Page 119 of Starside

Sword back in my scabbard, I start sprinting. In the direction I came, or the opposite, I’m not sure. Everything looks the same. Everything keeps repeating. My eyes burn. Terror clenches my chest.

My muscles begin to slacken.

That damned elixir. I can feel its magic slinking back through me, as if to smother my racing pulse. As if to lull me back to sleep.

No. If ever there was a place to fear sleep, it’s this one.

I dredge up more strength, pushing my legs, my arms, to just go faster. To just find the edge of this mist. I think I see a parting in the trees, just as my foot catches beneath a root and the world goes sideways. My jaw hits the ground, and pain blinds me. My teeth crash together. My skull rings. As I grip the ground with trembling hands and my fingers find another root, I realize that the Bone Woods are, in fact, exactly what they sound like.

The trees are all crafted from bone—twisted, ancient, and fused together perfectly, as if someone took great care in shaping them. I reach toward one of the trunks, my finger running down long, sharp scratches several inches deep.

What has claws like this?

I don’t want to fucking find out. Even though it feels like the mist is a heavy cloak over my shoulders, I get up and keep running. And the fog … it almost whispers against my skin. It almost stings, as if not sure whether to bite or caress.

I feel a thousand eyes on me, but everywhere I look there is nothing but endless mist and trees. I turn to run in the opposite direction, but it’s all the same.

I stop. I turn again.

A crunch sounds behind me.

I pivot, unsheathing my blade in a flash. The metal’s sparkle is dimmed. The pulse I feel from it has weakened. Everything is diminished.

There’s nothing behind me, but I feel it. A prick against my neck. A breath against my ear. A metallic taste in my mouth as if all this side’s glimmer has been concentrated into a copper paste. All at once, a sharp pain cleaves my mind in half.

And a silvery voice says, Sleep.

It’s beautiful, like a wind chime. I turn—and only find the mist. It’s moving now, curling around my ankles.

You know you want to.

My fingers tremble against the hilt of my blade. I walk backward, stumbling on another root.

A chuckle echoes through the forest, echoing in my mind.

Close your eyes. You don’t want to see what comes next, the voice says.

The trees begin to shake as if something otherworldly is walking through them. Then they part completely, like a giant blade has cleaved the forest in half.

I stand very still, sword still up. If this is my fate, I will confront it head on.

Foolish child, the voice says.

Power spirals from the center of the trees in a flash of curling gray, hitting me right in the chest.

Sleep, it commands.

My head hits the mangled bone root, and I obey.

My skin is stinging. The back of my head hurts. I feel something faintly warm behind it, and I know at once it’s my own blood. The warmest thing in this cold place.

This cold place.

I open my eyes and am met by a face made up solely of bone and teeth. I flinch, scuttling back, sword in my hand, until my spine hits a tree.

The man simply straightens. And in my soul, I know this is one of the creatures the immortal spoke of. An ancient presence. If I didn’t know it from the fangs curling out of his jagged mouth, I would know it from the fear in my chest, an orb of fracturing ice, as if some primal part of me knows to run.

Looking at him, I know running would be useless.