Page 38 of The Shadowbound and the False God

“The answer you seek, you shall find

When you consume whole the seed, the pulp, and the rind.”

This one, she was quick to comprehend. Stowing the other away in the back of her mind, she looked at the glistening fruit on her plate. It would almost have been tempting if it weren’t for its blackened, shriveled skin and the stench of rot that rose from it.

Slowly, slowly, Aisling lifted one of the fruit’s ruby arils to her lips and pushed it inside her mouth.

In all his life—lives—Rodney had never felt so utterly useless. He was alone, again. Lost, again.

And he’d let Aisling go, again.

He stayed crouched there behind the brambles until his knees ached and his thighs burned, then longer still. He wished in vain that Aisling would reappear from the darkness. That at any second, he’d hear her returning footsteps. If Kael was with her all the better, but in that moment, Rodney couldn’t care less about the fate of the Unseelie King. For all the fleeting joy Kael had brought to Aisling, he’d brought ten times more pain. Rodney just wanted his best friend back.

Wincing, he stood and stretched his long legs. Before they could slide any lower, he hitched his jeans up until the waistband was nestled beneath the base of his tail.Fuck.He’d almost forgotten about that piece. It had mercifully remained still while he hid, but more often than not the damn thing seemed to have a mind of its own.

“Aisling?” Rodney tried calling out, but the forest swallowed his voice whole. He squinted; the trees ahead were so thick and interwoven that even his newly sharpened vision couldn’t penetrate the wall they created. If he hadn’t watched Aisling walk in that direction, he wouldn’t have believed it to be passable at all.

He knew better than to follow. As much as he would have liked to chase her down, it would do them both more harm than good. Rodney would be little help alone. They’d need Raif’s strength or, at the very least, his swordsmanship.

There were still two directions at the crossroads they hadn’t yet explored. He could find his way back easily—while Aisling had been focused on the spectral Luna moth, Rodney used the tip of his sword to carve notches on tree trunks as they passed. He was glad now for his forethought—their path had been far from linear once they strayed off the trail, and he didn’t care to find himself amidst the masked beings that lurked nearby.

The silence, marred only by his staggered footfall, sounded too similar to the hush that he’d found Sítheach in before her sobs had broken through. Rodney’s fist clenched involuntarily and he stumbled when the toe of his boot caught on a loose rock. The image of her, of her rage, continued to haunt and distract him. It had been so long—so, so long. He thought he’d rid himself of the memory entirely. But whatever magic existed in Elowas was stronger than any mental block he’d created for himself, and it had dug that day out of the hidden corners of his mind with ease.

Rodney paused to regain his bearings and shake away the dark thoughts. He ran the tip of his finger over one of the notches as he scanned ahead for the next. It left a smear of sticky sap on his skin that smelled like blood. Without looking, he quickly withdrew his hand and wiped it on his pants.

“Fuck this place,” he muttered under his breath.

He considered attempting to Create an easy glamour. Nothing heavy, nothing intricate. Something simple. A ring—a plain black titanium band, like the one he’d lost several years prior hauling ropes at the dock. He pictured it on his finger and reached out to the strands of magic that hung around him. In Wyldraíocht and even on Brook Isle, those strands were tensile and welcomed his grasp. Here, they fought back. For a moment they seemed to collapse in on him, the pressure nearly too much to bear. Rodney struggled for breath, pushing and pushing back against that heavy magic until it eddied away.

It was too strong, and he wasn’t strong enough. He was a sorry excuse for a Weaver.

Rodney retreated back into himself, concentrating only on spotting the next mark and moving towards it. Finally, the trees thinned and his feet hit the hard-packed dirt of the path. The crossroads wasn’t far ahead. He could see it, just. The clouds had parted while he’d been under the canopy of pine; the opening was lit by starlight. It might have been beautiful, had it been anyplace other than Elowas. But there was nothing beautiful to be found in the god realm.

The loud crack of a branch followed by heavy hoofbeats sent Rodney scrambling off the road into the trees. He hid behind the nearest one, pressed flush against its rough bark. He wasn’t yet comfortable being back in this body—he’d never considered himself much of a runner, but if he had to do so now he imagined he’d look something like a newborn faun.

He peeked around the trunk. A large centaur hunter emerged and stepped into the center of the crossroads, and Rodney drew back quickly, wincing. Angry red burns wrapped around the centaur’s chest and waist like he’d been snared by flaming rope.

No, not flaming.Iron-threaded.

Rodney had seen Raif stowing the weapon in his satchel when they’d raided the Unseelie armory: a long rope, woven throughwith iron. His heart sank. If the creature had escaped Raif’s hold, there was no telling what might be left of the captain. For all he knew, Raif had been run through with a sword. Skinned. Flayed. Eaten. Whatever the hell those beasts did to their prey.

The sharp intake of breath that followed Rodney’s realization was louder than he meant it to be, and the centaur turned in his direction. Rodney pressed tighter against the tree trunk and gripped his tail in his fist for good measure. If that damn thing gave away his hiding place, he’d cut it off himself.

“If you are a companion of the soldier, you may come out,” the centaur called.

Rodney squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath.Not a fucking chance.

“I would not harm a living thing,” he said, a bit louder. His baritone voice was far from the savage growl Rodney expected. “I can hear your heart racing; I know you are alive. I am not your enemy. But there are others out here who would consider themselves as such, and they will not entertain you hiding behind trees.”

“That sounds exactly like something an enemy would say,” Rodney quipped from the shadows. He had no intention of becoming another faerie’s prisoner—or his dinner.

“I led Raif to safety in exchange for my own. I will not make the same trip for you, but I might point you in the right direction if you were to ask nicely.” The centaur shifted his weight as he spoke, hooves stamping the hard ground impatiently.

That certainly sounded like Raif’s character. The hardened warrior wasn’t known to be cruel without cause, nor did he kill for pleasure like so many of the other Unseelie soldiers. Like his own king had, on more than one occasion. Rodney swallowed hard and drew his sword, then stepped back out onto the road.

The centaur was far taller than he’d looked from a distance, a wall of muscle and sweat-soaked skin down to the short,coarse hair covering his lower half and hindquarters. As Rodney approached, sword held awkwardly aloft, those burn marks looked more and more severe. Despite the lingering pain the wounds must have caused, the centaur’s lips parted in a grin that put his sharp teeth on full display. But even with the way they glinted in the starlight, his expression seemed somehow more congenial than predatory.

“So there was only one true human in your party,” the centaur remarked, then chuckled. “I’ve known a number of púcas in my time, but none with so much fur as you.”

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