Page 42 of The Withering Wood

No necrotic glow remained. Just a massive, black hole in the earth that went so deep, all she could see was black. A surge of nausea overtook her, and she stepped back from the ledge.

They did it.

Her head swam, nausea worsening, Vraethik’s curse eating into her lower intestine.

But all was well. They did it. Azkanix wouldn’t return. Eirwen would be safe. And the prince lived.

She could die, now.

Cerise exhaled, releasing all her tension and anxiety, and collapsed to the ice-crusted snow.

Chapter Fourteen

“Cerise!” Oberon shouted, his voice distant like a dream. Tender fingers found her cheeks. Swept hair from her face. Felt for breath over her lips. “Cerise!”

She was floating in the dark. There was no pain. Just a steady quiet like drifting below welcome waters.

“No, you don’t get to do this to me. Not now.”

A splash of something salty and warm invaded her fading. A tear?

“Please, Mirvadel, grant me this one last blessing and I’ll never ask anything of you ever again. Please bring her back. Don’t let Hrisadael take her.”

Her nose tickled. Something soft yet prickly pressed against her face.

“Please.”

Like being swept away by the tide, Cerise flowed back into herself with a gasp, a searing pain blazing through her gut. Her eyes shot open, Oberon’s golden-brown hair in her nose, his beard pressed against her face as he cradled her in one arm, rocking, his warm tears streaking down both their cheeks. His other broad palm pressed against her wound, and where his blood mixed with her own, it glowed with Mirvadel’s blessing.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he whispered, squeezing Cerise close.

The dead skin, muscle, and intestine purged from her body in brief, burning eruptions through the hole in her gut. She writhed against the sensation that was like being stabbed from the inside, but as quick it started it stopped, a relieving numbness spreading as her body repaired and closed.

Only a puckered mark, in the shape of Vraethik’s hand, remained.

“You said you weren’t injured badly,” Oberon chided, holding her against his chest, his other hand lifting to stroke her cheek.

“I never said that. I never said anything.” Cerise raised a weak arm, swiping away a tear with her thumb. Unable to look away from him, she slid her fingers through his thick hair, then let her hand drift down his neck, and rest on his chest.

A disapproving chuckle escaped him, and he pressed his firm lips to her forehead with tender intensity, as if he wished to never let her go.

But he had to. Behind him, the first stars twinkled in the bruise-colored sky. It was getting dark and they had no absorber or shelter.

“We need to go,” she whispered.

He rested his chin on her head and hugged her tight one more time before unwinding his arms and helping her rise to her feet.

She grunted with discomfort, the destroyed skin on her gut blazing and the heaviness in her leg threatening to pull her back down to the ground.

“Lean on me,” Oberon commanded, threading an arm beneath hers and carrying some of her weight.

She did, leaning into his side, letting him support more weight than she was used to with Beloved. A shuddering pain wracked through her with each step, and she gritted her teeth against the limp, focusing on simply moving forward. One step at a time.

When they were halfway through the plains the last sun rays diminished, sky blanketed in violet night. Hazy, green wisps rose from the ground, a brief panic stopping Cerise’s heart as she wondered if this was Azkanix’s remnant spirit released from Vraethik now pouring forth to end the plane of the living once and for all.

But the wisps wavered and bent, coalescing in dozens of vague, human shapes. The spirits of adults and children weaved before them, some peasants from long-destroyed farms, massacred clerics from Itraqel’s temple, and the templars and soldiers who fell on these plains. Those who died beneath Azkanix’s armies. Those whose bones Vraethik abused.

The ghosts faced Cerise and Oberon, ethereal forms blurred like smudged paint. Some simply stared, then turned their backs on the pair before gliding into the forest. Others lifted a hand, beckoning them to follow, before trailing into the dark.