Shadows of Blood and Deceit (book two)

3

TW: alcohol abuse.

Avaryn

My foot slid through mud almost causing me to fall flat on my ass. I shook it off my shoe. Ew. Why am I walking in a dark forest by myself you might ask? I had no clue. Why did I keep listening to Roz?

Each job she sent me on got worse and worse. Apparently this new herb she wanted was not being sold in the local shops. Because it was illegal.

The Shadow forest was extra creepy by myself. Shadows crawled across every tree like whispers as if there were hundreds of people in the forest beside me but I knew better, I was all alone. Which in a way was comforting. The sky above me was dark and the birds whispered secrets above my head.

I hated to admit it but The Shadow Realm was truly captivating. Everything about it was beautiful to me.

The herb Roz tasked me to find for her illegal witchy activities was apparently supposed to grow out of a tree stump to a specific kind of tree. The trees were called Dark Willows and Roz showed me a painting of what they looked like but I can't seem to find them.

It felt like I'd been traveling for miles before I saw something. A faint glow in the distance. I knew that it wasn't a good idea to follow this strange light. I knew that I was out here for Roz, but I've always been a curious person before anything else. I had to know what was ahead.

I strode forward until I reached the periwinkle glow that came from above the trees. I sucked in a sharp breath as I stared up.

I felt a smile bloom on my face. I was speechless.

Above the trees in dozens of swarms were some kind of butterflies. Or at least I thought they were butterflies. They had more than four wings, they had double stacked atop each other almost like mirrors. And they were extremely big, not the size of a palm like normal butterflies. But those aren't the things that amazed me.

They were glowing.

Bright and blinding like a christmas tree. They were all types of colors. Red, purple, green, white, black, gold.

They were wondrous. I had never seen anything like them before. I felt like I had just discovered something that nobody knew about. The glow of the butterflies surrounded a small part of the forest creating our own secret bubble. I lifted my hand up as if to reach for them, maybe they could take me with them, maybe my life could be as simple as a pretty butterfly.

They slowly wandered towards my outreached palm as if hesitant whether or not I was going to hurt them. After a minute they seemed to decide that I was decent and landed all up my arm. It looked like I had a glow in the dark arm.

I laughed when their wings tickled me. A feeling had warmed in my stomach and I realized I was happy. It was funny that such a small thing could bring out an emotion I hadn't felt in weeks.

I suddenly froze when I heard a rustling behind me. The butterflies seemed to hear it too because they all hurried away. I wanted to drop-kick the person who scared them. I slightly turned my head over my shoulder. My heart lurched in my chest. Was there someone in these woods with me?

As soon as I thought about it, it clicked.
I huffed, "might as well come out Raiden."

Seconds passed in silence and nobody came into view. I narrowed my eyes behind me. I was too paranoid at this point to believe that the noise was in my head.

Someone was following me and It wasn't Raiden.

I slowly gripped the dagger in my waistband. "Come out!"I hissed putting the dagger out in front of me.