Page 31 of Eldritch
“You know as well as I do what Kael Vexmoor wants.” Zivant lowered his voice, but Kazhimyr could still make out what he was saying. “Revenge. For his mother. His sister. His wrath lies with Jeret. Jeret would be a damned fool to kill Prince Dorjan. He’s merely playing on Sagaerin’s fears as a father. I’ll negotiate with Jeret to keep the peace between Solassios and Nyxteros and ensure the prince’s safe return.”
“You think they’re headed toward Lunamarys Falls, Sir?” his second asked.
“They’d be fools to head north. Between the Carnificans and dragons, they’d have little chance of making it to the Australius Channel.”
“Captain Zivant!” A guard rushed along the same corridor where Kazhimyr and Ravezio remained hidden, slipping right past them. “The Letalisz have escaped. The cupbearer is dead.”
Zivant let out a furious roar. “Find them! Scour the castle. And when you do happen upon them, they’re to be crucified.”
“Crucified?” Strange to hear even the slightest hesitation in the guard’s voice, given their hatred for the Letalisz. “On what grounds?”
“Conspiring to kidnap the prince. Now, go. I’m leaving for Lunamarys Falls at once. Get the crowd under control. Ensure the king remains protected, and find those scurvy assassins. They’ve proven useless, and I want them put to death by day’s end.”
CHAPTER NINE
MAEVYTH
The sound of grunts and heavy breathing lured my gaze toward where Zevander stood in the main room of the hovel on a makeshift ladder he’d erected from Uncle Riftyn’s coffin wood. Heavy snowfall the night before had collapsed rotted tree branches woven throughout the thatch roof, letting in a cold breeze that failed to chill me, as warm as I felt right then. Not while his unclothed torso gleamed with sweat, his muscles flexing with his toil.
Ruining my focus.
“Eyes on the task, Maevyth. Eyes on the task,” I muttered, chopping the spikeroot I’d gathered from the cupboard into bowls of stewed tomatoes we’d retrieved from the pantry.Couldn’t possibly wear a proper shirt to fix the roof, could you?
Surely, it was purposeful on his part, as if he was going out of his way to tempt me the last few days.
A groan of exertion drew me for another glance, and I found myself staring at his exquisitely carved physique that rippled under the strain of literally holding the roof up by himself. The sheer strength and tension in his body stirred my pulse, as I imagined my fingers drifting over the deep ridges and steelplanes. I shouldn’t have been so enthralled watching him—a powerful and skilled assassin—performing menial tasks around the hovel, but gods, every glance stoked the burning inside of me.
Irritating, my head argued.
Three full and fruitless days had managed to slip past since I suggested we remain apart from each other. Three days of endless reading at Aleysia’s side. Three days of pacing and praying to a god in whom I’d stopped believing long ago.
Three days of skirting Zevander and the lingering glances we exchanged in passing. The occasional brush of his fingers. The frustrating reminders of what we both longed for.
I was losing my wits in the humdrum of waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
We’d trained the last two mornings, simple glyph summoning, which remained an ever-sketchy outcome where my bone whip was concerned. In the evenings, we sat by the fire, talking about our day while sipping hot tea. It seemed we’d only distanced ourselves sexually, but as our friendship continued to bloom, the more time I spent with him, the harder it was to ignore all the things that made him so magnetically attractive. Desirable.
Another glimpse and my gaze caught on one of his many scars, faint but visible. Perhaps it’d passed my vision a dozen times before, but it was in that particular moment, I noticed its odd shape. Not like a battle or fighting wound or even one inflicted by the strike of a whip—I’d seen plenty of those on his flesh. This one was far too sinister, as if a sharp tool had been used on him. It spoke of torture. The kind of agony that sent a prickling sensation across my own skin. He’d suffered greatly at some point in his life. Abuses I couldn’t bear to think about and instead, turned my mind to something else.
“I’ve been reading Elowen’s notes on healing… I might fetch some shadowroot and foxfell from the forest where I’ve seen her gathering it.”
“I’ll fetch it for you.”
Pangs of disappointment twisted in my stomach. The air felt as if it’d grown thinner, the longer I remained trapped in this place, and while I appreciated the sanctuary from whatever roamed outside the walls, it held a suffocating stagnancy.
“Perhaps I can go with—” I turned to see him leaning slightly toward me, his arms resting over his head against the rafters, stretching long cords of muscle and sinew that had my fingers tingling. However brutal his body’s landscape might’ve been, he was beautiful. Every scar, a mark of strength that I wanted to map with my fingertips. To honor his resilience and survival with the softest kisses.
“That should hold,” he said, his gaze scanning over his work. When his eyes fell on me, I quickly looked away, turning my attention back to my chopping. “Is my lack of attire distracting you?”
The amusement in his voice sharpened my embarrassment to frustration, and I chopped harder. Faster. “Not at all.”
He chuckled, frustrating me even more. “If you put half the effort into fighting off the infected as you’re inflicting on that poor spikeroot right now, they’d all be destroyed.”
“If you put half the effort into wearing clothes, you might not inspire such violent thoughts.” I glanced up only long enough to see him grinning at me. Again.
