Page 56 of Eldritch
“Please! Throw me the chains!” Hand outstretched, he leaned over the bottomless black below him. “Throw them to me!”
The other guards laughed and tossed the chains just out of reach, forcing Zevander to reach farther over the perilous edge.
“Please, don’t do this!” he shouted back.
His father let out a pained sound that pierced Zevander’s heart, while the pressure at both sides of his skull intensified.
“No! Father!”
One of the chains flew just within reach, and Zevander launched himself forward, his body stretched over the chasm with his feet still planted against the rock.
The sound of his mother’s name echoed in his head as his father screamed his last word.
The splinter of bone and wet meat silenced him.
Zevander held onto the chain, his body numb, watching his father’s headless torso collapse in a pool of blood, brain, and bone.
Once again, he fought past the shallow gasps of air for one single breath.
The sound that broke through the silence in his head ripped from his own chest.
A sound of rage and grief.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
KAZHIMYR
Present …
Kazhimyr guided his horse by the reins, as he made his way through the winding streets of Susurria. Frigid, damp air from an earlier rain clung to his skin, his eyes tracking the wary gazes that watched him. Ravezio trailed after him, both Letalisz weary from days of travel. They passed a line of vending carts, their canopies weathered and sagging with pools of water that trickled onto the passersby. Browning produce, trinkets, and smoked meats sat out on display, and Kazhimyr picked up on hushed whispers over the occasional clink of coin.
A superstitious village that didn’t welcome travelers.
When they found the small tavern, they tethered the horses outside of it. As Kazhimyr checked for the dagger at his hip, a sketch fixed to one of the building posts captured his attention. UnderWANTEDwas a gaunt face he recognized—one he couldn’t have forgotten after all these years, even if he’d wanted to.
And he did.
Deep scars marred the ruined and twisted landscape of her skin, which was stretched over sharp, protruding bones, as if the gods themselves had clawed her out of her mother’s womb. One of her eyes, a deep black orb, appeared like an empty socket in the sketch, but Kazhimyr had seen it up close enough to know her eyeball had somehow blackened completely, and stared out without an eyelid to shutter it. The other eye shimmered a pale green that almost looked white, and her lips pulled into an odd angle, as if poorly sewn with needle and thread.
The intensity of her expression still sent a chill down the back of his neck, even after so many years.
“Old lover?”
Unamused, Kazhimyr glanced over his shoulder, to see Ravezio had taken notice of the poster, as well. “She requested my services a while back. She’s the reason I was imprisoned by the Solassions.”
“Who is she?”
“Only knew her first name. Melisara.”
“What’s asanguidin?” Ravezio asked, drawing Kazhimyr’s attention to where the word had been scribbled beneath her sketch.
“A mystical beast Nyxterosi parents told stories about, to scare the hell out of us when we were children. She drank blood to stay young and beautiful.”
“Must’ve caught her on her off day, huh?” Ravezio snorted and leaned in closer toward the small print at the bottom of the flyer. “She’s wanted for demutomancy and stirring rumors of Cadavros’s return. What’d she have you steal? Blood?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. The Mortucrux. Said to be a mystical and highly coveted vial of blood King Jeret has buried in the bowels of his Solassion palace, in the event of plague. It supposedly offers immunity of some sort.”
“Think there’s any merit to the sanguidin accusation?”
