Page 45 of Tethered In Blood

“So glad we agree,” I mumbled, pulling away to the desk for some distance. My fingers skimmed the pages of my journal, and I frowned. The desk wasn’t how I had left it. Someone had shifted the papers and moved the books. Smudges of charcoal marked the edges of pages I hadn’t touched.

I turned, narrowing my eyes at Oberon. “This isn’t how I left it.” I glanced between him and my notes. “You were tampering with my things.”

He didn’t even have the decency to look guilty. “I was reading them… And organizing them better than you did.”

I scoffed, muttering under my breath before leafing through the pages. “Why? What did you expect to find?”

Oberon sighed. “It’s the magic.” My stomach twisted. With a grim expression, he approached the desk, his presence looming over me. “I didn’t sense it, and that’s been bothering me.”

A slow, creeping unease settled in my chest. “Magic leaves traces,” he continued. “Even if it’s subtle, I should have felt it. But I didn’t.”

He could sense magic? Did he use Fae magic?

Pressing my fingers into the leather, I squeezed the journal. “So, are you saying something was hiding it?”

He nodded once, the movement stiff and jerky. “That’s the only explanation. This means that whoever, or whatever, is behind this didn’t just enchant the bellthorn; they knew how to cover their tracks.”

“Then how do we stop it?”

Oberon pressed his hands against the desk. His gaze fixed on mine. “It’s not just the plants, Dilthen Doe.” His tone lowered, heavier than before. “It’s what they were feeding.”

I swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”

“This isn’t merely a cursed vine poisoning the village—it’s a curse that spreads through the woods and takes root. The firewood was simply the catalyst.”

My blood ran cold.

“Then what do we do?”

He stepped closer, the gap between us disappearing as his fingers pressed against the desk, his gaze holding me in place. “We find the heart of it,” he declared, his tone gravelly and resolute. His eyes burned into mine. “And we scorch it.”

THEAIRINtheforest was heavy with more than just humidity. Although the fires had been extinguished, the odor of charred wood lingered, mingling with the repulsive scent of decomposition. It wasn’t merely decay; it went deeper than that. Something ancient and festering lay waiting beneath the surface.

My hands tightened around the satchel strap as I adjusted it. Oberon walked ahead, his posture rigid and his movements precise. He seemed more on edge than usual, and that worried me. “Do you feel anything now?” I whispered.

He inclined his head, his eyes scanning the trees with the patience of a predator. The muscles in his jaw contracted, and he muttered, “No.” I wanted to ask what it would feel like and what he was searching for, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted the answer.

The further we walked, the worse it became.

The trees were wrong. Their trunks were gnarled, their hands frozen in agony. Dark veins ran up their bark, pulsing beneath the surface as though alive and feeding. The leaves overhead weren’t green but sickly yellow-gray, curling inward as if retreating from the air.

The suffocating silence pressed against my ears. There were no birds, no rustling creatures in the underbrush, not even the chirp of insects. Except—

My gaze shifted to the side, and I came to a standstill. A creature moved along the bark of a nearby tree, a shimmering, translucent being with an excessive number of legs and an elongated body that rippled as it crawled with unnatural movements. It was something that shouldn’t exist. My stomach twisted, and I stepped back. It made no sound. None of them did.

My feet sank into the soft ground, worse than moss or damp soil. I crouched, brushed my fingers against the dirt, and pulled back with a grimace. It was wet and blackened—tainted. The same dark rot that had clung to the bellthorn vine and reacted to my blood coated the forest floor like a disease.

The ground pulsed under my fingers. “This is it,” I murmured, glancing up at Oberon. “This is where it’s coming from.”

He gave a curt nod and unsheathed his blade. The whisper of steel sent a shiver through the air. “Stay close.” I rolled my eyes and sighed, earning a sharp look in response.

As we moved forward, the trees closed in around us. Their branches twisted together above, forming a tunnel that funneled us toward the unseen. The hairs on my arms stood up. The air thickened, infused with more than simple magic. It felt sentient, as if it were watching.

A massive, withered tree stood in the clearing, its bark split open with a gaping wound, oozing blackened sap that reeked of death. Its roots stretched across the ground like skeletal fingers, curling around stones and pulling them as if they were being swallowed whole.

Grotesque bone ornaments hung, woven among its branches.

Human bones dangled from sinewy strands, swaying despite the lack of wind. Cleaned, blanched, and stark against the dark bark, skulls, ribcages, and shattered femurs hung. The air around the tree crackled. The rot was thickest here, seeping into the ground and poisoning the air.

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