Page 179 of The Last Guardian

A heavy silence reigned around us. Crows circled overhead, cawing endlessly, like a warning.

“We have to continue,” Zaid instructed. “We can’t stay here too long.”

Nodding, I followed him to the exit of the cemetery—glad to leave it behind. It was even more sinister than the temple filled with monsters. The path led us to a dark forest, which strangely reminded me of the King’s Wood, where the wolf had attacked me the day Haedeon bit me.

That wolf—it had looked almost dead. If the High Mages had already opened hellholes in Perygan, maybe that creature was in fact a monster from the Hells. The nausea rose again.

And the monsters we just faced, they reminded me of one I had seen in an old book when I was a child—the book Uncle Marlon had given to me. Small, hairy, with large ears and a hooked nose. Bulging yellow eyes, large hands…

“Were they Goblins?” I asked, approaching Zaid, the strange forest giving me goosebumps.

He nodded; his hand found my back in a gentle caress, as if to make sure I was alright.

Goblins. In Uncle Marlon’s book, the Goblins were described as ancient beings that wandered Perygan long before our time. Humans had a shared past with them.

Goblins apparently lived in swamps or ruins and worshiped ornamental items like jewelry and gold. They sacked villages and attacked the inhabitants, enjoying inflicting suffering. The vermin, which bred incessantly, caused mayhem wherever they stopped. I couldn’t recall how they had disappeared, though…

I spent most of our walk scanning around, making sure none of them had followed us.

After spending a few dozen minutes here, I decided it was no better than the cemetery. Everything was lifeless: the gray trees, the black soil, the gloomy sky. The tree trunks shot upwards, leafless—their branches twisted in mid-air, while their roots burst forth from the soil. It was like they were trying to get away from this dangerous place. We sank into a vortex of death and Hells—the forest about to swallow us whole and drain all life from us.

“Do you think it’s around here?” I asked Zaid in a whisper, not needing to mention the Sankyanoia.

I whispered, fearing that if I spoke too loudly, something terrible might wake up.

“No living beings remain here,” Zaid murmured.

The fog shrouded the road, swirling around the skeletal trees, obscuring our view of the forest’s edge.

Sounds came from all directions, some far away, but never too distant. They could be upon us at any moment.

The croaks of birds, the creak of a branch, the rustle of leaves, and the echoing of our footsteps filled the void.

My mind wandered to my siblings, my friends, and the others… I hoped they had been able to leave the temple in time before it collapsed on them.

I glanced at the man next to me when he took my hand.

Our fingers entwined like a complete song that wanted to be sung in the depths of the world.

A light guiding me through the darkness.

Sometimes, when the silence became unbearable or the atmosphere too heavy, I held his hand a bit tighter. Every time, Zaid gently ran his thumb over my skin, as if to comfort me.

And it always worked.

THE PATH SPLIT into two, and a vibration burned my skin through the leather, ordering each of my cells to listen.

The relic.

I stopped, startling Zaid as I reached out to pick up the buzzing relic. As soon as I took it, the crystal shone so brightly that my eyes could hardly bear it, illuminating the path around us.

“It’s telling us something,” I whispered, eyeing Zaid.

“We should keep going, see how it reacts.”

With a nod, I followed Zaid, who took the left path. But the relic emanated a sensation unbearable to my palm, and I hissed. The moment my feet stopped, the relic stopped burning.

“I think it wants to go right,” I pointed out to Zaid.