Page 58 of Fallen Stars

Perhaps he should have felt fear, but that emotion had left him long ago. And he was in Elara’s dreams—the woman he loved. How frightening could this forest really be?

The path wound on ahead, and he began to walk, frowning as the lush green undergrowth gave way to barren land, the earth dark and cracked, frost coating dead leaves that drifted through the air. One brushed against his shoulder, and he bit back a shiver.

The trees seemed to twist, branches reaching out towards him, bare and grey. And still his legs continued to move of their own accord, chasing the murmurs beckoning him further in.

The pain was still there in his body, desperation too. But now that he had a purpose and wasn’t just wandering aimlessly through Elara’s dreams, it wasn’t as pressing as it had been a mere few days before.

A caw cut his thoughts short, the flapping of wings accompanying it. He swore, jolting in shock, but he saw no bird, and after a moment, continued on.

The further down the path he walked, the deeper the forest pressed against him.

And then he began to hear the whispers.

“You’re a coward, Lorenzo. That’s all you’ll ever be.”

Enzo’s eyes narrowed. Where the hell had that come from? He looked around, searching for the origin of the voice. Perhaps he was going mad, and this was his own mind rambling.

He continued, trepidation building, as another whisper snaked around him.

“My sweet boy. My sweet lion. Don’t let the world turn you cruel.”

He staggered. That voice… It had sounded like his mother. He barely remembered her face, but he remembered the sound of her voice as she would sing him to sleep. He looked around again, sure that a spectre would drift out before him. But there was nothing, save for the twisting trees and dead leaves around him.

He shook his head, walking further into the woods until the light was completely enveloped.

Now, all that was before him was the outline of shadows, the darkness yawning as the trees parted into a clearing.

“Turn back, my sweet boy. You don’t belong here yet.”

Enzo flew around. There was that voice again, the one that sounded like his mother.

“Hello?” he called.

Silence.

Enzo was rattled now, frozen at the edge of the clearing as the warning that voice had whispered stopped him from moving.

A deep blue glow sparked ahead of him, and he squinted at it. Hesitated, tempted to turn back from this place, back to the safety of Elara’s cottage.

But the light was calling out to him, his heart pulled towards it.

He took a step forward, then another, until he was fully within the clearing.

It was made of downy indigo grass, a small trickling waterfall cascading down a glittering obsidian rock face further on.

In the centre of the clearing, the gloom slowly dissipating from the space, lay a tree, its trunk mammoth and violet, branches twisting like spires into a never-ending starless sky. The whole space glowed with a supernatural quality, and it was the tree that hypnotized him, fruits hanging ripe and low from it.

There was something important here. He didn’t know why he knew it with such certainty; he just did.

But a movement caught his eye as he reached the trunk, and he jumped as a black figure draped along a branch.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the figure said. “Yet I’m glad you are.”

Enzo’s eyes widened. It was a shadow, this figure. Jet black, no features save for waist-length hair. And as the figure moved, Enzo could see starlight beneath her skin. No… He looked closer.Moonlight.Her curves mirrored Elara’s, and as he drew closer,her scenthit him. Smoked and sweet, an unmasked version of how Elara naturally smelled in the realm of reality.

“What are you?” he whispered, craning his neck to look at her.

A curl of shadow drifted down, although the shadow didn’t move.