14. Vireth #2
My lingering, relentless headache blessedly eases a fraction as I drift deeper down into the earth.
I sense fungal networks spreading outward in vast pale webs, connecting root to root and tree to tree in ways most people never suspect.
Through them, I can feel the forest stretching away in all directions, an unseen kingdom hidden beneath the visible one.
Perhaps that’s why I prefer mushrooms to flowers.
Flowers are ostentatious in their quest for admiration, but mushrooms simply tunnel through the earth, doing the work of holding the world together.
My lips curve in a small smile.
Nibblebones, who has been rooting industriously through a nearby patch of leaf litter in search of something unpleasant to eat, pauses long enough to glance in my direction before resuming her work. Wind stirs the canopy, sending shafts of honey-colored sunlight dancing across the forest floor.
Gods, at any other time, I might remain here for hours.
Slowly, carefully, I extend my awareness farther from my body, following the hidden pathways beneath the forest floor.
The sensation requires concentration because distance makes things more…
complicated. The details blur and the farther I reach, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish one forest from the next.
At first, everything seems to be as it should.
The earth is mostly healthy here. I sense a fox den beneath an exposed root system, a fallen cedar in the final stages of collapse, a patch of mold consuming a dead rabbit somewhere beyond the next ridge.
Life and death continue their endless exchange without interruption.
Then something catches—the sensation so faint I nearly dismiss it as my imagination. My brow furrows and my smile fades. Again I reach toward it, and again I find it. It isn’t quite a presence, but more of an absence—a place where the natural flow of things becomes distorted.
Heart racing, I press farther, and the mycelium respond almost instantly. Everything seems to bend and warp around this absence in a pattern that repeats itself again and again. I keep following it, and eventually the shape of the thing begins to emerge.
Concern and suspicion make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, as does the thrill of discovery. This isn’t a thing in itself. It is an absence, an outline. A place where things are where they should not be.
Unbidden, a memory surfaces unexpectedly.
When I was a youngling, I discovered an iron nail embedded in the trunk of an ancient oak near the western edge of Hollowmire.
Someone had hammered it there generations before my birth and forgotten it entirely.
The tree survived, of course—trees are stubborn things.
Yet every year thereafter, the wood grew around the nail, twisting subtly over it like a scab, and then a scar.
The absence reminds me of that nail. It isn’t rot, or disease, or poison, even—those things all have a natural signature to them.
This is unnatural, and frankly, unsettling.
Despite what my kith and kin would have me believe, decay belongs—even at its most destructive, it remains part of the natural order.
This, however, does not. The sensation settles heavily in my stomach, churning with the hunger that I cannot seem to sate lately.
I continue following the feeling of wrongness eastward until I find myself skirting up against a kingdom I recognize only from its rumored stagnation.
Valehar.
The distortion in the soil converges there in the same way rivers eventually converge upon the sea.
A chill passes through me, and I shudder involuntarily.
The capital lies many days away, and I shouldn’t be able to feel anything there.
But nevertheless, I am certain. With absolute surety, I know that whatever waits beneath Valehar is large enough, powerful enough, wrong enough that even the earth has begun adjusting itself around the wound.
Suddenly I am aware of my own body again—of pine needles beneath my knees, damp soil beneath my palms, the cold morning air filling my lungs. Despite the chill of the morning, sweat beads on my forehead and slicks my palms.
A twig snaps behind me and I whirl around. Ordinarily, I would have noticed Renard's approach long before he reached the clearing, but clearly, I’ve been distracted.
He stands at the edge of the clearing, still a bit worn and tired from his restless night. His silver and gold hair is mussed from sleep, and his beard has grown in a bit since I first dragged him half-dead from Hollowmire. Much to my annoyance, the additional scruff only improves matters.
Some men look disreputable with a beard. Renard merely looks more like Renard.
Of late, I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time considering precisely what sort of man appeals to me. Unfortunately, the answer is broad-shouldered, stubborn, honorable to the point of self-destruction, and decorated with battle scars and silver hairs.
A frustrating revelation, all in all. I had hoped to spend a considerable portion of my life in a cottage by the sea, where I could chuck any male trespassers over the cliffs to the gathering leviathans below. That feels… unlikely, now.
Renard’s gaze drifts over the clearing, taking in the mushrooms, the moss, and the collection of insects currently occupying a fallen log near my feet.
“You shouldn’t wander off alone,” he says, and I feel my ire rise that still he treats me like I’m a child, or like he has the right.
“Because you’re afraid I won’t be around to protect you from another attack? Fear not. I’m close enough to rush back to the inn if necessary.”
Renard folds his arms across his chest and scowls.
The posture would be less distracting if I hadn't spent the better part of the last week cataloging precisely how broad his shoulders are.
“Perhaps it is you who shouldn’t wander off alone,” I return, peevish and out of sorts. “I’d hate to think what might happen should your undeniable masculine urges surface and threaten your irrepressible chivalry.”
Renard’s cheeks flame and he swears under his breath. I’d meant to get a rise from him, but he seems genuinely embarrassed by being caught in the act of addressing his needs. Humans have such odd sensibilities.
He turns to leave, but I stop him.
“Renard.”
His attention returns immediately.
“What?” he grunts.
“What happened last night?”
“I told you what happened,” he says carefully.
“No.”
I fold my arms. “You provided a summary suitable for a council report.”
His brow furrows. “I hardly think—”
“I woke up on top of you, taking liberties, and somehow ended up with the taste of your blood in my mouth. You said the Blight Mother paid you a visit. The events are hardly connecting for me.”
“Do you truly remember nothing?”
“We certainly wouldn’t be having this horribly awkward conversation if I did,” I point out.
Renard stares. I stare back. Neither of us speaks. Above us, the wind stirs the branches. For the briefest of moments, I begin to think he will ignore the question and simply return to the inn.
“You were not yourself,” he says slowly, quietly, as though even now he is trying to form excuses for my behavior. It must have been particularly unseemly, I think with rising concern.
“I awoke in the night to find you sitting straight up in bed. You felt feverish to the touch. I made to find a doctor, but before I could, you became somewhat insistent about discussing our… situation,” he replies, pained.
“What does that mean?”
Renard’s visible discomfort reaches new heights. Again, he seems to be at war with himself, gauging the truth of the matter with how much he wants to divulge to spare both of us the embarrassment.
“By the gods, just tell me, Renard. I need to know how grandly I must apologize to you,” I huff.
“Your voice was… different. You spoke of balance, and the inevitability of this transformation. At the end, the Blight Mother made herself known. Apparently she exists inside you somewhere, somehow. She insinuated things of a rather prurient nature—and yes, at the end, she forced you to… to…”
He trails off, gesturing at the base of his neck.
“…to bite you?” I finish.
He nods, slumping with shame—though I cannot fathom why, since I am the one who harbors a dangerous, lustful goddess who can control me against my knowledge, or wishes.
“Well, that is all perfectly horrible,” I admit, finally coming to my feet and brushing the pine needs from my now muddy shift. “A thousand apologies, Renard. I fear they may be hollow since I wasn’t in control of my actions, but nonetheless, I offer them to you.”
“And you remember nothing else of it?” he asks again, sparking my suspicion.
“None. Why? Is there more?”
He shakes his head and mutters something unintelligible beneath his breath.
“What?”
He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, then gathers himself and begins again.
“I apologize for my inappropriate display last night,” he says, his face flushing beneath his beard. “I cannot say what came over me. It was uncouth and ungentlemanly behavior hardly befitting a knight of Valehar.”
I cannot resist the urge to tell him, “Ah, but you are a knight no longer.”
The expression on his face suggests he does not appreciate the veiled teasing.
I blow out a breath.
“Renard, in all our time together—though it be a short time in the grand scheme—I have been in a constant state of humiliation. My body is no longer within my control. My emotions too often run away with me. I have gone from spoiled, outcast daughter to harbinger of destruction, and now apparently an inn for a wayward goddess. I am ill-equipped for these changes and this quest. In fact, I’ve long believed I’m ill-equipped for most of the expectations set down for me in this world.
And yet, I find I’m no longer interested in apologizing for my lack.
I am who I am. I am what I am. I don’t yet understand how this all will play out, but I can only do my best.”