CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I expected the realm to erupt, waiting for the first clash of battle and claws carving vicious arcs. Instead, Noctis chuckled dryly as if unbothered by the Writherbought’s arrival.
I, on the other hand, believed my racing heart would be enough to end me.
“Waiting? You never would have found me if I hadn’t called,” Noctis spat disinterested. Leaves crunched under boots, but I couldn’t make out who moved with my eyes sealed shut.
“The God of the Forsaken,” the Writherbought chided. Its raspy voice snaked through the air like a serpent. The words repeated with an echo, each sound cut short and staccato. “It is not your power that draws me in.”
I held my breath, begging my pounding heart to join the silence of the forest. If the beading sweat along my forehead dropped, every creature would hear it crash into the crisped foliage below.
The Writherbought went on.
“Did you expect me not to sense your Blood Tie mere meters away?”
“How did you escape the prison?” Noctis interrupted, the air humming in response to the mention of me. When I was involved, the composed, wry mask Noctis normally wore fell in heaps, leaving only wrath.
“Hmm,” the creature purred. “How about an answer for an answer?”
“I don’t play games,” Noctis rumbled, and the ground shook with his words. More leaves shuffled and crunched under weight, and I was sure the god advanced for an attack.
“We have insight that tells us otherwise,” the Writherbought drawled lightheartedly. “So, let’s try again. Answer for an answer.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
A dry laugh broke out, startling unseen birds into flight. “Oh, you know the answer.”
But I didn’t.
The ancient creature enjoyed a power play with Noctis. I could hear it in the cheery, raspy notes it spoke—and Noctis fell right into its wicked trap.
“Let’s play. I can hear your heartbeat. It sounds eager to join the game for answers.”
“No,” Noctis growled.
“A pity really. You’ll never hear how I slipped my chains—nor the name of the one who cut them.”
A gust of power slithered and sizzled along my mouth, burning as it masked my yelp.
The rotten smell emanating from the band turned my stomach, and I freed my hand from the tree branch to clasp at it.
Only for my fingers to fall straight through the restriction.
I clawed at the bind, yet nothing fell from my face.
The yell for help twisted into a measly whimper as if my vocal cords were clipped and unusable.
The Writherbought was proving it knew where I hid.
“I’ll order you once more,” Noctis seethed to the creature. “Tell me how you escaped and who freed you.”
He has no idea I’m being attacked.
The creature’s power burned through my skin, ripping tears down my face that sizzled and evaporated along the band of searing magic. The agony spread with unstoppable force, covering my ankles and wrists. They clamped together, tying my joints together atop the tree branch.
I writhed, but nothing came of it.
“You know him very well,” the creature's voice slid through the air like stones scraping down a mountainside.
It was still meters away, yet its control on me was fierce.
The creature realized it stumped Noctis.
“Godsire. Godsire.” The word scratched my ears. I heard it far away, then right in my face. Then, the word repeated in my other ear.
“Godsire.”
“Godsire.”
“Godsire.”
It repeated—over and over—each in a different location. What started as a whisper then amplified as a scream, tearing at my eardrums. Blood trickled down my face, but I couldn’t wipe it away in the constriction of the creature's power.
Energy burst through the forest, instead of resistance, my body settled into it before my mind caught up. Noctis’s magic. It rippled in a massive surge, and the creature’s repeating word halted.
My body toppled over the branch and crashed into the ground with a sickening crunch.
I pulled at the tight restraints, barely able to breathe, but the Writherbought held firm.
I felt so defenseless—eyes closed, arms and legs still tied together at the joints, and my body screaming in agony from the fall.
“Who set you free?” The demanding question from Noctis barely registered in my still ringing ears.
But the response from the creature slithered across my brain, through my body, into my bones.
“Your father, Noctis, the Godsire,” it answered out loud at last.
Crashes boomed, trees splintering as they were ripped from the ground and slammed into ones nearby, grunting from the god and the Writherbought as their powers rushed through the space.
It calmed for only a second, and two strong arms lifted me. Warmth bled into my side as a hand brushed across the top of my head. I whimpered against the touch.
“Look at me, Caelyn,” Noctis whispered softly.
I slowly peeked my eyes open, and reared back in response.
Four thinly slit rust-hued eyes stared back.
A wry, cracked grin split its lips, the leathery skin along its body fissured and leaking moldy, rotten ichor.
Although it had the body of a man of power, its limbs hung a fraction too long.
Joints bent with a slow, deliberate looseness that suggested they could hinge further if asked.
The air around it soured, thick with a damp, fungal rot that clung to the throat.
The Writherbought.
“You’re the one I came for.” Spit flew from its canine filled mouth, landing on my face and sizzling against the power still restricting my movements and speech. “And I was ordered to keep you alive, but there’s still time to play.”
I fought against the restraints, but to no avail, frantically searching my surroundings but unable to find Noctis. The searing pain amplified, and I snapped my attention back to the creature holding me.
“Show me the magic that courses through your blood,” it taunted with a malicious smirk plastering its cracked ivory skin.
The gag around my mouth released, instant relief flooding my system.
“I don’t have magic,” I spat, but the Writherbought only laughed in response.
Its eyes warped, all four sliding into the center and merging into two. They blinked and flashed crimson at the same time my body spasmed uncontrollably. Jeering aches rattled my bones, limbs flailing in all directions.
“Is that what they want you to think?” Its slimy voice slithered through my mind. “Well, we need you fully—”
A gust of wind slammed into the creature and caught me in mid air.
The other binds fell from my body along with the convulsions as the Writherbought crashed to the ground.
It disappeared before our eyes, a black smoke becoming what once was its ghastly body.
Then, the smoke gathered together meters away and formed the leathery creature whole again.
Noctis gently lowered my feet to the ground and wrapped his arm around my waist.
“Unfair. I wasn’t looking,” the words hit my ears like scratchy drums.
“Touch her again, and you’ll find my fury is the last thing you’ll ever feel,” Noctis snarled.
“Protective of one who cannot even remember you? That’s noble.” The Writherbought took three steps forward. “But I won’t return empty handed.”
“You won't return at all,” Noctis seethed.
The creature launched at him. They rolled across the forest floor, nearly taking me with them.
When they stopped tumbling, the Writherbought came out on top, his hands grasping the sides of the god’s face. Noctis’s eyes widened, and his skin flushed pale almost instantly. He struggled momentarily, scratching at the claws that gripped him.
The Writherbought was draining the life from his body.
Tightness gripped the organs against my sternum. Palming a throwing blade, I flicked it toward the beast. It implanted into its shoulder but did not stop harvesting from Noctis. I sprinted toward them, but my feet dragged like concrete through quicksand. I couldn’t force them to move faster.
My body burned, every nerve ending scorched and searing beneath my skin.
Noctis’s head fell limp.
And I was ready to destroy the realm in his name. I threw my hands forward, and a mass of spiraling wind flew from my palms and into the beast. It crashed into the nearest tree, crunching echoing through the canopies.
Holy shit.
Right as my next blade impaled it between the eyes.
I didn’t know how I’d used Noctis’s power through the Blood Tie. But I didn’t care at that moment. I replayed the memory in my mind as I dragged Noctis through the forest, trying to feel the energy in my veins. Not because I cared to feel the power but because I needed to save him.
Noctis’s heavy body became difficult to maneuver, and I begged for his power to flow through me just so I could get him to help on the breeze quicker. If the gods allowed that one favor, I could live the rest of my life powerless in reciprocation.
His skin felt on the distant edge of a lonely winter, but his heart still faintly beat, reminding me that he fought against his demise.
When my body physically protested pulling him through the brush of the forest floor, I checked his breathing, waiting for the color to rush back to his face.
It didn’t. Then, I continued trying to get him to someone—to safety outside the canopies of the trees.
My own body followed suit with him, each step weighted down in lethargy.
The villages illuminated the night sky, casting a soft glow that sprinkled across the land like stars.
In different circumstances, I would have been mesmerized by nature's beauty in the Aetherkin Bound.
I would have envied the peace that emanated there.
Instead, I pushed myself harder to drag my unconscious Blood Tie into that same peace, knowing it would stir up an uncommon amount of disarray.
I was so close. But I was also so close to just falling over and decaying in the foliage alongside Noctis.