**DAPHNE**
The moment I finish speaking, a blindingly brilliant light erupts along the cover of the book. The sounds of the waves and river against the hull of the ship fall silent as the words on the tome begin to shiver and quake. Letter melting into letter and shivering into new shape. As I sit there, speechless, the Mortal English is replaced with the original foreign script. When finished, it sparkles with brilliant gold. Luminance rises above the book to dance in a swirl of yellow light that circles my chest.
I gasp, arching backward as a singeing heat sizzles across my back. Ripping and itching through my flesh. Suddenly my breath is stolen from me and I do not possess the ability to scream as I want to. Instead, I writhe, the book falling from my hands as I flop like a fish out of water on the bed.
I open my mouth, fighting the invisible talon on my flesh. Thinking for certain I am being ripped apart by an invisible foe. I claw toward the edge of the mattress, ignoring the spasms in my back. Falling face first, I tumble onto the floor. It takes every ounce of my strength to climb onto my knees so that I might crawl toward the door to Ash.
I am going to blackout. I know it, I feel it. Stars are already sparkling my vision as I still cannot draw breath. A great ball of energy seems to grow all around me before compacting itself into a stream of white light that pounds into my chest.
Then, just as suddenly, the burning stops and I collapse in a heap on the floor. My wind returns to my body, and I lay there panting. Gasping for breath, I note the sounds of the river have returned, the bubble of silence disintegrating as if it were never there at all. I can even hear the echoes of the others laughing and taunting one another on the deck.
Sitting up slowly, nausea roils in my gut, and I grab for an empty vase next to an old wooden chest. Emptying the contents of my breakfast inside of it, then wiping my mouth with my hand. In the back of my mind, I note a slightly dull ache remains along my spine. The skin there feels raw. As if I’d been burned or sliced into with the sharp end of a nail.
Clamoring to my feet, I heave in a great breath of air and shout, “Ash!”
My vision swims as the cabin door bursts open and Ash catches me in his arms as I fall. “Daphne,” he hisses, lifting me into a bridal style hold as Klyesque bounds through the doorway behind him.
“What is happening?” she screeches out, her eyes going wide at the sight of me.
“I-I don’t know,” Ash snaps.
I snuggle closer, burying my face into his neck in an attempt to avoid the panic in his gaze. The unmistakable shift in speed as we slow tells me that, not only is his entire focus on me, but he truly was the power behind this ship.
“She’s glowing,” Klyesque breathes.
My eyes snap wide and I jolt, raising a hand off of Ash’s chest to study it.
The skin of my palm is thrumming with a golden hue, and a gaze down at my chest tells me my entire body is quivering with a faint fluorescent pulse. The entirety of my person shifting into the phantom state of the shadow steed.
“Ash, what is happening?” I worry, wriggling in his arms as he tightens his hold on me.
“It can’t be,” he chokes out, eyes going wide as he gingerly sets my feet upon the floor and stands back.
“It is,” Klyesque lets out in a whimper, falling to her knees before me and lowering her head as if to weep.
“What are you doing?” I question Klyesque as it appears she is bowing at me my feet. “Get up!”
She nods once, then does as I bid and although she keeps her eyes cast downward, I can see a hint of a smile playing over her lips. “You know what this means, Ash.”
“Shut up,” Ash snaps toward her, his eyes blazing with electric fire. “I don’t know what this means, and neither - the fuck - do you. It's impossible!”
She laughs at him, something only she could do when he’s in such a state. “You know,” she seethes, her lips curling upward in disgust. “And it’s time for you to accept it.” She sneers at him. “To think you almost-”
His head whips toward her, “Don’t!”
She snickers and I feel myself falling into the background, almost as if they’ve forgotten I am standing here. Klyesque shakes her head at him. “Are you truly that stubborn? Do you enjoy your curse and your bad decisions?” Chuckling at him, in a sordid unamused tone, she states, “That bitch really played this one well. To think of what you might have done! What you might have lost! What we all might-”
A flash of silver fire surges from Ash’s palms for just the breadth of a second and Klyesque falls silent. “Silence!d” he hisses.
She whispers toward him, in a voice made for secrets, “She has the look of him. The Shadow King. The rumors-”
Ash’s body shifts toward her angrily. “Please... I am begging you!"
Klyesque’s anger seems to tumble off her as she sighs. With a nod, her eyes find me again.
*The Shadow King?* I run my hands over myself in wonder, my gaze catching on the bold golden words of the book resting on the floor. Ash follows my line of sight, his glare narrowing on the tome.
“The book did this to me,” I say, pointing a near hollow finger toward the ground. “The title, it was in English. I read it, and it did this to me!”
“English?” Klyesque stutters. Then her eyes go bright as she decides upon her next words. “The damn thing has been listening. It knows.”
*Listening? What?*
“What do you mean, ‘It’s been listening’?” I ask.
Ash nods, grabbing it from the floor only to drop it again when it smokes against his hand. “Damn it!”
I gaze toward him, meeting the concern in his eyes with the wonder in my own. Leaning forward, I reach for it carefully.
“Daphne,” he protests, but I don’t stop and when I touch it, all it does is glow.
“Who left this for me?” I ask, thinking back to that day at Hadimere Palace. “I have to know.”
My eyes lift to stare into Ash’s narrowed silver gaze. His jaw is tight, his fists clenched, a muscle working in his throat as if he can’t bring himself to speak without anger. Then suddenly, they flare wide with fear.
“Daphne! Drop it!” He hisses.
“Why?” I say, glancing toward where my hand should be but seeing nothing but the wall on the other side.
*I can’t see my body!*
“Oh!” I shout, dropping the tome at my feet.
Almost instantly, my hand comes back into itself, residing in the clever phantom form of moments ago. Although I am no longer completely invisible, I am still wraithlike and dressed in emanant gold.
Without asking permission, Ash snatches my cloak from the bed and wraps it around the book, shrouding it in darkness and placing it beneath the thick feather mattress.
My luminant glow fades out immediately, like the closing of a door - or severing of a connection. I feel his sigh within my bones as he reaches out to touch me. Hands caressing the side of my face as Klyesque wanders further into the cabin, her nose scrunching when she looks down at the vase.
“I’ll empty this,” she informs, grabbing the vomit filled cask from the ground and exiting the cabin.
“What happened when you said the words?” Ash whispers. “I heard you scream like you were in pain. What happened?”
I shiver, noticing for the first time that burning of my back has been replaced with an almost electrical charge. A zing of throbbing power etched into my skin.
“There was a light,” I begin, closing my eyes at the memory. “And a silence,” I hiss. “The light - it took on a shape - like magic,” I say, looking up to meet his watchful gaze. “Then it entered me at my chest.” He nods as if such a thing is not uncommon and I suppose it isn’t, at least, not in Faery. “And then a burning so white hot that it sizzled across my back lifted me from the ground. I-”
*BOOM!*
My words freeze as the ship trembles.
*BOOM!*
Again, the ship quakes.
Ash’s eyes go wild. “Damn it! This is what I wanted to avoid.” He makes for the steps, “Daphne! Come!”
I nod, running behind him and stumbling when the ship quivers again. Coming out onto the deck, I see the sky is churning with red clouds, and the rapids of the river have taken on an angry red glow.
“We are passing the Lands of Cinder!” Klyesque shouts, her voice muted by the forceful winds as she ties the lifeline around me once more. “Hold on to the railing!”
I nod, gazing out at the forest beyond the shoreline and marveling at the alien landscape before me. The trees along the rocky beach are a smoking black, as if once having been burned in a fire. A complete contrast to all that we left behind. The acres that lay past are clustered with sharp, furious boulders. Marbled in orange and gray. Like teeth that seek to bite the sky as they rise up from the dead of the ground beneath.
Glancing across the deck toward the other side of the river, I see more of the same, but without the riddling of scorched trees.
As the ship begins to take on speed once again, my eyes are drawn upward, toward the helm. Ash’s eyes glow with electric fire, his hands raised and pushing forward with dark power. Finn stands determined against the wheel, his pale hands tight as he attempts to keep the ship on course.
The rapids feel as if they are fighting us, not flowing downstream the way they should be. Then I make the mistake of gazing down into the water. What I see there turns my blood cold.
Eyes. Pairs and pairs of glowing red eyes. That is why the rapids appear red. There are creatures down there and they are looking at me.
“Get to the mast!” Klyesque shouts, pulling me away from the railing and toward the sails. “I will tie you against it!”
My eyes whipping upward in fear, I nod and allow her to guide my feet forward as the ship begins to rock with speed.
“What are they?” I yell against the wind as she winds the lifeline around me.
She meets my eyes, reaching down to tie my rope to hers. “Water sprites,” she yells. “You shouldn’t ever look them in their eyes.”
“Sprites?” I choke out, as the wind begins to whip about my face. “Are they not friendly creatures?”
She laughs, her demeanor calming as we are, once again, traveling at an alarming rate. “What tales did your sister tell you of sprites?”
I frown, just the thought of Isabel dampening my soul. “Just that they play along the river.”
She grins. “Aye, they do. In the depths and in the shallows. But they are only ever friendly for one reason.”
I’m almost afraid to ask,“What's that?”
“To feast on the flesh and bathe in blood of the pure hearted. Mortals and Fae alike,” she warns with a smirk. ”When their eyes glow red that way... it is with hunger. Let us pray that none of them noticed you. For you, Daphne, are exactly what they crave most.”