Page 24 of Eldritch (The Eating Woods #2)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ZEVANDER

Past …

B oth moons had moved across the sky, and while it hadn’t yet darkened enough to light fires during the day, the agony of the sun’s rays had begun to wane.

A relief for Zevander, who hadn’t slept much the night before.

He held out his bowl to the squatty Elvyniran ladling out the gray-colored slop Zevander had eaten twice a day for the last five years.

While the Elvyniran added a bit more to his bowl, he handed over only one piece of bread, instead of the usual two.

Remorse swirled in the Elvyniran’s eyes. “Sorry. Warden’s orders,” he said in a low voice.

Lips pressed together, Zevander nodded, tucking the bread into the pocket of his ragged trousers for his father and took a seat at the far end of a long, wooden table, where he usually sat with Kazhimyr and Ravezio.

“He’s essentially ordering you to die.” Ravezio tore a bite of bread away with his teeth. “What orgoth lets his opponent walk away from the pit?” he asked around a mouthful of food.

Jaw set, Kazhimyr shook his head. “I don’t like this.”

“What choice do I have?” Zevander crinkled his nose at the off-putting odor of rotted meat scraps, ground into a soggy mix of grains and fat. It was the only source of vivicantem they received in the place. Just enough to keep their energy up and their muscles formed for laborious work.

“Jagron undoubtedly has coin on you,” Ravezio cut in, and as he spooned some of the slop into his mouth, his throat bobbed with a restrained gag. “He’s not going to let his best labor horse, the one who single-handedly supplies his extra rations and the occasional woman, get crushed by an orgoth.”

The guards overseeing the younger prisoners were awarded privileges for the amount of ore mined each day. In some cases, Zevander had toiled hard enough to earn Jagron favor from the warden.

“Precisely,” Kazhimyr agreed. “Tell him about the threat against your father. At worst, you might have to suffer a few knocks and bruises. But you might live. Your father might live.”

“What is this shit!” A newer prisoner two seats down shot up from the table and hurled his bowl onto the floor, sending slop splashing across a guard’s boots. “Rotted meat? You expect us to work in this heat on rotted meat? It smells like a pig’s ass!”

The guard glanced down to the slop and back to the prisoner, his face eerily stoic. “Eat it.”

Snorting, the prisoner glanced around, not one of the nearby prisoners offering a lick of support. The smug grin on his face sobered and hardened into anger. “I’m not eating that shit.”

“I’ll not ask you again.”

“And I’ll not tell you—” A loud screech of agony bled past the prisoner’s lips, and he scratched at his throat, as if an invisible force were throttling him.

Zevander didn’t need to see the glyph glowing on the palm of the guard’s hand. He knew what magic he wielded, having felt it himself long ago. Like molten steel dragged across the flesh.

Paingiver.

The prisoner fell to his knees. “Please! Stop! Stop!” He let out a sharp outcry, as if the guard had issued one more strike of pain, before he went silent.

“Now. Eat.”

Through shaky breaths, the prisoner fell onto all fours and lowered himself to the guard’s boots. After a quiet whimper, he dragged his tongue and lips across the floor, slurping up the liquid meat, the sight of him twisting Zevander’s lips.

Without warning, the guard drew back his boot and hammered it into the prisoner’s face, knocking him backward onto the stony floor.

Kazhimyr let out a snort and shook his head again. “Stupid bastard,” he muttered, shoveling another spoonful into his mouth.

Zevander stirred the slop with his spoon, recalling the days he’d once challenged the guards.

The foolish days when he’d suffered at the hands of damned near every guard in the mines.

He’d grown weary of the constant beatings, but he’d often wondered what it said about him that he hadn’t suffered a beating in well over a year.

“Are we not dogs yielding to our masters? All of us?”

In his periphery, Kazhimyr frowned. “We’re alive. Which is more than we can say for half of the cunts who arrived with us.”

“And, more importantly, it’s why you’re going to have a little chat with Jagron,” Ravezio added, pointing his spoon at Zevander. “See to it that you’re not turned into slop dust seasoning for tomorrow’s breakfast.”

“And if he can’t?”

Eyes sharp with worry, Kazhimyr turned to Zevander. “Don’t lose. No matter the consequence.”

T he creak of the water cart alerted Zevander to his father’s approach, and he turned to find the old man hobbling along, water splashing as he seemed to hurry toward him.

With a furtive glance around, checking the guards paid him no attention, Zevander reached into his pocket and retrieved the bread he’d smuggled. Not an extra ration, unfortunately, but his own.

His father gripped his arm before Zevander had the chance to reveal what was inside. “I’ve received word of the fight and the consequences of your victory.”

Zevander wrenched himself from the old man’s grip and stepped back. The expression on his father’s face sobered, as if he were wounded by the gesture.

He ladled water into the tin cup. “Do not sacrifice yourself in order to spare me, Son,” the elder Lord Rydainn said, handing the cup to Zevander.

Zevander smirked and tipped back the contents, which sizzled down his parched throat, before tossing the cup back onto the cart with a clang. “I’ve gone years without your counsel, old man. I surely don’t require it now.”

“Please. I’m begging you.”

Zevander twisted back to his work, but stopped at a firm grip of his arm.

“My son…I have wronged you and your brother since your very birth. Let my death serve as atonement. Reparation for all the pain I’ve caused you.”

The sadness that twisted in Zevander’s gut dissolved into the rage he’d kept bottled for too long. Part of him wanted to turn around and throttle the old man with both hands.

“With all this uncertainty, I must tell you something…about the marking on your chest.” He leaned in, his body trembling with urgency. “It is the mark of your curse, but the source of great power.”

Zevander frowned. “You said it was the scar of sablefyre. Evil burrowed in my skin. Now it’s great power ?”

“Sablefyre is great power, however dark it may be. The mark of an ancient god that lives within you.”

His words brought to mind a hazy memory—perhaps a dream, of a stranger in a hooded cloak, but the details blurred into his thoughts.

He sneered back at the old man. “Starvation has muddled your mind, old man.” He fished the bread from his pocket and pushed it against his father’s chest. “Should I survive the evening, I’ll have more bread to share tomorrow. ”

“Listen to me, boy. I speak the truth!”

“And what of it? If it’s truth, what am I to do with this knowledge?” He lifted his arm to show the tiny words and glyphs seared into his flesh that prevented all prisoners from using magic. “I’ll die like every other. Powerless.”

“Your power could destroy this prison, if you were not shackled by the confines of flesh and blood. But a god is not bound by the laws of man. Find a way. Free yourself.”

“Hey! Get a move on, now!” One of the guards barked.

“You once rose from the flames. You are forged by the ancients. You will not die, my son. It is not your fate.”

“And what was your fate, Father? To kill an innocent woman?”

Sadness wavered in his eyes. “Tell the guard that you need to relieve yourself, and I will find you there.” He hobbled away, and Zevander exhaled, shaking his head.

He waved back at Jagron, signaling his need to piss, to which the guard gave a nod, then he rounded the edge of a rock to the designated spot, where the stench of excrement damned near gagged him.

After relieving himself quickly, he felt the presence of another, and turned to find his father standing behind him.

“I will tell you this quickly, as I cannot have this die here in this place with me. And if there’s a chance you might see your mother again, it’s important that she know the truth.”

“What truth?”

“I did murder a woman. A mother. A wife. And I will spend the rest of my days seeking forgiveness from the gods. But I swear to you, had I known the truth, I would not have repeated my grave error.”

“Get to the point, old man. The guards only allow so much time to piss.”

“Well before you were born, I worked as a Hexman. And while I wasn’t always honest in my dealings, I was good at hunting demutomancers.

I was tasked with turning them over to the king, where they would find themselves at his mercy.

” He glanced over his shoulder and scanned their surroundings.

“What I am about to tell you…I’ve not told a soul.

Not even your mother. Had I known this would be our fate, I would’ve?—”

“Get on with it, then,” Zevander said impatiently, aware that Jagron would surely take notice of his absence.

His father gave a sharp nod. “The general of the Solassion army at the time sought me out to track down the wife of a shipping magnate. Lord Vanhelm, as you’ve been made aware by Lord Belthane.

” At Zevander’s irritated nod, he kept on.

“Vanhelm claimed his estranged wife, who’d fled their home, was a heretic that practiced dark magic and child sacrifice.

I’d certainly accepted far worse tasks for the kind of coin Lord Belthane offered, so when they asked me to track her down, I didn’t hesitate to agree. ”

“Lord Belthane called her an innocent woman. Which of you is lying?” Zevander was inclined to walk away, no longer interested, but his father rested his hand against his arm, and it was only then that he noticed not an inch of his skin hadn’t been mutilated, a distraction that nearly peeled his attention from what followed.

“Allow me to finish the story. I tracked the woman to a cabin deep in the woods of Susurria, charged to deliver her to the Solassion general and tell no one of the task. But when I found two children hidden away in a pantry—a small boy and girl—their tongues enchanted not to speak, with unspeakable scars all over their bodies …” Brows pulled tight, he stared off, slowly shaking his head.

“As a father, I was enraged. I lost my mind. And I …. I attacked her, thinking I had spared those children from a monster.” Lips flat, he ran a hand down his face, and Zevander caught the shine of tears in his eyes that dulled when he stared off.

“I have heard all variety of screams in my life, but none so painful as children crying out for their dying mother.” He blinked hard, and even Zevander felt the pang of sadness bloom in his chest. “It was when they ran to embrace her, while she lay bleeding out, that I realized what I’d done.

I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t stop the bleeding.

And with her last dying breaths, she imparted that those children were the bastards of King Jeret, who had raped her multiple times.

Her husband was apparently sterile, and he believed those children were the result of infidelity. ”

His words struck Zevander like a blow to his chest, the way it always did at the thought of someone hurting a woman.

“She told me that she had fled Solassios with her children, leaving behind her power-hungry husband who longed to see them dead. Two innocent children he’d abused from the time they were born.

And I was the cruel beast who’d killed her.

This brave and beautiful creature.” Tears wavered in his eyes.

“Her long, blonde hair. Midnight bronze skin. Striking blue eyes. To this day, she haunts me, ensuring that I never forget my sins.” He squeezed his eyes shut.

“She begged me to take them somewhere. Hide them. So I did. When she finally passed, I set fire to the cottage, and I took those children across Nyxteros and Vespyria to the desertlands of Eremicia.”

“That’s why the Solassions hunted you. The king wanted them dead.”

“Yes. I attempted to lie and tell them that I never found the woman, but they administered Nilmirth. Unbeknownst to them, I had some immunity to it, so to make them believe I was telling the truth, I confessed to having killed the woman and burned down the cottage. But I lied about ever finding those children. I knew they’d be slaughtered. ”

“That’s when you sought Cadavros?” Zevander asked.

“I’d heard rumors of him and his abilities, and I suspected the Solassions would come after me, knowing what I knew. I sought the power to protect my family.”

“Mother was friends with King Sagaerin. Why not go to him? Why risk our lives by seeking out a madman?”

“I never told your mother the truth.” Again, he lowered his head, and his shoulders twitched as he broke into tears.

The sight of him set Zevander on edge. He’d always known his father to be a hardened man. Emotionless. Seeing him that way stirred his pity in a way that left him angry and confused.

“And now I’ll never see her again,” his father said.

“I’ll never hear her voice. Nor catch that elusive smile, when she thinks no one’s looking.

All because I feared Lord Belthane’s wrath.

And because of that, she never quite grasped the severity.

She did seek out the king after Branimir had undergone the Emberforge ritual.

But it was too late. Sagaerin swore he’d protect her, but told her there was nothing he could do to spare me from my fate.

I never intended to hurt any of you.” He let out a shuddering breath, a sob undoubtedly lingering at the back of his throat.

“You cannot sacrifice your life for mine. I have taken too much already.”

Zevander had learned to remain stoic, to keep his emotions tightly coiled, so he didn’t offer his father affection. Instead, he said, “Come back tomorrow. I’ll have more bread to share.”