Page 149 of Eldritch
A tremble ran through my chest, like a growing fissure just before something split open. Quiet tears slid down my cheeks, and I held my face in my palms as the agony tore through me. Somehow, the world felt heavier than before. A little girl, alone and dying, had broken something inside of me.
And I wept.
For her. For all the children who’d been left to starve.
Abandoned by their mothers and fathers, just like I had been.
“Come, Maevyth. We shouldn’t stay here.” Aleysia tugged at my arm, and I wiped away tears as I pushed to my feet. “Your hands…they take life.” It was the first time she’d acknowledged any of the powers I’d called upon.
“Yes.” A somber ache lingered in my chest. “I killed The Crone Witch this way.”
She sighed, carefully threading her arm in the crook of my elbow as she guided me over the small bodies. “I’m afraid she deserved it, the wretch.”
Ignoring her comment, I asked, “Did you see Zevander? Is that what brought you down here?”
Aleysia frowned. “No. Come to think of it, I don’t know how I got down here. I think I may have been dreaming of…father. I swear I heard his voice.”
“Do you remember the sound of his voice?” I asked as we stood outside of the cell.
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Not really. It’s peculiar, I can hear Grandfather Bronwick’s voice clear as a bell, and he’s been gone far longer than Father.”
Father had disappeared a little over two months before I’d passed through the Umbravale to Aethyria. Had only been presumed dead mere weeks before Aleysia’s banishment to The Eating Woods. But it had been longer than that since we’d seen him last.
“Come,” she said, weaving her arm in mine again and waving me toward the deeper end of the corridor. “Let’s see if we can find something to eat.”
“I need to find Zevander.”
“He seems exceptionally capable of taking care of himself.”
“Were you not the one who worried about him last night?”
Aleysia chuckled. “I told you, I just wanted the bed to myself.” Her brow raised. “Did you fuck him?”
My mouth gaped at her crudeness. “Not that it’s any of your business, but?—”
A cough echoed from down the corridor, and I froze, watching that curious glint shine in her eyes.
“No, I can’t take another life. I won’t.”
“It could be your lover.” She slipped from my arm and, to my utter frustration, scampered down the hallway in the direction of that cough.
“He’s not my …” Groaning, I swiped up her fallen dress and followed after her. “Aleysia! Slow down!”
Instead of slowing her pace, or heading straight, she turned down another passage.
I hastened after her, vowing that I would search for some kind of rope, or leash, to fasten to her. That, or lock her in her room.
The cough echoed through the stony passageway again, and I watched her peer into each cell she passed.
My blood chilled at the sight of the dark emptiness, imagining a time when they’d once been filled with those deemed heretics and witches—myself included. I wrapped my arms around myself, keeping my eyes ahead.
She finally skidded to a halt and stood staring into one of the cells, her jaw open, hands trembling at her side. “Father!”
Wary of what she’d found, I schooled my face to an impassive expression as I approached, studying the way her eyes filled with tears. When I finally tore my gaze from her, I turned to find an aged man I didn’t recognize behind long, straggly white hair and an overgrown beard. I’d have thought she’d lost her mind, if not for the fact that he looked too much like Grandfather Bronwick.
I stepped closer, not trusting my own eyes.The letter…my head battled.Signed by the king himself. It’d confirmed his death.
A lie. All of it.
