Page 47 of Eldritch (The Eating Woods #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

MAEVYTH

Z evander removed his cloak, wrapping it around both my and Aleysia’s shoulders. “We have to get back to the cottage.”

“We can’t. It’s overrun by those monsters. The village is our only option now.”

“Maevyth, I’ll never make it,” Aleysia said, shivering next to me. “I’m so cold I can hardly breathe.”

Zevander rubbed his hands together and held out both palms toward us. A radiant heat poured over us, the kind that reminded me of summers out on the lawn, and Aleysia let out a quiet moan, teetering to the side. “That should get you to the village, if we go now.”

Despite the warmth, my head felt stuffy, muscles aching, as if I were coming down with a cold. “You returned far too quickly. Did you find the vivicantem?”

“No. I had a sense that something was wrong, so I returned.”

So strange, the warmth that surged through me, sinking into my bones. Feeling had even returned to my toes. “I thought you were struggling to summon the flame.”

He curled and flexed his hand. “It’s still weak. The rabbit meat we ate offered a bit of energy. Just not enough.”

“I feel like I just walked into a summer day.” Aleysia threw off the cloak that had, admittedly, gotten a bit toasty, and stepped in the direction of the village. “This is incredible!”

Raivox cawed at Zevander, taking a few hops in his direction, as if threatening him, then leapt into the air, but instead of taking off as usual, he circled overhead, seemingly waiting on us.

Dizziness swept over me, and I stumbled a few steps, catching myself before I fell. “I don’t know why I feel out of sorts, all of a sudden.”

“If you used your power, you expended a lot of energy. Even if you don’t require much vivicantem, blood magic is exhausting,” Zevander said, and before I could respond to that, he swiped me up into his arms and marched across the snowy field.

“You don’t have to carry me, Zevander. I’m perfectly capable of walking.”

“I’d like to get to the village before a fortnight. What happened back there?”

“Aleysia and I were talking, and a spider appeared on the wall.”

“Any idea where it came from?” He glanced over his shoulder, scanning the distant tree line, as if watching for something.

“It looked like they were spawning out of those rabbit remains. Do you think we’re infected, for having eaten it?”

“We boiled the meat. Should’ve been enough to kill anything inside.” Something about him seemed unsettled, the way he kept glancing around, as though he was waiting for something to jump out at us.

“A strange entity of some sort emerged from one of them back there. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was wraith-like.”

“Where did it go?”

“Raivox ate it.”

He finally switched his attention, looking up at the Corvugon that followed us toward the village. “He doesn’t seem to like me much, does he?”

“Well, to be fair, you don’t exactly look like a white knight coming to rescue me. I think he senses your moral ambiguity.”

“I look morally ambiguous?” Again, he looked over his shoulder.

“Very. Is something troubling you?”

“I was attacked on the way back here.”

“By the spiders?”

“No. A Solassion soldier sent on behalf of General Loyce.”

“Just one?”

“I don’t know. There could be others, I suppose, but I only saw Theron.”

“You know him?”

His jaw hardened, drawing my attention to his scar. I noted how close the veins had stretched toward his eye—the thin filament curving into the corner of it. “Yes. I’ve not seen him in years. He was a friend.”

“A friend who wants to kill you?”

“I don’t think he’s after me.”

Understanding dawned. “He’s here for me? Why?”

A muscle in his face ticced, the tension in his jaw tighter than before. “There are a number of reasons why Loyce would be interested in you. None of them are good.”

“This is unbelievable!” Aleysia squealed and scooped up a handful of snow that instantly turned to liquid in her palms. “How am I this warm, while hardly clothed in the dead of winter?”

Zevander nodded after her. “She seems to be taking things well.”

“A little too well. It makes me nervous, if I’m being honest. I’m not ignoring the fact that she hasn’t asked about the glyphs, at all.

Everything she saw back there …” I shook my head at how strange I must’ve looked, swinging a bone whip through the air, or calling on Raivox.

“It’s as if she refuses to acknowledge it.

I don’t know what that means yet. If she’s in denial, or none of this seems real for her.

” I lifted my hand bearing the strange glove.

The markings there reminded me of a tree root growing over the back of my palm, while the sharp, silver fingernails resembled an ominous threat of pain.

“What is this?”

“I cut myself on one of Raivox’s scales. This grew from the cut. Even with this, she didn’t respond as I would have imagined Aleysia responding.”

“How is that?”

I raised one shoulder. “I don’t know. Hysterical, maybe?

She asked about my eyes turning silver and never questioned it again.

I just worry that perhaps she’s not fully absorbing everything.

” I tugged on one of the small veins of the glove, careful not to grip the edge of it, as Aleysia had done.

“I’ll say this much, though—I’ve grown weary of these strange things happening to me. ”

He seemed to examine the hand as I held it out in front of him. “It won’t come off?”

“No.” I flipped my hand over to see that my palm remained completely exposed. Intentionally so, it seemed. “I tried. I don’t know what it is.”

“It’s not painful?”

“Not at all. In fact, there’s a strange warmth. It feels oddly relaxing, the way the muscles soften after a hot bath.”

“Sounds nice about now.”

Aleysia lagged just long enough to let us catch up, then walked alongside me, running her fingers over my hair.

“So, it’s true, Sister. You really are a witch.

All this time, the villagers were right.

” Snorting a laugh, she ran ahead of us again, jumping up for an overhanging branch, and the snow covering it spilled over her, dissipating to steam when it landed on her skin.

“So, this is unusual behavior for her?” Zevander asked.

“The excitement? Yes. The refusal to acknowledge things that should seem abnormal to her? No.”

“Could be the trauma she’s suffered. Something she’s trying not to look at too deeply.”

“You sound as if you’re familiar with that.”

His gaze tracked toward the tree line again. “I suppose we all have something we’d rather not dwell upon.”

“I suppose we do,” I said, toying with one of the undone laces at the neck of his tunic, before turning toward the tree line, grateful for the distraction from his growing scar. “So, this Theron? Do you think he’s hunting us now?”

Zevander looked skyward, where Raivox continued to glide through the air above. “I doubt he’d chance it with that monstrosity flying around overhead. I certainly wouldn’t.”

“It surprises me that he hasn’t taken off. He never usually stays long.”

“Perhaps he senses a threat.”

“Well, if he does, he’s certainly misjudged, where you’re concerned. Truly, you can put me down. You’re going to be exhausted by the time we reach the village.”

“I’ve carried tankards of mead that were heavier than you. Once you’ve cast off all that pride, of course.”

“Pride?” I chuckled. “You’re as stubborn as a mule.”

His cheek dimpled with a wolfish grin. “I welcome the insult, if it means the pleasure of having your thighs wrapped around me.”

I pressed my lips together, turning so he wouldn’t see the smile begging to escape. “Always quick with the wit. Tell me, is it a requirement for men to relate all conversations back to that ?”

He shrugged. “I don’t speak for all men. I just happen to enjoy seeing you blush every time I mention my face between your?—”

I pressed my palm to his mouth. “We are going to pause. Or I’m going to insist that you let me walk the rest of the way there.”

His lips pulled to a smile beneath my palm, and he planted a kiss there, before I lowered it away. “I’ll do my best to refrain. However, I’m looking forward to picking up where we left off.”

We finally reached the entrance of the village and the wide stone archway topped with Foxglove Parish written in bold, black letters.

The dirt path we’d traveled converged with the once-bustling cobblestone road that ran through the center of the village, flanked on either side by long stretches of shops and homes, their steep roofs blanketed in fresh snow.

Gas lamps stood cracked and unused, and at the center of the town, the frozen fountain, whose statues once spouted water, remained quiet and still.

Haunting.

On the left, we passed the village apothecary, where I’d sometimes dropped off vials of morumberry oil, its broken window and hollow interior reminding me of an empty eye socket.

The usually-busy bakery to the right had clearly been plundered, given the broken glass, spilled jars of spices, and discarded, cracked baking stones lying about.

And looming over the village in the distance, an ever-watchful eye, stood the Red Temple, a dark silhouette with its pointed spires that pierced the low lying clouds.

Like a frozen corpse, the village slumbered in perpetual darkness.

Zevander finally set me down on my feet, and I stepped cautiously toward Aleysia, who stood staring at the abandonment.

“I’ve never seen it so quiet,” she whispered.

“It’s eerie.”

“Where do we find Moros?” Zevander asked from behind.

I took the lead, turning down an alleyway that let out onto a stretch of road just behind the village. It was along that path of wrought iron fences and dead vines of wisteria that we came upon the ominous mansion. Dark and dilapidated. Dormant.

Zevander slipped past me, leading the way across the snowy, unkempt yard, toward the front entrance that stood half-cocked on its hinges.