Chapter 12 #2
With uncharacteristic gentleness, Estevan cradled her face with his hands. His thumbs wiped traitorous tears away from her eyes. “I do not enjoy it, but I will be your doom if you let me. Do not. You must fear me. You must stay wary.” Brow furrowed, he whispered, “Please, I beg of you.”
Semras searched his eyes for something, anything, that could give her some insight into the unpredictable man. Into who he was, truly was, beneath his oath.
She found none.
“Why did you lie about being ordered to consult a witch?” she murmured.
“I-I …” he stammered. Something deep in his eyes still kept his guard up.
Despite the violence of his actions, Estevan didn’t feel threatening. She had never seen him so open, so vulnerable before. Alcohol had broken down a wall surrounding him, yet it still wasn’t enough to make him admit his secrets.
With his defence weakened like that, reaching into his mind for the answers would be trivial. Decency and morality had never limited the Bleak Path, after all.
But she couldn’t do it. Beyond her fear of the Inquisition’s wrath, she dreaded losing herself to the Bleak far more. Dreaded how she almost had when the inquisitor walked into her hut. The Bleak Path had felt like her only option back then.
No. It had felt like the easiest option. How fast she’d been tempted sickened her. The Inquisition’s ruthless hunting of her kind must have created so many bleakwitches out of suspected innocents.
She could have become one of them so easily.
But she wouldn’t falter tonight. She’d wait for the inquisitor to word his own answer out. And it would have to suffice.
“What are you hiding from me, Estevan?” she asked softly.
His shoulders fell. “So much … I hide so much, and it weighs on my mind so heavily,” Estevan replied at last. “I cannot trust anyone, not even my oldest friends. Not for this case.”
“What’s so special about it?”
“Not special, just … too personal. I have so much to lose. That … that is why I …” He stared into her eyes. “… I need you.”
Semras looked away, mind fluttering. It was a lie, she told herself, just like all the other lies he had spoken since they first met.
And he probably didn’t mean it that way—no matter how the loneliness in his voice resonated with the one in her heart.
“What for?” she asked, voice low.
Estevan smiled softly. “To give me hope. You are clever, willful. You will tell me that I am wrong about the poison, and I will trust you. I want to be wrong; I want you to lie to me. And if you do not, and I am not …” His eyes blurred, lost to fatigue, then refocused on her lips.
“You … you scared me today. So, so much … I thought you were compromised. But you are not. You are not, right?” he begged, voice hoarse and pleading.
Her own held a mix of resolve and … something else she dared not dwell upon. “No, I am not. I won’t lose my Path. This I promise to you, Estevan.”
“My name, who told you …? Y-You should not use it. It will bring you trouble.” The inquisitor nuzzled his face in her neck. “You smell like me. Do not do this again. You are making this so much more difficult.”
Semras huffed but didn’t push him away. “I assure you, I have learned that lesson very well by now.”
Melting against her, he chuckled fondly.
It was so hard to believe he had someone waiting for him when he looked at her like that. But he did.
And it was so hard remembering he was a liar when he smiled at her like that. But he was.
“Who’s Nimue?” she breathed.
She wasn’t asking because she wanted to know if Nimue was the ‘witch lover’ Themas had spoken of. She just needed to know if a witch had betrayed her existence to the Inquisition.
Her resolve faltered before he could reply. She already knew the answer anyway.
Words spilled out of her, scrambling to redirect her question away. “Sir Ulrech speaks of war, and you mentioned a witch purge. Is she who you are protect—”
Estevan silenced her with a thumb gently stroking her lips. “Sir Ulrech speaks too much. You speak too much. And I …” He drew closer. His lips brushed hers. “It’s not speaking I want …”
Semras turned aside with a fiery blush. “Alright, enough with you, Inquisitor Drunk.” Her mind fluttered about, trying to regain composure. “To bed, now.”
He was harmless in that state, and bossing him around felt like a nice reward for putting up with him and his wandering hands.
He laughed as she slipped out of his arms. “Bold witch,” he purred.
Semras’ face grew hotter. “Not like that!”
Swatting his hands away, she guided him down onto the bedroll. For a member of the dreadful Inquisition, Estevan Velten was oddly cuddly when all his inhibitions went down. It was almost endearing.
Almost—Nimue would think otherwise if she could see him. His drunk-addled mind had forgotten his paramour, but that was no excuse. Should she ever meet her, Semras would warn her of his wandering hands. Her witch sister deserved better.
“Listen,” Semras said, looking away. “For the sake of collaboration, let’s put the … the ‘glade incident’ behind us. All of it. We’ll not speak nor think of it anymore, and we’ll remain professional toward each other. Agreed?”
He didn’t answer.
She glanced at him, then groaned. Arms resting around his head, Estevan lay sprawling on the bedroll with his eyes closed. His chest rose up and down with even breaths. Sleep had claimed him silently.
Semras sighed, irritated. She’d have to clarify this awkward situation with him later—especially the ‘professional’ part.
Now that she knew of his witch lover, she didn’t want to keep nurturing …
whatever had started between them. If something had started.
If it wasn’t another one of his deceptions.
Too many ‘ifs’ stood between them anyway.
With a sigh, Semras considered his clothes, torn between ensuring his comfort and her reluctance to undress him so intimately.
Having cast aside his cloak and gloves before, he only wore a high-collared shirt tucked into dark trousers now. Divested of any inquisitorial finery, Estevan looked … oddly human.
Her eyes roamed with curiosity over his sprawled body, entranced by the way the shirt hugged his arms and torso tightly. Pearls of dark crimson stained the white linen.
Blood.
A jolt of anxiety shot through her. Semras unbuttoned his shirt with numb fingers, then looked beneath. She gasped.
There, on his pectoral, claws had shredded his tanned skin from shoulder to sternum.
Fresh blood seeped out of the hastily sutured wound.
Through the thin, sheer fabric of too few bandages, the witch could see the uneven threads holding it closed together.
The gash would heal into an uneven, misshapen scar.
Other injuries adorned his forearms, but none as deep as the one on his chest. Armguards beneath his sleeves must have deflected most of the damage, and only the sharpest fangs had marked his flesh with lacerations and punctured holes.
She had known the wolves had seriously injured him, but facing the evidence made the danger they had faced feel suddenly too real.
Guilt guided her hands over Estevan’s wounds.
Closing her eyes, Semras bit her lip. The inquisitor had paid a hefty price to shield her from the wolves.
That he had nearly taken her life right after did nothing to lessen the debt she owed—the Old Crone demanded balance, and the New Maiden wished for the debt to be paid.
Peering into the Arras, the witch stared at the shredded threads of his skin.
Even through the lenses of the Unseen’s beauty, they looked painful and inflamed, like pulsing, twisting rifts marring his warp shape.
Blood vessels were leaking red filaments where he had reopened them by moving, and Semras could see the hints of infinitely smaller threads working to block their flow once more.
Estevan’s body had begun repairing itself, but the task would be long and arduous.
Semras was no fleshwitch, but she knew enough to weave him back into something more solid.
The healers’ Path demanded precision and patience and could only accelerate what nature would have done on its own, but with enough skills, their weaves could halt infections and break down scar tissue back into supple flesh.
Praying to the New Maiden she wouldn’t worsen his wounds, Semras attempted to do just that.
Slowly, painstakingly so, she wove threads of blood vessels and skin back together.
Dirt and animal saliva hid deeper beneath, and she gently unravelled their threads.
In the quietest hours of the night, the witch worked while Estevan slept.
His skin tightened, and the inflammation retreated.
Pale pink tissue formed beneath the stitches, bridging together the split skin.
It was laborious, backbreaking work, but she still did it.
Semras returned her sight to the Seen World, then looked upon her weaves with satisfaction.
She had managed to speed up some of the healing process.
His wounds would still leave scars a better fleshwitch could have gotten rid of, but at least they would turn into thick lines rather than gnarly, misshapen growths now.
Her fingers ached with pride and gratification. Maybe once she’d reached the end of the Wood Path, Semras could pursue the Flesh one.
Searching for more wounds she might have missed, the witch parted Estevan’s shirt further.
Beneath, she found a battlefield.
On his ribs, a burn mark unfolded upward half his chest. Small, puckered indents left by bolts and arrows marred his left shoulder.
A gnarly gash had badly healed on his stomach, but it looked fine compared to the ravaged skin an acidic agent had mangled on his left hip.
Higher up, starting beneath his underarm, feathery patterns echoed the strike of a vicious bolt of lightning.
The more she looked, the more she found. With growing horror and empathy, Semras beheld Estevan’s collection of scars and ancient wounds. Blades, bites, claws, electric bolts, acid splashes, and burns; magic and metal vied against each other for a place on his skin.
This man fought a war against her sisters and bore the marks of their struggle, desperation, and fury on his skin. Maybe some had been guilty of walking the Bleak; maybe some had let rancour push them over the edge.
But these were not the scars that terrified her the most. The missing ones, from the innocent witches who hadn’t fought back, did. The Inquisition had killed so many of them thirty years ago. More had followed, out of prejudice or judicial error.
A sobering guilt rattled her to the core. Fleeing the dread settling into her stomach, Semras stood.
A hand caught her waist, and she lost her footing. Before she could yelp in surprise, arms encircled her, dragging her into the inquisitor’s embrace.
“Stay,” Estevan muttered in his sleep. “Safer.”
Semras cursed him out, and he rolled on his side—onto her. Half-pinned between him and the bedroll, she cursed quietly this time, afraid more sounds would prompt him to fully crush her beneath him.
‘I don’t touch them. They sleep in their beds alone,’ he had said the night prior. Right. What a liar he was.
They’d been dancing around one another for too long, gauging each other’s willpower, testing their respective limits, battling for the upper hand. She lost more often than she wanted to admit, and part of her relished the idea of being able to rub his own words into his face come morning.
And she’d profit from a warmer night in the damp woods for staying in his arms.
Just to share warmth.
Semras groaned in frustration. Who was she trying to convince? She tried to will her mind into silence or her muscles into action. Neither obeyed.
Choose, dammit, she admonished herself. Struggle or accept.
The right choice was obvious, and she hated how she still hesitated to take it. But she had to, for Nimue’s sake. For their baby’s, too.
Slowly, Semras rolled onto her back, carefully avoiding Estevan’s wounds lest she injure him further. She nearly made it before arms dragged her back against him. Grunting lowly, Estevan shivered against her.
It was her turn to groan. When she had dragged him to his bedroll, Semras had laid him on top of it and left the fold open to close later. With his shirt undone and at the mercy of the cold, his sleeping body was seeking more warmth.
And, clad in velvet, she was now warmer than him.
What had possessed her to choose velvet of all things? Oh, yes, vanity did—not practicality as she’d convinced herself of. The burgundy velvet hugged her shape in ways that boosted her confidence. She had yearned for it after the glade.
And now she was paying for it.
Mumbling something unintelligible, Estevan curled up around Semras, and she sighed. The witch glanced at the bedroll’s open fold, then gripped its threads and, slowly, inch by inch, dragged the flap over them both.
That should settle the warmth issue and make him let go of her. Any second now, she’d be free to find some damp, cold bedroll around a dying campfire to rest in. Lucky her.
Once the sleepy inquisitor had sufficiently warmed up, he’d roll away from her, and then she’d—oh, the bed felt so comfortable after the day she had.
But she’d still leave it once …
Like a lullaby, Estevan’s steady heartbeat lulled her tired mind. But she couldn’t stay. She …
Her eyelids felt heavy.
… She had to …
Silently, treacherously, sleep sneaked up on her.