Eldritch, p.64
Eldritch, page 64
“Enough of this. Let’s get to that archway,” Kazhimyr said and in swift strides they tore through the trees, ignoring the annoying spiritynes that buzzed at their heads or the catallys that watched from their perches.
Over fallen trees and vegetation, they trekked deeper into the woods until, they finally reached the boundary and the archway to the dreaded mortal lands.
From his pocket, Kazhimyr fished out the scroll that Dolion had given him—the chant that would grant them passage. “Anyone know how to read this?”
“I could try. Not sure about my pronunciation. If I’m wrong, we all plunge into the chasm, right?” Dravien yanked the scroll from Kazhimyr’s grasp and pressed his palm to the shimmering ward. He spoke the words inked on the parchment. “Zi da’dignio, septmiusz me liberih iteriusz.”
The barrier flickered and Dravien glanced over his shoulder. “Here goes.” He pushed his hand through the ward and disappeared to the other side.
Kazhimyr exhaled a breath and followed after him. A strange vibration pulsed through his muscles as he stepped through to the other side where he found Dravien, in a clearing of thorny bushes, looking around. There, the forest had darkened to twilight.
Ravezio stepped toward them, also glancing around. “Strange. I imagined the deadlands to look…dead.”
“C’mon…we’ve no idea what the rest of it looks like.” Kazhimyr took the lead, using his sword to hack away the thorns that reached out for him as they crossed through the bushes.
“How do we even know where to begin?” The question had barely passed Ravezio’s lips when Kazhimyr spied a familiar object ahead.
He hastened his steps toward the black sword lying on the ground and lifted it up to examine it. “It’s Venetox,” he said, confirming that it was Zevander’s sword.
The distant sound of a thunderous screech tensed Kazhimyr’s muscles.
“The hell was that?” Ravezio asked.
“Not sure,” Kazhimyr answered. “But it sounds big enough to have overpowered Zevander with a sword.”
Trudging over bracken and decaying vegetation, they followed the echo of that roar. A crackling sound beneath Kazhimyr’s boot brought him to a stop and he looked down to see bones and skulls scattered over the ground. “Must be some sort of hunting grounds.”
“How wise of us to eagerly follow what sounds like a vicious predator then,” Dravien said humorlessly.
The mist thickened around them, and Kazhimyr raised Zevander’s sword when it became far too difficult to see ahead of them. The roar of whatever creature they’d heard at a distance sounded closer now and Kazhimyr scanned the trees for it.
A colossal shadow cut through the mist and the three of them stepped cautiously toward it. Black wings gave the impression that it might’ve been a bird, a massive bird, but the scales on its four legs and the teeth lining its beak indicated a dragon of some sort. The monstrous beast raked its talons over the ground, just outside of an enormous tree that appeared to be rotted, the way bare branches reached upward, curled and gnarled.
“What in seven hells is that thing?” Ravezio asked from behind.
The beast swung around, and let out a roar that ruffled Kazhimyr’s hair, sending a cold blast across his skin.
Godsblood, he hadn’t perceived cold in years.
The dragon bird lurched for them, and those bladed teeth snapped a threat seconds before it lunged toward Kazhimyr. He raised the sword and the beast paused. It sniffed the weapon frantically, as if it recognized it.
“Do you know Zevander?” Kazhimyr asked and to his surprise, the creature growled at the tree, clawing the ground.
A deep cavity in the trunk of the tree seized Kazhimyr’s attention and he stepped closer. “Is he inside the tree?”
The bird ruffled his feathers and chuffed, restless.
Frowning, Kazhimyr stared back at the hole where light seemed to flicker from within. “Let’s go inside.”
Dravien snorted. “You speak bird dragon now?”
“I just feel like he wants us to go inside.”
“Of course he does. There’s probably a nest full of them inside, all starving.” Hand resting on the pommel of his sword, Dravien jerked his head toward Kazhimyr. “The two of you can go. I’d rather take my chances with the one out here.”
“What happens if one of us dies?” Ravezio smiled, his voice taunting.
Dravien groaned and rolled his shoulders back. “Fine. The sooner this is over the quicker I can get rid of the two of you.”
Ravezio patted his shoulder as he passed him. “What meaning is your life going to have without us?”
The three of them entered the tree to a descending staircase.
“Fucking hell, is that skin?” Ravezio followed Kazhimyr down the staircase where small, white bowls of flame lit their path.
When they reached the bottom where the stairwell opened to a cavernous space, Kazhimyr glanced up toward the mass of webs. “Branimir would feel cozy here.”
Ravezio chuckled, trailing after him.
Ahead of them hung a swath of webs around a human body. Kazhimyr studied the man’s face where the surrounding webs looked like they’d been torn away.
The trapped man’s eyes opened to black orbs. He snapped his teeth and Kazhimyr sank Zevander’s blade into his throat watching as a black substance oozed out of him. The man twitched and wriggled, dangling from the web, and movement inside his mouth captured Kazhimyr’s attention. He frowned when a small black spider emerged past the dead man’s lips.
Ravezio backed up a step. “Ah hell, that’s revolting.”
Another spider scampered out of the man’s body. And another.
Kazhimyr backed away and when two of the spiders darted for his boots, he stomped on them.
The man’s face contorted in an unnatural way right before a mass of spiders poured out of him.
“Get back!” Kazhimyr yelled and sent a blast of misty ice toward the horde, stopping them in their tracks. A jerk of his hand exploded their guts.
“I don’t like this,” Dravien said, peering toward all the webs overhead.
“C’mon.” Kazhimyr jerked his head. “We’ll do a quick search for Zevander and get the hell out of here.”
As the three of them strode on, a foreboding chill slithered over the back of Kazhimyr’s neck. The webs and thick roots they’d seen outside of the tree bore an unsettling resemblance to the dream he’d had while recovering from his bite. A scritching sound brought all three men to a halt.
“Do you hear that?” Kazhimyr asked, cocking his head to listen. He slowly lifted his gaze to the webs overhead. Hundreds of spiders peered down on them. Some the size of a bear, others small as mice.
“Get out!” Kazhimyr sent a blast of cold toward them, but they scampered down the webs quickly, faster than he could freeze them in place. In seconds, the three were overwhelmed, separated from each other as they maintained their own halo. Dravien swung a sword while Kazhimyr showered them in the white mist. Ravezio slid his blade across his arm, flicking them with his blood which landed on the ground in a hiss of steam they seemed to avoid.
Kazhimyr backed himself away from a larger spider that prowled toward him and when it reared up, he frowned, staring back at the human face embedded in the dark carapace underneath. His boot slipped over the edge of something and Kazhimyr fell through the dirt floor, watching it close overhead. His spine smashed into the ground, knocking the wind from his lungs and he turned over to his side, coughing. He shook his head and groaned at the ache in his neck, rubbing the spot where he must’ve hit the ground hard. He sat up, glancing around to find himself in a cavern similar to the one above, but without the mess of webs. All around him stood walls of roots.
Dread curled in his stomach as he pushed to his feet, eyeing a door ahead of him.
A door that looked precisely like the one in his dream.
Fuck.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
MAEVYTH
Skinny, brittle roots crackled beneath my boots as I stepped through the dense fog. In search of a way out of the strange woody labyrinth, I’d turned around, retracing my steps back toward the hole I’d stepped through. Surely, I should’ve made my way to the center of the tree again, but the more I walked, the more lost I felt, surrounded by tall roots that seemed to reach out for me as I stepped over them, and that awful green glow.
Where do I go?
I lifted my gaze toward the darkness overhead, certain that something was watching me, and stumbled forward. The tip of my boot sank into a soft depression in the ground and a white pocket of air hissed out. The stench of rot and decay filled my nose and I slapped a hand to my face, stumbling away. Another hiss told me I’d stepped on a second pocket. And a third.
My vision flickered and wavered, my head light, as dizziness claimed my balance. I threw my hand out to steady myself against one of the roots, and a prickle raced across my knuckles as tiny, vine-like branches crawled over them. Yanking my hand free, I staggered on, vision growing wobbly and unfocused.
Once outside of the steam pockets, the dizziness seemed to lift a little, and a tickle of nausea settled in my stomach.
The crackle of roots from behind sent an urgent rush to my muscles and I hastened my steps. Over roots and under low-lying branches, I traversed the strange landscape by nothing more than that unnerving glow of light.
Another crackle.
Hiss.
Someone was following me.
With light steps, I moved faster, in no particular direction, desperate to find a way out of the damned labyrinth of trees.
More cracking. Closer than before.
Not daring to turn around, I dashed through the darkness. As my boot struck an upturned root, a force crashed into me, knocking me to the ground and the air exploded out of my lungs on a scream. I turned onto my back, horrified as Zevander’s massive body scrambled up mine, his eyes, black as pitch and barely discernible in the darkness. He pinned my wrists at either side of my head, his gaze wild and ravenous.
“Zevander?” I whispered, desperate for one flicker of recognition.
There was nothing.
Not the man I’d made love to the night before. Not the one who’d fought back at the church until his body had given out on him and the walls collapsed around him. Not the angel who’d whispered to me in the darkness of my cell.
Something else stared back through his eyes. An ominous presence with no soul.
“Come back to me.” Through a mist of tears, I watched for a twitch. A shift of his eyes that told me he was still there, fighting. The small glimmer of hope that I’d seen the few times he’d slipped into his head.
He wasn’t there.
The man I’d grown to love was gone.
A golden heat bloomed in my wrists where he gripped me, a kindling of warmth at first that settled the chill across my skin. It sank beneath my flesh, clinging to my bones. The gold shifted to orange as the heat writhed in my muscles, lashing and curling through me as it pulsed through my body. Sweat trickled down my skin and my breath hitched with the feverish grip of my lungs.
His eyes held no tension. No sign of restraint.
He was burning me from the inside without a flicker of remorse.
Tears streaked down my temples as a sharp resignation cut into my heart. I needed to trick him into consuming my blood—a perilous gamble, seeing as the Lyverian guard had perished. My very soul shook at the thought of possibly losing him, but he didn’t deserve this fate. Even at the risk that he might also perish, he’d suffered too much in his life to live as a mindless, monstrous beast at another’s command. I loved him too much to let that happen.
“Bond with me,” I whispered. “I accept.”
The surge of heat slowed to a lazy pulse, and as he pulled back, the rage from moments ago slackened to something that turned my stomach. A greedy, sickening lust burned in his eyes, but not one that belonged to Zevander. It wasn’t borne from love and trust. What reveled in my surrender was something predatory. Something that sought power.
The monster who longed to make me his.
“I belong to you,” I lied, forcing myself to believe that somewhere behind that rapacious mask, Zevander might’ve been touched by my words.
He released one of my arms and took hold of my jaw, but not in a loving way. His grip was steadying and painful, as he yanked my dress up to my thighs and pressed his groin into me. Eyes rolled back, he let out a deep groan, and when he lowered his face to mine, I turned my head, giving him access to my throat.
He was too hasty, too willing to take from me to be my beloved assassin.
“Make me yours. Bond me to you eternally.” Despite the steely resolve of my words, my voice wavered with tears.
He dragged his nose over my throat as if he were savoring his prey. “Eternally,” he echoed, mesmerized, and loosened his grip on my wrist.
I sank one of my metallic nails into the delicate skin on my neck and slashed a quick line, gasping at the ease with which it cut.
A sharp sting burned across my throat, and eyes wide with what I could only surmise was bloodlust, Zevander clamped his lips over the wound. Pressure stiffened my jaw as he sucked at that small cut, a sickening gurgle chasing each pull. His muscles tightened in my grasp, his body rigid, his hands hasty and frantic, touching me everywhere.
“No!” a voice roared from somewhere distant, thundering around me.
“I love you,” I whispered. “Please come back to me.”
Zevander fell to the side and raised a trembling hand to his lips, his black eyes wide, brows pulled into a look of panic. Perhaps the first flicker of emotion I’d seen in him.
His scorpion stepped from his back, stumbling on its insectile legs. Its stinger sank into its own body and Zevander arched his back, a roar of pain ripping out of him.
“I’m sorry.” I reached out a trembling hand but hesitated to touch him. “Oh gods, I’m sorry.” My body shuddered as I watched him succumb to my blood. What have I done?
He fell onto his back, mouth gaping, choking. His chest rose and fell in labored spurts of breath.
Spiders scampered out of his mouth, fading into black smoke that drifted toward me before dissipating.
Behind him, the scorpion buckled, falling to the ground where it twitched, its stinger still reflexively stabbing its body.
Until at last, he stilled. The scorpion stilled.
A deafening silence settled around us, as if the world held its breath.
My lips trembled as I fought to hold back the sob pounding at the back of my throat.
On hands and knees, I crawled toward him and reached for his hand. The cold of his skin had me recoiling, but I pressed my ear to his chest.
Stillness.
The world around me spun too fast when I pushed up from him and I clamped my eyes shut, shaking my head. “Wake up now. You’re supposed to wake. You’re supposed to be okay.”
I shook him, a sharp gasp of a sob tearing from my throat. I clenched my teeth, biting back the emotion, refusing to accept that he was gone.
“Wake up, Zevander! Wake up!” I shook him again, harder, my voice splintering beneath a wretched pain that threatened to tear me open.
Still, he didn’t move. Didn’t gasp for breath. His skin grew colder, his face, paler.
“No, no, no. Breathe!” I pounded my fist against his chest. “You promised! You promised you wouldn’t leave me!” I pressed my lips to his, forcing breath in his lungs. “Wake up!”
Hands fisting his tunic, I hauled his upper body just enough to lift his head and cradled him in my lap. My body shuddered with another sob, and I tipped my head back, the anger pounding through me in violent waves.
“Morsana! Give him back to me!”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
ZEVANDER
Zevander shot upright from where he lay on the ground and found himself surrounded by a field of silver-tipped, black roses. Bodies lay bloody and mutilated around him, as if he’d awakened in the thick of a battle. He frowned and looked down at his own hands, coated in blood and dirt. Beside him, lay Cadavros, unmoving, the pallor of his skin drained of life.
Movement in his periphery prompted him to turn toward where a willowy figure glided toward him. Long, black hair danced about her face, her eyes silver like the silky bands of moonlight that beamed down around her.
“Maevyth?” The slight blur in his vision sharpened into focus, and while she and Maevyth looked very much alike, the figure moving toward him wasn’t her.
“I’ve been waiting for you, my beloved.” She knelt before him and took his hand in hers, the startling cold jerking his muscles. “You’ve returned to me.”
Zevander shook his head. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“You are Deimos. And I am Morsana. We were in love once.” A sadness clung to her voice.
“Deimos was banished to sablefyre.”
“Yes. And he chose you as his vessel, just as I chose Maevyth as mine. So that one day, we would reunite. It is time for you to transcend. To cast off this flesh.” She took his face in her palms. “Kiss me and you will know.”
Before Zevander could stop her, the goddess seized his mouth in a frantic kiss. A cold detachment lingered between their joined lips.
It was wrong. All wrong.
Morsana broke away, her brows pulled together as her silvery eyes stared into his. “He does not kiss me back. He resides in you, but he doesn’t not want me.”
“He’s taken over my body, perhaps my soul, but he does not command my heart.”
Brows pulled tight, her lips twisted to a bitter snarl. “Then why should I return you to her?”
“Because you know the pain.” While unnatural for Zevander to be so tender toward another woman, a part of him reserved only for Maevyth, he somehow knew it would be the only way he could make her understand. “You’ve had your heart ripped open by brutal hands. And even if you threw me into the darkest abyss, tore me limb from limb, I would find my way back to her. If I had to crawl through the cold and hollow belly of death itself, I would find a way to return to her.”
