Page 109 of The Blight of Hollowmire

A deep pressure—something of a warning—moves through me, and I can’t tell if it’s mists moving through the gray realm or from my own silenced intuition.

You play a dangerous game, child.

“Bargain!” I scream.

The other peasants in the courtyard cower at my outburst, trembling and weeping—the bitter scent of their fear and exhaustion lifting on a soft breeze. The ruined buildings and mushrooms shudder violently, sending another cloud of bone-white spores up into the air.

“Give him back to me,” I say again. “Give him to me, and I will give you whatever you want. I will give you the one you want most.”

I can sense when she twists in interest, and when my eyes cut to Arden, standing at the edge of the courtyard with a bloody plank of wood clutched in his fist, both the Blight Mother and I see him.

The one who saw fit to thwart me, she hums, her need for vengeance and justice overpowering her reluctance to do something I don’t imagine the gods agree to every day.

Arden stands near the broken scaffold, his hand, still slick with Renard’s blood, pressed to where Nibblebones bit him. He watches me with a calculating expression, as if even now his awful mind is already grinding away, searching for its next escape.

“Yes,” I say, feeling my rage stir beneath my numb grief. “Him.”

The Blight Mother is pleased by my rage, or mayhap the idea of something like a human sacrifice.

Agreed. I will return your human to you, provided you make an offering of mine.

Her acceptance settles through my bones, but this is not over yet. I lower Renard gently onto the stones, and it takes great effort for me to let him go. My fingers don’t want to uncurl from his shirt. My body doesn’t seem to understand that his body is no longer a shelter. I press my lips to his cold forehead once, tasting salt, blood, and the sun-warmed wheat scent of him.

“Do not wander far, Farmer Knight,” I whisper, and my heart seizes once in my chest.

Then I stand, furiously aware that Arden’s gaze flickers toward the nearest door.

“Run,” I say, softly, because I don’t need to be loud. The word carries through the courtyard on a soft cloud of blood-red spores.

He freezes, panic gathering at the edges of his usually calm face.

“Run,” I repeat, “and I will loose the Blight Mother upon your city again. Run and I will hunt you to the edges of this realm and the next. Run, and you won’t know another moment of peace in your entire life. I will waste you away slowly, painfully, over the course of years—and my years are longer than yours, human—until your skin-covered skeleton can do nothing more than peer up through too-large eyes and beg me for death. And even then, I will not give it to you.”

His eyes flick back and forth—searching for a way out, no doubt.

“You have no authority here,” he says, his voice wavering.

I gaze up at the forest of mushrooms choking out the pewter sky—at the ruined city around us, at the too-hungry, too-fearful people still cowering at the edges of the city. I raise a brow even as Arden’s eyes narrow.

“I am Lady Vireth of Hollowmire,” I say, my voice carrying clear across the courtyard. “Daughter of Queen Celene and King Rhainor. Rot-born, ill-omened, and precious keeper of both a broken heart and a vengeful goddess. And I challenge you for the throne of Valehar.”

A murmur moves through the peasants huddled along the walls.

Arden scoffs. “You cannot challenge for a human throne.”

My lips twist in a feral grimace. “Then I challenge you for the blood of Renard. Don’t worry, little human—I won’t even use my magic.”

He looks at the towering mushrooms, the broken ground, the roots threaded across the courtyard. His gaze is calculating. “You swear to a fair fight—no magic, no god power? And what if you lose?”

I lift my free hand, and every filament stills—the mushrooms stop breathing their cloud of spores. The roots sink back enough to clear a wide circle around us.

“No magic,” I repeat. “No Blight Mother, no guards. Knives only. And if I lose, I will take the Blight Mother from here and leave you to your ruined kingdom.”

Arden’s gaze flickers to the surviving soldiers. None of them step forward to offer defense or support. Some, probably, because they’re afraid of me, but more, I think, because they’re afraid of the people watching—of what happens to rulers who fail their people so spectacularly. There is something more in their hollow eyes now, and it is something more than simple hunger.

He sees it, too—that his kingdom has gone very quiet around him and there is simmering mistrust in their no-longer fearless regent. Arden picks up his dagger from the ground where it lay after his fight with Renard.

It is a fine little weapon, naturally, with a jeweled hilt and a narrow blade. Idly, I wonder how many backs it has stabbed. Nibblebones bounds over to retrieve the dagger Ulfrid made for me, then immediately runs back to curl atop Renard’s chest, protecting him from the clutches of the Death Goddess.