Ashes and Echoes

The air was thick with smoke, the acrid scent burning my lungs as we rode away from the village. Behind us, flames clawed at the sky, flickering like desperate hands reaching for salvation. The screams of the villagers still echoed in my ears, their cries a brutal reminder of what we had left behind.

"Faster!" Valtor barked, urging his horse onward.

My hands clenched around the reins as my heart pounded in my chest. This wasn't right. Every instinct in me screamed to turn back, to do something—anything—to help. But the Queen's orders had been clear: Do not engage. Flee if necessary.

And we were fleeing.

Cowards.

The thought tore at me like a dagger, cutting deeper with every beat of my horse's hooves against the dirt road.

"We have to go back," I said, my voice tight.

"Are you insane?" Seraph shot me a wild look as he galloped beside me. "You saw what happened back there! That wasn't a normal attack!"

I had seen it. The same shadows that had emerged in the forest were here, too, writhing like living nightmares, devouring everything in their path. They moved with unnatural speed, darting between the flames, consuming light itself. The villagers never stood a chance.

"We could help them!" I snapped.

Valtor's head whipped toward me. "Help them and get killed in the process? Don't be stupid."

My teeth ground together. "Then what's the point of being a prince if we just run?"

For the first time since we started riding, Valtor's expression shifted. His storm-gray eyes flickered with something unreadable. "The point," he said, voice razor-sharp, "is that we live to fight another day. If you die here, you save no one."

I hated that he made sense.

I hated that I agreed with him.

But the guilt didn't go away.

We rode hard, the wind howling past us as the borderlands stretched before us. The terrain became rougher, the trees twisted and gnarled, their skeletal branches clawing at the sky. The further we went, the more unnatural the world seemed.

Something was wrong with this place.

We stopped. Body still. Eyes sharpened.

Elara rode ahead, her bow drawn, scanning the area with sharp, ice-blue eyes. "Something's coming."

Herold cursed under his breath. "Just once, I'd like to go somewhere without something trying to kill us."

Seraph smirked. "Boring life, that would be."

I wasn't in the mood for jokes. My grip tightened on the reins as a cold sensation trickled down my spine. It wasn't just my nerves—this was something else.

A presence.

Then the shadows moved.

Dark tendrils slithered between the trees, stretching toward us with unnatural speed. From the mass, twisted figures emerged—humanoid, but wrong. Their limbs were too long, their eyes hollow voids of darkness. They didn't walk. They glided.

One of them lunged.

I barely had time to react before Valtor's blade flashed, slicing through the creature's form. It shrieked, recoiling, but didn't fall.

"Damn it," Valtor muttered. "They're harder to kill this time."

Seraph raised his hand, lightning crackling between his fingers. "Then we just hit harder."

A bolt of electricity shot forward, slamming into another creature. It convulsed violently before disintegrating into the darkness.

But more came.

"Elara!" I called.

She was already moving. She twisted in her saddle, her bow drawn in one fluid motion. An arrow of ice formed, glowing with a faint blue light. She released. The arrow struck true, freezing the creature solid before it shattered into shards.

Despite everything, the shadows did not stop.

I raised my hand, feeling the flicker of power stir inside me. Light. Darkness. Which one?

The hesitation cost me.

A shadow leaped at me, its claws swiping toward my throat. I barely had time to duck before its weight crashed into me, knocking me from my horse.

Pain exploded through my side as I hit the ground.

"Aric!"

I heard Elara's voice, but my focus was on the creature above me. Its face—or what remained of it—was inches from mine, its hollow eyes filled with something hungry. Its clawed fingers wrapped around my throat, cold as death itself.

Instinct took over.

Darkness surged from within me, rippling outward like a pulse. The creature let out a screech, its body disintegrating under the force of my magic.

I gasped, stumbling to my feet as the shadows around me recoiled.

But something was wrong.

The darkness I had unleashed didn't fade. It clung to my skin, writhing like tendrils, whispering at the edge of my mind. I clenched my fists, trying to force it back, but it resisted.

It wanted to be free.

No. Not now. Not here.

I could feel Valtor's gaze on me, sharp and calculating. He had seen what I had done.

"Elara!" I called. "Fire another arrow at them!"

She didn't hesitate. Her ice met shadow, freezing them in place. But there were too many.

"We need to move!" Herold shouted. "We can't fight them all!"

He was right. The shadows weren't stopping. They weren't slowing. If anything, they were multiplying.

Seraph sent another blast of lightning into the horde. "This isn't a fight we win!"

Valtor pulled his horse toward mine. "Get on."

I hesitated.

"Aric." His voice was cold steel. "Get. On."

Swallowing my pride, I grabbed his hand and swung onto the back of his horse. He barely waited before spurring it forward, the others following close behind.

The shadows shrieked behind us.

The guilt didn't fade. The frustration didn't leave me. But as the darkness swallowed the village whole, I knew one thing for certain.

This wasn't over.

Not by a long shot.

_____

The forest swallowed us in silence.

It should have been a relief to put distance between us and the village, but the air was thick with something unspoken, heavier than the lingering stench of smoke and ash clinging to our clothes. No one spoke as we rode. Even Seraph, who always had a joke ready, stared ahead with an uncharacteristic grimness.

I couldn't stop hearing the screams.

Couldn't stop seeing the shadows devour everything in their path.

We ran.

My hands trembled as I gripped the reins. I told myself it was just exhaustion, just the aftershocks of battle. But I knew the truth. It wasn't just the village that haunted me—it was what I had done.

Or rather, what I hadn't done.

I had hesitated.

The light, the one thing that should have burned those creatures away, had never come. Instead, it was the darkness—the thing I feared most—that answered me. The power had poured out of me like it belonged there, like it was waiting for an excuse to take hold.

And I had let it.

Seraph glanced at me with a teasing smile, his eyes twinkling mischievously. He leaned over slightly from his horse, trying to grab the reins of mine as we galloped through the darkness. "So, where's my 'Thank you'?" he asked, his tone light and playful.

I shot him a look, breathless from the chaos behind us. "Thanks for grabbing my horse earlier," I managed to say, my voice strained from the exertion.

He smirked. "Yeah, well, figured if I didn't, you'd end up riding behind Valtor the whole way back—and let's be honest, I don't think either of you would survive that."

Valtor's grip on the reins was tight, his storm-gray eyes unreadable. He hadn't said a word about what had happened earlier yet, but I could feel him watching me.

The silence stretched too long. It pressed against my ribs, suffocating me.

Finally, I snapped. "Say it."

Seraph glanced at me. "Say what?"

I turned to Valtor. "You've been staring at me like I'm about to grow a second head. Just say whatever it is you're thinking."

Valtor's jaw tightened. "You hesitated."

The words hit harder than I expected.

"We all hesitated," Elara said, her voice quiet but firm. "We weren't ready."

Valtor didn't take his eyes off me. "No, we weren't. But Aric had a choice, and he almost lost control instead."

I bristled. "I handled it."

"Did you?" His tone was sharp. "Because it didn't look like you were handling anything. It looked like you almost let that darkness consume you."

Anger flared, hot and immediate. "You think I wanted that?"

"I think," he said, voice colder now, "that you're dangerous. And you don't know how to control it."

A heavy silence followed.

I wanted to deny it. Wanted to argue. But the truth was, he wasn't wrong.

I wasn't in control.

And if I wasn't careful, I never would be.

Elara cleared her throat. "We should stop for the night. We've been riding too long."

No one argued.

We found a clearing near a stream, the air thick with the scent of pine and damp earth. The horses were exhausted, their breaths heavy as we unsaddled them.

I dropped onto a fallen log, running a hand through my hair. My fingers trembled slightly. I curled them into a fist, trying to steady myself.

Seraph plopped down beside me. "You know, if you two keep glaring at each other like that, people are going to start thinking there's something else going on."

As I glanced at Valtor, I realized I had been glaring at him earlier, my eyes tracking his every move. It struck me that he was doing the same, his gaze calculating and intense.

I shot him a look. "What does that even mean?"

Herold smirked from where he was tending the fire. "Oh, you know. All that unresolved tension."

"You both need to shut up," I muttered.

Elara knelt near the fire, pulling arrows from her quiver to inspect them. "We should decide our next course of action. The Queen bid us not to engage, but if villages are falling to these wraiths, we cannot sit idle."

I exhaled sharply, tension curling in my chest. "We already did nothing."

The words came out sharper than I intended.

Elara frowned. "That's not true. We fought—"

"And then we ran."

The guilt coiled tighter, a knot I couldn't loosen.

"We had no choice," she insisted.

"Maybe you didn't." My voice was raw, bitter. "But I could have done more. I should have done more."

"Then why didn't you?"

Valtor's voice cut through the night, cool and unrelenting.

I turned to him, pulse thrumming. "What?"

"If you were so desperate to help, why didn't you?" His gaze was unwavering, piercing. "What stopped you?"

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

Because the truth was, I didn't know.

I had been afraid.

Not of the shadows. Not of dying.

I had been afraid of myself.

Of what might happen if I didn't hold back.

I didn't answer him.

Valtor scoffed, shaking his head. "That's what I thought."

Anger stirred in my chest, but this time, I let it settle.

Seraph broke the silence with a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "We can argue about this all night, or we can ride back to the palace and tell the Queen what we saw. At least then, Valerya can send proper forces instead of throwing us into the abyss with barely a blade's width of preparation."

Valtor's jaw tensed. "And tell them what, exactly? That we saw the same horrors we were sent to investigate? That we fled like frightened squires at the first sign of true battle?" He let out a slow, measured breath. "The Crown already knows of these disturbances, but they do not yet grasp the full breadth of what we face. If we return with nothing but fearful accounts, our expedition will be worth naught but a nobleman's leisure—a mere vacation at the kingdom's expense."

Seraph's brow furrowed. "And you would rather we linger here, hoping the next village fares better?"

"I would rather we uncover something of substance," Valtor countered. "Knowledge is our strongest blade in this war, and right now, it is duller than a beggar's coin."

Elara nodded. "He's right. If we return now, all we have to offer is the same warning the Queen has already heard. But if we can track where the wraiths are coming from, find some pattern to their attacks, then maybe—"

Seraph exhaled sharply, rubbing his temples. "Gods, you're both insufferable." He cast a glance at me. "What do you think?"

I hesitated, staring into the fire.

I wanted to go back. I wanted to be done with this nightmare.

But Valtor wasn't wrong. If we returned with so little, we might as well have never left.

Slowly, I nodded. "We keep going."

Seraph groaned. "Of course we do."

Herold smirked, settling against a fallen log. "Then perhaps we should rest before the dawn. It would be a shame if exhaustion led to us being torn apart before we unravel this grand mystery."

No one argued.

I lay on my bedroll, staring at the night sky. The stars blinked down at me, distant and indifferent.

I wasn't sure when sleep took me.

But when it did, the shadows were waiting.

And this time, they spoke.

"Let's go."