Chapter 19 The Waking Death
The Waking Death
I was stuck with Radven.
Octavian had been warm towards me since the moment I’d met him, and even Alastor had shown glimpses of protectiveness in the moments just before and after going through the portal, but Radven was…
something else. The more time I spent with him, the more mysterious he became to me.
Whenever he turned that sharp, green gaze on me, I couldn’t decide whether he was plotting how he would torture me or how he would undress me.
“It’s too risky for me to carry you across the river,” he said. “I’ll go first, and you come behind me and hold onto my belt.”
“Um,” I twisted, reminding him that my wrists were tied.
He whipped out a small knife and stepped behind me. A moment later, I felt the relief of my wrists being freed.
Now’s my chance, I thought. I can run back, find Laitha, and—
Radven caught me by the arm, and I was startled by the strength of the shiver that moved through me. In fact, my entire body was starting to feel jittery and strange, and the sensation was building quickly.
“Here,” Radven said. “You probably want to hold on to this.” He held out what appeared to be a string of pearls—or at least part of one. There were seven pearls threaded onto a long strand of twine.
“What is it?” I asked. “Where did it come from?”
“Laitha,” he said. “Safarian pearls. They act as a dampener of sorts. When you wear them, they limit your ability to sense and manipulate essence.”
“Ah.” I guess that explained why I’d been able to go this long without feeling like my skin was going to fall off again. Sure enough, when I reached out and took the pearls in my palm, the shiver in my skin came down to a manageable, even pleasurable level once more. “It helps, thank you.”
“For someone like me, holding a couple of pearls is enough to inhibit me from using any essence at all,” he said.
“And it would keep me from sensing most of it, too, except for situations where very large amounts were used. The fact that you can hold seven and still feel it…” He whistled.
“We were right about you, butterfly. But now Laitha knows, too. And she wanted to make sure you wouldn’t use essence against her, which is why she had these tied against your skin when you were bound up.
We’re lucky she was so careful, because they’re more useful to you than she realized. ”
He wrapped my hand around the pearls, holding my fingers closed over them.
“Until your body is used to essence, these should keep you from being overwhelmed,” he said. “But just as importantly, they will also prevent other people from sensing exactly how powerful you are. We’ll be able to travel more discreetly, without attracting attention.”
I had about a bazillion questions. “Do you mean—”
“We can discuss this more later,” he said. “We’ve delayed too long already. We need to go.” He released my hand. “Put those around your neck. The more contact with your skin, the better.”
When I didn’t immediately move, he grabbed them back from my hand, apparently deciding he didn’t trust me enough to do it myself. His hands came around my neck, his fingers brushing against my skin as he tied the ends of the twine together at my nape.
I was suddenly aware of how close his face was to mine, how intimate a position this was, with his arms around my neck and his fingers against my skin. I must have sucked in my breath, or made a small sound, because his forest green eyes snapped to mine.
Almost instantly, another one of those wicked smiles stretched across his lips. His eyes darkened, the pupils dilating as he looked down at me.
“Almost enough to make you forget about Oak?” he said.
I blinked. “What?”
“My brother. Octavian.” He tilted his head down just slightly, bringing his lips ever-so-closer to mine. “I know he kissed you at the masquerade.”
“Oh.” My cheeks blazed.
“I’m less interested in kissing.” That devilish grin widened, and his voice was honey-smooth when he added, “My interest lies in…other things.”
My face got even hotter. I could imagine what other things he meant all too well, and I could tell by that gleam in his eye that he knew exactly what I was thinking.
And then, abruptly, he pulled away, his smile disappearing as his gaze moved to the forest behind me.
“We need to get moving,” he said, cold and dangerous again. Whatever wickedness had been in his thoughts was gone.
Flushed and flustered as I was, the sudden shift in his demeanor left a knot in my stomach. I had a feeling that he’d have been perfectly content to continue flirting with me under different circumstances, but right now, there were more pressing concerns.
“Come on,” he said, heading down to the river’s edge. “Walk just behind me and hold onto my belt. I’ll lead the way across.”
I did as he said, grabbing the back of his belt and following him into the water.
It was freezing. And the current was stronger than it looked, pulling at my legs as I sloshed after Radven. The water came to my knees, then to my waist, but even when Radven’s belt was underwater I still held on, trusting that we’d get to the other side.
When had it become so easy to trust this dangerous man?
When we finally made it to the far bank, my soaked jeans clung uncomfortably to my legs, but Radven had no sympathy for me.
“We keep going,” he said. “We need to reach Far Meadow before dusk.”
He kept a grueling pace after that, and my legs weren’t happy with me—not just because I was wildly out of shape, but also because hauling ass in wet jeans meant major chafing—but we somehow made it to the edge of a valley just as the sunlight was starting to disappear.
“That’s Far Meadow down there,” Radven told me, nodding toward the small village below.
We stood at the edge of the forest, gazing down at the valley, and I had to admit it was a pretty little scene—the river curving lazily through fields of crops and sheep pastures, the landscape occasionally dotted with a pond or bushy copse of trees.
The village sat nestled in the heart of it all, fewer than two dozen little thatched-roof buildings.
Just like something out of Thrones and Kings, I thought. Hopefully with fewer ogres or evil dragons wanting to burn it all down.
“Wait here,” Radven told me. “Don’t step beyond the trees. And if you hear anything, duck inside this log.”
“Wait, where are you going?” I asked.
But he was already gone, slipping out of the trees and into the nearest field, which was growing some sort of golden grain that came all the way up to his chest.
I don’t know why I even bother asking questions, I thought, plunking down on the log he’d pointed out. He never gives me a straight answer.
Still, I was grateful for the opportunity to rest my feet, as well as the chance to admire the little village some more.
After everything I’d experienced today—weird shadow tentacles trying to kill me, pain that made it feel like my skin was falling off, being kidnapped by a strange woman who lived in a tree—this moment of beauty and stillness felt like paradise.
But it was marred by that knot in my belly, the one that wouldn’t let me forget about the way we left Octavian and Alastor, or that huge blast of essence we felt as we were running away.
I fingered the pearls around my neck. If I’d felt the blast that strongly while these were tied around my wrists and dampening the effect, how much worse had it been in reality?
A twig snapped somewhere behind me, pulling me out of my thoughts.
Immediately, I dropped to the ground behind the log. Another stick broke—the sounds were coming from somewhere off to my right—and then I heard a rustling, like something being dragged through leaves.
As quietly as I could, I crawled along the ground, around the end of the log.
This had once been an enormous tree, and when I reached a spot where it had started to crumble away, there was plenty of room for me to climb inside.
I drew myself up into a ball, knees hugged to my chest, and waited with bated breath.
There was someone—or something—moving toward me through the forest. They made no attempt to be stealthy, which meant they either didn’t know I was here or didn’t care that I knew. I prayed it was the former.
The closer they came, the more convinced I was that it wasn’t a person—the steps were too heavy, and I kept hearing a strange, snuffling sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
As the thing drew nearer, the flaky bark of the log trembled with its every step, until I could tell the creature was just outside, separated from me by nothing more than a single layer of decaying tree.
It smelled awful. Like garbage on a hot summer day, acrid and rotting. I gagged, clamping my hand over my mouth to keep from making any noise.
The very air around me felt hot and moist, like the beast was surrounded by its very own noxious sweat cloud. It made my eyes water.
It lumbered another heavy step, brushing against the side of my shelter, and part of the log gave way, decaying tree mass crumbling inward.
I was already sitting as still as I could, but now I was afraid to even breathe.
Around the edge of the disintegrating bark I could see dark matted fur that looked almost aubergine beneath the shadows of the trees.
Tiny drops of liquid clung to the wiry strands of hair, little beads of sweat or ooze or some other bodily secretion.
The smell was worse now that there wasn’t a barrier between us, and tears leaked out the corners of my eyes, no match for that stench.
The creature made a sound halfway between a grunt and a growl. And then it began snuffling again, wetly sniffing at the air.
It knows I’m here, I realized. It can smell me. I had no idea how the beast could detect anything beyond its own stench, but perhaps the scent of my soap smelled as foul to this creature as this creature did to me.
The snuffling intensified, moving down the length of the log, and I watched the bark quiver, bowing inward and starting to crumble when the beast pressed close.
The moist heat was becoming more oppressive, too, and the foul stench had separated into different notes—rotten fruit, decaying flesh, and the metallic tang of blood.
This is not how I want to die. I’d survived the shadowy Tendrils. Been painfully overwhelmed by essence. Been kidnapped by a powerful and apparently evil magic-wielder. I refused to be mauled by this creature, whatever it was.
It was close to my head, now—I could feel it pressing against the bark, breathing its foul breath by my ear. It let out a loud snuffle and then another one of those grunt-growls.
And then it released a short, piercing howl that nearly deafened me.
This is it. This is where I die. I braced myself for the beast to smash through the log and clamp its ooze-covered jaws around my throat, but instead, it released another sharp howl, this one clearly a cry of pain.
And then it drew back. Or at least, the stench and the moisture became less oppressive, and as far as I could hear, it was moving away from me—at a far quicker pace than it had come.
I rolled forward onto my hands and knees, wondering if I should make a break for it. But before I could decide whether or not it was wise to come out of hiding, Radven appeared at the opening to the log.
“Good, you’re all right,” he said.
“What the hell was that thing?” I crawled forward, still trying to get that stench out of my nose. When I was free of the crumbling tree, I twisted around, looking in the direction I’d heard the creature run, but I saw nothing—except a trail of dark blood along the forest floor.
“Boarlath,” Radven answered grimly. “They call it the Waking Death. It shouldn’t have been in these parts.”
“So it just came by to wish me hello? How kind of it.” Still a little shaky, I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand, dabbing away the tears. At least I could breathe freely again, but that stench still lingered in the air, clinging to the insides of my nostrils.
“Something’s wrong,” he said, ignoring my poor attempt at humor. He walked the length of the log, occasionally crouching down to inspect a gash in the wood or a spot of blood. “I’ve never seen a boarlath outside of the Snowcrown Mountains.”
Seeing the dangerous, roguish Radven so concerned was making me even more nervous than I already was. “Did you…kill it?”
It was a stupid question, considering I didn’t see a giant, foul-smelling corpse in front of us, but Radven didn’t treat it as one. He shook his head, rising from where he’d been inspecting a small pool of blood.
“No. But it has one of my daggers in its throat and another in its eye. It won’t make it far.” He turned and glanced in the direction the creature had retreated, and I wondered if he meant to go after it and finish the job, but he seemed to think better of it.
“Come on,” he told me. “We need to get down to the inn.”
The crease in his forehead belied his easy, ambling stride as he strolled past me to the edge of the trees. There, he bent down and grabbed a bundle of fabric he’d apparently dropped when he’d switched into beast-slayer mode.
“I stole these off a clothesline for you,” he said. “Put them on.”
What he’d grabbed, it turned out, was a simple, off-white dress, as well as another tunic-like garment that was pale brown with laces up the bodice.
Apparently my confusion showed on my face, because Radven pointed to the off-white fabric and said, “This one first. The other goes on top.”
“But why do I have to wear this?”
He didn’t say anything, just gave the jeans and T-shirt I was wearing a meaningful look.
“Stupid question, got it,” I said, looking down at the stolen garments again. I guess this wasn’t really any different than all those times I’d gotten dressed up to go to the Ren Faire back home, or when I’d cosplayed at the regional fantasy convention.
“We need to be as inconspicuous as possible,” he said. “Which means from this point on, you’re not Marigold from the United States or another world. You’re going to have to play a part.”
“And what part, exactly, is that?” I asked. “Tavern wench?”
He grinned one of those wicked grins. “It’s your lucky day, butterfly. You get to be my wife.”