Page 112 of Eldritch (The Eating Woods #2)
“Manipulated?” Cadavros scoffed and waved his hand dismissively. “I trained you to become a powerful ally. An equal.”
“You long to destroy the Umbravale entirely. We are not equal.” Zevander fought to look away from the glyph he’d drawn. Willed his mind to discard what he’d seen. Against the pull of the symbol, he lifted his gaze to Cadavros.
“The Umbravale has served as the door to my prison for centuries. But do not mourn its destruction. It was prophesied to fall by the goddess of foresight. Those in the mortal lands would cross freely, carrying their tainted and diseased blood into Aethyria. With the Gods’ Glyph, the vale shall fall.
An ancient power loosed from thrall. Two worlds smothered by a pestilent pall.
From the tree of rot, the insects crawl.
Decay and blight unslain by steel, will bring the strongest men to kneel . ”
The ground shifted beneath Zevander’s feet, and he looked down to see a fissure glowing purple between his boots. Enlivened, the molten rock flickered with the first pulse of life.
Cadavros held his arms out. “An impossibility proven true. A dead vein brought to life by the power of a single glyph! And sablefyre, of course.” He gestured toward Zevander.
“I could not have managed without you. And with this vein, we shall feed the army of infected that I intend to bring to Sagaerin’s door. ”
“How could you ignite the vein, if this is Caligorya and I am dreaming somewhere?”
“The same way you endured the general’s abuses, your body moved by my command, while your mind remained in a dreaming state.”
“Why?”
The mage let out a cold, mirthless laugh. “You, of all people ask why? Have you not suffered enough at the hands of tormentors? Tell me, if your beloved death goddess were to fall into the general’s hands, would you not burn the world to the ground for her?”
Jaw clenched, Zevander pressed his lips together, knowing damned well he would.
“You and I are not so different.” Hands behind his back, he paced.
“Do you know what happens to spindlings when they die?” Not giving Zevander the opportunity to answer, he continued.
“They’re not given the honor of being thrown into the vein like mancers or even Nilivir, who harbor enough vivicantem to make them worth gathering up.
No, spindlings have so little vivicantem in their blood, they’re deemed too useless to replenish the vein.
” Pausing his steps, he stared off, his brows pinched together.
“Their bodies are carelessly ground up and used to fertilize the fields of fresh fruits and vegetables they never got to eat in their lifetimes. While they die on nutritionless slop, with just enough vivicantem to keep them from losing their senses, the high bloods gorge themselves, nourishing their bodies with food spun from spindling remains. And the sanitation fog they send over The Hovel?” Hand waving in the air, he growled.
“It causes horrific blood diseases that result in mortality for spindlings and Nilivir.”
It didn’t make sense that the mage whose very existence threatened both worlds would give a damn about spindling children.
But before Zevander could question the purpose behind his criticism, heat coiled across his palm, and he looked down to see the flame burning there.
He clenched his fist over it, then yanked his sword from its scabbard.
Cadavros held up his hands and chuckled. “I do not wish to fight. What I hoped to accomplish is already done.”
Zevander swapped the sword to his other hand and opened his palm again to find the glyph from the stone glowing across his flesh.
No.
He swung out with his sword, but before he could land the strike on his old mentor, the other man disappeared into a cloud of black smoke and an explosion of spiders that scampered toward the wall of the vein.
“You there!” one of the guards called down to him and Zevander summoned his vanishing glyph again, cloaking himself.
He climbed along the narrow path, up the edge of the rock and slipped past the guards who peered down into the vein, searching for him. As he stepped onto the path for the village, his surroundings shifted to a blur, coming into focus on a dark passageway with arched stone walls.
He was standing in the temple’s undercroft.
Frowning, Zevander twisted around, and the path he’d just walked from the vein was nothing but a long stretch of darkness.
A tight fist clenched his chest, and Zevander dragged his hand down his face.
It was then he noticed a weight in his other palm.
He looked down to find two large stones of vivicantem captured there, his skin and nails coated in black dust, haunting visions shimmered in his mind.
Jabbing at the stone with a blade. Breaking loose chunks of vivicantem. Chalking an image in vivicantem across the stones. An intricate glyph. The violet glow of the vein as it rose from death.
Zevander shook his head, stuffing the vivicantem in his pocket. No. That wasn’t him. It was Cadavros who’d drawn that image. Cadavros who’d ignited the vein.
“Zevander?” A soft voice broke his thoughts and Zevander turned toward the corridor, where Maevyth stood wearing his tunic, her hair a mess.
When he stepped toward her, a wavering shimmer flashed before his eyes and he winced. “Are you real?”
Smiling, she tipped her head. “Can you hear me, Zevander? Wake up.”
He studied her, searching for any sign that she was an illusion. “Am I dreaming?”
Or was it reality? Had they never left the temple? Had their travels to Lyveria been nothing more than a dream in Caligorya?
“You slipped again,” she said. “Into another fit. Come. Let’s go back to bed.” She ran off down an adjacent corridor and Zevander set off after her.
When he rounded the corner, though, he found nothing but an empty passageway, lit by the sconces on the wall.
At the end of it stood the massive vault where he’d stored Theron.
Slow and uncertain steps brought him closer, until he could reach out for the handle.
He gave it a light tug.
Locked.
He twisted the iron lever beside it to disengage the lock and opened it with ease. Zevander stepped inside and summoned a flame to his hand, illuminating the suffocating space.
The vault stood empty.