Page 118 of Vervain

“I can help,” I say, and her shoulders jerk. “I often tended to my wounds, as well as my brother’s.”

“Was it as bad as this?”

Avianna looks between us but seems uninterested in the conversation.

“No…”

“Then it isn’t your concern, Lady Consort.”

I want to think it’s because she’s a nightwalker that she’s being stubborn, but it’s not. She’s afraid of me. The only friend I have left after the deaths of my other friends.

I reach up, clutching the pendant—a painful reminder of all I lost in Darkovish Feeding Ground. No matter where I go, a nightmare follows me. It makes me wonder whether my Blessed is tormenting me enough to break and find my way home to accept my destiny as his.

Sighing, I find a spot far from them, unbuckle the straps holding the sword, and lean against the orange stone. The howls from the echoes fade, and a deafening silence stings like an irritable bug buzzing near my sensitive ears.

Avianna runs the back of her hand under her nose and sniffs. The torch she stabbed into the ground illuminates the grains of dirt and the dry blood that stains her clothes and skin in violent patterns. She has aged. In a way, she reminds me of the nightwalker from the private room. A starved, deprived look comes over her.

“Fucking kahazen.” I pull my attention away from Avianna and to Serun appearing in the middle of the cavern. Shadows flare around him, devouring the warm flame. “Peryo pa opa a be?”

“You’re speaking in Daryun,” Avianna says.

Serun spits on the ground, blood splattering the rocks. “Why are they here, Avianna? Where is my brother?”

“Are you wounded?” I suddenly ask, rising to my feet to help.

“Theirs,” he says, raising his clawed hand. Shimmering blood trickles down his forearm, dripping onto the ground. “They bothered me enough to kill everyone in the vicinity.” Serun’s eyes narrow. “My back aches.”

As I take his hand, my thumb glides along his palm, slick with blood. His other clawed hand reaches for my cheek, pinching my chin. A moment, sweet as lemongrass, gives way to concern as we face Avianna and wait for her answer.

“We were on our way to Mire when Reyes picked up a stronger scent of your Lady Consort’s brother. It led us to Padbury, but by the time we arrived, the sun was about to rise, so we entered this cavern and rested with the topside nightwalkers, who welcomed us but were weary. Reyes didn’t trust them.”

As she rises, struggling to keep herself steady, Avianna drags her back up against the wall. Nearby, Olivia slumps, her open eye glazed over, and she looks worse by the minute.

“Something happened before we could leave the next night. A creature—not an echo. They were more human… Translucent, with soulless red, hollow eyes, and vicious. They howled, and the weak nightwalkers in the cavern transformed into echoes, slaughtering the rest as if they were immortal and we were the humans!”

A chill shudders through the stillness, unbroken by wind. It’s pure fear as my hands fall away from Serun’s. “It is that monster. The one who tried to kill Cole,” I seethe, anger blooming inside me like a silent disease.

Serun scratches at his chest, and his shadows tense, thickening.

“We headed there to eliminate it because they were controlling the echoes,” Avianna says, her lip curling and her ears flattening back. “But as soon as we left the cavern, they ambushed us. Another creature was waiting there—a mutation of some sort, for I have never seen such a creature before.”

“What did it look like?”

She nudges her head back the way we came. “It’s likely still rotting outside the cavern. We tried to fight both the mutation and the creature, but it proved too much for me.” Pricks of tears shimmer in her eyes, but they don’t fall. “I was merely in Reyes’ way. His weakness, and my foolish, idiotic husband, saved me.”

Serun’s eyes grow wild, and his shadows collapse like crashing waves. “Is he dead?”

Avianna shakes her head. “No. To save me, he crucified himself. He abused his magik to aid my escape, and I ran back into the cave and found this spot. The last I saw of him, he was on the ground, blood pouring from his severed arm, and those slayers took him into the back of their van. The creature didn’t follow me, so I assume it went with them.”

“I will kill them all,” Serun says, his voice smooth as silk.

“They’re in the prayer sanctuary. I wanted to follow, but the echoes made it their home. They were waiting for me to leave, as if that creature knew I was still here.” She laughs bitterly. “I even accepted my death.”

Serun mutters something in Daryun before saying, “And what of Saya’s brother?”

“We suspect he’s at the prayer sanctuary too.” She wipes under her nose. “Reyes told me that was where the scent was heading. The thin line he could see entered there instead of their compound or a settlement in the city.”

“We can’t go there,” Olivia says, her eyes now closed. “Their light is too strong. Purifying. One touch of Mother’s light and we will perish.”