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ix girls ran along the damp, poorly marked road by the light of Cici’s crazily bouncing Lantern.

“So we sail all the way here on Goofy’s lit-up ship, get attacked by a bunch of guys with a magic rock, then we get put inside a Lantern, some wizard lady saves us and gives us a map to who knows where and now we’re on the lunch menu for a pack of wolves?” Ranko gestured with both hands as she ran and shouted. “I’ve just got one question!”

“Is this part of the museum tour?” Shannon shouted back with a sarcastic tone in her voice. Alanna was already grinning, as if expecting the question. Jessica started to giggle, then laugh, which made Cici laugh too. Ranko sputtered, trying to keep from laughing while trying to keep talking. She just shook her head.

“The creek is over that hill just ahead.” Alanna pointed.

“The map says it’s Silvermint River,” Talitha said as she ran along, clutching the map and key and trying to keep up with Jessica.

The road had straightened somewhat. The moonlight was no longer hidden by the tops of the trees. It shone through and illuminated the road much better. The girls hurried just a little faster as they approached the top of the hill.

This is such a nice place, Jessica thought. I wish we didn’t have to rush through it so fast.

Finally they crested the hill. The forest on the opposite side of Silvermint River stretched far into the distance. The dark trees were all roughly the same height, and had thick growths of leaves and branches. To Shannon, they looked like a beautiful painting of a nocturnal landscape. A tiny thread of road wound through them into the bluish hazy glow of the moonlit night.

“No bridge?” Ranko asked, noticing the road seemed to just end at the muddy edge of the stream. “Looks like we have to hop over on those rocks.”

Jessica heard something in the woods near the road and inhaled sharply. All she could see was clump after clump of wispy flowers growing around the roots of the trees. She was sure they were glowing, but she didn’t have time to stop. The girls raced down the other side of the hill towards the edge of the riverbank. The water gurgled past at a smart clip.

“Careful you don’t slip. This water is probably freezing,” Alanna warned, holding Cici by the shoulders and helping her guide her steps out on to the first wide platter-like rock. Cici gingerly stepped forward, holding her Lantern carefully.

Shannon looked back up the hill then she glanced up and down the river’s edge as Ranko and Talitha crossed. “If we get across the river, they probably won’t follow us.”

“I hope you’re right, Shannon-sama!” Jessica said, holding her hands out to either side as she lightly stepped from rock to rock.

Alanna was the last to cross. The moment her foot touched the opposite bank she noticed Cici’s wide eyed expression. Her face was almost white.

“Jessie…”

Jessica turned around. “What is it Cici-chan?”

“There’s a ghost.”

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enesh swallowed, desperately trying to keep his teeth from chattering. He watched her breath freeze and float to the ground. The cloth of her cowl resembled a rotted burial shroud: dusty and threadbare. A shadow obscured all but her chin.

“I was inventing poisons four hundred years before your grandfather learned to walk.” Reina spoke as if impatiently lecturing a lesser being. Kenesh didn’t notice the shadowy tendrils seeping into the dock around her feet. The wood planks first lost their color, and then rotted to a scorched, mangled ash.

The Vicereine turned her back on the assassin and dropped the useless pieces of his knife. “Do you know what it feels like to have a part of your body die while still attached to living flesh?” By now Reina was standing in a huge expanding slough of foulness.

Several of the tendrils rose from the swirling edges of the pestilence surrounding Reina’s feet and coiled back, growing eyes and fangs. Kenesh noticed and desperately tried to push his way up the wall with his hands. One by one the viper’s heads struck his left foot. The very real sharpness of otherworldly fangs pierced his boots, skin and leg.

Kenesh felt as if every nerve in his body was being drained through the sole of his left boot. A cold, burrowing agony invaded the entire left side of his body. Pain exploded from every joint as his collapsing weight forced his frozen bones to bend at unnatural angles.

He slammed against the blackened wood of the dock and made an inhuman sound that nearly burst the inside of his throat. Rivulets of icy sweat scraped his face, chest and arms. He banged the back of his head against the corner of the warehose as his body convulsed, leaving the wood smashed and frozen blood caked across the back of his head. Within moments, all that was left of his left foot was a putrified weight attached to a limb so infected that the very thought of moving it made his nerves boil over with pain.

“Now you know.”

Kenesh panted as he failed to regain his balance. He rolled against the door, the cruel cold sweat tormenting his parched tongue with a salty tang.

“Who sent you?” Reina asked. Kenesh did not answer. He could scarcely breathe.

“Answer me, or I will infect every limb of your being with dessication that will see two harvests before death releases you from it.” The Vicereine stood resolute, her staff looming over the platform. No light remained. Kenesh drew a choked breath that covered his teeth with rime.

Reina reached down and picked up a small medallion from the dock.

“The Escator Merchants Guild?” Reina said. Her glowing red eyes narrowed as she examined it. “What plan did you hatch with those overfed hyenas? Did you expect to waylay me with your robber’s club like some sweeper of porches?” Reina turned the medallion over. “Pity. I was in a fine mood before all this, too. I had a nice meal this evening. They served me cornbread.”

She glanced back to Kenesh. “I like cornbread, don’t you?”

Kenesh sputtered and inhaled reflexively.

“Do you wish to be free of this curse?”

Kenesh attempted to nod his head, but instead his shoulders convulsed. His face was frostbitten almost to the point of paralysis.

“You will return to whichever of those fattened vermin drank enough courage to hire you and inform them the Vicereine sends her regards.” Reina turned the medallion over in her hand as she lowered her voice to a menacing tone. “You will also inform them the blood of the next assassin sent after me will be used to boil their skulls.”

Reina turned towards the end of the dock.

“You have one hour.”

Kenesh’s next cough rattled alarmingly and with immense trembling effort he rasped a response.

“But it is two days ride.”

Slithering fingers of black vapor climbed the back of Reina’s robes, crossing over each other and thickening as they crawled upwards. They gathered at her shoulder and formed the shape of a perched black bird. The mangy fowl solidified just before the Vicereine offered a piece of dried plum, which it devoured hungrily before shivering its feathers.

Reina dropped the medallion on the dock.

“You have one hour.”

Continue to Chapter Eleven