Page 22 of A Hunt Bound in Blood

The angle of the dip was subtle, but my calf muscles tightened when I shifted my footing to maintain balance. Three steps later, I stood in the centre of the groove, and the earth beneath me no longer felt solid.

My heartbeat picked up speed as I dropped to my knees and pawed through the grass, searching for whatever lay underneath that had created this change. Loose dirt sprayed from between my fingers—my nails back to their usual, human length—and not far beneath the surface, a box became visible.

I sagged with relief, then fought to steady myself.

“So all your panic was for nothing?” came Cammon’s smug commentary as he once again read my emotions.

I flashed a rude gesture in his direction, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of hearing that his deduction had been correct after all, then brushed the rest of the dirt off the top of the box. Magic had rooted the wood to the earth, so there was no lifting it from the hole, but the little drawer where the next clue would be found faced upwards. The script that circled the edge was obscured almost beyond reading. The wood was intact, but the enchantment that kept it so hadn’t protected the etched wording from getting caked with dirt.

A shadow fell over my shoulder when Cammon finally grew interested enough to get up and take a look.

“You’re in my light,” I said.

The shadow shifted as he bowed. “My apologies, Your Maginess. I’ll step aside so as not to inconvenience you, shall I?”

His low chuckle revealed his amusement at my surliness even as the sound curled uncomfortably in my lower belly. It was a laugh, for Olodin’s sake. Tonight I would give my body a stern talking to about appropriate responses.

I dug deeper into my irritation to block out Cammon’s influence and glared at the writing on the box.

“Do you think you can glower the clue into submission?” he asked. “Because I’ll tell you, Buttons, that scowl of yours doesn’t have the effect you think it does. It might bring me to my knees before you, but not out of fear.”

When I shot him a wide-eyed look, he waggled his eyebrows at me, and I squeezed my eyes shut. He wasn’t actually flirting with me; he was toying with me, trying to eke out an early emotional dinner. If I wasn’t feeding on him, he wouldn’t get the privilege from me.

I shoved all thought of him aside and ran my fingers over the visible script. “It’s written in Old Golthic again, but mixed with… something else. Ancient Trimek, maybe?” I chewed on my lip and tried to interpret the faded symbols.

Unfortunately, the distraction of this demon interfered with my recall. With a huff, I pulled my pack over one shoulder and dug through it until I found one of my reference texts.

“Forgotten Languages of the Golthwainian Empire,” Cammon read over my shoulder. “Some light reading?”

“Something like that.” I flipped through the pages. “Here. That looks similar, wouldn’t you say?”

He crouched beside me, all evidence of mischief replaced by the same academic interest he’d shown with the map this morning. “The same accents, and the same strange curve to that squiggle there. I’d say so.”

Not the most professional comparison, but since it confirmed my opinion, I let him have it.

Afraid of missing any nuance in the text, I took it word by word, cross-checking both languages where Mage Tersey seemed to have combined them.

“It looks like this puzzle is pretty straightforward. There’s a button we need to press. Or maybe more than one? This looks like it might be the plural form. And then there’s another mention of cave, but the words around it are smudged.” I scrunched up my nose. “If it’s supposed to rhyme once translated, I might be missing something.”

“Thank temptation for small favours. Poetry exists for quiet nights and soft whispers, not some ego-driven sorcerer looking to keep other sorcerers off his trail.”

I couldn’t find it in me to argue with him.

“Where are these buttons, then?” he asked.

I trailed my fingers over the surface of the box. Somewhere in the writing there had to be more details, but I couldn’t read anything else.

“I’m more curious about this supposed cave,” I replied. “That’s twice he’s brought it up. It has to be more significant than—oh, I think I found something.” I dragged the tip of my finger around the edge of a rough circle and continued to the right, where I found the outline of a second. A third circle sat to the right of that. “There are three buttons.” I sat back on my heels, keeping my fingers over the circles so I didn’t lose them. “What do we think? All at once? One at a time?”

Cammon leaned closer, and I caught a whiff of spices that made my mouth water. “You’ve made it clear I’m only a pretty face, but what does the rest of the message say?” He rubbed his thumb over the words, but the packed earth didn’t make way for him either. “Can you magic this dirt away?”

He was testing me again, not so subtly prying for information.

“My magic doesn’t work like that.” It was an honest answer, if not the one he wanted. “The only way we’d find out is if we take the time to give the box a thorough cleaning. Which is impossible since we can’t move it.” I bit the inside of my cheek and considered our options. “I don’t know what might happen if we press the buttons in the wrong combination. We know how that first box reacted to the grass and the second one to my breath. There are a few references in the journal to traps connected to some of the later puzzles. What if we’re looking at one here?”

Cammon looked around. “We’re in a giant, empty field. How many traps do you think we could spring? What is wrong with this mage of yours?”

I raised my chin, defensive of a man I’d never met. “He was very protective of his magic.”