Page 49 of The Blight of Hollowmire

I try to connect with my magic, but everything is simply too much right now. The fear and panic surging through me are making it impossible for me to focus. The cave smells wrong now, all wet earth and blood and acrid mildew laced beneath the cold air and I don’t understand any of this. Renard stares at me expectantly, as if I could simply put an end to all of this with the force of my will alone. Suddenly, I cannot bear the look on his face another second. I shove myself upright too quickly. The ground tilts alarmingly for a moment, but my anger steadies me where my balance fails.

Outside, wolves begin howling somewhere among the trees, and the sound crawls unpleasantly down my spine. Through the soft fall of snow beyond the cave mouth, I catch flashes of movement between the pines—firelight reflecting in the glint of their watching, yellow eyes.

“I am just trying to understand what is happening,” he says carefully.

“Oh, excellent,” I choke out, feeling sick with fear and the new alienness of my body. “Let me know once you’ve solved it.”

“You must be able to control this! Surely you don’t want to bring this cave down around us, or disturb the resting places of these dead,” he shouts. “You must get ahold of this—of yourself!”

Heat rushes violently through my body again, too sharp and sudden to be ordinary embarrassment. The pain of my growing antlers throbs in time with my pulse.

“Get ahold of myself?!” I snarl. “I am tired—so tired of swallowing pieces of myself to make everyone else comfortable. Tired of being told I am too much of one thing and not enough of another. Too sharp. Too strange. Too angry.” I laugh bitterly under my breath. “Apparently even my own body eventually lost patience with the arrangement.”

Another tremor wracks the cave, and in the distance, a large boulder crashes down from the ceiling. The bones that have emerged from the soil vibrate on top of the ground, emitting a soft clicking sound as they knock against each other. Renard’s sword lifts in my direction, as though in preparation for something, some kind of defense. The subtle movement hits me like a slap. I am what he wants to defend against.

“There,” I whisper. “You see?”

His gaze snaps back to mine immediately, the point of his sword wavering before it tilts back toward the ground.

“Vireth, I am not afraid of you.”

“You were pointing your sword at me.”

“Because dead things are climbing out of the ground!”

“Yes, well. That’s new for me, as well.”

Eventually, the tremors cease and the cave falls silent. Renard comes toward me carefully, boots grinding against loose stone. He doesn’t seem as frightened as I am, or even cautious. The expression on his face is worse than fear would have been, because it is one of concern.

“Vireth.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap.

His brow furrows. “Like what?”

“Like you feel sorry for me. I cannot stand pity,” I warble miserably.

“I don’t.”

“Well, good!”

The word cracks halfway through. I turn away before he can witness my full, abject humiliation. My eyes burn. I scrub at them furiously with the heel of my hand and smear black tears against my cheeks.

“I spent years trying not to upset anyone,” I say, and there’s no stemming the tide of words once they begin. “I never wanted to be like this—to be difficult. To frighten people. To disgust them. Trying not to be difficult. Trying not to frighten people. Trying not to disgust them. I wanted so badly to be acceptable that I choked down herbs—for years!—because people feared my magic,” I sob. “And now… well, none of it mattered anyway.”

In the distance comes the sound of water, followed by a single pebble splashing into whatever dark pool waits in the back of the cave. It’s long minutes before Renard moves. I suck in a deep breath, trying to find some shred of peace in my mind. Suddenly, he places a tentative hand on my shoulder.

“That sounds exhausting.”

I look at him sharply, and there’s no censure or pity on his face. There’s no attempt to dismiss or lecture, and there’s no grand reassurance. No attempt to make this sound noble or sacred. It’s just a kind of… tired sympathy. The warm weight of his hand on my shoulder is more of a comfort than anything I can recall in this moment.

Shame burns through me at my honest admission—at being so bare, so open with a man I barely know. My insides recoil from his touch, even as I lean into it. Without my command, my body arcs toward his, yearning to be pulled into his arms and held. Neither of us crosses that threshold, however. I look away before he notices. Outside, the gathered wolves yelp and howl somewhere beyond the trees, and the sound raises goosebumps on Renard’s arms.

“I don’t want to become a monster,” I whisper, pleading. My voice comes out thick with tears. “I don’t want to be a scary story told around campfires, or a woman villagers flee from when I stroll through the market. I don’t want songs written about me by terrified little children.” A bone-breaking sense of despair hollows out my chest. “I don’t need to be adored, really. And I don’t need to be loved by everyone. But someone would be nice. I just wanted someone to love me without needing me to become less first.”

Mercifully, the wolves outside—and the cave itself—is silent. Finally, my legs give out beneath me and I slide down the cave wall, curling inward while tears spill hot and humiliating down my face. My antlers ache viciously. My chest hurts. Everything hurts.

Gods. I am so lonely.