Chapter 2 #2
The day passed as usual, Cerise almost forgetting about the damned thing once the snow swallowed its tracks.
After breakfast, she checked the fenceposts while Eirwen tended the chickens and garden.
She marked the map in the approximate location where the fallen bone from yesterday lay.
Then, with woodcutting axes on her hips and Beloved in hand, she hiked in spiraling circles around their cabin, checking all known locations of the curse.
Since she gathered plenty of wood the day before, Cerise would focus on measuring the curse’s spread through the wood.
She stiffened her already tense body with anticipation, as if Azkanix’s putrid spirit lurked in the dark shadows of the forest, watching her. Waiting.
Puffy flecks of snow fell from the clouded purple sky, resting on the clothes which covered her from head to toe.
The splinters of Azkanix’s bones in the immediate vicinity of her house were small shards.
Larger pieces had shattered upon the shield Eirwen summoned from Zyrdriel, sending them cascading through the forest in fragments.
They split through trees and stuck up in jagged spikes from the earth, a bile-like green light shining around them in a snow-diffused halo.
Cerise measured the curse’s growth from broken bones and blackened trees using notches on Beloved, repeating in her mind over and over the measurements so she wouldn’t forget by the time she returned home to write it down.
Most days, the corruption didn’t noticeably spread. It took weeks or months for the distance between the cursed object, whether the tainted black of trees or the necrotic green that ate away the earth, and the notches on Beloved to grow.
Yet today, on the second loop of her spiral, the disease around a splinter of Azkanix’s bone that sliced through the canopy of an adjacent tree and protruded from the ground like a broken tooth, had grown the width of her hand over the last two days.
She didn’t have small hands.
That was more growth than this bone’s curse spread in the last six months combined.
Impossible.
Scouring the surroundings for any indication of what caused the influx, her gaze pinpointed on deformations on the bone itself.
Barely visible through the white snow that clung to her lashes and blended with the color of the bone itself, she only noticed it thanks to the green glow from below, casting an eerie shadow on the marks.
Carved into the skeletal remains was another rune of Azkanix.
Similar to the one on the bear, with an upside-down A within a disconnected diamond, the slash of the A had demarcations on it. Except this one had several crosshairs and thatches, whereas the one on the bear was zagged. And this one had more puncture holes, with a point above each line’s end.
This was not one she’d seen before. But it must be what caused the corruption to spread. The bear couldn’t have made these marks, not with those stubby, useless claws.
She’d seen no footprints, but with the constant snowfall they would’ve been obscured quickly. Cerise last checked this spot two days ago and the rune wasn’t there.
Someone was in her forest, encouraging Azkanix’s disease to claim more life.
Cerise grumbled, chewing on her lower lip, thinking. She’d never struck one of Azkanix’s bones, certain that the more shards of it scattered, the more his curse would grow. Yet, if this rune was truly an amplifier, she couldn’t let it remain.
Bracing herself in a firm stance, giving additional space between her feet and the necrotic magic emanating from the bone, Cerise aimed Beloved at the carvings.
Hoping the bone was similar to the dead trees and that the curse wouldn’t ruin Beloved, she shaved away the rune in steady yet forceful motions.
Not entirely, but hopefully enough to destroy the power it provided.
The dustings of bone she sliced away fell into the halo of necrotic green at the base.
Those slivers pulsed, destroyed by their own hateful magic, but the aura grew as it swallowed itself.
At least the growth from bone shavings was not as great as that caused by rune.
Satisfied, she leaned on Beloved, knee aching from the pressure she exerted while breaking the rune.
Locked in the stiff position she’d placed herself in, her leg screamed with a sudden, acute ache as she bent it to walk.
The kneecap cracked and popped as it shifted in its socket.
She winced against the discomfort, needing to keep moving forward.
If there was one rune, there was sure to be another. She needed to find as many as she could before sundown. Hunt for sign of whoever haunted her woods.
Cerise wound her way through the forest in her usual spirals, the deep plum clouds shifting overhead, intermittently brightening and darkening the landscape.
Hot terror burned like bile in her chest at each carved bone, the necrotic base spreading deeper and wider through the earth.
Not every skeletal fragment was carved with the rune, but there were many.
Too many. And too close to home. She cautiously carved away each mark, slicing off miniscule fragments until the rune’s power faded.
But when the spot of sun behind the purple sky strayed toward the horizon, she needed to return home.
Even though she knew there were more runes expediting the death of the world, encroaching to her cabin, she couldn’t find them all before night fell.
Heart weighing as heavy as the furs on her body, she hiked back, checking her traps on the way.
Only one caught a creature—a poor fox with eyes crusted green with disease, black foam frothing from its mouth.
With careful hands, Cerise pulled the jaws from the fox’s body and removed it, resetting the trap to catch a creature they could eat. Hopefully.
Eyes fixed on the faint billow of smoke that heralded home, Cerise returned just as the sky deepened to violet, the forest only illuminated by the effervescent green glow of necrotic energy.
She checked the fence’s stability, giving each post a tap from Beloved, and eyed the base for signs of decay.
Piling wood from the shed into her arms, she considered how, or even if, she should tell Eirwen about today’s discovery.
Perhaps she should measure the extent of the corruption before warning her.
She might be able to erase the carvings and kill the intruder before the curse worsened enough that she’d need to tell her sister.
Heavy footsteps crunched through the snow, and she swung around in the direction of the noise, knee popping with an agonizing ache at the sudden movement.
Cerise grimaced, baring her teeth as she stifled the pain, but the frustration transformed into a full growl when she saw what disturbed her peace.
That wretched bear stood just outside of Zyrdriel’s Boundary. Long, meaty fish, their scales shining in the fading light, hung from its massive jaws.
“I suppose you have a death wish,” Cerise spat, stalking toward the beast. “I told you if I ever saw you again, I’d tear the fur from your body.”
“No, you said you’d do that if it stepped on our land again,” Eirwen said from behind her, appearing with the same quiet stealth as drifting snowflakes. She held a firelit lantern high, banishing the necrotic light with the flame’s warmth.
“It’s close enough.”
The bear whined and dropped the fish, the limp bodies slapping against ice-crusted snow. It dropped to its belly and wrapped its paws over its nose. Cerise sneered at the ploy, but Eirwen brushed past her and knelt in front of it.
“The fish is safe,” Eirwen murmured, examining their corpses.
“Big surprise. They usually are.”
“But not always.” Eirwen cast her a scornful glance. “In how many ways does this creature need to show you it means no harm before you accept it? It has respected all you’ve said. Despite how cruelly you treated it, it brought us food. Enough for dinner tonight and more.”
“It’s manipulating us. How do you not see that?”
The bear huffed, exasperated.
“For what purpose?”
“I don’t know!” Cerise’s body vibrated, the physical aches and mental worries of the day somehow both weakening and electrifying her nerves.
“Which is why I don’t trust it. I don’t know what it wants.
And neither do you. You know better than anyone that not everything that shows you kindness is good intentioned. ”
Eirwen’s face flickered, shock-widened eyes twisting into a disbelieving grimace before falling flat. Cerise’s stomach dipped to her gut. That look never meant anything good.
“Come inside.” Eirwen motioned to the bear with an ivory hand, scooping the fish into her arms and sweeping by Cerise without another word.
Shit. This day just kept getting worse.
Now she’d have to mend what she broke with Eirwen and keep a diligent eye on the cursed bear.
Adjusting the wood pile in her arms, mustering the last tendrils of strength for the day, she followed them into the cabin. Cerise ducked low below the threshold so that Beloved, still strapped to her back, wouldn’t thunk against the entrance.
Eirwen guided the bear to the glowing fire, infusing their cabin with warmth and light. The creature, in its intelligence or complacency, sat to the side, away from Cerise’s mound of furs and blankets. Still refusing to look at her, Eirwen took the fish and lantern to the counter to cut.
Cerise laid the wood near the fire, face scrunched with the fierce pain in her leg.
She usually didn’t go this long without resting or Eirwen caring for her knee, yet she’d been distracted by the runes found in the forest today.
Her nerves hummed, the discomfort and fatigue draining her.
As she placed the last block of wood, a dizziness swept over her vision and she dropped it, the entire pile crashing to the ground in pounding, cracking thumps.