“Pah! Mean, she calls me. As if I didn’t tell her the truth, her past,” Marilsa snarled, lurching to her feet with the aid of her staff as the ground dipped and swelled.
“What good does that do me?” Aida shouted, stomping her foot again, her hands in creaking fists as she stared unblinking at the old woman. “I can’t do anything about what’s happened. I can’t save my parents. I can’t change what Otaso did. I can’t even protect myself from Er’it!”
“You have a choice now, girl, and if you stick your head in the sands, ignore everything calling to you in this very moment, you’re more a fool than I thought you were,” Marilsa snapped, stumbling away from Aida and the sputtering fire. Using her staff for balance, still scarce able to keep her feet, she made it to the sturdy oak that had held true while Aida’s magic ran wild before.
“I don’t know what to do!” Aida’s wordless scream of frustration spiraled into the canopy. The shriek of birds followed, along with the rustling rush of other hidden creatures of the forest. All of them bolted for some safety in a blind race away from the surging power that lit up the clearing. As if the full moon of winter hung just there, its light held tight and close around the young woman glowing from within.
Power arced from her fingers to the ground, shimmering over her skin in jagged lightning bolts. Her eyes were inky wells of darkness in all that light. The glittering shards of starlight pricking the midnight shade seemed to soar across the liquid blackness of her gaze. More wild threads of magic connected her to the earth, tying her to the spot. It fed off the eerie cerulean glow, pulling at her as the energy grew, then collapsing upon itself only to redouble with the surge of Aida’s emotions. The anger, hurt, and betrayal tangled through her thoughts and sent vivid swells of light rushing through the air and slamming into tree trunks, exploding the spindly brethren of the mighty giants into kindling.
“This is your choice, girl,” Marilsa shouted over the howling wind of whispering voices. Stabbing her staff into the softening earth, she clung to it and the tree, struggling to remain upright.
It sprung from the ground with a vicious roar made of silence and death, grabbing hold of the brilliant light and snarling it in ragged fingers of darkness. Sucking it down between jagged teeth, it mauled the azure glow with blackened claws.
The thing from the dungeon. Aida tasted it on her tongue—the evilness, the hatred, the endless time of it. Its infernal claws raked over her skin, gnawing at her flesh. Forcing her head down, she watched in horror as the vivid welts of old appeared on her arms. Dark as pitch against the light, it sundered the brilliant illumination. Crosshatches of blackness grew wider, longer, swallowing up her flesh bit by bit.
Aida screamed as she clawed at her arms to rid them of the darkness, only to find yet more slithering its way up her skin. Fear, her constant companion and coming to hand so easily, lunged through her at the sight. Limning her heart in ice, freezing her lungs to steal her breath, it would kill her this time. Otaso was gone, no longer controlling it… if he ever did. There would be no rescue from it this time, no healing salve to wipe away the agonizing pain.
Brittle as old paper, the yell echoed through the clearing. In a display of strength Aida would never have thought the old woman capable of, Marilsa rushed across the clearing with her staff held high. Aida didn’t try to block the blow as the rounded end of gnarled wood soared toward her head. It would end now, and that was all that mattered.
The shock rattled down her spine, splintering into a thousand ragged bolts of pain and shivering down her limbs as Aida fell to the ground with a quiet groan that made it no farther than her lips. A trembling of arms and legs crumpled upon the dewy grass, she stared up at the sky, the cold glare of stars a fitting sight to her end. Blackness edged her vision, threatening to take it away. Hoping it would be swift, a line appeared between her brows as it began to clear. Though pain lingered, it was not the throbbing ache or splitting head she expected. Hauling herself upright, Aida looked around with wide eyes, uncertain and more than a little terrified of what she would find.
Marilsa lay in a heap within arm’s reach, her staff shattered into pieces no bigger than Aida’s pinky. Black blood trickled from the corner of her slack lips, the odd angle of her neck dredging memories of the soldier Otaso murdered to Aida’s mind. Aida’s whine was thin and shrill as she crawled over to Marilsa, grabbing hold of a gnarled hand. Bitter tears slipped down her cheeks as she willed the blue light back into existence. Groaning, she strained to push some measure of whatever power she contained into the crone who looked not half so menacing now.
“Don’t die,” Aida pleaded in a broken whisper, clutching Marilsa’s hand all the tighter.
“It is my time.”
Aida swallowed her shriek, pulling Marilsa’s hand up to clutch it against her chest. Shuffling closer, she smoothed back the tattered fringe of Marilsa’s hair. “But you can’t. Please. I don’t want anyone else to die because of me.”
“Not your choice,” Marilsa whispered, her lips tipping up into a ghost of a smile. “I am old, girl. Older than I should be. No one should live with seeing all that I have. I have made right my wrongs as best I could.”
“No, please!” Aida whimpered, bending low over Marilsa. Her trembling hand smoothed over ratted strands, stroking Marilsa’s crown to offer some comfort to them both.
“Make it right. Save yourself.” Marilsa coughed, blackened crimson spattering over the pallid gray of her chin. “Find your Er’it. Save him, too, if you’ve a mind.”
Breath leaving her in a rattle sounding much like the awful chuckle of her humor, Marilsa’s bright green gaze dimmed. Light snuffed out in an instant, there was nothing but a weak bag of bones left in its wake.
Aida did not imagine the serene set of Marilsa’s lips.
Though she began crying as hard as she ever had, sobbing over the broken body of a woman she could scarce call a friend, Aida hoped Marilsa’s words were true and prayed she had wanted this, that she had done whatever she did knowing this could be the outcome. Still, it was another death laid at Aida’s feet, another life lost because of her. Scrubbing the back of her hand against her cheek, Aida cried hard enough to gag and sputter. Pulling the small knife and its sheath from Marilsa’s belt and stuffing it into the bag of food, Aida gained her feet and looked around the clearing, crying all the harder for what she saw.
Lush greenery had blackened, oily sludge replacing the tufts of long grasses in spots. So fouled in places Aida wondered if it wasn’t worse than it had been, the places not affected by the putrid blackness were starker and all the more fragile for it. Bastions of emerald and moss, delicate purples and pinks—all trembled at the encroaching shadows.
Aida fell to her knees, retching into the muck. Gagging harder as the scent of dead, rotten things infiltrated her senses, she threw herself backward, scrambling away from the festering decay until she could drag in a breath not tainted by it. Even then, she shuddered and choked.
A rustling in the woods made her shriek, sending her feet sliding through drifts of crispy leaves and sludge alike while she hurried away from the thunder storming closer by the second. Catching a glimmer of something dark and ominous through the remains of a blossoming limb, she turned and ran, sprinting her way through the forest and away from whatever danger might lie behind her.
Chapter 5
Er’it
Kal slowed to a walk, tossing his head and snorting. The brilliant white light dimmed, fading to nothing more than his usual silken gray as he picked his way through a tangle of vines and fallen timbers. The Phylix raised his head, seeking something in the wind, the failure to find it aggravating him all the more.
“It’s all right, old friend,” Er’it murmured as he slid from Kal’s back, patting the bunched muscles of Kal’s shoulder as he moved ahead to peer through the seemingly impenetrable vines. It was not magic this time, no latent power creating illusions. Sturdy as anything, the thick vegetation refused to allow them passage. “We’ll have to find a way around it.”
Kal snorted and huffed, rearing up to send his thundering cry ricocheting through the dank trees. Sharp hooves slashed at the vines as good as any honed blade, but even with Kal’s will behind it, there was little progress. Decades of growth, layer upon layer, refused to submit to Kal’s destruction.
“You’re going to tire yourself, or worse. We’ll find a way around it.”
