Page 244 of Eldritch
“What are you doing?” Cadavros’s voice was a distant sound that barely reached him as Zevander slipped, deeper and deeper into that void.
Finally, he collapsed.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
ZEVANDER
Where in seven hells am I?
Zevander glanced around the unfamiliar surroundings in search of something he might recognize. Crude cob walls and a dirt floor released the pungent odor of damp soil and mold. The sound of a woman’s moans bled through wide cracks in a wooden door ahead and through them, Zevander could make out two bodies fucking each other. The stench of rot clung to his nose and frowning, he stared down at the decaying corpse of a rat on the floor.
Quiet whispers reached his ears, and Zevander turned toward a small wooden table behind him, following the sounds to the two children, no more than ten years old, who sat huddled beneath. The boy, pale and thin with pink eyes and two small horns protruding from his forehead, bore the telling characteristics of a spindling child. The little girl clutched in his arms looked to have suffered the worst deformities Zevanderhad ever seen on a child: one eye black and sunken, her face sallow and scarred.
Vaguely familiar, somehow.
“I’m going to find the cure, Melisara. I’ve been reading endlessly. There is a way to cleanse you,” the boy said, kissing the girl on the top of her ratted hair.
“Perhaps I can still ascend into Mother’s bloodline.” She stared up at him, but the boy seemed unbothered by her deformities, didn’t so much as wince when he lovingly gazed back at her, stroking her long red locks. “I can change faces, just as she used to.”
“She is Nilivir. If her blood magic was going to pass onto you, there would’ve been signs by now.” He affectionately kissed the top of her head, where the hair had thinned at her hairline. “Only knowledge, studying the scrolls, will change our circumstances.”
“No spindling has ever been permitted into the House of Sages. You’ll never have access.”
“I will.” Brows pulled tight, he flattened his lips. “Someday I will be the most powerful mage in the world.”
“And I’ll be the most beautiful.” She smiled up at him.
A loud gurgling scream broke their quiet whispers and Zevander turned for the bedroom door, beyond which, he’d heard fucking.
“I can make him stop. He’ll never lay a hand on her, or us, again,” the boy said, his words grinding through clenched teeth.
“Don’t Alastor. You have no power against him. It will do nothing. Besides, Mother says we need the coin.”
Zevander froze at the mention of his mentor’s name—one he’d thought was given out of deception. He tipped his head, studying the boy’s face, hidden behind his long black hair. Beneath the obvious malnourishment, he could see a glimmer of his former mentor there. Could hear the slightest resemblancein his young voice when he said, “The rotting drunk deserves to die.”
He was staring at Cadavros as a young boy.
Alastor must’ve been his birth name.
The door creaked and then thudded open, and a man stumbled out, his finer clothes giving Zevander the impression he hadn’t been borne from squalor. He tipped back a tankard of ale, running into the wall as he made his way toward where the children hid. “C’mon, you little monster. Let me see your ugly face.”
The little girl turned into the boy, hiding her face in his chest.
“C’mon you wretched little beast. Give me a good scare and show me where you are!” The stranger stumbled over his own feet and tumbled to the floor. The moment he caught sight of the children, his lips stretched to an evil grin. “There you are.” Lips peeled back he swiped out a hand for the girl. “Get over here you little bitch!”
“Leave her alone!” the boy screamed, shoving at his arm.
The drunk took hold of her bony little leg and gave a hard yank that sent her body flying out from beneath the table. As she flipped around, clawing at the dirt for the boy, he gave another yank, drawing her dress up, exposing her bare lower half to him.
The drunk gripped her hair and tipped her face into the light.
A howl ripped from the man’s throat as the boy lurched forward and bit the drunk’s arm. The little girl scrambled in the opposite direction.
“You fucking rat!” The drunk shot a blast of Aeryz that sent the young boy flying back into the wall behind him.
Zevander’s muscles tensed as the drunkard twisted around for the little girl who lay trembling, staring back at her tormentor from the corner of her good eye. “You are the most repulsive creature I’ve ever set eyes upon. You should be burned.”
“You’re going to die today,” she said in a quiet voice.
