Page 78 of Eldritch (The Eating Woods #2)

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

MAEVYTH

W ith my head lost in thought, I paid little attention to the jars I stuffed into the well of my dress I made by gripping the hem of it.

In my periphery, Zevander gathered jars into his cloak, as well, both of us silent.

We’d left the tomb without incident, the villagers likely too frightened to approach the five of us.

Aleysia had guided Corwin and Father to the upper level of the temple, to get the two men settled into their rooms, and I would’ve joined them for the opportunity to catch up with Father, but I couldn’t focus on him just yet.

Not when a mire of thoughts still hammered through my head, and my fingers prickled with Sacton Crain’s death.

We planned to stay one more night at the temple, and I was grateful for the opportunity to sleep. If sleep would bother to come, at all.

“He’s your father,” Zevander finally said, dragging me out of my head.

“I thought he was dead. We were told he’d perished months ago.” I reached for a jar of apples, my grip faltering, and it slipped from my hand.

Zevander snatched it mid-fall and tucked it into his cloak. “And the other?”

“Just someone I knew.” Frowning, I stared down at my trembling hand, the words I wanted to say jumbled in my head. “You were someone I knew, as well.”

“Yes.”

My mind took me back to those endless days and nights, when trapped in the cold and dark, and I winced. The images I’d long tucked away still held so much clarity. “Have you known this whole time? Since the beginning?”

“No. I lost those memories, somehow.” He sighed, piling another jar into his cloak. “I felt a familiarity around you, a comfort. But I couldn’t pinpoint why.”

“The day on the path. When the soldier punished me.” A flush of humiliation warmed my cheeks, as I imagined him invisibly witnessing each strike of that whip. “You were there, as well.”

“Yes.”

“Were you always with me back then?”

“Not always, no. I saw glimpses of your life. Moments when I would slip into Caligorya.”

“What made you slip into Caligorya?”

His brows pulled tight, and he stared down at the jars captured in his cloak. “This should be plenty for our travels,” he said, swiping up some of my jars. “Let’s head back. I think all of us could use some rest.”

Both of us exited the pantry and started back toward the upper level at an unhurried pace, but it hadn’t escaped my notice that he’d avoided my question.

“You don’t have to tell me,” I said over the soft clanking of glass, as I held the small bundle tucked in the skirt of my dress. We passed the cell which housed the dead children, and I couldn’t bring myself to look in at the teddy bear I knew to be there.

“Seeing you was the only thing that kept me going.” His voice was flat and toneless, not displaying the emotion I could see in the tight clench of his jaw. “When I lost sight of you, when I could no longer remember you, I lost myself.”

It was strange how intimately I knew that feeling. How much darker and colder my punishment had felt when I could no longer hear his voice. I was certain The Red God had forsaken me then. Left me to suffer for my sins. “They wanted to burn me for what happened to Lilleven.”

He ground to a halt and reached into the bundle I carried, stuffing my remaining jars into his cloak.

“It’s okay, I can carry some of them.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t have a sack full of glass in your hands, if you insist on talking the whole way back.”

“Is there something that you anticipate will anger me?”

He didn’t answer at first, his naturally angry face unwavering. “What happened wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who willed her death. The moment you spoke those words, I longed to see her trampled, as well.”

“What?”

Instead of acknowledging me, he hoisted the much heavier sack over his shoulder, while I mentally chewed on his confession.

“ You killed Lilleven?”

“I didn’t want any of this for you. I was merely an observer, and you were supposed to be nothing more than a hypothetical. But the more I watched, the more I felt for you. Seeing them treat you like an outcast enraged me.”

I mindlessly blinked up at him, searching for clarity in his eyes. Instead, I found nothing more than staunch resolution, and when he urged me up the staircase, I refused to move. Not before he answered my question.

“Lilleven’s murder had nothing to do with me?” I needed to hear his response. My heart and conscience longed to know that I wasn’t responsible for her death.

“No. I broke a very sacred rule and intervened.”

My breath hitched, and I stood silent for a moment. Relieved? I couldn’t properly label the feeling that moved through me.

Numb, I climbed a few steps. Paused. Climbed three more and paused again. “How?”

“I breached the boundary. I changed your fate.” He was quiet for a moment, and I glanced over my shoulder to see that he stood staring off, his expression more troubled than before, if that were possible. “You’re my mate.”

The words reverberated in my mind, and my knee buckled, but I caught myself before stumbling. I exhaled a shaky breath, my heart hardening at the ease with which he’d said it. “How is that possible, when I’m mortal?”

“The night I kissed you in that cell. The moment I crossed that boundary, you were chosen by the gods. Marked by Death.” His gaze shifted toward my shoulder, where I’d seen the glowing mark weeks ago while bathing.

I let his words sink into my skin like a dull blade. “Then, it wasn’t fate that brought us together. It was deception.”

His brows tightened. “I couldn’t let them burn you. I wanted— needed— the gods to know you were mine.”

The anger inside of me clenched down on my emotions, locking its jaw over my heart. “They longed to burn me for a crime you committed,” I snapped.

“And that is my only regret in all of this.” He advanced a step, and so did I, only backwards, keeping some distance between us.

“The visions you had, they hadn’t happened yet. Which means…had you not seen them, my mother might still be alive.”

He shook his head. “It’s true, I saw visions that hadn’t come to pass, but your mother wasn’t present in them. You still lived with your adopted family. The villagers still shunned you as they do now. What I did had no bearing on the events prior.”

“How do you know! What you did could’ve changed everything .” Tears prickled the rims of my eyes as I stared down at him. “You say the gods are cruel. Perhaps this is all punishment. Perhaps in another life, my mother wasn’t meant to be captured. Enslaved. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be the lorn !”

“I wish I could tell you that I was sorry for having interfered. That, had I remembered your face, I would’ve made a point to keep my distance.

To let you live in peace. But I can’t,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Knowing what you were to me, what you are , it would’ve killed me.

I know that now. My selfish nature hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve been apart from you.

” Lips pressed to a hard line, he shook his head.

“The gods have decided. Fate could change the path a thousand times over, but in the end, it’ll always be you and me. You are my mate.”

“Stop saying that.”

“You are. My mate. You’ve always been mine.” He reached out for me, but I pushed his hand away.

I didn’t want to be touched. Didn’t need his affections. I needed space, a quiet darkness to collect my thoughts. To understand what it all meant without the weight of his gaze on me. I needed to breathe. “I am no one’s.”

The restraint in his muscles, the way they shook, in spite of his stoic face, told me I’d struck a sensitive chord. A quiet rage swirled in his eyes, but he tamped it down. “You have every right to be angry.”

“I am angry!”

His gaze remained steady as he carefully set the sack of food onto the step and advanced toward me again. Before I could step backward, he grabbed my arm. “Take it out on me.”

Brows furrowed, I shook my head. “Have you lost your senses?”

“Hit me. Cut me. Whatever it is you need to do.”

More tears prickled in my eyes, and I wriggled my arm to break free of his grasp, but he tightened his hold. “I just need to be left alone.”

“I’m not letting you wander about this place while angry.”

“In case you missed it, I just found my father. I don’t need you stepping in on his behalf.”

He moved another step closer until his towering body eclipsed mine, and he held my arm pressed to his chest.

“Let go of me,” I warned. When he failed to move, I snarled and clawed at his grip. “Unhand me now!”

“Give me your anger. I deserve it.”

Tears slipped down my cheek, and I wriggled again. I pushed him, but he didn’t move. Like steel, his body remained unyielding. “You should’ve let me choose.”

“Choose what? They would’ve found a reason to burn you for something.

They never bothered to know your heart.” He drew a dagger from his hip and held the pointed end of it over his own heart.

“Do it. Shove it into my chest.” He forced my palm over the hilt.

“I’d sooner suffer the pain of this blade than see the hate in your eyes. ”

More tears slipped down my cheeks, and I shook my head, wriggling my hand free of it.

“No.” I refused because, as much as the images of what could’ve been tormented me, as much as it angered me to know that I had been punished for something he’d done, deep in the marrow of my being, I still cared about him.

Even if his confession had turned the entirety of my world upside down, I still couldn’t bring myself to hurt him for it.

As he sheathed the blade, I turned to head back up the staircase, but he gripped my arm again.

“Let me go.”