "Sukumar cast a curse," I say. "One to make every human fall asleep."
Breanna pushes past Jace. "What are you saying?" she asks. "That we aren't human?"
I rake my fingers through my hair. "I guess not."
Jace sits down at the top of the staircase. "So, what? We kill this Sukumar guy, then?"
"How the fuck are we supposed to do that?" Dakota asks.
The world unfolds beneath me. I scream as my stomach rises in my throat, threatening to spill out of my mouth, and then I land in a blanket of snow. I feel the skin of my shoulder slit back open. Drops of blood fall to the ground, contrasting horrendously with the bright snow, and gush down my torso. The fabric of Jace's shirt is now pasted to my body with blood.
Nightclaw prowls ahead of us, his paws leaving no tracks in the snow, and squashes a frozen flower beneath him.
Jace and Niko slink closer to where I sit leaned against Breanna. I wipe my damp hands on my jeans. Snow seeps through the legs of my pants, chilling my bones, and I shiver.
"What is this place?" I shudder, looking up at the forest surrounding us.
The snow-coated ground is layered with flowers, except they're created totally of ice. The tree branches hanging above us are covered with snow, icicles hanging down in treacherous looking spears. The sunlight reflects off the ice encircling us, refracting across our faces.
Miseaxath
Nightclaw sits in front of me. "Miseaxath?" I ask.
He is alert, back on his feet with his ears standing as he growls towards the woods. The branches shudder, rocking snow down to the ground.
I grip Breanna's trembling arm, staring at the creature emerging before us. The flesh a sickly gray color, sagging from its protruding bones and split around the spikes bulging from its spine, brown blood oozing down its sides.
"You can control animals," Jace says quickly, tapping my arm. "Make it go away."
"Leave us alone!" I call out to the monster.
He continues stalking towards us.
"Get away!" I yell. "Get the fuck away!"
Its pace quickens.
"I think you pissed it off," Dakota says.
I stand, snow dropping from my legs, and frantically stumble backwards. "Nightclaw," I say, "where do we need to go?"
He doesn't seem keen on running, but rather on fighting the monster racing towards us. The muscles beneath his black coat tense as he prepares to pounce. "Nightclaw!" I yell. "Come here!"
He turns and glowers at me, resentfully trotting over and seating himself before me.
"I need you to show us how to get out of here," I plead.
He runs past me and into the woods. I follow close behind with the others, ducking beneath frozen branches and sprinting over overgrown roots. My breath comes in shallow gasps as I push myself to run as fast as I can, my heart pounding with such intensity I believe it possible for it to burst at any moment, and my stomach stirs at the sound of clawed feet running close behind.
Nightclaw yowls and tumbles through the snow, leaving a path of green drool trailing behind him.
"What happened?" I breath, falling beside him. An arrow juts from his shoulder. "Oh my gosh. . ."
Jace grabs my waist and hefts me to my feet. "Abrielle, we need to go!"
An ethereal man stands in our way, a bow in hand and a sheath of arrows slung over his shoulder. I stare at his mystical attire, then at his wideset eyes.
"You did this," I say.
He knocks an arrow and raises the bow at us. "Duck."
I crouch to the ground and watch the arrow strike the monster chasing us between the eyes. It falls limply to the snow.
I crawl back to Nightclaw. "You don't need to hurt him," I assure the man who rescued us. "He's with us."
He lowers his bow. "He's a creation of Sukumar," the man says, his voice seeming almost metallic. "As are you, if you side with it."
I shake my head. "No," I promise. "He's Sukumar's creation, but his loyalty lies with us."
He cocks his head towards our group. "What are your names?"
"Abrielle."
His silver eyes widen. "Abrielle?" he repeats.
I nod.
"Come with me."
I shake my head and stroke Nightclaw's slick fur. "We have to help him."
"No," the man says. He gestures with his weapon to where the fallen beast rests. "There's plenty more where that thing came from. We need to get back within the city limits."
"Not until we get this arrow out of his shoulder," I insist. "Do you have a knife?"
He hesitates, then sighs and pulls a large knife from the scabbard at his hip. "Be quick."
I grab the knife with a shaking hand and part the fur around the arrow. "This is gonna hurt like hell buddy," I say.
Nightclaw wails as I make a quick incision extending from the arrow wound in his shoulder, and again as I fish the point from where it's embedded in the muscle. Blood leaks from the hole and soaks into his fur. I pull the oversized sleeve over my hand and blot the blood away as best I can, pressing the cloth against his wound and repressing the gag threatening to escape my throat at the warmth of his blood soaking through the fabric and drenching my hand.
"Can you walk?" I ask.
He stands slowly in response and begins staggering forward. I nod to our rescuer, signaling that we're ready, and he leads us through the woods and into a village. And, in the center of the village, a huge castle stands, made entirely of crystal to give the illusion of ice. Settlers bustle across the icy roads. Families rush their children inside at the sight of Nightclaw, staring at our group out their windows. I can't blame them—we're strangers coming to their hometown, with a supposedly evil dog in hand.
"What's your name?" I ask the man leading us.
"Shae."
"And where are we going?"
He points ahead. "To the castle," Shae says. "There are people you need to meet."
Dakota steps beside me and grabs my hand. I look up at him and shrug.
"She needs to see a doctor before anything else," Jace says. "She's been hurt."
Shae glances over his shoulder at my blood-stained shirt. "We'll stop at the medics," he says. "What happened?"
Nightclaw glances at me. "The dog," I say. "Misunderstanding."
Shae scoffs. "Right."
We enter through the crystal gates of the castle, footsteps echoing loudly throughout the room. Shae leads us through a maze of halls and into a room lined with twin-sized beds, few of which are occupied, and calls out for a woman named Nylah.
"Yes?" she responds, her white robes rolling behind her as she walks away from a man resting in one of the beds. She holds a small container of salve in her slender hands. "Who is this?"
She looks us up and down, clearly confused, and startles at the dog.
"This one has been injured," Shae says, motioning to me. "Attacked by her pet."
Nylah ticks and beckons me forward. "Follow me," she says, leading me to one of the beds. "Remove your top for me?"
I snake my arms through the sleeves of Jace's sweatshirt, but am unable to lift them above my head to remove it. "I can't," I say. "My shoulder."
Nylah gently pulls the shirt over my head.
I'm still not wearing a bra, and my cheeks flush as Niko quickly averts his gaze to the floor and Dakota can't seem to decide whether to look at me or anywhere besides me. Nylah sucks in a sharp breath.
"How bad is it?" Jace asks.
I wince as she delicately feels the wound. "It's likely to get infected," she says, reaching to the table beside her and dipping a piece of cloth in the water-filled bowl sitting atop it. "The sutures have been torn and it's extremely inflamed."
I cry out as she presses the cloth against my angry skin.
"I'm going to have to remove what's left of these stitches and re-suture this," Nylah says, dabbing the blood away. "What's your name?"
She drops the cloth back into the water and grabs a glass bottle of clear liquid.
"Abrielle," I tell her.
She pauses and looks to Shae, who only nods and crosses his arms. "This is going to hurt like a bitch," she warns me, pulling the cork from the bottle.
Breanna gives me her hand and I squeeze it, groaning and fighting back tears as Nylah pours the alcohol over my shoulder. She swiftly stitches the gashes back.
"Thank you," I tell her as she applies the salve from earlier over the stitches.
She nods. "You're welcome. Come back and see me before you retire for the night, yes?"
With her assistance, I put the shirt back on, and then I turn to Shae. "What is this place?" I ask him, stroking Nightlcaw's head as he saunters over to me.
"Miseaxath," Shae answers.
I nod. "I know that. But what is it?"
"One of the kingdoms of this realm," Shae says. "Do you not know?"
"No," I say, shaking my head.
"We don't even know how we got here," Dakota says. "What realm?"
Shae walks out of the infirmary, motioning for us to follow. "You're in Vriabbedolon," he says. "We've been expecting you."
