Page 9 of Eldritch
“Take it up with the king.” On those parting words, the men dragged both Zevander and his father away from her.
CHAPTER THREE
MAEVYTH
Present day …
Hand to my throat, I jolted upright with a gasp and turned to see Aleysia, still asleep, as if she hadn’t moved a muscle.
A dream? Nothing more than a terrible dream?
Breaths sawed in and out of me, my mind sifting through flashbacks.
“Kill her.” The words wrapped around me like slithering snakes, taking the form of a willowy silhouette in my thoughts. Morsana.
Cold and callous. Cruel.
I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut.
“Kill her while she sleeps.It’ll be easier that way.”
I glanced around the room in search of her, trailing my gaze over the same cob walls, with the same damp, earthen stench in my nose. Beside me, Aleysia continued to lay in oblivious slumber. So peaceful. Innocent. “No. I won’t.”
“There is rot inside of her. The only cure is death.”
“You will not touch her. Do you hear me?” I couldn’t tell if I was commanding her, or myself.
The voice didn’t answer.
I waited, watching the shadows, wondering if the Goddess of Death had somehow found herself in this world, outside of Caligorya. The voice remained silent, and still breathing hard, I ran a trembling hand across my brow, before throwing back the blankets and scampering for the door. I needed to physically distance myself from that damned nightmare.
In the other room, Zevander sat at a chair in front of the window, his boots kicked up on the sill. When he turned, catching sight of me, his brows lowered. “Everything all right?”
“Nightmare.” I glanced to Aleysia’s room and back. “She hasn’t stirred in her sleep, at all?”
“Not that I’ve heard.” His gaze lingered on my hands crossed over the front of me, as if he could sense the vibrations of my trembling, and he sat forward, studying me. “You’re certain everything is okay?”
Despite my heart hammering in my chest, I nodded.
He stared a moment longer, then turned back toward the window, beyond which the moon shone high. “Must’ve been some nightmare.”
“It was terrible.” Throat still throbbing, I made my way to the small table, where the pitcher of water sat alongside a tin cup, and poured myself a drink. The hearth’s blazing heat warmed the incessant chill still clinging to my bones. “Have you…” I paused, wanting to ask him—a man trained to kill—if he’d ever heard a small voice compelling him to take someone’s life. If his conscience ever stepped out of character for a moment and demanded he do something atrocious. Putting that question out in the universe felt too much like a confession, though. “Have you seen many of them?” I asked instead. “The creatures outside.”
“They come and go. They seem smart enough to know we’re in here, but they haven’t tried to breach the door. I get a sense they’re nocturnal when it comes to hunting for food.”
His words cast a shiver down my spine. The thought of those things consuming flesh was a vision born from my darkest nightmares. “I’m praying she wakes by morning, so we can leave this place.”
“Maevyth …” He turned in his chair, his expression tight and, unless I was mistaken, grim.
“What is it?”
The moment he shook his head, I knew whatever followed would be a lie. “It’s nothing.”
“No, I absolutely do not believe that, so tell me.” I managed to catch a curse andidiotin all his grumbling. “Tell me.”
“Aleysia won’t make it through the Umbravale. Mortals can’t cross into Aethyria.” The razor-sharp tone of his voice sliced through any misunderstandings I may have had as I silently absorbed his words. Even through the glimmer of regret burning in his eyes, his words spilled like poison.
A staggering shock chilled my blood. “What?” I asked in disbelief, not expecting an answer. Zevander didn’t mince his words, after all. “I knew she couldn’t cross herself, but not even with me? Or you?”
