Eyes In The Dark

The crimson eyes don't blink. They hang there between the trees, motionless, impossibly bright against the gloom.

I'm rooted to the spot. Every instinct tells me to look away. Every instinct tells me to run. Instead, I stare. Whatever's out there stares back.

The white-haired woman steps forward not far, just enough to put herself between me and it. It's a small movement, but it carries the kind of quiet confidence that says she's stood between danger and other people plenty of times before.

"Leave," she says again. This time she's not talking to me.

The creature answers with a low growl that vibrates through the ground under my feet. My stomach tightens yet she doesn't move an inch.

For several long seconds, neither side does. The tension feels physical, like a rope pulled too tight and waiting to snap.

Then it steps forward, and a shape pulls itself out of the shadows.

At first glance it looks like a wolf. At second glance, it looks like nothing I've ever seen. The limbs are too long, the shoulders too narrow, the whole body twisted like nature tried to build a wolf from memory and got half the details wrong. Patchy fur clings to gray skin. Claws dig into the earth. Its mouth hangs open just enough to show rows of jagged teeth between black gums.

Worst are the eyes. Crimson, and full of something that isn't human intelligence something older and a lot crueler.

The creature tilts its head, studying us. Studying me.

The woman's jaw tightens. "That's impossible," she murmurs.

I catch it. "What is it?"

No answer.

Then the thing smiles. Or its lips pull back into something that resembles a smile the way a scream resembles singing, and it sends a chill straight through me. Predators aren't supposed to look pleased. This one looks thrilled like it just found exactly what it came looking for.

Then it moves.

One second it's standing among the trees. The next it's exploding forward, faster than I can track. I barely see it happen. The woman does. She meets the attack head-on, and the impact shakes the ground under my feet hard enough that I stumble back.

They crash together in a blur of motion, then break apart she lands lightly a few yards off, the creature skids through fallen leaves. Neither looks hurt, not surprised.

Which means this isn't the first time they've done this. Great, Wonderful. Exactly what I needed to know.

The creature growls again. The woman drops into a lower stance.

"Run," she says.

I don't move. Partly because I don't want to leave someone fighting on my behalf. Mostly because my legs have apparently filed for early retirement.

She shoots me a look that could strip paint. "Now would be an excellent time."

That gets my legs working again.

I turn and run. Branches whip past my face, roots grab at my feet, my lungs are burning before I've gone twenty yards. Behind me: crashing trees, snarls, sharp impacts, flashes of silver light flickering between the trunks.

I glance back. Bad idea.

I can't see her anymore. Can't see the creature either just destruction. Trees shaking. Birds bursting into the sky. Something huge tearing through the woods.

My attention slips off the ground for exactly one second.

One second is enough. Myboot catches a root, I stumble, try to recover, fail completely, and the hillside just disappears out from under me.

Then I'm rolling. Leaves, dirt, branches, pain, the whole world turned into one long blur, until gravity finally loses interest and I slam into the base of a tree and stop.

I lie there for a while. Breathing. Existing. Reevaluating every choice that led me here.

Sunlight filters down through the canopy above me. It's quieter up here. More distant. The sounds of fighting have faded either I traveled farther than I thought, or the fight's over.

Neither option is especially comforting.

I groan and push myself upright. My shoulder aches. My clothes are filthy. There's a branch lodged somewhere inside my shirt that I remove with as much dignity as the situation allows, which is not much.

Then I notice where I actually am.

The hillside opens into a small clearing, and at the center of it stands a structure. Not a cabin. Something a lot older gray stone rising out of the earth, broken pillars leaning at odd angles, vines choking the weathered walls. The remains of some ancient building, tucked under the forest canopy like the woods have been guarding it.

I've lived near these woods my whole life. I've never heard of ruins out here.

Curiosity beats common sense again. One day that's going to get me killed. Today, apparently, isn't that day.

I move closer. It could've been a temple once. Or a fortress. Time's erased most of the clues, but not all of them carvings still cover the stone. Wolves. Moons. Stars. Symbols worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain.

I run my fingers over one of the markings.

The second I touch it, pain explodes through my skull. A vision slams into me fire, screams, moonlight glinting off silver armor, a battlefield littered with bodies. Then a voice, not spoken, not heard with my ears heard somewhere deeper, somewhere already inside me.

Find me.

I yank my hand back and the vision vanishes instantly. I stagger, my heart hammering and my breath ragged. The clearing settles back into focus around me ancient, silent, empty.

Did I imagine that? It felt real. Too real.

I stare at the stone. Nothing happens. No visions, no whispers. Just wind.

Then footsteps. Someone's coming. Slow. Deliberate.

My pulse spikes. The woman? The creature or someone else entirely?

I duck behind a fallen pillar. The footsteps get closer. Closer. Then stop.

"Kael?"

Lyra.

I blink. What is Lyra doing out here? The answer arrives before I even finish the thought she noticed I was gone. Which means....

"Oh, you're dead," she calls out.

"What?" I asked exclaiming.

"When I tell your father where I found you, you're dead."

I actually smile, despite everything that's happened in the last hour. First smile all day.

Then it fades, because a worse thought lands right behind it.

If Lyra found this place, someone else could find it too.

And somewhere deep down, I already know this isn't a place that's supposed to be found.

Not yet.