“What brings you to Willowfell?” I asked, sliding into the seat beside her.
“This is purely a social call.” Seville took a small sip of coffee and then set her mug down. “I’ve been hopping around Glaes, and now I’m on the way back to Fernglove. It felt like the right moment to pop in and say hello.”
Our country was large, a sprawling landmass filled with mountains and plains and a smattering of towns stretching from end to end. The wilds separating us all were vast, the creatures untamed and relentless in defense of their own territories. Traveling was dangerous for most, but for Seville? An immortal with immense magic and control over the earth? I doubted it was even remotely troublesome.
“What were you doing?” I asked.
“Sightseeing,” she said. “My travels are hardly your concern. I am curious, though, to know if you’ve seen anything out of the ordinary.”
My eyes narrowed. “Define ‘out of the ordinary.’”
“Oh, nothing serious.” Tilting her head to the side, she examined her cuticles. “Unless, of course, you’ve spotted some unfamiliar Evers in the area.”
The woman from the market. A sinking feeling tugged at the pit of my stomach.
“I haven’t noticed anyone.” Vora’s brow furrowed. “And I’d recognize an Ever if I saw one. Why?” Then she straightened, her eyes suddenly wide. “Edira’s not in danger, is she?”
“Danger? Why would I be in danger?” I asked. I’d battled against Orin and won, simultaneously ridding his land and his family of blight while making him beg for mercy—which he didn’t get. A feat only the Ferngloves knew about. Though there was the possibility that the Waterstones had noticed the lack of blight stemming from the area. Their matriarch, Ossanna, was cunning beyond measure with her eyes set on survival—for herself, but mainly for her children. I’d heard nothing about them since I left Fernglove months ago.
“No, no. You’re not in danger. I’m just being cautious. The last thing we want is another Starglen attempt.” Seville nodded toward me with a knowing look.
A chill swept over my skin as I recalled the night Dagas Starglen had tortured me in front of his heartbond and nephew. He’d strung me up against their ancestor tree, its trunk an amalgamation of twisting thighs and protruding knees, its branches made of disjointed arms, and its twigs of bony fingers with ash-white flowers that sprouted from nailbeds at their highest points. The wretched limbs of their past family members had anchored me in place. Sometimes I still woke up from a cold sweat with the feel of leathery, aged skin against my neck or fingers digging beneath tendons and muscle, working their way deep into my body while Dagas demanded I threadmend his family.
It’d ended only when Rorik had ripped Dagas’s throat open and tossed his larynx on the ground.
“Thank the gods the rest of the Starglens fled,” I murmured.
“Yes, though they’re facing a much more permanent fate now.” Seville gripped the handle of her mug but didn’t take a drink. “I learned on my travels that they’d passed. Blight caught up with them. An entire family line just... gone.”
There was a strain in her words that hadn’t been there before, a slightly raised pitch to her voice. She didn’t look up from her coffee. Vora must have caught the shift, too, because she shot me a concerned glance.
“Seville, is something wrong?” I studied her closely. She was the picture of health and beauty, but there was a tightness around her eyes I hadn’t detected earlier. She pursed her lips, biting back words she didn’t dare say. Her glamour was perfect as always, but there was a crack in her mannerisms that I’d never witnessed before. It rattled me to my core.
“I really should be going,” she said abruptly as she stood. “I’m glad everyone is doing well. Please let me know if—”
“Seville.” I gripped her forearm and forced her to look at me. “What’s going on?”
She held my gaze for a long moment. Then, without uttering a word, she gestured to herself with a gentle sweep of her fingers, as if drawing a curtain of glamour away from her skin. The rippling magic fell off her in a glittering wave before dispersing into the air, leaving behind a still-gorgeous Seville. I pressed my lips together as I scoured her appearance, knowing full well she’d let only one layer of her glamour fall away; otherwise, we’d be able to see her mosaic, glass-like wings and sharpened fangs, along with a smattering of other bestial features that all Evers seemed to have.
“What are you...”
My breath left in a rush as a heady ringing crashed in my ears.
Her smile turned sad. “I trust you see it now.”
My vision narrowed to a small, dark wound oozing with yellow loam and black sludge. It marred the space beneath her ear, and the edges of surrounding skin were curling and brown like withering leaves. The smell of death—roiling, rotting earth and sour blood—skated through the air.
Her blight was back.
Four
How long?” I asked, my words barely a whisper. I couldn’t help but stare at the insistent, damning patch of sickness. It was a slow-moving death sentence that reeked of putrid, feculent earth, and it would consume Seville through to her bones. After a beat, she replaced her glamour to keep the creeping illness from infecting anyone else.
As a threadmender, I was immune, but that wasn’t the case for Vora. If she’d broken skin while cleaning the dishes, taken the tin scrubber a little too forcefully to last night’s bakeware, and blight found its way into her bloodstream... I snuck a quick look at Vora’s hands, the sharp ache of worry flaring behind my eyes.
“A few weeks now,” Seville said, returning to her chair with a heavy sigh. “Please believe me when I say that the point of my visit wasn’t to ask you to cure me.”
“Thank the gods for that,” Vora said with narrowed eyes. She’d curled her fingers around her mug, and her knuckles were bone white. “She’s done enough.”
