Swords of Gilded Crimson

Chapter 48 | Retrace |

In the hours that had followed my arrival at the lake, I'd taken multiple treks across its surrounding marshes. All the while, keeping my ears perked to their prime to perhaps sense Nikolai's arrival from another entrance he'd taken for some newly risen complications on his way. As for his scent, I hadn't been able to catch any drift of it, whatsoever, in the nearby areas, and so the restless, uneasy sensation in the pit of my stomach only surged each time I tried.

On this wise, I stalked back into city. At this hour, it felt somewhat surreal to be in the midst of a metropolis known only to be teeming with city dwellers, now utterly darkened, and silent, save for my footsteps. I hadn't yet sighted anyone else, and while knowing that was no reason to maintain the tenor of stealth- as Kymil wouldn't hesitate to remind me, I couldn't. More than that, I couldn't allow myself to linger on any thought other than the fastest route back to the industrial region in Nightsummit's rural plains.

When there, I first sought out the horses we'd kept tethered in a small alcove of one of the industrial units. The pair of them were so far, intact with the entirety of our satchels and other baggage- most of which Nikolai had picked up. Surely, if he'd wished to take his opportunity to leave alone, he ought to have taken his horse along with his belongings. I wouldn't have come for mine until hours later.

Gritting my teeth at the narrowing possibilities to consider, I took to instead only draping his satchels over the back of my horse, and swiftly swung one leg over its side to mount it for a ride I knew would be lasting into the next morning.

The other whinnied alarmingly, tossing its head to either side, as I did so. With a low sigh, I leant to unravel its rope from the jut in the wall, and it promptly took the chance to gallop away into the plains ahead. Watching its eager escape, I lashed the reins of my own horse to forbid it of thinking the same, and started on the empty city ahead; back down the way that led to where Nightsummit first began.

I'd scarcely reached the grasslands that fringed the threshold of the city, when drifts of a vile, abhorrent odour surpassed my senses. Crinkling my nose, I urged my horse to trot back out of instinct, but it wasn't nearly enough. The odour apparently wasn't as harmless as vile, nor abhorrent, and had managed to slither itself into my respiratory tracts. There, it surged and ravaged a feral burn, and what had started with a slight clearing of my throat, became a bitter coughing fit. Not long after inhaling those menacing drifts, I'd doubled over in heed of my chest, thundering with its pitiful efforts to rid the impact of whatever poison had been immersed within the air around this place.

It was in a way, a heightened version of the gaseous faebane that had mercilessly been used to poison my first cell in the Luxandrian dungeons. Except now, the memory felt as sweet, and merciful, as the tender hand of the healer stationed at a war camp. On that accord, this darned toxicant was foreign, but familiar. A type of faebane at the end of the day, but far more dire. To the species of fae, anyway; I remarked how it abstained from any impact wrought upon the horse.

Once I'd backed a distance, satisfactory enough to recollect my breathing, my mind raced through the web of possibilities that could've led to the poison collecting in the air outside of Nightsummit. They each converged on the one idea I'd been desperately attempting to avoid leading to.

...The idea that the reason behind Nikolai's delay- or what could become more than a delay- was the mortals' damned search party. In essence, he'd been caught, and if the drastic use of the faebane-like toxicant was any indication, they had somehow uncovered the nature of his true species, too.

In lieu of those lamentable notions, I thought only of my return to Thorngarde. Since the chatter of those workers in the transmission chamber had proven appreciably reliable, I recalled, and zoned in on another part of what they'd uttered- or at least what the apt one out of the two had; the police had already checked and scoured the town of Thorngarde.