Chapter III.21 #3
As though recognizing Adaline’s station, Tuli bowed and stepped away, which the first time Miria had seen him do something like that, and she would need to evaluate this scene again later.
Apparently, fighting together had created an unexpected bond between them. It made her happy, but it confused her.
Also, the foul construct was moving, trying to put itself back together. She had no time for questions about magical eccentricities.
Adaline stepped forward and, with a great swing of her sword, she cleaved the creature’s decaying boar’s head from its motley torso. It twitched once and fell still. Miria cringed. Adaline whooped, and even Tuli seemed extremely pleased with himself, judging by his posture.
Miria pushed all this nonsense aside and crept closer. “It must have some magic inside, powering it. A heart of sorts. I need to destroy it.”
It took a few minutes of rooting around inside the chest cavity to find it. Adaline and Tuli stood over Miria’s shoulders, stabbing or whacking anything that twitched, but that did not make the task any less grim or gory, and Miria winced her way through it.
“This must be it.” Miria used a hawthorn stick to poke at the black lump.
She didn’t know what to expect, but her find seemed likely.
The ribbon she’d placed in Tuli to give him his power would have transformed with him, and when Yali had died and Azalea had returned to the earth, his magical heart had vanished with him.
The person whose magic was powering this creature, however, was alive, and so its heart thrummed with power.
Miria could only guess what her own golem’s heart looked like, but she could not believe it was like this—reddish black, like a ruby but ugly.
The oily, unpleasant magical sensation the creature gave off—unrelated to its very physical rot—stemmed from it.
As though reading her thoughts, Adaline glanced between it and Tuli. “Is that …?”
“No,” Miria said, letting her conviction hide her ignorance. “Tuli was created with love. This was created with something else.”
She made quick work of it, sprinkling salt over the magical heart until its color leeched away.
Within seconds, the rest of the abomination fell to pieces around them.
Unlike Aza had, it did not crumble to clay, for it wasn’t made of clay, but the bones and flesh collapsed to the ground as magical bonds broke.
“I think it smells worse,” Adaline said, covering her nose. “Tuli is lucky he doesn’t have a nose to smell it.”
In Miria’s mind, Tuli chuckled at that.
“We should bury what’s left,” she said. “With its foul magic, not even the carrion eaters will want to feast on it, I don’t think. And perhaps they shouldn’t, to be safe.”
That was the sort of task for which Miria was especially grateful for Tuli’s help.
She easily fixed his head and his arm, and while the golem dug a pit and buried the disparate decomposing body parts, Miria repacked her supplies.
More than ever, it seemed wise to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice.
Her mind was so occupied elsewhere, between her task and what she’d learned from Rosmilda, that she almost forgot Adaline was there until her friend spoke up.
“I thought you were right behind me when I ran out of the cottage earlier. Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad you stayed inside until Tuli and I had won the day, but warn me next time so I’m not looking over my shoulder to make sure you’re safe. ”
Adaline had been uncharacteristically silent since the fight, and she looked tired.
Miria realized she must not have gotten much sleep last night—the excitement and stress would have kept her awake.
She’d been so concerned for her own recovery and why it was necessary that she’d glossed over Adaline’s.
And, to be fair, Adaline had powered through the morning, trying to act like all was fine. Because of course she had.
Miria set aside her satchel and sat next to Adaline.
She wrapped her arms around her, let Adaline’s body sag gently into her own.
She wanted to protect Adaline, and Adaline wanted to protect her, and Miria didn’t even know what they were protecting each other from.
Yesterday, her plan had been so simple. The villain of both their stories so obvious. The past hour had changed everything.
“I was behind you,” she said. “Until I was attacked. That creature was a distraction, I think.”
She filled Adaline in on what Rosmilda had said and done, and Adaline was soon out of her seat, weariness melted away like so much snow in the heat of her outrage.
“She’s the one who created the charmed necklace then.
She must be. Miri, this isn’t safe. If she can do that to you.
… I should return. I know you want revenge on your family, and you deserve it.
But now that I know doing this puts you in danger, I can’t let that happen. Maybe there’s another way. Maybe—”
“Absolutely not.” Miria jumped up too, and she took Adaline’s shaking hands.
“There was always a risk with this plan. But revenge aside, you are worth any risk. I just need to rethink things. Rosmilda is a problem, and I have a duty to deal with her, regardless of you or my family. But it will be tricky.”
“What do you mean?”
Miria grimaced, because the next part confused and pained her. It was what she’d been dwelling on since Rosmilda’s magical attack. Saying it out loud might help her think it through, but it was unpleasant, and she knew what Adaline’s reaction would be.
“Rosmilda is not a witch,” Miria said. “I’ve seen her in person, and she had no magic of her own.
I would have been able to tell. But the spells she used—they were like twisted versions of the spells I learned from my nana.
Rosmilda altered them, which means she was trained by a witch. I’m positive of it.”
Adaline bit her lip. She’d cleaned her sword while Miria packed after the fight, and she ran a finger over its smooth steel, clearly thinking about what she’d like to do with it next. “How is she casting spells if she has no magic of her own? Do you think she’s working with someone?”
“It’s a possibility, to be sure. But I don’t think so. I think she’s been up to something else for a while, and I never noticed. Or more accurately, I noticed but never figured out what was happening.”
Miria realized she’d been pacing in front of the hearth the way Yali once had, and she forced herself to pause.
Her hands grasped the back of one of the chairs, and she squeezed until her knuckles whitened.
“For years, there’s been a mysterious plague affecting children in Swiftdok and the outlying farms. Specifically, I believe it’s affecting children with magical blood.
Even Rosmilda’s own children—they looked frail when I saw them briefly, and you were told they were sickly.
I think Rosmilda has found a way to use the magic in those children’s blood as her own.
A spell cast with ill intentions brings illness back on the witch.
My nana warned me against casting evil magic for that reason.
Rosmilda does not feel the effects of what she’s casting, but those she stole from do. ”
Adaline stared at her, struck speechless, which was truly a feat and one Miria would have laughed at under other circumstances.
There was nothing humorous here, however, and Miria shoved the chair away from herself with the force of her fury.
“It’s been her the whole time, and yet it’s me, and witches like me, who are blamed for the perverted blood magic she’s using.
She called it ironic and convenient. She’s been pushing that rumor herself. I heard her.”
Being a scapegoat for Rosmilda’s crimes infuriated, but only half so much as knowing what Rosmilda was really up to. How many children had gotten sick or died because of her?
Yali had told her the sickness was probably nothing and to leave it alone.
It was not a witch’s place to get involved unless their help was requested.
Certainly, it was safer that way; Miria had learned that lesson.
But circumstances had changed, and Miria couldn’t help but wonder if she’d gotten involved sooner, spent more time trying to find the cause of the mysterious illness, how much suffering she could have prevented.
She didn’t fault Yali for the position she had taken, but she was no longer certain she could take it herself.
Nor would she be expected to. Adaline’s eyes had grown as wide as they had when Miria had confessed the truth about her family this morning, and she reacted much as Miria had assumed.
She picked up her sword and adjusted her grip around the pommel.
“If what you say is true, and I believe you, then it’s time to bring this fight to my would-be mother-in-law. ”