Page 80 of Eldritch
A glint of gold from his periphery alerted him to movement, and Zevander spun, unsheathing his blade, just missing the deadly lash of his attacker’s sword that whizzed past his head.
Donned in a hood and mask that obscured their face, they lunged again, and Zevander threw himself sideways to avoid a jab to his guts. Zevander parried with a clang, mentally noting the stance and skill of his opponent. The precision of each movement. A trained killer, no doubt.
They circled each other like mirror images, swords at the ready. The spectral figure pivoted, and their blades clashed, steel against steel, sparks flying as both of them attacked with a series of well-timed strikes.
Zevander could’ve easily believed his opponent had studied his own movements, the way he almost seemed to anticipate them.
The scorpion at his back shifted and skittered across his skin, begging to be cut loose, but Zevander tamped it down, had intended to save whatever blood magic he had left in the event he encountered more of those spider mutations. A plan he began to reconsider as he stared back at his enemy, searching for a weakness.
Zevander deflected another cunning strike and countered with a jab toward his opponent’s chest, but the stranger managed to side-step in time.
Like fighting his own damned shadow.
“Who are you?” Zevander snarled before lunging forward again. His blade was met with a rattling clang of opposing steel.
The stranger riposted, aiming for his midsection that time, and Zevander lowered his sword in time to block the deadly strike.
He sent a powerful blow to his enemy’s chest, throwing him backward. It was just enough for Zevander to press him back against the nearby tree, pinning him to the trunk of it with his sword at the stranger’s throat.
“Who are you!” When he tore away his opponent’s mask, Zevander’s breath hitched, the grip of his sword loosening with shock.
Blond curls of hair. Blue eyes. The scar at the corner of his mouth.
Theron?
A casket of memories cracked open inside Zevander’s head, in a cacophony of voices that spoke all at once.
No. It couldn’t be. His head swam in memories he’d long locked away. Memories he didn’t dare ponder in the face of a threat.
“Good to see you again, old friend.” The smile on Theron’s face, cruel and mirthless, didn’t match the last image of the young man Zevander remembered. “Centuries haven’t changed you much, have they? Perhaps all those grapes and wine you were fed by high-blooded noblewomen.”
His muscles hardened again, jaw tight. “You’re a long way from Solassios,” he gritted. “What do you want?”
“It isn’t what I want. It’s whatshewants. It’s always been about what she wants.”
“Loyce?”
His lips twisted as if the sound of her name was as equally revolting to him. “Who else would’ve sent me to the damned mortal lands?”
“It’s a shame she sent you to your demise.”
“It’s a shame you underestimate me.” Like a whisper, he vanished, and Zevander’s blade bit into the bark of the old tree.
An unnerving cold palmed the back of his neck.
“Mor samanet,” the voice whispered again.
Zevander swung out with his blade, spinning around to find nothing there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ZEVANDER
“What is the point of this?” Zevander glanced around the small cottage kitchen, noting how strangely primitive it seemed, with its pump for a sink, and hearth oven—the kind only found in the poorest parts of The Hovel.
The girl he’d been shown the few times he’d slipped into Caligorya during his abuses, the one Alastor seemed determined to make him empathetic toward, stood on a small stool, rifling through the cupboards for a flint striker. Each visit to Caligorya seemed to mark a progression of her age, and Zevander estimated her to be about sixteen, or so. Only a few years younger than himself.
“Pay attention,” Alastor said beside him, staring back at her.
