Page 209 of Eldritch
“Four, three, two, one. One, two, three, four,” she quietly muttered, and when she turned back around, twitching and coughing, I frowned.
“Aleysia?”
Before I could ask her if she was okay, a bellowing roar of agony tore through the church and split the air like a blade across a delicate petal. My heart shot to my throat.
“Zevander!” I raced toward the church, catching sight of the fissure slipping beneath the foundation. The ground parted, leaving a gaping trench, and cracks spidered down the ancient stones of the building. Panes of glass from the few intact windows shattered as the stone wall collapsed and crumbled to the ground, sending up debris and snow.
“Zevander! No!”
The impact shook the ground beneath my feet and buckled my knees. I collapsed, reaching out for him. A sharp, disorienting pain struck the side of my head in a flash of light.
The world flipped to blackness.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
MAEVYTH
Aviolent jerk of my body wrenched me from sleep, and I opened my eyes to an overcast light, so blindingly bright, I winced. A sharp sting stabbed my temples, and I moaned as it pierced my skull in a deep, throbbing ache that quickened with a high pitch ringing in my ears. Palm to my head, I let out a hiss, jaw flexing as it intensified then slowly faded.
Pain twisted in my legs and arms, a fist of tension gripping my lungs as I turned to my side and coughed. A musky and bitter animal odor lingered beneath the faint tang of smoke and wood. I curled my fingers into the matted pelt covering me, which offered only a little warmth from the blistering cold that burrowed deep in my bones.
Sleep pulled at me, begging me to close my eyes for a bit longer, a nauseating dizziness twisting my stomach as my body jostled to the rhythm of wheels bouncing over uneven terrain.
Where am I?
Rusted iron bars greeted me when I lifted my head. A cage? Above me, the ceiling rattled and swayed with every bump. Beyond the bars, children peered in on me as they followedalongside the cage. Their pale, youthful faces bore the smeared shape of a raven kohled in black over their eyes and forehead.
I scrambled backward, my spine crashing into bars at my back. More of them chased after the contraption that carried me, keeping ahead of the horsedrawn cage that followed them.
Over the steady clop of horse hooves rose the sound of whispers, and I could just make out, “Who is she?”
Memories rushed in, flashing through my head in jagged pieces.
The ground opening. Faceless creatures with teeth. Screams. A strike of the bone whip. Gut-wrenching screams. Stone crumbling.
Zevander.
“Zevander!” Gasping, I shot upright, instantly regretting the abrupt movement when a jolt of pain struck my skull. In palpating the ache, my fingers danced over fabric, a knot, as if someone had dressed a wound. Shallow breaths ghosted out of me in frosty puffs as I frantically searched for my family through the crowd. “Zevander! Aleysia!”
I twisted around and scrambled on hands and knees, wobbling against the rough thrashing of the cage, toward a man who sat hunched forward, clutching the reins of two draft horses that pulled us along. “Excuse me…I need to get out of here. Please stop! My …. My family …. I need to find out if they’re okay.”
The coachman kept silent, never once turning around, not even when I slammed my hands against the bars.
“Please stop!” I gave one more smack against the bars, but he seemed insistent on ignoring me.
Frustrated, I scanned the surroundings outside of the cage in search of something familiar, something my head could grasp in all the confusion. The path wound through a small village nestled in a dark forest, where squatty black cottages withthatched roofs stood shadowed by the wall of rock behind them. I leaned forward, peering up through the bars, to see that the wall disappeared into the clouds.
The mountains?
We still had nearly a week-long journey ahead of us when we’d reached the church.
Had I slept for days?
Hands curled around the bars, I wriggled them, but they wouldn’t budge. “I have to get out! Please let me out!”
The carriage finally rolled to a stop, and more of the raven-faced children gathered around, clinging to the bars as they gawped at me.
“Back, back, back!” The coachman, an older man, given his white beard and matted gray hair, hopped down from his bench and rounded the cage. He waved the children off as he unfastened a lock and tugged open the door. “Come,” he said, holding out a hand to me. Around his neck hung a bird’s skull with a hooked beak, like that of a raven’s.
