Page 19 of The Withering Wood

Chapter Seven

Cerise stalked the boundary, blinking snowflakes from her eyelashes and scouring the posts for signs of Azkanix’s curse. During the walk, the prince’s words plagued her mind. True, she felt something for the poor souls of Tyrnoraen. Something bitter, yet tender. Pity, perhaps.

She tapped the wooden posts, a solid thud absorbed by the dense snow that layered higher and higher around them, freezing each in place.

It was the prince’s duty to confront Vraethik, not hers. The lives of Tyrnoraen’s citizens were not her responsibility. She’d given enough of her life to the protection of not just Tyrnoraen, but Sylvenath itself. Yet, she received nothing in return. Now that her life was finally her own, as simple as it was, she refused to give it up. The thought of leaving her home, of Eirwen, filled her with anxious dread. Finally, she had a place of comfort. A space to call home. Neither Azkanix nor the royal family would take it, or anything else, from her again.

It wasn’t her problem. Her life and Eirwen’s were all that mattered.

Cerise flicked her gaze up, leaning on Beloved as she assessed the woods beyond the boundary, considering how to implement rune hunting into her daily routine. The sun arched high overhead, much of the day wasted, once again, thanks to the prince. She could perform a quick check of the trees and bones closest to the house, see if she missed an immediate threat. Tomorrow, she could check in full circles around her home. The following day, she’d look for runes while searching for firewood, and the day after she’d scour along the route to the Evriel River.

Cerise meandered to the back of their property, to the shed that housed chickens. It remained reasonably warm, thanks to the temperature absorbers Cerise and Eirwen received while in Zyrdriel’s Order. During the winters in the Undead Wars, it saved her from freezing many nights over while stuck in flimsy tents, the fabrics flapping in an icy, bitter wind. Now, it kept their livestock and vegetables alive, absorbing the cold from the air just as Eirwen did to Cerise’s body, until nothing but the warmth remained.

The creatures clucked at her excitedly, but Cerise ignored them, instead focusing on the absorber. A pale white, iridescent stone, carved into a teardrop shape, dangled from the shed’s center, emitting a soft glow, pulsing with magic. She placed a hand near it, assessing its aura. Sharp cold radiated from the object. Eirwen would need to expunge it when she came out to feed them.

Stepping back into the storm, wind buffeted Cerise’s body, cherry red hair whipping across her face as it came loose from her hood. The quickly piling snow would slow her traversal through the woods. She should’ve put on her snowshoes, but she’d been too rushed to leave. She needed to move quicker if she was to circle the first ring of the forest around her home before nightfall.

She stopped inside the vegetable enclosure on her way to the back gate, ensuring that the winter gusts didn’t damage the structure. The shed held the second absorber, the one Eirwen received as a Zyrdriel cleric. A window in the ceiling was crafted from dwarf-forged glass, allowing sunlight to shine through. It was one of the few items Cerise carried with them when they escaped Tyrnoraen, knowing they’d need use of it.

The absorber’s dim blue light shone on the root vegetables’ pitiful stalks and leaves, more limp than normal. Cerise crouched by the rows of plants, ignoring the complaint in her knee at the awkward bending, and squinted in the faint light.

Black, necrotic marks speckled the dead leaves of their carrots.

“No. No, no, no,” Cerise moaned, bright hot panic roaring through her body. Hands shaking, she shoved her gloved fingers into the stiff soil, digging away the dirt until she uncovered the vegetable.

The entire carrot was oily black, rotting into the ground.

Cerise grabbed a spade that hung from the shed’s wall, and drove it down, digging up all the carrots.

Every single one was cursed. As soon as they were unearthed, their corrupted fibers crumbled.

Cerise’s gaze flickered back and forth, back and forth, over each row of precious crops.

They couldn’t all be dead.

They couldn’t.

Cerise leapt to her feet, knee cracking with a loud, painful pop as she stumbled out of the shed into the snow. “Eirwen!” she shouted even though she knew her sister couldn’t hear her over the blizzard.

“Eirwen!” The front door nearly splintered to pieces as Cerise barreled inside. Eirwen yelped in surprise, hand flying to her heart, and eyes widening as she took in Cerise’s feral, quivering form.

“What is it?”

“The vegetables—come quick,” Cerise panted, leading her sister back to the shed, the prince’s heavy footsteps lumbering behind them.

Eirwen gasped and fell to her knees before the carrots she’d so tenderly sown. “How could this happen?”

“Vraethik,” the prince replied, voice thick with contempt.

“But how?” Eirwen asked again. She looked up at Cerise and the prince, bright tears gleaming on her cheeks. “The fence was meant to catch it. To give us warning.”

“Maybe the posts are too dead to entrap it. Or maybe the amplifiers are simply that potent,” the prince replied.

“We need to see if all the plants are corrupted,” Cerise said. “Perhaps some are salvageable.”

Eirwen sniffled and nodded, rising to her feet. She grabbed a pair of gloves and spade, perching beside the ginger while Cerise strode to the leeks. The prince sat on his knees next to her, forcing thick gloves over his burly hands, the leather stretching at the seams.

“What are you doing?” Cerise asked, shoving the spade into the dirt.