“Sure.” I hardly planned on seeking them out, but I was fine with letting them think I would indulge their fantasy. Never mind that I layered the word with enough sarcasm to suffocate any hope blooming in their chests.
They turned on their heels, high-pitched, grating laughter bubbling around them. Unease prickled along my arms and down the length of my spine, but I steeled myself with a quick breath before closing the distance between Rorik and me. My slippered feet padded against the ground, announcing my arrival with soft thuds that seemed to echo through the air. Rorik tilted his head and his shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t turn to greet me. Instead, he waited until I stood beside him.
“What do you think of it?”
I followed his gaze to the delicate flowers above. Smoky gray leaves cupped the gossamer petals, and I opened my mouth to comment on their beauty when my words caught in my throat. My eyes narrowed as I studied the oddly jointed twigs branching off from the tree’s limbs. Twigs with strange, knobby knucklesand rings of wrinkles, like skin that had solidified into bark. Those delicate flowers seemed to bloom from nail beds, as if the splayed twigs were actually fingers sprouting from elongated hands.
I jerked my eyes back to the base of the trunk and the strange twisting of weathered browns and pale beiges. Bile flooded my tongue. Legs of varying shades knotted and intertwined to form a thick base with twisted knees and bare feet sprouting roots into the earth. There were no heads, just bodies pressed together, and so many legs and arms and hands that I could hardly differentiate between all the extremities.
Fear slammed into my gut, and I took an involuntary step back. Dead bodies. That’s what I was staring at. A shrine of death. And with that recognition, magic surged from my core and flooded to my fingertips. It took every ounce of control I had to keep my power from surfacing.
Something is very, very wrong.I caught the faint scent of decay on the wind. These people were gone, their threads longs since turned to ash, but I could sense the remnants of their lives in the sickening aura pulsing from the tree. A heady ringing filled my ears, and I felt the world tip beneath my feet. I didn’t know when Rorik had placed his hand on the small of my back. All I knew was that everything was numb, the world a winnowing tunnel of gray and black, and then as everything slowly reoriented, the warmth of his hand grounded me enough to calm the rest of my senses.
“These are the remains of our ancestors. We don’t use headstones or graves. We bury our kin at the roots, and a part of them lives on like this.” As soon as the words left his lips, he folded his arms across his chest. The sudden absence of his hand’s weight left me oddly uncomfortable, but I pushed that away as I braved another look at the tree.
“When humans die, we simply return to the earth, not actually sprout out of it. I’ve never seen anything like this.” The world settled with every breath, and my power slowly receded. They were already gone. There was nothing to mend. And yet that scent, that undeniable pull to curesomething... I couldn’t shake it.
“Yes, well, we’re not human.” Turning his back on the tree, he finally looked in my direction. His gaze was a slow, scrutinizing crawl starting from the tip of my head down to my toes. He rolled his eyes. “Next time we meet, make sure you’re properly dressed.”
His condescending words were enough to chase away the last eerie chill still teasing my senses, and I scowled. “I’m sorry my attire doesn’t suit your fancy. You’ll be pleased to know I had absolutely no choice in the matter.”
“As fascinating as that useless bit of information is, it still doesn’t change the fact that I cannot help you train in a gown.”
“If you think I can’t stab you while wearing skirts, you’re sorely mistaken.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself. Clenching my jaw tight, I swallowed the rest of whatever brewing retort lingered on my tongue. I was supposed to be learning something useful from this Ever, and here I was biting back before we’d even begun our first lesson.
Mischief filled his eyes. As he took a step closer, his lips tipped into a devilish grin. “You have a knife hidden in your petticoat?”
The heat racing through my veins shifted from indignant anger to something far more sinister. Something like desire. I hated it. “No.”
“Pity.” His nose was only an inch from mine, his breath a cool whisper against my skin. And then he stepped back with a barking laugh, breaking whatever hold he’d had over me, and flopped to the ground. Legs sprawled out before him, he leaned back on his elbows and looked up at me. “Sit. We’ll work on breathing, then.”
“I can breathe just fine.” Still, I sat.
“We’ll see about that.”
For the first several minutes, Rorik simply watched me as we sat in silence. His heady gaze was locked on the rise and fall of my chest, and while I rationally understood he was not, in fact, staring at my breasts, I couldn’t help the heat that clambered up my neck at the thought.
Which resulted in more erratic breathing. I shifted uncomfortably, chewing on the inside of my cheek.
He raised his brow, and his twin dermal piercings caught in the light. “You’re fidgeting. A lot.”
“You’re staring right at my chest. What do you expect?” I shot back.
Heat flared in his eyes. “So I’m making you uncomfortable?”
“Don’t take it as a compliment,” I said as I folded my arms across my breasts. “Anyone would react this way.”
“I’ll take it however I want. It’s delightful to know that I make you squirm.”
“You’ll just say anything that comes to mind, won’t you?” I scowled at him and ignored the strange heat that bloomed to life at his words.
His gaze traveled to my face, a deep smirk already in place, and he chuckled darkly. Then he nodded at my arms. “Relax. I can’t help you if I don’t know what I’m working with. This is purely for knowledge’s sake, though if you’re interested in something more, we can discuss that later.”
“Just be quiet,” I growled, but I let my hands fall to my sides.
Rorik continued to recline on his arms, his partially unbuttoned shirt pulled tight across his torso to reveal a tantalizing sliver of skin. After a few more painful moments of his gaze locked on my chest, he sucked on his teeth in disappointment. “It’s honestly a miracle you’ve survived this long.” He stood and walked around me in a circle. Slowly.
“Perhaps I’d fare better at this ridiculous exercise if you’d actually tell me what you wanted.” Rorik was dangerous, that much was obvious. It wasn’t even the lean cut of his body, honed like a fine blade and ready for wielding; it was his words. His sinister tongue. The gleam in his eyes. And yet, maybe it was the Fernglove crest on my arm or the fact that I was here to help his family, but I wasn’t afraid of Rorik. I was just irritated.
