“Pah, she’s not a mage, just a—”
“Do. Not. Say it.” Rhyn heaved a huge breath, scrubbing a palm over his face and up into his hair. Clenching the red-gold locks in a tight fist, he shot Aida a sidelong glance. Features smoothing, he slid from anger to the curiosity that seemed to guide him as often as instinct. Jerking himself out of a considering frown, he turned to Miyenth and gave a firm shake of denial. “No. It’s too dangerous.”
“We only have her word on it. How do we even know it’s true?”
“Your magic doesn’t work on her, so you want to see if… that woman can do something you cannot? Are you even listening to yourself?”
“She’s helped us before.”
“Once, Miyenth. She helped us once, and it cost us dearly.”
“You worry too much, Rhyn. I think she would be more interested in this than in making us pay.”
Rhyn threw up his hands, letting them slap hard against his thighs. Glancing at Aida once more, he chewed at the wiry bristles decorating his lower lip, considering what he seemed so intent to deny. Muttering under his breath, he stalked away, reaching back to snatch Miyenth’s arm at the last moment. Dragging her after him, he moved them far enough away that Aida could no longer hear their intense, hissing whispers.
Now could be her chance to sneak away to where the horses were hobbled and pluck a knife from some random pack. To a man, they bristled with arms of all kinds, and even an arrow would do. Sucking her lips in between her teeth and trying to hide her actions, Aida looked through the tangled mess of her hair to make sure none paid her any attention. Knowing she failed as every man within sight turned, their sullen gazes boring into her, she bowed her head over the shank of meat and the waterskin clutched in her hands. She’d been foolish to think she could sneak through a camp of thieves.
Hands trembling as her stomach lurched, a rush of ice burning through her chest, Aida wondered if she wasn’t being foolish altogether to think she could kill herself, plunging a dagger into her heart. Gasping though her lungs remained frozen, refusing to take in precious sips of air, the bitter welling of emotion slipped over the rim of her lashes. Bleak rivulets, raw and stinging, coursed down her paling cheeks, chilling her to the marrow as she stared unseeing at the smeared blur of the forest floor at her feet.
A hint of cedar teased her senses. Warm and musky, it stung her raw nose all the same. Somehow, she felt the yearning for Er’it’s rough touch even then, knowing he wouldn’t let her do it, understanding he’d kill her in the end as well. Still, she cried into her upturned knees while the memory of his coarse palm slipping down her back peeled away her resolve bit by bit. The fever dream of his lips against hers plunged Aida into an Abyss of her own making. Her despondent thirst to know the world when she had squirmed under Otaso’s rule was as dust to her hunger for the man who made her blood sing. He’d given her that same world, shoving her into it headlong and heaping an endless wealth of emotions she could not begin to cope with on her head. She wanted it all—his fury, his annoyance, his need. Heart thumping out a cadence that resounded in her ears with the strangeness of his name, Aida sobbed.
The anguished circle of her thoughts broken by ragged shouting, she jerked upright. Wild gaze darting around the clearing for what new danger came to befall her, Aida could not understand why the men hunched on the ground. She saw no malignant presence, no evidence of magic as she knew it, yet she found Miyenth limp in Rhyn’s arms, half sprawled across the forlorn earth with nothing but the whites of rolling eyes showing.
Aida toppled backward off the fallen log as the ground did not just tremble but shook. Furious shudders rippled through the distorted trees, the tangled growth rattling and hissing. A roar of whispers murmured in her ears as Aida sought the source of such a thing.
She screamed as she found it, her skin alight with an eerie blue-white glow that sizzled and crackled. Arcing out in vicious forks to create a field of lightning in shades of summer sky and bleak winter, it did not crawl up her arms as she knew magic to do. There was no coating of it just above tender flesh, like a glove of light and power. This light came from her, seeping from her hands and face, turning her tunic gauzy with the brilliance of it.
Slamming through the incandescent glow, it pierced the ground like a well-honed knife. As crooked and knotted as the woman wielding it, the blackened staff refused the frigid glow. Darkness a shield around it, it sank deeper still as Aida continued to scream her terror into the dimming sky. This shouldn’t be happening, not with Er’it’s medallion sitting precious and solid between her breasts, the metal molten against her. Scrabbling fingers melting into the murky ground, Aida felt its softness. Malleable, vicious, angry—it wanted something from her she couldn’t understand. It was the same as she’d felt in Otaso’s dungeon, the presence that clawed and bit, choking and punching, leaving Aida too weak to even cry out in pain. It, too, wanted something from her.
It was coming for her now.
The woman above her guffawed, croaking a rattle that sounded more like death than humor. She hauled the staff free of the dirt, bringing the knobbed end down on the side of Aida’s head where it landed with a sickening crack.
Blackness. Complete and void of any sensation other than the cold permeating her bones. Aida wanted to sob, though she wasn’t sure if it was in relief or terror. It was too much like the dungeon, but the awful light remained quiet. Thoughts skipping in mad, rushing dashes, she wondered if this was death, the Abyss swallowing her up piece by piece until there was nothing left of the young woman she once was.
“What is she?”
Not dead then. Miyenth’s trembling voice permeated the darkness, bringing a flutter of lashes, crusted and tacky with decrepit tears. Forcing her eyes open, Aida squinted at the bright light of the day blinding her, groaning as it punched through the back of her skull.
“An Omega.” The woman leaned over Aida, blocking the light with the ratted edges of gown and hair, each blending with seamless destruction into the other. Her face bore the ragged brunt of time and wear, each heavy fold parchment thin and fading to dust. Frayed locks, mottled and streaked in a patchwork of mossy gray and pitch, swayed around Aida’s face as the woman bent low with the aid of her staff. “Ripe as well. I’d say you were ready to pluck in a day or two, but it seems someone already has.”
Brow furrowing, Aida pressed back into the warm ground to put more space between her and the strange woman. It made the crone laugh, the hideous rattling sound ricocheting through the trees and slamming around Aida’s skull. Hand coming to her temple, Aida felt the syrupy warmth of blood staining her hair and cheek.
“Yes, hit you right upside that pretty head. Going to tell me your worth as Rhyn Lirkinson wishes you to?” Eyes the brilliant green of emeralds and showing no sign of her age narrowed, pinning Aida with their cold light.
“Thank you,” Aida whispered in a parched, tight voice.
The woman crowed, head tipped back as her bent body refused to. Everything about her was in tatters, drifting in a wind that only touched her and sent her hair flicking and dancing, the raveled edges of her gown fluttering.
“Hear that, Rhyn Lirkinson? That was gratitude. You could learn from her. You and that cunt mage lusting after your cock.”
“I do not—”
“Silence, Miyenth Trirdan of nowhere and nothing,” the old woman said. Though she did not seem to raise her voice, it boomed through the forest, leaving a silence so complete it made Aida’s ears ring. It was as if even the trees refused to utter a sound. “I know your soul. And its sins.”
Miyenth’s face went pale, lips tinged violet as she shuffled backward to put distance and bodies between her and the woman. Clutching at a pendant of carved stone at her neck, she pressed her lips tight as if to keep them from moving.
The old woman snorted, turning her head and spitting a viscous glob of phlegm in chartreuse and moss. Vivid eyes catching Aida’s twisted lips, she made her rattling laugh once again and poked Aida’s shoulder with her staff. “Up, girl. I’d have a better look at you.”
