Chapter 08 #2
Ulrech approached them with Themas following closely. “Bloody Void,” the older knight cursed. “That forest is fraying their nerves beyond control. Tell me you found what is wrong with this place, Miss Witch, or else your little stunt will have cost us more than it was worth.”
“My … little stunt?” Semras blinked. “You mean I caused this?”
Themas arched his eyebrow. “Did you not hear them?”
“I was peering into the Arras. Time is—well, it doesn’t flow the same way within,” Semras said, twisting her hands together.
“By the time I was back, I had missed some crucial seconds, or … or maybe a full minute? I don’t know.
The longer you look, the more affected you become.
It’s like dreaming. It takes time to wake up. ”
“Your eyes were glowing,” Estevan said. “The sword-bearers noticed it, and some decided you were hexing them.” With a thin smile, he added, “You should thank Sir Ulrech. He pulled you out of reach just in time and almost received a sword to the face for his trouble.”
“Do not,” the knight warned her flatly. He turned to the inquisitor. “What would you have us do with the dissenters, my lord?”
“Nothing for now,” the inquisitor replied, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“The men are agitated enough as it is. But I want both of you to keep an eye on those rebels and who they talk to. Once we reach Castereina, I will jail them for contempt of the Inquisition. Make sure you do not tip them off about our intentions until then. I do not need a damn mutiny on top of everything.”
The knights bowed, and the inquisitor dismissed them. Left alone with him, Semras braced herself against his upcoming ire.
It did not come.
Instead, Estevan leaned his back against a tree and closed his eyes, face drawn. The deep circles around his eyes spoke of many restless nights. What had carved them there, she wondered. Stress perhaps or something else?
“I thought you’d blame me for this,” she said at last.
Eyes half-lidded, Estevan glanced down at her. “No. No, of course not. I could hardly blame you, just as I could not blame the wind for blowing. It is not your nature, but theirs that created this mess. Do not dwell on it. I promised you my protection, and you have it.”
“… Thank you.” Her cheeks felt hot. “I didn’t intend to cause any trouble. I never thought glowing eyes were anything extraordinary …”
He chuckled, and it sounded like sincere mirth, not mockery, for once. “There is nothing ordinary about you, witch, least of all your eyes of liquid gold.” He watched her with a smile. “Keep your thanks. I am only fulfilling my end of the deal so you can keep yours.”
“Right.” Semras cleared her throat. “Speaking of which, I know what happened to the woods.”
She had no desire to keep talking sentimentality with the inquisitor, nor dwell on what he thought of her eyes or what else he thought was extraordinary about her.
That was best left for later tonight, when sleep wouldn’t claim her and she’d spend hours pondering what he said and what she could have said back.
“Can it be fixed?” he asked.
“Possibly. It’ll depend.” At his questioning gaze, Semras pointed at what she had seen earlier. “On this.”
At the tip of her finger, Themas leaned once more on the wooden pole marking the path.
Estevan cocked his eyebrow, then grinned slowly.
“As much as it would amuse me to accuse him of Bleak witchcraft, I do not believe this is what you are referring to. Unless you mean to exchange my knight for your knowledge. In which case, might I suggest you take me instead? You will get more than your money’s worth, I assure you. ”
“No! That’s not what I—how could you even imagine I’d ask for—!” Blushing, Semras pointed repeatedly at her true target. “I meant the pole! Or rather, what’s beneath it. The forest is mourning something buried there. If we see what it is, then we might be able to put it to rest.”
“Duly noted, and trade completed. You may now take me.”
Take him? Semras’ face bloomed into a deeper crimson, and Estevan laughed at her horrified expression.
He wouldn’t if he knew the meaning of his words for a witch. To take a man was no laughing matter; it was a sacred vow spoken in front of the coven Elders, binding two souls together forevermore.
It was nothing they’d ever want from each other.
“Very well, I will honour the original bargain, I suppose.” Estevan walked toward the wooden pole, speaking as loudly as he could. “Maldoza! Flex your muscles for the lady and dig up that pole you are leaning against.”
Semras groaned, face still flushed. She’d die of embarrassment before she’d even serve her purpose for the investigation. Grabbing what remained of her dignity, she hurried after him.
Estevan wasn’t done torturing her. She arrived just in time to hear him speak to Themas. “… and I offered myself for the task, but she was quite insistent it had to be you.”
Was it too late to kill him? The Inquisition would execute her afterward, but at least the rest of her life would be blissfully free from further embarrassment.
To the knight’s credit, he looked baffled but didn’t ask for an explanation. He left to fetch a spade instead. With some regret, Semras abandoned her murder plans.
After returning, Themas removed his cloak and stripped out of his brigandine, laying the heavy, black coat of studded cold iron on the ground.
His white shirt soon joined the rest of his garments there, and then he stood, chest bare.
Unfazed, the knight stretched his arms, grabbed the shovel, and started digging.
Thank the Old Crone for her already flushed skin; the knight had taken the ‘flex your muscles’ part quite seriously. His spade bit into the soil vigorously.
A few scars on Themas’ lean, muscular back caught Semras’ attention. A skilled hand had finely stitched the wounds. They had turned into thin, pale lines against his tanned skin, the scar tissues smooth and barely raised. No fleshwitch had worked on him, yet he had healed so well.
Semras cocked her head, mouth slightly agape, as she wondered how Deprived’s medical knowledge could have achieved that.
By her side, Estevan huffed, then left.
Semras stayed to watch over the progression of the arduous task. Two sword-bearers were soon ordered to come help Themas. With their joint efforts, the soil slowly yielded its rocks and chunks of clay. With every passing minute, Semras grew more anxious.
If she had misunderstood where the forest was pointing, they’d have lost all that time for naught, and the inquisitor would be furious.
She could already feel his patience waning. He came back to pace in front of the diggers several times, leaving only to check their itinerary and growing more restless each time he returned.
After a full hour of joint efforts, a cry from the diggers alerted her they’d found something. Semras looked into the hole—and paled.
There were bones.
Human bones.
The wooden pole pierced right through the skeleton’s rib cage, staking where the heart would have been. Mere scraps remained of the clothes that once enshrouded it, and the only thing that had resisted time and decay was the medallion around its neck.
A shudder ran through Semras at the sigil carved onto it: branches shaped into hands, surrounding a moon. Whoever was buried here had been an elderwitch of the Yore Coven.
A crowd gathered around the hole, only parting to let Estevan through. “What do we have here?” he asked.
Semras opened her mouth. “My—”
“Just some old bones, from what I can see, my lord,” Themas said, sweeping the sweat off his brow.
“She’s not ‘just some old bones,’” she snapped. “She’s an Elder from my Coven. And she should have been buried under the Mother-Tree. Not here in this … this mockery of a grave.”
“With bones so old,” Estevan said right above her head, “she was probably a victim of the last witch purge.”
Semras startled at the inquisitor’s voice. She hadn’t noticed him slither behind her to peek into the hole.
“The Coven must have had no time to take care of her back then, or maybe she died alone,” he continued, pensive. “Some kind soul buried her here in haste, in an unmarked grave. I suppose she must be the source of the disturbance. Do you have a suggestion on how to deal with her, witch?”
“We need to bury her with proper respect,” she replied. “The forest is mourning her and the fate of her bones. It cannot stand to see her remains desecrated like that.”
And neither could she. Here, her Elder’s bones were exposed, left unprotected from the reach of the Peering Night.
“So that is why the woods became disturbed only recently. It must have started when the new trail was made here,” Estevan said. “And through some unfortunate chance or malice, the locals planted the directional pole right through her. Just our luck.”
With a grim expression, Themas climbed out of the grave, spade still in hand. “Do we fill up the hole and plant the pole further away, my lord?”
“Yes, do it.”
“No!” Semras threw a dark glare at the inquisitor. “I said she must be buried with due respect! That is one of my coven sisters. I won’t abandon her in a disgraceful grave.”
“We have wasted enough time as it is,” he replied. “Removing the pole should be enough to appease the forest, and that is the extent of what we will do. End of discussion.”
“She needs her resting rites, and I will do them whether it pleases you or not.”
Velten glared back, eyes narrowing in a silent warning. “I have been lenient with you so far, witch, but I will not allow you to conduct a heathen rite in front of my men.”
The pain of the forest echoed through her. Its mournful cry had halted since the removal of the pole from the corpse’s chest, but it wasn’t gone entirely.
It hung in the air, waiting.
“Then let me go somewhere else,” Semras said. “I must put her to rest. She deserves it.”
“We have wasted too much time—”
“She’s not a waste of time! Leave with your retinue if you cannot find within yourself even a modicum of respect for the dead! I’ll join you once I’m done.”
Digging her nails into clenched palms, Semras looked away from Velten and breathed deeply.
Anger had driven her to scream at the inquisitor, and only now did she realize how her outburst unnerved the surrounding sword-bearers.
More and more of them had encircled her as their argument escalated.
Hands found their way to sword pommels; eyes gazed at her with wariness.
Semras schooled her expression into a calmer one. “She was one of my sisters, and I’m going to see her buried as she deserves. You cannot deny her proper rites. She’s not under your jurisdiction, Inquisitor. She was a witch, a free daughter of the Night.”
Inquisitor Velten glanced aside at the sword-bearers, then focused back on her. “Fine. However, I will go with you. I will not risk making this trip moot by losing you to the woods. It will be—”
“Losing me? I am a woodwitch! I can track my way—”
“—just you and me. Do not interrupt me again. Ever.” Inquisitor Velten stepped closer, looming. “Or do, and it will be the last time you ever will.”
His ire was palpable. Eyes gleaming with defiance, Semras gritted her teeth to keep her mouth shut.
“It will be just you and me, as I said. You have unnerved the sword-bearers enough for a single day,” the inquisitor continued, voice low and grating.
Then, he turned to the Venator guards. “You will all stay behind and keep your temper in check. I want no more incidents today, or heads will fly. Disband, now. Sir Ulrech, Maldoza; to me.”
The sword-bearers bowed to his will, then left while Ulrech made his way through.
Inquisitor Velten wasn’t finished with her.
“Let me clear something up before we leave, witch,” he said lowly.
“Every single person who walks the Vandalesian Peninsula is under my jurisdiction. The Church does not consider your kind exempt from the law, and neither do I. You would do well to remember that. My patience has limits. Test me again, and you will know them crossed.”
Semras didn’t flinch under the threat. From this close, his eyes bared the truth to her.
His entire body was taut with stress. The inquisitor hid it well enough behind a wall of arrogance, but his nerves were just as raw as hers. Anyone in his vicinity could have fallen victim to his mercurial mood. She just happened to be the closest.
Resentment simmered in her heart. Nothing gave him the right to treat her this way. He could take out his rage on someone else; she wouldn’t entertain it any further. If it wasn’t for the witch sister that needed her help, she’d have left that bastard behind long ago.
Ulrech looked at the bones sourly. “This will delay us significantly, my lord. We may not reach the next inn in time for tonight.”
Inquisitor Velten threw him a weary stare. “It is a delay we must endure in the name of duty. Take command in my absence, Sir Ulrech. You have free rein over matters of travel and rest until I return.”
“As you wish, my lord.” He bowed, eyes sliding toward her. “And as she wishes.”
The corner of Semras’ lips twitched in a snarl, but she didn’t retort.
She had bones to bury.