Page 101 of Eldritch
And I hated that my sister had been the one to end her life that way.
I couldn’t help but glare at Aleysia. “I can’t just leave them this way.”
“We don’t exactly have time to hold a service and bury them, Maevyth. I’m sorry I did what I did. But imagine her out in that world, trying to escape those creatures. Imagine what they’d have done to her. I gave her mercy. Far more than she’d been given elsewhere.”
Tears wobbled in my eyes, and I turned toward Zevander. “What about bloodstones? I could bury those easily.”
“Bloodstones?” Aleysia asked, but I didn’t bother to answer her.
Zevander gave a nod, his hands flexing and curling. “Step back.”
I stole the opportunity to push Aleysia backward, gleaning a small bit of pleasure when she tumbled onto her backside with an indignant expression on her face.
Zevander opened his hands, producing a faint flicker of black flame, which he held over the girl’s body. The flame shot from his palm, catching onto her flesh, and within seconds, the fire engulfed her, before fading quickly to a single stone.
He did the same for the second Lyverian woman, until only two small bloodstones remained in a tiny pile of black ash. Lifting the one closest to him off the ground, he frowned, examining the surface of it.
I scooped up the second, holding the stone up to the light. A silvery glint on the surface drew my attention to strange, skinny veins running across it.
“Silver. Just like yours,” Zevander remarked.
“Like mine?”
“When I first arrived in Mortasia months ago, I stumbled upon your blood at the archway. It held the same silvery streaks.”
“Is that a unique trait?”
“Yes. As far as I know, it’s a Corvikae trait.”
“But they were Lyverian.”
“I’m not entirely certain of how. I only know what Dolion told me.” He carefully placed the other stone in my hand. “We should probably plan to settle in soon. It’ll be dark.”
“Did you find the vivicantem?”
“No. Nothing.” He tugged a rolled-up scroll from where he’d tucked it into his belt. “Found a basic map of the mountains, but nothing that specifically details where the vein might be.” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Given the size of the mountain range, it would take weeks to find that vein blindly.”
“The Red Men were sent to the mountains on behalf of the church.” Aleysia sat twisting the tip of the blade onto her fingertip, and I flicked my fingers for it.
“She’s right,” I agreed, snatching the knife away from her. “They journeyed frequently to the mountains. And to be honest, I’d prefer not to stay here for the evening. I find this place suffocating. We can search the temple and perhaps stay there for the night. I suspect it’ll be safer. It was designed to protect the villagers in the event of a siege, or attack.”
“Very well. We’ll head to the temple for the night. But let’s go now. It’ll be dark soon.”
Nodding, I deposited the bloodstones into the pocket of my cape and pushed to my feet. As Zevander and Aleysia headedtoward the staircase, I veered in the opposite direction in a need to see if the grotesquely deformed captain was still chained to the wall.
Nothing more than two gnawed limbs, still cuffed in manacles, lay on the floor.
A chill coiled down the back of my neck as I stared down at the bloody hunks of meat.
“You remember the good captain who sat next to you at brunch?”
As the memory slipped through my thoughts, the visual of the deformed man dashing out of the shadows toward me turned my blood cold.
“I may be a monster, but I can also be quite protective of you…Miss Bronwick.”
My name arrived as a whisper that sounded far too close, and heart pounding, my eyes flicked through the darkness for the source.
Two glowing eyes seemed to watch me from the shadowed corner, and still holding my knife, I inched backward, away from it, watching Moros’s stocky form emerge from the darkness.
