Page 67 of Eldritch (The Eating Woods #2)
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
ZEVANDER
W hispered voices reached Zevander’s ear, and he turned to see the surrounding white mist part, revealing two figures huddled in the corner of the nave he’d visited once before.
“She’s to be burned at noon. I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can do.”
“Please.” The man who’d spoken was older, showing white hair when he removed the flat-brimmed cap on his head and clutched it to his chest. “She is my granddaughter. I assure you, she is a good girl.”
“Not by blood.” Wearing a long, red robe, the man leaned closer and lowered his voice.
“Had it been Aleysia, perhaps. But the other bears the mark of a witch. It appeared out of nowhere. Sacton Crain has decided to move forward with her punishment.” He placed a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Better to be burned than banished.”
“Allow me to speak to Sacton Crain. I’m certain I can sway his thoughts.”
“He’s retired for the eve. Perhaps return in the morning. But I’ll caution—resistance on the matter has not been well-received.”
“She is young. Too young to suffer this punishment!”
“I agree, but it is The Red God’s will. Trust in him.”
The old man’s lips twisted in disgust. “I will never trust in a god that burns young and innocent girls at the stake.”
The robed man’s eyes narrowed. “For the sake of our longstanding friendship, I will ignore your remarks, as I know you are frustrated and in pain. But do not speak them again, lest you long to burn alongside her.” He waved toward the door.
“Now, go. Should anyone find you here, they may question your loyalties .”
“Let them question.” With that, the old man strode off toward the door and exited the temple.
Zevander followed after the robed man, who headed in the opposite direction, down a corridor, passing the sacristy, to a staircase that he hastily climbed, his robes following behind him like a serpent’s tail.
They arrived at the top of the stairs, which opened on a long, dark corridor.
The robed man paused at a door there, listening for a moment, then shook his head and kept on, disappearing into the shadowy passage.
Zevander remained by the door that’d caught the other’s interest, and he opened it to an exquisitely furnished room, fit for a king with its lush tapestries and fine fabrics.
It brought to mind the girl’s cold, damp cell, and the single tattered blanket she’d been given to protect her from the floor.
Zevander crossed the room toward the bed, where he found Sacton Crain lying next to a young girl, her naked back marred with red streaks from a recent whipping.
The sight of him roused a blinding rage that tore through Zevander’s muscles, his wrath a living, writhing beast that clawed inside of his chest.
He held out his palm for exitiusz , one of the earlier glyphs he’d learned, and like a hand cuffed to the man’s fleshy neck, he squeezed, withering the air from his lungs. Harder. Harder.
The older man gasped, eyes opening wide and fingers digging at what, to him, would’ve been an invisible force throttling his neck.
Zevander’s arms shook, his eyes burning with a haze of fury.
How badly he wanted to destroy something.
To watch it die at his hands. He bent forward, placed his lips to the old man’s ears, and whispered, “Burning her will be your gravest mistake. Tomorrow morning, you will release her out of mercy. Or I shall come for you when you are most content, and take satisfaction in watching your joy fade to terror, as I tear your flesh from its bones. Do you understand what I am telling you?”
Sacton Crain nodded frantically, his face slowly turning purple.
“I will commit your face to memory. And should we cross paths again, you will know death awaits. Mor samanet ,” he whispered.
It took far more strength than Zevander could have imagined to release the old man, but he did. He backed away, watching him tremble and gasp and search through the dark for the creature that’d nearly ended his life.
Zevander would not forget that face, not so long as he lived. He would burn him alive and revel in the man’s screams, should they meet again.
He shuttered his eyes, turning his focus away from the violence that shook his bones.
As much as he wanted to go to her in that moment, to comfort and assure her, urgency begged him for the truth.
He needed to know before something yanked him out of Caligorya.
“Show her to me. Show me a vision. I long to see that she lives.”
The dark bedroom around him shifted in a nauseating blur, and Zevander closed his eyes again, swaying on his feet.
The strange vertigo faded, and he opened his eyes on a much simpler bedroom that smelled of delicious citrus, dried herbs and flowers.
A light tap at his temple had him turning to see a sachet of some sort hanging from the ceiling. Many sachets hung about the room.
Two narrow beds flanked opposite ends of the room.
The lumpen shapes atop of them, buried in mounds of blankets, hinted at sleeping bodies beneath.
As he paused to inhale the scent of spicy herbs and flowers, a cold rush of air slipped past him.
A dark figure strode into the room, and Zevander turned to see its cloaked form stalk toward the bed.
Frowning, he inched closer, watching as the figure reached for something below the bed. He lifted it to reveal a black, scaled egg.
Closer, Zevander edged.
The stranger set his palm against the egg, and a radiant violet light illuminated whatever creature inside squirmed and writhed with life. He quickly set the egg back on the floor and turned his attention to the mound of blankets on the bed.
Zevander stepped even closer, rounding the figure, until he stood face to face with the masked stranger.
Air wheezed out of him, and he tumbled backward, catching himself on the edge of the bed. Even masked, he knew the face staring back at him. He recognized those eyes far too intimately. The branching of a black vein that stuck out of the mask.
The stranger in her room was himself. Aged, but unmistakably precise in its features. He studied the other’s face in detail—every line and scar not concealed by that mask. How was such a thing possible?
His doppelganger raised a hand toward the bundle of blankets beside Zevander, and the glyph that glowed on his palm sent a jolt of panic through him. He jumped in front of his target, and a blast of heat struck Zevander as the black flame bounced over his skin.
As if disturbed, movement at his back confirmed something, or someone, was beneath those blankets.
His other self pulled back the flames, and a soft moan reached his ears. He turned just as the bundled form shifted, and he tugged the blankets enough to reveal her face.
His breath hitched, heart pounding so wildly, he feared it’d call out for her. Relief poured out of him in a shuddering sigh—an anchoring breath amid the ruin of his battered conscience.
She had aged enough that he knew she’d survived those dank cells in the temple.
Knew she’d been spared. Her angelic face was peaceful in sleep, and he prayed she dreamed of anything but those dark days.
He fell to his knees beside the bed, wanting so badly to touch her. To assure her that he’d never left her.
He turned to see his other self marveling at her, also. As he reached out a hand toward him, to confirm that what he was seeing was real, he hesitated, glancing back toward the girl. When had their paths converged?
No . He wouldn’t dare allow the gods to intervene, to change this fate.
For reasons he couldn’t reconcile in his head, though, the sight of himself stirred a jealous rage. Zevander jerked his elbow, hitting him in the groin, and the older self grunted, adjusting his leather trousers.
His cloaked version raised a hand again, sending another blast of flame toward her. Just as before, Zevander lurched, taking the brunt of the fire across his back, as he stared down at her beautiful face.
She shifted again, raising her arm above her head to show a marking there—feather-like with metallic accents. Once the flame had eased, Zevander ground his teeth, turning around to face the doppelganger.
“Enough of this.” He summoned the scorpion to his palm. Without warning, he curled his hand to a fist, crushing the scorpion, and a series of sharp stings prickled his body, from his hands to his legs. The other self grunted and jerked in a way that told Zevander he felt the stings, as well.
It was true, then.
He was staring at what he’d become. A rough and angry beast. Soulless, if he could so easily take the life of a sleeping girl.
What could’ve driven him to seek her that way? What had changed?
The other threw out his hand again, and Zevander parried with the flame, sending it back into him.
If he concentrated hard enough, he could feel that glimmer of frustration streaking through the other’s blood. Could sense the impatience. The indignity.
Zevander stared at him, the way he seemed drawn to her, in spite of his determination to kill her.
Why?
“Do you not remember her? How much you longed to touch her?”
As if he sensed his question, his other self closed his palm and reached out for the girl.
One touch . Zevander could feel the yearning in his aged self, the curiosity burning in his blood. His hand hovered a moment longer, contemplating. Jaw set, he reached for the blade at his hip instead.
As Zevander lunged to block his attack, a force threw him backward, and the bedroom wall crashed into his spine.
“You ignorant fool!” Alastor stood at the corner of the room and strode toward him, his eyes ablaze with a fury he’d not seen before.
Zevander pushed to get to his feet, but a force kept him in place against the wall. He watched in horror, as the masked doppelganger held the blade to her throat.
“No!” he cried out, writhing in futility against the invisible grip of his body.
Her eyes opened. The two stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Not a speck of recognition in his furious gaze.
The cloaked figure vanished into a cloud of black smoke, and the girl shot upright in bed, glancing around.
Zevander let out a held breath, the pressure at his chest easing. “What is the mark on her arm?”
Alastor crossed the room, staring out the window. “You changed her fate. She was once a simple mortal. Harmless and temporary. Now she belongs to death.”
“And yet, she lives,” Zevander said through clenched teeth.
The older man swung around, his eyes narrowed. “By the gods, boy. What have you done?”
“What you feared to do,” he spat back. “I walked where you fear to tread.”
A bitter smirk curved Alastor’s lips. “Is that what you think? That I fear the gods?”
“Why else would you idly watch the suffering of others?”
“Suffering is a fragile thread that transcends worlds. It wears a thousand faces and is as integral in our existence as a tightly-woven tapestry. We all must suffer. And yours will be the consequences of your actions. To take from fate means you must be willing to give in kind.”
“I took nothing. She is my mate.”
“She was a hypothetical. Nothing more than a whim of the gods.”
Zevander pushed to his feet, hands balled in tight fists at his sides. “I saw it. I felt it. It’s her. She is mine.”
“You are nothing more than chattel. A slave, as you called yourself. You have nothing! You are nothing!”
Each harsh word lanced his pride like a jagged blade.
“No. You said a god resides in me. The ancient power.” Zevander pointed to where the aged version of himself had stood moments before.
“Did you see? I am not destined to remain at the cruel mercy of the general. I will be free, and my powers will be restored.”
“You are unworthy of such power. To be confined inside an ignorant and lowly boy for eternity. What misery!”
“You are right. I have no land. No name. No possessions. In the eyes of the king, I am nothing. But I assure you, she is mine. Our souls are bound.”
Alastor let out a bitter chuckle. “You don’t even know her name.”
“Tell me. Say it once, and I will remember her for eternity.”
“Are you certain of that, boy?”
The room around him faded into a blackness he couldn’t see beyond. “Yes, I am…”
“Can you recall her face, even now?” Amusement clung to his mentor’s voice.
Zevander glanced back to where she’d lain only moments before, found nothing more than a vacuous darkness there. He focused on the face he remembered, but it had somehow blurred in his mind. “Yes…she…she’s there…”
“You’ve already forgotten the color of her eyes. Her hair. Her smell. That angelic voice is all but a distant sound you can’t quite place.”
His mind scrambled to cling to what scraps of recognition he could summon to mind, but it was true. He could no longer recall her eyes. The smell had faded. And her hair, damn the gods, what shade was her hair?
“Do not do this, I beg you.” Tears blurred his eyes as he fought the encroaching darkness, the slowly fading image of the girl.
“She will disappear with time. Until you can summon nothing. And, in turn, the sound of your voice, that tone she once likened to an angel’s, will blend into every other.”
Zevander shook his head. “No. I don’t want to forget. Don’t let me forget.” He ran his hands back and forth over his skull. “As I hung from my chains like carrion for the vultures, she spoke to me. She gave me the will to live. Don’t take that away!”
“You were never here this eve. In your mind, she burned at that stake. Now, sleep, Zevander. Sleep.”