Page 112 of The Blight of Hollowmire

Black tears stream down my face and an ugly sob stutters out of me—I never thought I’d hear him say my name again. Overwhelmed to the point of sheer madness, I breathe in shakily… and slap him. Not hard, of course—well, not terribly hard. He jerks back, blinking up at me in confusion.

“You died! You absolute bastard! Don’t you ever do that to me again,” I sob, poking his chest with every word—every accusation. “You died after finally telling me you loved me. Do you know how horrible that is?”

A weak chuckle filters up from him, and it might be the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.

“I’m… sorry?” he tries.

“You should be!” I pull his face up to mine and kiss him again before he can say anything else, and this time his mouth is warm. He still tastes a bit too much of blood to make me easy, but it’s all but forgotten when his hand lifts to the back of my neck and his fingers tangle through my hair. I kiss him harder now, convinced that he is real and this isn’t just some grief-induced hallucination. His lips and tongue feel stronger against mine with each second we remain locked together—an absolute mess of blood and filth and trembling limbs.

When I pull back, his eyes are wet, but I don’t fault him, because I don’t think I’ve stopped crying since I was first led to the chopping block.

“You came for me,” I whisper, sniffing. “Again.”

“And I will,” he says, leaning his forehead against mine, his eyes drifting closed as tears spill down his dirty cheeks. “I will come every time you call.”

I wrap my arms around his neck and cry until my body is utterly sapped of strength, and even then, Renard imparts some of his by holding me gently but firmly.

“How is this possible?” he asks after a while. “Have you recently learned mastery over death as well as decay?”

“Gods, no. I don’t want that kind of responsibility. I bargained with the Blight Mother.”

Some of the joy leaves his eyes, only to be replaced by concern. His brows draw together.

“What did you offer her?” he asks warily.

I’m quiet for a moment, a little uneasy with how to answer him, since I’m unsure how he’ll feel about my offering.

“I bargained with the life of the one she wanted most—the one who set these events into motion,” I say slowly.

“Arden.”

I nod, and his eyes close briefly. Dozens of emotions flicker across his face, marked by the shape of his lips, the movement of his brows, the storms in his eyes. There’s relief, certainly, and shame, and even grief. Perhaps he loved his brother once—mayhap when they were young. They were blood, after all, even if it did turn sour at some point. There must have been a reason Renard refused to kill him after all those years of cruelty and hardship.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Renard opens his eyes and looks at me. “I’m not sure I am.”

“Mmm. Perhaps that will come later.”

“Mayhap,” he agrees. “And what of the spell—the curse?”

“Gone,” I reply. “Wrenched from the earth and rotted through.”

I help him sit up slowly, gingerly, since we’re both a little afraid that his wound might reopen again. For now, it’s knitted through with delicate black threads of mycelium—or the Blight Mother’s power—I’m not entirely sure. We will take things slowly… together.

Renard looks around, sighing his sadness. Around us, Valehar, the once great city, lies in ruin. The courtyard is a tumble of broken stones and shattered wood, the towering mushrooms pressing against the castle walls. Fungal filaments and slime molds in a riot of color crawl over every ruined building. Beyond the courtyard, the lower city smokes in places, though not with fire—with clouds of spores drifting in the breeze. In the distance, orchards and fields lie desiccated beneath blackened dirt.

Renard and I sit in the wreckage for a moment, breathing hard, both trembling with the weight of what has just transpired. I look out at the ruined courtyard and the frightened people. The people in the square remain—many of them kneeling while others simply stare in shock at the devastation—and at me.

I wince at the land, now freed from the curse but stripped completely bare. I frown at the castle cracked open and empty of its corrupted power—at the city waiting to see what kind of monster I might choose to be. Renard leans against me, weak in some ways but strong in others and I close my eyes, knowing that I must do more, that I can do more here. I drop a kiss on his forehead, then cross to the center of the courtyard before sinking my fingers into the blood-soaked soil between the cobblestones, reaching out to call to my rot.

For a moment, I am afraid it won’t listen, or respond to me without the enticement of the Blight Mother crouching in my gut. I worry that mayhap, my decay will prefer to remain here, drinking in the blood and death that hangs over the city.

But I try anyway, because the rot is mine. The rot has always been mine, even when I feared it, even when others cursed it, even when a goddess reached through it and tried to lay waste to the world.

I breathe in, reaching out with my senses and feeling the delicate filaments crawling out from my fingertips. As before, I pull and across Valehar, the towering mushrooms shudder. I pull again, and this time all the little filaments retract from the stones, sliding backward through cracks, shrinking from walls and loosening from foundations. Mold and fungus of every shape, size and color dissolve into naught but pale gray dust, which lifts from the ground and drifts back toward me—decay summoned back to its mistress.

The people scream and cry out as the gray cloud passes over them, but the rot doesn’t touch their flesh. It returns to me in waves, pouring down beneath my skin and filling all the empty, hollow places that I didn’t realize the Blight Mother had carved out within me. My antlers shrink with a grinding ache and my claw-like nails shorten, until I stand alone in the courtyard once more, nothing but a fae woman with unsettling magic.