Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“Cerise!” Oberon shouted, his voice distant like a dream. Tender fingers found her cheeks. Swept hair from her face. Felt for breath over her lips. “Cerise!”
She was floating in the dark. There was no pain. Just a steady quiet like drifting below welcome waters.
“No, you don’t get to do this to me. Not now.”
A splash of something salty and warm invaded her fading. A tear?
“Please, Mirvadel, grant me this one last blessing and I’ll never ask anything of you ever again. Please bring her back. Don’t let Hrisadael take her.”
Her nose tickled. Something soft yet prickly pressed against her face.
“Please.”
Like being swept away by the tide, Cerise flowed back into herself with a gasp, a searing pain blazing through her gut.
Her eyes shot open, Oberon’s golden-brown hair in her nose, his beard pressed against her face as he cradled her in one arm, rocking, his warm tears streaking down both their cheeks.
His other broad palm pressed against her wound, and where his blood mixed with her own, it glowed with Mirvadel’s blessing.
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he whispered, squeezing Cerise close.
The dead skin, muscle, and intestine purged from her body in brief, burning eruptions through the hole in her gut. She writhed against the sensation that was like being stabbed from the inside, but as quick it started it stopped, a relieving numbness spreading as her body repaired and closed.
Only a puckered mark, in the shape of Vraethik’s hand, remained.
“You said you weren’t injured badly,” Oberon chided, holding her against his chest, his other hand lifting to stroke her cheek.
“I never said that. I never said anything.” Cerise raised a weak arm, swiping away a tear with her thumb. Unable to look away from him, she slid her fingers through his thick hair, then let her hand drift down his neck, and rest on his chest.
A disapproving chuckle escaped him, and he pressed his firm lips to her forehead with tender intensity, as if he wished to never let her go.
But he had to. Behind him, the first stars twinkled in the bruise-colored sky. It was getting dark and they had no absorber or shelter.
“We need to go,” she whispered.
He rested his chin on her head and hugged her tight one more time before unwinding his arms and helping her rise to her feet.
She grunted with discomfort, the destroyed skin on her gut blazing and the heaviness in her leg threatening to pull her back down to the ground.
“Lean on me,” Oberon commanded, threading an arm beneath hers and carrying some of her weight.
She did, leaning into his side, letting him support more weight than she was used to with Beloved. A shuddering pain wracked through her with each step, and she gritted her teeth against the limp, focusing on simply moving forward. One step at a time.
When they were halfway through the plains the last sun rays diminished, sky blanketed in violet night.
Hazy, green wisps rose from the ground, a brief panic stopping Cerise’s heart as she wondered if this was Azkanix’s remnant spirit released from Vraethik now pouring forth to end the plane of the living once and for all.
But the wisps wavered and bent, coalescing in dozens of vague, human shapes.
The spirits of adults and children weaved before them, some peasants from long-destroyed farms, massacred clerics from Itraqel’s temple, and the templars and soldiers who fell on these plains.
Those who died beneath Azkanix’s armies. Those whose bones Vraethik abused.
The ghosts faced Cerise and Oberon, ethereal forms blurred like smudged paint. Some simply stared, then turned their backs on the pair before gliding into the forest. Others lifted a hand, beckoning them to follow, before trailing into the dark.
Cerise and the prince glanced at each other.
Uncertain. Awed. Woeful. They wanted to lead them somewhere.
But where? Were they in control of themselves and trying to lead them to shelter?
Or were they under another curse and would lead Cerise and Oberon to their demise?
With no other option, the prince and Cerise silently communicated they had no choice but to trust the spirits.
Following their misty, glowing forms, Cerise wondered if the shades of these people wandered the tarnished plains each night.
Or did they rise from their rest only to guide them?
She had a terrible, sinking sense it was the former.
Yet now, rather than aimless meandering around their corpses, they had a purpose.
They followed the spirits through the forest and plains, the ghosts pale illumination lighting their path, shimmering off cursed trees and crystallized snow.
The bitter cold of night seeped through Cerise’s clothes, pressed against her skin, tightening each cord of muscle and constricting her skin.
Despite the prince’s fading warmth, his chattering teeth louder than their heavy footsteps, he kept a firm grip around her, preventing her freezing body from collapsing.
Cerise didn’t know how long they walked. She didn’t let herself think about it, needing to simply focus on taking one step at a time. If she tried to tilt her head back to find the moon through the trees, she’d surely sway back on her feet and fall to the ground, unable to rise again.
Eventually, the forest thinned, forcefully chopped away by human hands.
A structure as tall as the nearby forest’s gnarled treetops sprawled through the clearing.
Its decayed, wooden beams splintered the walls and caved in fragments of the roof.
The spirits dispersed through the area, standing beside the decomposing building, at the perimeter of the cursed trees, and stared at Cerise and Oberon, waiting.
Heat infused the air around the building, steam drifting through gaps.
The prince exhaled a sigh of relief, tinged with manic, disbelieving laughter. “This is it—the lodge I told you about with the natural hot springs. I can’t believe it’s still here.”
The promise of warmth, shelter, and safety livened Cerise’s bones. Rest was in sight. And despite all the odds against them, they’d survive the night.
Oberon and Cerise trundled through the snow.
When their feet hit the first ice and mold covered step, the dim light from the spirits evaporated.
She looked over her shoulder to see the last vestiges of the ghosts disappearing back into the forest, returning to their bones.
Gratitude and sorrow clenched her chest, and as the back of her eyes stung, she asked Zyrdriel and Mirvadel—the two Celestials who seemed to be listening after all—to grant the trapped spirits peace.
Oberon helped her climb the few stairs, then led her through the lodge.
Fallen beams littered the floor and deformed the walls.
They took careful steps to avoid tripping over logs or colliding with protruding slats of wood.
When he first mentioned the space, she’d assumed it was only for clerics—a small, singular space where a few could bathe.
But it was also a rest area for weary travelers with dilapidated bedrooms extending from short hallways.
Oberon led her through a foyer with a crumbling hearth, past a rusted kitchen, and to the massive back room of the lodge where the natural hot springs steamed.
The pools lay beneath glistening stars, the ceiling long since rotted away from moisture and neglect.
Even so exposed, the room remained hot and humid.
The prince led her to the largest spring, guiding her to the floor.
Her body sang with the relief of sitting, of finally relaxing her muscles, and she shivered as the rising heat fought against the deep cold in her body.
Oberon disappeared, footsteps creaking through the old building.
Once sensation returned to her fingers, she stripped off stiff clothes until she was in nothing but her thin woolen underclothes.
Rolling up the pants, she dipped her toes into the steaming water, a sigh singing through her body as the heat swept through her feet and up her tired legs.
A ledge beneath the water bordered the pool, creating a space for people to sit.
Instead of plunging in, she kept her feet planted on the step, water rippling against her calves.
She wished to remove all her clothes and submerge, letting the warmth soothe the bulging ache in her knee.
But Oberon’s footsteps approached, their heaviness echoing against the aging floorboards, and the thought of revealing all her damaged, scarred body to him made her shrivel into herself.
Instead, she cupped her hands, pooling water in her palms, then swept it over her face, through her hair, wiping away the grime and blood.
The prince returned with a bundle of frayed blankets and flat pillows in his arms. He laid them out saying, “These were the best I could find. Not great, but better than nothing.”
Blankets. What a treasure after these nights sleeping beneath clothes.
“I found these, too.” Crumbling soap bars sat in his open hands. “I’m not sure how much good they’ll do, but we can at least pretend to be clean.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking one from him and dunking it beneath the water, cleaning the dirt from between her fingers.
Oberon stripped off his clothes, laying them gently on the ground, until he too, was in nothing more than thin underclothes that did little to hide his physique.
“Do you mind if I fully undress? I’d rather not get my only pair of clothes wet.”
“Do what you must,” she replied, focusing on cleaning her lower legs, her forearms, neck. Anything to keep herself from staring at the prince as he undressed.