Page 6 of Ember and Eclipse
She smiled, all teeth and venom.
His grip around her wrists loosened until she pulled herself free and stepped back.
He reached for her again sluggishly. “Venefica.”
Enchantress.Poisoner.
Just as his fingers brushed her neck, his eyes rolled back, and he fell backward.
Chapter V
Movingadeadbodyout of her home was not on her list of things she wanted to accomplish that evening. Rel stared at the hunter for a long moment before she stepped over him and went to change out of her heavy, wet clothes. The texture of the garments was suddenly too coarse and itchy. If she had to be in them a moment longer, she would have a complete breakdown, which she didn’t have the time or energy for right now.
Walking down the short hallway that led to her bedroom, she pressed against the walls with her hands. And still they closed in on her, threatening to push her out or suffocate her.
Her home was no longer a sanctuary.
Because she had not been safe for so many years, the constant shadow of trepidation was always there—when she awoke untouched in her own bed, trekked all over the wetlands, and even when she sat quietly on her porch with the lush world before her. Most of the time, she didn’t even feel safe in her own body. It was a cruelty that she still carried the weight of past damage like a spell set into her very bones. She’d never outrun it.
And now, the three hunters that had found her had solidified that. Rel would never be free of it. Not in any coven, and most certainly not in any swamp—magical or otherwise.
Pulling the wet clothes from her body took far longer than it should have. When she was finally naked, she only wanted to dry off and slip between the covers. Her body was weighed down with exhaustion and, just beneath the surface, dread. If they had found her once, they’d be able to find her again.
They’d keep coming for her.
She couldn’t go back. Even if, by some twist of fate, they didn’t punish her, she refused to be owned ever again. Trapped, suffocated,used. Before, it had been under the guise of being a part of a family. But families didn’t do what they did to her.
Her room was dark and cool but smelled like the muggy clothes she’d discarded. She should have set about washing them from the swamp water, but she didn’t care. Taking a deep breath, she set aside her panic, uncertainty, and fear like taking off another drenched layer of clothing.
Rel climbed into her bed with a knife in hand and a belt full of them nearby. Without the energy of a battle racing through her, she was drained. She barely settled into the mattress before she collapsed from exhaustion.
When she awoke, she shot upright, her heart pounding. She might have been able to forget the world enough to go to sleep, but her body hadn’t. Brushing the light quilt off herself, she pulled on a tunic and pants and padded out of her room.
Rel eyed the hunter’s body as she approached. Moving him would be slow going. The very thought of the task made her want to crawl back into her bed. Instead, she maneuvered around his large form. She needed food and tea before dealing with a dead man.
Rel fell into her routine. The simple orderliness of habit was a comfortable space where her mind went mostly quiet, her body moving as needed with little direction. She set the water to boil and then picked a ripe apple from her fruit basket. Munching on it mindlessly, she seared two thick grood reeds.
When she had to pass by the hunter to grab her favorite seasonings, the sight of his body startled her, forcing her back to the present. Blinking, she stared until the tell-tale smell of burning reeds pushed her into motion again.
The now overcooked reeds looked pitiful on her plate, but she sat down to eat them anyway. She positioned herself so she didn’t have to stare at the dead hunter, though.
Finishing her last sip of tea reminded her that she didn’t get a single bundle of storm mint. A sadness much deeper than the lack of the herb flooded into her. Committed to not drowning in it, she stood up.
A soft breath of a groan sounded from behind her. It alarmed her enough that she knocked the chair back, and it clattered to the floor before she went completely still again. Another groan came from the should-be very dead hunter, and his chest rose with an inhale—a slight movement, but there nonetheless.
“Impossible,” she muttered to herself.
Grabbing the iron skillet and wielding it like a weapon, she crept toward him on her tiptoes.
Somehow, the poison on the blade, which had been enough to kill three grown men in under a minute, had yet to stop his heart. Kneeling, she tentatively placed her palm on his chest. His hand closed around her wrist with surprising dexterity and strength as he sat upright, his eyes hooded, unable to fully focus on her. Out of pure reaction, she brought the frying pan wide and smacked him so hard in the side of the head, the sound reverberated through her home. His grip loosened as he slumped back to the floor with a quickly forming bruise on his face.
It took her three breaths before she touched him again. He was feverishly warm, but his heartbeat was still there beneath her palm—oddly strong.
An unrecognizable sound emitted from her as she dropped the pan. Instead, she grabbed the poison-laced knife from where it had fallen and pressed it against the hunter’s throat. Fury was a focused thing, hot and harnessed in her palm.
Another idea slipped into her mind—cool and logical. She could question him if he made it through the poison, the fever,andthe hit to the head. She could find outhowthey found her and how far they would go to get her back. If others didn’t know where she was, Imperator Othonos might not send any more hunters after her, and she could stay here, in her home. The thought of being unable to was too overwhelming to contemplate for long.
Logic won out, and she pulled the dagger from his throat with a frustrated huff.
