Page 62 of The Blight of Hollowmire

What comes after.

She likely means the words as a balm—comfort against the weightiness of a prophecy I feel no closer to understanding.

“You act like this thing inside me is just a part of life. Like it’s natural,” I say finally.

“It is natural,” she insists

I turn away from the window sharply enough that my cloak sways around my boots. “Surely, you jest. Antlers growing from my skull is not natural.”

“In Hollowmire, perhaps not.”

“In anywhere,” I snap. “In any realm!”

Ursula lifts one shoulder. “The gods would disagree.”

Starving ravens, preserve me from cryptic women. I cross back toward the table and sit more heavily this time, planting both elbows on the rough wood while pressing my fingertips against my temples. The antlers ache something fierce, and I dig my fingers into my skull if only to have discomfort of another kind.

Renard moves to put a hand on my shoulder, but pulls back at the last moment. Firelight catches in the silver beginning to thread through the dark hair at his temples, softening the hard lines of his face and making him more handsome. Why is it that men age with elegance, strength, and wisdom, and women either become easy to ignore—or terrifying collections of horrors?

“I have a book,” I say, as though it might help, when I already suspect it’s not worth the parchment it’s written on. “A diary from a young mage apprentice. It simply says that the Blight Mother is called down from the gods to restore balance, but it does not say how this happens, or what specifically triggers it. Or, importantly, what happens after the Blight Mother is… finished.”

“I suppose it has been a very long time since it happened last,” she says. “Longer than even a fae’s living memory. It’s likely that many of the books that would’ve been informative were destroyed in the last… rebalancing.”

“When was that? What more do you know?”

The seer carries three cups of steaming tea to the table before sitting once more. Though I’m in no mood to be soothed, she waves her hand at me.

“It’s but a willow bark tea, Vireth—it will ease the ache in your head. And in your healing injuries, Renard,” Ursula says.

Renard wraps both hands around his cup with obvious gratitude. The journey through the pass left him colder than he probably wants to admit aloud. Humans were never meant for mountain weather, particularly not aging soldiers stubborn enough to march directly into it.

Not aging, some traitorous part of my mind corrects immediately. Mature. Experienced. Broad shouldered and irritatingly competent.

I take a long drink of tea, nearly scalding myself in the process, before my thoughts can become any more lascivious.

“The famine in Valehar is not spreading naturally,” Ursula says quietly. “That much I know.”

Renard’s posture shifts at once, every trace of exhaustion vanishing beneath sharp attention.

“What do you mean?”

The seer turns the ruined apple slowly between her fingers.

“As soon as the tainted goods began to arrive from Valehar, things changed. Suddenly, our harvest yields began to slow, too. The beauty is something of an infection, and it seems that whatever is happening in Valehar is the root of it.”

Renard’s jaw tightens slightly. “We’ve been suffering under it for nigh on four years now. It’s a wonder we haven’t been entirely wiped out thus far, but I don’t think that will be far off. My people describe it as emptiness. They eat until they’re sick and still feel starved afterward.”

Ursula nods once, then looks at me expectantly, as though I should better understand what’s happening to Renard’s home, to my own home—hells, to my own body. Anger flickers hot beneath my skin. Tiny white fungi bloom briefly along the edge of the table near my wrist before I wrench my power back hard enough to make my temples throb. The seer watches the mushrooms shrivel without alarm.

“You know, I’m growing rather tired of everyone deciding I’m attached to every terrible thing currently happening in the world.”

“You misunderstand me,” she says calmly.

“Do I?”

“Yes.” She takes a sip of her tea, pausing interminably long before continuing. “I do not think you caused the imbalance.”

Renard stills slightly across from me while Ursula’s golden gaze remains steady on mine.