Page 109 of Cycle Keeper’s Shadow

He didn’t return anything else. She hoped he heard it. Thoughts were easier than words. More dangerous, too. She’d have to focus in the future to make sure she wasn’t sending things she didn’t want him to hear—or feel, apparently.

Silas’s hand was still over hers. She slid out from beneath it, and his voice whispered in the dark.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied, leaning back against the rough stone. He didn’t say anything more. She curled both hands around the whisperstone—a small, stubborn warmth in the cold.

Wren blinked at the thin light leaking through the crack in Garin’s stone wall. Every muscle ached. Cold and stiffness were woven through her body like thread in cloth.

The shuffle of movement told her the others were stirring too. Then came the familiar tap of Garin’s staff, followed by a whisper of Air as he tested the world beyond their shelter. The ground rumbled, and the wall sank back into the earth with a sigh of stone. Harsh gray light flooded the cave.

Orzen slipped out first, sword drawn, head tilting toward every rustle and creak of the waking forest. After a long pause, he called back to them. “Looks clear.”

They filed out, stepping over the carcasses strewn across the dirt. In daylight, the monsters were worse than memory.

What had seemed like wings were long, ear-like flaps—paper-thin flesh stretched over black veins. Their bodies were shrunken, skin sallow and puckered, eight chitinous legs curled inward like dead spiders. The mouths gaped too wide for their faces, jagged teeth catching the light. And the eyes—pale pupilless globes—followed as they passed.

Jessa’s voice broke the silence, softer than usual. “Veil Screechers.” Everyone looked at her. “Old Witherborn stories,” she said quickly. “Creatures that slip from the Veil screaming.”

Their camp was ruined. The stink of iron and sweet rot curdled in the air. Torn packs littered the ground, their contents scattered. Bedrolls were matted with black blood—usable, but foul. Bread lay half-buried in the dirt. The deer meat above the cold fire was reduced to gnawed, stinking strips. Only a few waterskins had survived intact; the rest hung slashed or empty.

“It could have been worse.” Branwynn squeezed Tommick’s hand. “Everyone’s alive.”

“Alive won’t last long without water.” Garin leaned on his staff, expression grim. “We’ll need to gather more quickly.”

Calen cleared his throat, voice hesitant. “If we don’t mind staying put for a while…I’m a fair forager.”

Jessa’s face brightened. “Brilliant. I’ll go with you.” Calen gave a small, sheepish smile in response and bent to salvage what was left of his pack.

“We’re not waiting here while you two make eyes at each other in the woods.” Silas’s gaze cut across them. “This is serious.”

Color flushed Calen’s cheeks, but Jessa straightened. “Excuse me? He’s not going off alone. Not with those things and who knows what else still out there.”

Silas turned his focus to Wren. “Do you really want to waste time hunting scraps when something else might already be hunting us?”

All eyes shifted to her—their hunger, their exhaustion, the endless forest pressing close. They did need to find supplies if they were going to make it much farther. She drew a breath and steadied her voice.

“We go for an hour,” she said. “If we find nothing, we move on and search as we travel.”

Silas dipped his head in acknowledgement and turned away to rummage through his ruined pack without another word.

Unease curled in her chest that she couldn’t name. He didn’t know Calen and Jessa. Maybe he didn’t understand their need for comfort in a world vastly different from the one they’d lived in two days prior.

They were all a bit frazzled from exhaustion and hunger. Anyone would be snippy in those conditions. Besides, if they were going to make it to the Glade, they needed to stick together.

She shoved the feeling aside and crouched beside her satchel. The leather was torn but salvageable. Most of her salves had survived; the bread had not—a sodden crust squished beneath her fingers. She nudged it aside—then froze.

A squeak. A twitch of movement. From beneath a honeycomb-patterned mushroom cap, two tiny black eyes blinked up at her. The little creature trembled, clutching a lump of ruined bread with stubby arms as if it were a treasure.

“Oh,” she breathed. “It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.”

She held out her hand. The spindly-legged stalk wobbled forward, cold and damp against her skin when it finally stepped on. She laughed softly, startled. A sporeling—the name surfaced from some half-remembered book about the Virewood.

“Never actually seen one of you before. Were you hiding too?”

The creature’s gaze flicked toward a nearby screecher corpse, then back to her. It gave the smallest nod before stuffing the bread into its mouth. Wren shook her head, half-delighted, half in disbelief. Garin has to see this. She found him near the clearing’s edge, a dead screecher split open across his lap.

“Seeing if they’re good for anything,” he muttered. “Turns out they’re not.” He tossed it aside with a grunt.