Page 196 of Eldritch
“He threatened to dissolve your veins with a poisonous dagger.” He spoke with an unsettling calm that sent a chill rippling through my spine.
“He threatened all of us!”
“Any threat is a threat against you, and I will react accordingly.”
The soldier teetered to the side, sputtering and coughing, until, at last, his mouth gasped for one final breath, and he stilled.
Father strode toward us, his posture tense and hostile. “You stab a man begging for help?”
On some strange instinct, I shot to my feet, holding out my palm. Not to summon a glyph against him, but to warn him away from the danger he was unwittingly inviting. Not just from Zevander, either, as Raivox’s shadow passed over the ground. “Back away, Father.”
“He was starving! Do you not know how desperate hunger can make a man?”
“He’s dead,” Zevander said coldly, never taking his eyes off me. “Nothing I can do about it now. We should be going, if we want to make it there before nightfall.”
“You can’t leave them.” I trailed my gaze over the thick, misty forest. “His friend is injured in the woods, and this one must be buried.”
“You can’t bury every slain body.”
“It wasn’t slain before you plunged your sword in his throat!” I argued back.
“As I told you. He was a threat.” Still astride Vane, Zevander raised a brow and leaned forward, resting his bent arm against his thigh. “Everyone is a fucking threat where you’re concerned, until proven otherwise.”
I braced my hands on my hips, and while I may have been smaller by comparison, I refused to relent in the argument. “And your plan is to kill first and ask questions after?”
“Yes. If that’s what it takes to keep you safe in these lands, I will kill every one of them. That is who I am. That is what I do.”
“You kill bad men. Not innocents.”
His eyes gleamed with a dark and wicked mirth that sent an unsettling chill across the back of my neck. “Is that what you think? That I execute based on their lack of morals, like a vigilante? I kill for coin. It doesn’t matter to me who, or what, they are.”
“Do I matter to you?”
He dropped from Vane’s saddle and stepped forward, looming over me like a storm. “You areallthat matters to me.”
“If that is true, then I am asking you not to take innocent lives in my name. If you place any value on my words and my thoughts, you will pause before you lift that blade to a throat.” I stepped closer and lowered my voice. “And if your mind fails you, and you are uncertain, you will trust me to guide you back to yourself. Can you trust me?”
His eye twitched. “I do.”
“Good. Then, we should figure out what to do with his body. Can you turn him into a bloodstone?”
“I’m not wasting what little blood magic I have at my disposal to turn him into a bloodstone.” He jerked his head toward him, lips twisted in disgust. “The animals will feed on him.”
“There are no animals here. They’ve all been killed by those creatures!”
No sooner had the words poured out of me than Raivox swooped down and landed with a thud that shook the ground.
Corwin let out a high-pitched scream, and the horses reared up and whinnied. In trying to control his own horse, Corwin let loose the other, and it galloped off.
Father gathered the reins of his own horse, when Aleysia slid back, clutching him as she struggled to remain in the saddle.
Like a bird picking the seed from its shell, Raivox plucked the soldier from his armor and flew upward, the body dangling from his maw. Tendrils of shock pricked the back of my neck as I watched him toss the soldier into the air and swallow him in one gulp.
“Red God in Heaven!” Hand to his chest, Father looked about ready to fall off his mount .
“Well,” Aleysia let out a small chuckle. “It’s settled then. Shall we be off?”
“No,” I snapped, sailing a glare back at her. “We’re going to find his friend and offer some food. That’s the least we can do.”
