Eldritch, p.31
Eldritch, page 31
Positioning himself in front of her, the one named Sacton Crain stretched his fist toward the girl, and from it, dangled a chain bearing the same unusual cross she wore at her throat. One whose crosspiece looked like the bony wings of a fierce creature. He whispered hasty words of prayer, forcing the cross in her face every time she looked away from it.
The girl shook where she sat and let out a quiet whimper, as the gaunt man approached her from behind. He twisted the tool in his hand, then jabbed it into her back.
A scream ricocheted off the walls, and Zevander’s muscles jerked and trembled with a rush of adrenaline, watching her break into a sob. He’d heard many screams in his life, from the sound of his mother wailing, as he was dragged away on the day he’d been sent to the prison, to cries of grown men suffering in the mines, and the dying gasps of men whose lives he’d ended abruptly.
But her scream was different. It burrowed in his chest like a jagged knife, cutting him deep and cruelly. The man withdrew the tool and jabbed her again in another spot, and again she screamed, blood trickling down her skin and dripping onto the floor.
He made three, quick consecutive jabs, and she twitched, sobbing into her dress.
“Please,” she cried.
Crystals of ice moved through Zevander’s veins, his body locked, as her scream merged with the memory of his own. “Stop this.” Zevander flattened his palms against the door, his muscles tense and wired, eyes burning with pure rage.
“When you take a life in Caligorya, balance must be restored. You did this. And she will suffer for it.”
Another rough jab of the pricking tool, and she cried out at a higher pitch than the last.
Zevander crushed his eyes shut and inhaled through his nose to steady his breaths.
She screamed again.
Again.
Each scream marked a new wound in her flesh and tore at the old scars that covered his own body, where the unbearable pain flared once again. Every plea echoed one of his own. “Enough of this. If it’s a lesson you wish to teach, you’ve made your point.”
“They will not stop until she bleeds to death. They will prove that she is a witch.”
Another gut-wrenching outcry filled his head, and he opened his eyes to see two men holding her arms outstretched, her dress fallen to reveal her bare breasts, while the witch pricker made his way down one of her arms.
Stabbing.
Stabbing.
Stabbing.
Zevander’s body shook, his mind spiraling into the moments during his own abuses when he’d felt helpless. Weak. He gnashed his teeth as the fury gurgled inside of him. He could save her. In this world, he possessed an unmatched power.
Make it stop.
“Enough!” Zevander pounded his fist against the door, and all eyes in the room turned to him.
“Angel?” he heard Maevyth ask through tears. “Is that you, Angel?”
“Do not answer her. You will only make it worse,” Alastor warned.
And Zevander wanted to make it worse. So much worse, but not for her. Her pain was his own. He yearned for fury and chaos, to flay the skin of every man in that room who’d laid hands on her.
His pulse roared in his ears, his hands burning with wrath and violence.
“If you take another life, the gods will punish you.”
“Let them,” he growled. “I will burn them all. I will set fire to every one of them!”
“And your mother? Your sister? Would you have them punished for your foolishness?”
Zevander let out a shaky exhale and pressed his forehead to the door. “How can one man contain so much rage? I am brimming with it.”
“Use it. Channel that rage into your power. Make it stronger. Give it teeth. And I promise you, one day you will have your vengeance. Your wrath will know no bounds. And every soul who has ever harmed you will suffer.”
“Keep on.” Sacton Crain waved his hand, urging the witch pricker to resume his torture. “She bears the mark somewhere. I want it found. The girl speaks with demons, claiming they’re angels!”
Zevander focused on his face in particular. Every detail of it, every line and wrinkle committed to memory. Should the gods decide, and the visions he’d seen come to pass, he would find Sacton Crain.
And he would make the man pay for her suffering.
“Shall we resume our training?”
Alastor’s voice was nothing more than a distant sound beneath the violent dreams dancing through his head. Zevander gnashed his teeth and placed his hand against the door. As the heat warmed his palm, threatening his vicious flame, a firm grip on his shoulder broke his concentration.
“Nothing would be more damning to her than a door bursting into flames of its own will. Be reminded, none of this has yet come to pass. The gods will decide how she suffers.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
MAEVYTH
Present …
The ominous red doors of the temple stood just a short distance off, as Aleysia and I made our way through the vine-covered galilee porch, shivering from the frigid rain that soaked our dresses. Dread curled in my stomach. Visits to the temple had never been pleasant, and I’d associated those red doors with hostility.
Exclusion. Rejection. Pain.
I couldn’t think about that, though, not when we so desperately needed shelter.
One hard push against the doors failed to open them, and frowning, I rattled it harder.
Aleysia groaned and fished one of the pins from her hair, before kneeling at the level of the lock.
Awestruck, I watched her slip the pin inside and stare off, while she wriggled it around.
Scowling, she shifted and jerked her hand. “You stubborn thing!”
“What, exactly, are you doing?” I asked.
“Almost…got it.” The lock clicked, and she smiled. “There we go.”
Mouth hung wide, I frowned. “How did you learn to do that?”
“Uncle Riftyn showed me.”
“I won’t ask why.”
“Probably a good idea,” she said, pushing the doors open on the vast belly of the temple—the nave that stretched toward the altar, where the ghostly silhouette of The Red God loomed like a terrifying spectral in the dark. “Unnerving, isn’t it?”
“Definitely isn’t my idea of comfort, that’s for sure.”
“Well, go on, then. I’m certainly not going first.”
“Of course not.” Rolling my eyes, I stepped ahead of her, and a rush of cold intensified the chill dancing across my bones, as I trailed my gaze over the dark, empty space that once held an entire village. “We need to do a sweep, and then light a fire.”
“I can’t see a thing. How are we expected to search for anything?”
I knew there were a few oil lamps tucked in the cupboard of the altar, ones Sacton Crain had often used in his services. “Stay here,” I whispered and tiptoed my way down the aisle, past the dark pews—perfect little hiding places for anything that wished to attack. Every muscle in my body had gone rigid, my breaths shallow as I navigated through the dark, silently praying that those locked doors had kept out everything—including mice. I hadn’t realized how utterly terrifying The Red God appeared, with his glowing red gaze, until right then, as he stared down at me, and I glanced away at the first thought that those menacing eyes were watching me.
Once past the pews, I shuffled quickly around the stone altar to the cupboards on the other side of it. With only the moon’s light, I patted around for the red oil lamps, and grabbed two of them by their long, skinny chains, along with the oil that Sacton Crain had always claimed was made from the sacred vespervine berry that The Red God had survived on during the ancient blight.
All those silly anecdotes, now meaningless and nearly forgotten. Nothing more than vaporous words of the past.
After filling the red vessels with oil, and lighting the wicks with a flint striker that’d been left on the altar, I carried both lamps back toward Aleysia, pausing only a moment to observe where someone had painted The Decimation is upon us on the walls.
Aleysia and I searched through all of the pews, the altar, the sacristy. There was no sign of the creatures anywhere. We made our way up the winding staircase to the dormitories on the upper level. Far from simple, each of the first few rooms were decorated in the finest furniture and tapestries, but one room, in particular, stood out for its excessive and grotesquely rich decor that I imagined would’ve been fit for a king.
A fireplace stood off to one side of the room, with a cast-iron pot that reminded me of a cauldron. Likely used to warm the water for the black iron tub sitting in front of it, perhaps the largest tub I’d ever seen. Undoubtedly, I’d found Sacton Crain’s sleeping quarters.
And I wouldn’t have been half as troubled, had he not bellyached so often about how little the village paid in tithes.
“So much for caring for the poor,” I grumbled, kneeling to look under the four-post bed. Nothing there. I searched the armoire, the dresser, the small, enclosed toilet that reminded me of a fancy indoor outhouse. No sign of humans, or spiders.
A door on the other side of the armoire caught my attention. I slowly turned the gold knob, which opened on a narrow closet, where manacles hung from the ceiling and two braided whips decorated the wall. Horror curled through my blood, as I imagined their purpose, and I quickly closed the door, squeezing my eyes shut to banish those visuals from my thoughts.
Hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I sensed a presence in the room. I turned, raising the lamp, only to find Zevander standing in the doorway, completely soaked. His damp hair shielded his eyes and face, as he stood leaning against the doorframe.
“Zevander?”
The moment I said his name, he stumbled forward, catching himself on a nearby chair.
I dashed across the room toward him, helping him settle into the seat. Having placed the lamp on the floor, I removed his sopping wet cloak and noticed blood trickling out of wounds on both his arm and his abdomen. “What happened?”
He didn’t answer me, his silence prompting me to look up, and when I brushed the wet strands back from his face, I gasped. The tiny black veins branching out from his scar had widened their stretch upward, toward his eye and across his temple, disappearing into his hairline.
He angled his face toward the shadows, hiding it from me.
“All bedrooms have been properly swept with no sign of excessive spiders,” Aleysia interrupted, her voice an annoyance to the worry stirring in my gut.
“Good. Choose a room for yourself,” I answered, dismissively.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes. It’s fine.”
“Right. I’m going to see if I can scrounge some food from the kitchen. I’m starving.”
“Wonderful.” Once she’d shuffled off, I turned my attention back to Zevander, who continued to shield his face. “You’re bleeding. What happened?”
As if snapped from his trance, he sighed and sat back in the chair. “Theron.”
“He’s following us?”
“Was following us. He’s no longer present tense. However, I am a little frustrated about that.”
I was relieved to hear him speaking in his normal tone. “Why?”
“Because, at the very least, he might’ve been an option for Aleysia.”
“You’re talking about a blood bond to cross?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t bother to respond to that. My mind was still in chaos where Aleysia was concerned, but less so than his injuries and the worrisome spread of those black veins. “May I look at your wound?”
Sighing, he nodded and hooked his fingers beneath the hem of his tunic, the two of us lifting it over his head. While the cut to his stomach appeared to be more superficial, the gouge in his arm had me a bit more concerned. “This is going to have to be cleaned. And sewn.”
“You have experience with sewing wounds?”
“Not wounds, but I do have experience hemming dresses that needed to last more than a year. I know how to use a needle and thread. Thicker fabric, is all.” Careful not to get my fingers too close to the edges, I pinched the wound together, and more blood oozed out of it. When I let go, I realized the depth of it once the blood had cleared away. “And a lot of blood.” My voice faltered on the last word, and I swallowed back the rising acids in my throat.
“I’m going to make this easy on you, then.” Zevander raised his palm toward the fireplace, and at first, his face twisted, as if he was in pain, his arm shaking as he held it outstretched. He lowered it, slowly exhaled, and raised his palm again. A narrow beam of black flame shot out from his palm, striking the logs stacked inside the fireplace, which blazed into a roaring flame. “Grab the iron, get it hot.”
My throat tightened. “Are you asking me to burn your wound?”
“I am.”
Glancing at the gaping crevice again, I cleared my throat of the nausea that toyed with my tonsils. “I don’t know if I can do that. The very thought …”
“Then, I’ll do it. If you wouldn’t mind getting the iron hot.”
Exhaling a shaky breath, I pushed to my feet and grabbed the fire iron from the rack beside the fireplace. I set it down in the flame, feeling all the more sick as the point gave off a bright violet glow. While it heated, I rifled through one of the drawers of the armoire in search of a rag that I could use to lift it out of the flame without scalding my hand.
A loud sizzling sound brought my attention snapping back toward the fireplace, where Zevander stood, holding the iron to his stomach. Jaw tight, he let out a grunt and groan that strangely sounded more pleasured than pained, as the metal scorched his flesh.
“Oh, my god, why would you attempt to do that yourself?” I stepped cautiously toward him, wanting him to stop, but not wanting to get too close, at the same time.
He pulled the metal from his stomach and placed it on his shoulder, inciting another crackle of flesh. Eyes on mine, his lips pulled to a smirk as he seared his gash, before tossing the iron back into the fireplace. “Cleaned and sealed,” he said.
I examined the wounds that had already come together in a line of raw, angry flesh that glistened. “Is it a mancer ability to heal so quickly?”
“Ordinarily, I’d heal much quicker, but the lack of vivicantem slows everything down. Weakens it.”
I gripped his arm to look at the wound on his shoulder, and the unnatural chill of his skin tightened my brows. “You’re cold.”
“I just walked in the rain in the middle of winter.”
“Of course.” Except, I had witnessed him, a time, or two, standing at the forest without a shirt, and his skin had been nowhere near as cold. “Let me draw you a bath. You’re covered in blood.”
“I have to keep watch.”
Groaning, I crossed the room toward the window and peered out to see Raivox perched on a nearby balcony beneath a stony overhang that kept the rain off of him. “I think we’re covered for now.”
Zevander strode up alongside me, as if he needed to see for himself, and sighed. “I suppose a bath wouldn’t hurt. It’s been a while.”
Lingering at the window a moment longer, I puzzled out why Raivox had chosen to remain. While, on one hand, I loved the safety of having him close, on the other, I knew him to be a creature of instinct. Protective.
Was it Aleysia that stirred his guarding behavior? Zevander?
Or something else entirely?
The chill leaking through the window urged me back toward the fireplace, and I lifted the lever fastened to the stone wall beside it, which gurgled and creaked as water filtered out of a stone spout, into the cauldron on a hot sizzle. Curls of steam rose up over top of the cauldron while I pumped away, filling it with fresh water.
I gathered the oversized blanket from the bed and dragged it toward the fireplace, depositing it on the floor. “Sit here by the fire and warm yourself while the water heats.”
“I’m fine. I’m not as delicate as I look.” His comment brought a smile to my face.
“No. You’re not. But for once, could you let me feel useful?”
He quirked a brow, and the most atrociously handsome smirk played on his lips. Without further argument, he lowered himself to the blankets and rested his elbows on his bent knees. “Happy?”
“Very. I’m going to light a fire in Aleysia’s room. And…mine.”
Lips pressed together, he slowly nodded, wearing a look of disappointment.
From the wall, I lifted one of the stone sconces and knelt in front of the fireplace to light the small bit of kindling at the top of it, then carried it like a torch out of the room. My heart pounded in my chest, while the longing to lay with him, soothe him, pulled at my hair, beckoning me back to his room, but I kept on.
Aleysia hadn’t yet returned from the kitchen, but I could hear the distant sounds of her cursing and rifling through drawers, clanging pans and silverware.
I lit the fireplace in the room across the hall for her, then headed to the room adjacent to Zevander’s. A cold breeze danced over my feet before I’d even opened the door, and when I stepped inside, the temperature nearly stole my breath. The windows had been knocked out, the curtains blowing in the breeze as rain pattered across the stony floor. “Absolutely not this room,” I muttered to myself.
After closing the door, I made my way farther down the hallway to the next room, opening it to find much smaller and simpler quarters. Perhaps the subordinate clergy rooms, which held nothing more than a simple cot and a much smaller fireplace. “It’ll do for the night.”
I crossed the small space toward the fireplace, but paused mid-step at the sound of a hoo-hoo-hoo at my back. Slowly turning around brought two glowing eyes staring down at me from the rafters there. I gasped and lifted the torch to find an owl perched on the wooden beams overhead. How he’d gotten inside, I didn’t know, seeing as the window and door were both closed. Instead of pondering it too long, I exhaled a shaky breath and tiptoed back toward the corridor, closing the door behind me.
