22. Chapter Twenty- One
Chapter Twenty- One
As we pushed deeper into the rotting forest, a snarl tore from me. “This place feels like it belongs in Dorchadas—the rot, the shade, the way it breathes wrong. So why isn’t it there?”
I thought of the serpent-thing that had appeared in the First Forest and shuddered.
Tairngire stilled, shadows clinging to him. Slowly, he turned to look at me. “You speak its name too freely,” he warned.
I rolled my eyes. “The gods fear nothing but that realm. Everyone knows it. So why is this forest here, in Morhaven?”
He shifted his gaze to a groaning tree. “Because once, Dorchadas wasn’t separate.
Before your temples and scrolls, the realms were one.
When the Fates spun their second Weave, they cut away the shadows—but not cleanly.
” He gestured to the blackened trees, the fetid air.
“This is what was left. A scar. Decay too deep to rip out.”
The words scraped my bones. “A scar.”
His eyes glinted, sharp as moonlit blades. “Morhaven is full of them. Forgotten places, frayed threads. Your temples worship it, but it has always been the most fragile.”
Fragile. The word felt like a dull blade. Fragile meant breakable. And Morhaven did seem like a place on the verge of breaking, with its stinking villages and plagues.
“If it’s so fragile,” I asked slowly, “how do mortals not destroy it?”
He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes.
“They do, eventually. Then the Old Gods purge it. Every mortal soul is drawn into Anamcroí until the cleansing is finished. Then the realm reconnects to the Weave and souls return. Whole again…until mortals unravel it all over. Again and again, the cycle repeats.”
What?
Every time I thought that the gods cruelty couldn’t get any worse, I learn something else more fucked up than the last.
“So…is a purge coming, then?”
“These mortals have more time than you think.” His gaze flicked to the trees. “But the shadows remain. Those who never found their way home. Hungry enough to cling to what isn’t theirs.”
A chill prickled my skin.
We walked on. The forest seemed to swallow us whole the deeper we went. Trees pressed close, blotting out what little light the small moon here provided. My chest ached with the weight of it, until I realized I was leaning toward Tairngire—not touching, but near enough to feel his warmth.
His chuckle rumbled. “Keep sliding closer, and I might think you’re starting to enjoy yourself.”
I shot him a glare. “This place disturbs me more than you do. Don’t get used to it.”
His expression remained smug, maddening as ever. I rolled my eyes. “How deep are we going?”
“Deeper,” he said simply.
I let out a frustrated groan. “Is there even a destination?”
He stopped, the dim light cutting across his jawline. “We’re retrieving something. And you’re going to find it.”
I snorted, rather ungracefully. “With what tools? You know I can’t summon my Sight at will. The colors of the Weave are all I can choose to see.”
His expression was suspiciously patient. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. I saw you in the forest that day, when you touched the roots. You felt more than you wanted to admit.”
The memory surged—tendrils of life coiling up my arms, Anamcroí’s pulse echoing through me until I thought it might break me open. I swallowed hard.
“Don’t deny it,” he said. “You think your Sight is only colors and bonds. But it’s more. It’s always been more. You’re just too stubborn to see it.”
A low, guttural sound cut the next words from my tongue. Tairngire stilled instantly. His head snapped toward the clearing up ahead.
Shapes slunk out of the dark, hulking and wrong. Wolves—or they should’ve been. Too broad in the shoulders, too human, eyes fever-bright, jaws frothing. Unnatural.
The very same monsters that I’d seen in my vision in Anamcroí the first time I'd ever spilled blood.
One stepped forward, white as bone, its red gaze cutting through the pack. Their leader.
Before I could move, Tairngire’s arm yanked me back, pressing me against yet another rotting tree, his body caging mine. Every line of him tensed.
I really hoped he wasn't planning on making a habit of this whole shoving-against-a-tree situation.
“What are they?” I whispered, perhaps this was when I would finally get the answers I’d been seeking. This was an opportunity.
His breath ghosted my ear. “Mortals call them werewolves.”
I swallowed thickly. “And why do you look afraid?”
Because he was. And I had to fight the urge to laugh. I’d taken one of them down before, and with him by my side, I had no doubt we could take them all.
“They don’t answer to me,” he said finally, gaze locked on the white wolf. “They answer to another.”
Cryptic. But the look in his eyes held no room for mockery. It was something else. Something uncharacteristically grim. My stomach was tied in knots. The look on his face wasn’t one I was accustomed to seeing.
I shifted under his arm, leaning out. I needed to get a better look…
His hold clamped down like an iron forge. “Where do you think you’re going?” he hissed, dragging me tighter against the tree.
I turned my head, daggers in my eyes. “Away from suffocating under your arm, for one. Unless you plan on keeping me like some caged bird while you glare at the beasts?”
His mouth twitched, but his grip held.
“Can you trust me?” I bit out. “Or will you continue to keep me chained me like the Old Gods?”
I’d struck where it hurt, an advantage. A sound tore from him, half growl. His hold eased, just enough for me to turn my head and look at the creatures.
The pack shifted, the white wolf lifted its head, eyes burning. It clearly sensed something amiss. My Sight unfurled, and I saw them. Tethered. Every twisted werewolf was wrapped in black thread, thick as tar. In service to Karthmor. Just like I’d thought.
“They’re bound,” I whispered.
Tairngire’s head snapped, then asked me a question he damn well knew the answer to. “Bound to what?”
“Karthmor, the King of Ash.”
His body went rigid. “And just how do you know that?”
I smirked, savoring—for once—the edge of knowledge I had, even though he also knew the answer to that question as well. I rolled my eyes.
“Because I see bonds.” I replied, tone mocking. “All seven. I know what they mean. We’ve been over that. And this,” my gaze flicked to the wolves “is a chthonic bond.”
For a beat, silence roared between us, thicker than the wolves’ snarls. His jaw ticked, face stoic, unwilling to give me the satisfaction of his fear—but I knew it was there, I felt it down the bond.
I gasped as my Sight ripped me under, fierce and unprovoked.
The white wolf’s form wavered, bones snapping until a man knelt in its place—pale skin, dark hair damp with sweat, head bowed beneath the shadow of an obsidian throne.
Above him, a figure was cloaked in darkness. I couldn’t see his face, only the shadow of him, suffocating and endless as the void. His voice rolled like lightning over stone.
“Morhaven. Retrieve it. At all costs.”
The kneeling man raised his head, and I caught sight of his face. There was reverence in his eyes, and also…fear. “I will find it, master. The Obsidian Heart.”
My mind was reeling, the forest spun sideways. I would have hit my knees if Tairngire hadn't pulled me back up by my elbow. Bile scalded in my throat. My blade had torn through one of these before. I hadn’t killed a monster. I had carved down a man.
Blood on my hands. A human life.
My blood went ice cold. I choked on the weight of it, shame clawing up my ribs. The sacred realm where no blood should ever spill, and I’d spilled mortal blood. The worst kind.
I felt Tairngire’s grip on my chin, pulling it up to look into his emerald depths, now glowing. “You’ll break if you stay in those thoughts, Little Seer,” he said, voice low, almost gentle—as if he had read my mind. “And you don’t have the luxury of breaking. Not now.”
“You knew…” I choked out.
It was so obvious now. He knew what I’d done. He knew I’d walked into the Elder’s hut that night thinking that I would be executed for my actions. He didn’t tell anyone, I was certain. But he knew.
And he never once came to help me when I needed it.
“Now tell me. What did the Sight reveal, and do not lie to me this time,” he whispered in my ear, accusation in his tone.
The name scorched my tongue. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t hold it back. “The Obsidian Heart.”
His body went rigid. His jaw clenched once, twice, like the word tasted of poison. His hold tightened. “Where were you when you heard it?”
I finally forced myself to look him in the eye again. “In a vision. I’ve already said too much. My Sight does not belong to me, nor you.”
The forest around us hushed. His hand stayed on my chin as he searched my eyes.
I flinched as his fingers brushed the leather at my thigh. He slid my dagger from its sheath, the edge catching the starlight. The touch was not meant to be intimate, but my traitorous body reacted to the gesture anyway.
“This blade has tasted blood.” His eyes caught mine.
“You know how to use it, Little Seer. And as much as I’d enjoy further witnessing this violent streak of yours, I’d rather not do it right now.
” He held the dagger angled back toward me.
His grip was firm, but he didn't offer it yet.
“I’ll take this fight. You stay here. I can't have you distracting me enough that one slips loose and is able to report your presence back to their master.”
Shame coursed through my blood. It was a command, another collar, and he mocked me in the process.
Damn it.
And yet, I couldn’t tell if the fire burning through me was fury, or relief. I suddenly didn’t want any more blood on my hands, not after everything I’d seen tonight. And the thing about secrets is that they're better shared, when there's someone else to feel the weight of them.
“Tell me you’ll listen,” he whispered, lips barely touching my jawline, dagger lingering between us. "Please."
I couldn’t form words, so I just nodded.
He nodded once. “Good. Keep this close. Just in case.”
He pressed the dagger back into my hands and left me there behind the tree, shaking.