Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
The snort of a beast interrupts the utterly still and silent woods off to my right and I startle. I get to my feet and brush off my stupid dress, then adjust my antlers. It’s probably someone from town. “Hello?” I say this softly. I’m really not in the mood to interact with the residents of Savage Falls right now, but I might, in fact, be lost in the fog. This might be my only way out.
So I call a little louder. “Hello? Is someone here?”
Another snort. Only this time, I’m not picturing a monster from town. I walk forward. “Hello?” And get another snort. “I’m coming. Just keep snorting and don’t move. I’m coming.” I follow the snorts for a couple of minutes and then there he is.
I smile. Then chuckle. He’s not a pegásius, he’s a horse.
But I’m not a gryphon chimera, either. I’m human.
I walk up to Ire and place my hand on the side of his face, looking into his blue eyes. “Is this our punishment, then? Humans, the both of us?”
He makes a noise that I swear is a laugh. A scornful one. A cynical one. And then I wonder what he did to get stuck in Pressia’s little scheme. Did he kill people? Pegási are a formidable race of beast. It’s probable that his past is checkered. Like mine. Like Eros’s.
“Well,” I say, sighing out the word. “Now what?”
He bobs his head up and down forcefully, making some growling noises. Then he takes a step to the left, looking back at me. Like he’s checking to see if I’ll follow.
“I guess I don’t have anywhere else to be, so lead the way.”
But he doesn’t move. He just does that forceful bobbing of his head again. Then he looks back at his ribs and I suddenly understand.
He wants me to get on and I’m not about to turn that offer down. I slip off my wooden blocks—then, because I can’t stand the smell of it, I take off the mangy coat too. Untying the antlers from my head seems like the logical next step. And when they drop to the ground, I realize I’ve done this a lot recently.
Shedding the costume. Trying to get rid of who I was, maybe. But I keep getting sent backwards, so I have to do it over and over again. It feels like a test. Or a punishment. Like I’m Sisyphus, rolling that boulder up a steep hill every day, only to have it roll back down at sunset so I can start again tomorrow.
In that myth, it was a futile effort.
But maybe that’s just how it feels? So you give up. And stop doing it altogether. And just accept that this is your life and there’s no way to make it better.
I did that already. When I put this costume on I was resigned to my fate.
Taking it off feels like progress, even if I’ll probably just wake up in the same place I started and realize it’s magic, or a curse, or a hallway, or a dream.
Ire snorts again, reminding me that we’ve got places to go. So I pat his shoulder, grab his mane, and swing myself up and throw a leg over. Then adjust my ridiculously ugly blue dress and let out a breath.
Which must be the signal for Ire to proceed, because he starts off though the fog, his hooves making soft thuds that seem to get lost in the mist at his feet, so the sound fades before it goes anywhere.
There is nothing around us and there’s no way to tell if we’re actually getting anywhere because there are no landmarks to gauge the distance. There is no light, but there is no dark, either. It truly is the worst kind of nothingness and the longer we stay here, wandering forward like lost souls on an endless road, the crazier I start to feel.
Ire starts walking faster, and then he breaks into a trot.
I’m not sure why. There’s nothing to indicate that we’re actually getting somewhere. But there’s no real reason to object, either.
Plus, his gait is smooth, and soothing, and if my punishment is to be on his back, traveling through nothingness, and towards nothingness, and arriving nowhere forever, and ever, and ever for all eternity—well… I could do worse.
At least I’m not alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - EROS
I am alone.
Singular. Solitary. Apart. Isolated. Separate.
This is how it’s always been and this is how it’ll always be.
There is no love for me.
There is no soulmate. There is no family. There is no best friend.
But there is a voice in my head.
That’s because you killed her, Eros. That’s because you’re a greedy piece of shit. That’s because you’re evil. A narcissist. A liar. A cheat. A thief. You are the definition of awful. You’re mean, and shallow, and worthless.