Chapter 15 #3
The Moroi released a piercing shriek, stirring the wind around them like one great big gale before it lunged.
Moving too fast. Aeric and the twins surged forward, swinging their swords at the creature as it shrieked on and on, a cry of rage and bloodlust. Slashing through flesh and bone, they managed only a few blows before the Moroi reached its long taloned fingers and slashed at Idris.
He barely managed to dodge it before the Moroi was upon him, knocking him to the ground.
“Idris!” Adan yelled, cutting a line across his palm and calling upon the snow in a swirling storm of glimmering ice before shooting the sharpened edges toward the creature.
It shrieked once more as Adan struck it and it shoved away from Idris, sparing his life if only to direct its ravenous face upon his brother.
Its movements were fluid. A contradiction to its size. An unnatural abomination fueled by the Weaver’s curse. The twins barely managed to fend off its attacks until the blade of Adan’s sword sliced across its arm, sending something black and viscous splattering to the ground. Blood.
His attack only seemed to send it into a frenzy as the Moroi surged toward Adan, its sharpened claws stretched out toward him.
Aeric shoved him out of the way, the two tumbling to the ground as they narrowly avoided the attack.
As they struggled to gain their bearings, the Moroi was upon them once more.
Henry rushed forward with a bellow, unleashing a series of attacks of his own until Idris stepped behind it.
Light appeared to shine in a sudden pulse within Idris’s eyes before he took in a deep breath that stirred the wind and snow around him, pulling them all to him.
Creating a wave of ivory before breathing out, sending crystals and hoarfrost to form around the Moroi, wrapping tighter and tighter around its body.
It was incredible and horrifying as the men fought the creature that refused to be bested.
When she caught sight of something moving in her periphery to her right, she tensed.
Another Moroi slowly staggered into the heart of the village, its head tilted to one side at an odd angle.
As if its neck had been broken. It regarded her with those same lidless eyes of obsidian before its lips parted.
As it moved toward her, dropping to its hands and knees as if it were about to charge, Anelize turned to see that the others were still locked in a frenzied battle with the Moroi.
They could hardly handle one, but two…
Gritting her teeth, she looked to the creature breathing heavily before her its intent clear as black blood oozed from its mouth onto the ground. Spinning on her heel, she ran deeper into the forest, hearing as the Moroi shrieked as it gave chase.
No matter how fast her legs carried her, the creature’s cries followed Anelize wherever she went.
Her pants sawed through her in harsh, painful bursts as Anelize ran through the forest. No longer knowing in which direction she went as she barely dodged low-hanging branches and struggled not to lose her footing as the snow gave way to slick patches of ice.
The Moroi was quickly gaining on her and she turned right, around a thick trunk of a black oak, only to head straight for a steep hill covered in sheer ice.
She cried out as she slipped and fell, rolling down, down, down with limbs flailing and hands struggling to grasp for purchase to no avail.
Pain suddenly surged through her as Anelize’s ribs connected with a thick root covered in ice.
When she finally reached the bottom of the hill, her back hit the ground so hard that the air was knocked out of her.
She hardly had time to catch her breath when the Moroi lunged down the hill.
Narrowly avoiding being crushed by its talons, Anelize rolled onto her feet and ran deeper into the fog gathering in the air like a gray storm cloud.
As she burst through the fog, its white tendrils trailing around her, she found that she’d stumbled into a vast meadow.
At the heart of it sat a cottage made from a combination of black logs and stones, a chimney, and a rotting thatched roof.
It couldn’t be bigger than her father’s shop.
Small stones laid upon the ground, guiding the way straight toward its door.
The wooden frame along the opened doorway adorned with swirling patterns.
When she heard the Moroi’s shriek once more, she ran toward the cottage, hearing its thundering steps as it emerged from the fog. It ran after her and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end in warning as she felt it getting closer. Too close.
Just as she felt the sharp talons threatening to claw into her back, something flew past her. The sound of wings fluttering and the shrill call of a bird was followed by the Moroi’s outraged growl.
Not looking back, Anelize threw herself past the threshold of the cottage door, rolling across the floor and slamming into the leg of a table.
The Moroi shrieked, its shadow falling over her as it rushed toward the opened doorway.
She scrambled around to face the door, only to see a black raven clawing as the creature’s face.
Flapping its wings as it avoided being captured by its gnarly fingers.
Heart thundering in her chest, she watched as the raven flew away, causing the Moroi to follow it. Snarling and rabid, it turned and hurried after it, toward the meadow. The two disappearing beyond the fog, the Moroi’s shrieks echoing in the distance. Forgetting her entirely.
Panting, Anelize dropped her head in relief as she stared at the wide plank floorboards beneath her.
Getting to her feet, she looked around the cottage, where she noticed a hearth across the small main room, a single pot hanging from its hook.
Cobwebs filled the wooden rafters and several dead amaranths hung from the ceiling; their stems wrapped together in twine.
The familiar scent of herbs and woodsmoke tickled her nose.
A strange feeling stirred inside her chest. A feeling of having been here before making her slowly survey the rest of the cottage.
Anelize looked to where there was a small seating area.
A few chairs and the table she’d knocked into were coated in a thick layer of dust and snow, cracked ceramic cups and dishes forgotten to time.
And to her very right was a bed nestled in the corner, a small wooden cradle beside the opened window, the tattered curtain hanging off the rod shifting in a faint breeze.
Across the room, she noticed a door had been left ajar which led into another room.
Slowly, she approached the door and pushed it wide open, peering inside.
It was empty, save for a knife having been left behind on the ground and a wall full of strange carvings.
Every crack and corner. Runes of some sort.
Anelize wandered inside the room, feeling a strange pulse of otherness around her. Her power stirring awake, as if it sensed a heartbeat nearby. Only there was none to be found.
She did not know what the symbols meant but as she approached them, she had the strangest sense that she recognized them. They called to her, as if urging her to learn their language. Explore them.
Anelize placed her palm along one of the carving’s and winced when a sharp edge suddenly sliced into her finger. A drop of her blood fell and dripped over one of the strange patterns—a red smear, like paint filling the hewn curves.
Then, she felt it. A pulse of power, so sudden it felt as though a wave emanated from the bloodied rune, stealing the breath from her as she felt it again, and again.
Filling the room with light that rose and fell as all of the runes seemed to shimmer with light.
Wisps of blue and red shifting over the walls around her.
Through it, she heard the distant sound of her name. A familiar voice, though she knew not who it belonged to. An echo of a shadow that barely held the silhouette of its owner. Obscured by the distant darkness surrounding that voice.
Anelize, Anelize, Anelize…
The power seemed to wrap around her, the voice growing so loud she feared her head might crack in two.
The wisps wrapped around her like the hands of phantoms, pulling her away from the wall and spinning her around.
Anelize froze as she found herself standing in the same room, only now there was a woman a few paces away from her sitting upon a wooden bench.
Before a loom. Her long fingers pulled and spun the pale threads before her as she hummed her song, a familiar sound Anelize had heard before in her dreams.
“So, you’ve come,” the woman rasped when she finished her song. “Is it power you seek or truth?”
“Truth?” Anelize murmured, her voice echoing around her.
Uncertain if the woman was speaking to her, she glanced around the room, only to find that there was nothing but darkness awaiting her.
The door she’d walked through no longer there.
Only the markings on the walls, and the woman seated before her creaking loom.
“It will come at a cost. As all power does, but be warned it will always be lost. Sooner rather than later. Nothing more but a taste. Truth is power, only you cannot choose when to accept it. You cannot cower from it, though you may wish to do so.”
Anelize stepped closer as the wood of the loom creaked, the woman never slowing in her weaving until the ivory threads began to slowly turn red.
As if she’d started to dye them. It was only when she grew nearer that Anelize realized it was not dye, but blood coming from the woman’s sliced fingertips.
The skin sloughing with every pass she made.
It was unsightly, though the woman showed no sign of pain.
The crimson red appearing to glow in the dark cavern of the room.