The Magic Word by Jennifer Fallon

Author:Jennifer Fallon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Voyager
Published: 2010-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VII

When Adrina finally became aware of her surroundings again, she was on her hands and knees. The ground was squelchy and soft beneath her fingers, the light green and filtered through a thick canopy of vegetation that afforded no hint of blue sky.

She had no idea where the swamp had come from. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before. She had certainly never experienced anything like this in person. Gone was the white mist, the deep penetrating cold of Limbo.

And everyone else. She was alone.

‘Damin!’

Adrina waited for a response, but in her gut she knew she was alone. She had fallen through the veil — maybe they all had — and landed … somewhere.

She had no idea where this new world was, nor who inhabited it.

The princess was certain of only one thing. She was alone and the only way out of here was back through the veil.

If she could find it.

The world surrounding Adrina was nothing but greenery and the chirruping of a million unseen insects. Her skirts were soaked by the muddy ground. The muggy air tasted so moist and loamy she feared she was in danger of drowning with the intake of every breath.

A splash behind Adrina made her spin around in fright. ‘Damin? Is that you?’

She knew it wasn’t, just as she decided calling out like that was probably a stupid thing to do. This new world could be full of danger. And even if, like Dirk Provin, she couldn’t die on a world other than her own, she could be hurt. The agonised scream Provin let out when she’d run him through readily attested to that.

Adrina pushed herself to her feet as the insects fell ominously silent.

She heard the soft splash again and this time wisely said nothing. There was something about the splash that alarmed her. It wasn’t the sound of someone tramping through water looking for dry land — assuming there was such a thing in this place. It was the soft splash of something trying to conceal its presence. The furtive splash of a hunter looking for prey.

The sound seemed to be coming from her right. That left Adrina only one direction in which to run.

Picking up her skirts, Adrina turned and headed away from the water as fast as her bulk and the thick vegetation would allow, wondering how slow and lumbering a creature she could outrun. The ground sucked at her feet, as if deliberately trying to hold her back, but she pushed on, not sure if she was imagining the sound of someone crashing thought the jungle behind her, or if her fear was really starting to get the better of her.

There was also the problem of the direction she was running.

Suppose I’m getting further and further away from the veil, instead of running toward it?

Another crash in the undergrowth behind her, this one much closer than the last, spurred Adrina on, the decision about the direction she was running taken from her by whatever large scaly thing was pursuing her.

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