Spark and Sorrow by Rachel A Marks

Author:Rachel A Marks [Marks, Rachel A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow of the Wood
Published: 2019-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

Home

I run north. All night and into the next day. I run from the orange glow of the burning horizon behind me. Run through briar, through brambles, leaving traces of blood and fabric behind, barely breathing, as the realization of my crime chases me down like a hound out for the hunt. I don’t stop to rest. I never stop. I’m fully fed, fully me. Nothing can hinder me now. Perhaps I run for several days. Or merely hours. It passes like a moment, like an eternity. The sky behind the curtain of dark treetops above me becomes a canvas of night that blurs into day.

Everything is shadowed in the wood, everything is prickles and stings as if the very earth wished to stop me moving forward.

Punishing me.

I deserve it.

I’ve likely killed them all while they slept. And the only thing they did was help me. The princess was kind. And the prince . . . the prince . . . he was gentle, and good, and . . . he should have listened to the witch.

A root makes me stumble, a stone cuts at my ankle. I let the pain fill me.

The trees seem angry that I’m among them.

I would simply walk on the old Roman road, it would save me a struggle and time. But it wouldn’t be safe—for any humans, that is, who were traveling. Or for my secret. I try and keep the sound of the river nearby, knowing it will hold my direction true.

With each step the weight of what I did seems to grow heavier. I focus on the hope of Lailoken, on seeing my field of bluebells, knowing that each moment only brings them closer. Lailoken will know the words to still this agony in my soul. He’ll know how I can find absolution.

Eventually thirst overtakes my emotions and I’m forced to slow. I make my way towards the sound of the river, the brush and trees growing denser. I find a small animal trail, picking my way through a large berry bush, taking handfuls of the blackberries and eating them as my stomach growls.

I should be fully satiated until the next new moon, but already my goddess blood craves more life. I’ve been left hungry for too long.

I have vague memories of being a young girl, of learning to feed among my own people, in the Otherworld with my mother, learning to control my powers. Very vague memories. But I don’t recall hunger like this, not in any of them.

I won’t give the Church a reason to cage me again. I can control it. I know that I can.

No one else will die for me. No matter how horrible they are.

I pick another blackberry and eat it just before I stumble out into a small thicket of white flowers and clover, the riverbed only a few paces away.

The beauty in front of me stops my breath. A tapestry of color, vibrant and alive.

Fading sunlight spills through the opening in the trees, pushing

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