Velten cocked an eyebrow. “How very like you. What about now?”
He had missed a small trace of kohl on his cheekbone, and she suddenly remembered painting the whorls there hours earlier. The memory of her fingers tracing patterns on his skin burned her fingertips. He had kept as still as he could back then, eyeshalf-lidded to let her work around them. Both of them had taken succour from that rare moment of peace, and now …
She looked away, fleeing the bitterness creeping up her heart. “Still daydreaming about it,” she replied.
Hoping to distract herself, Semras crouched before the unlit campfire and studied it. It needed only a spark to come to life, she judged. The witch grabbed some wefts of heat from the surrounding Arras and then wove them with stiff, clumsy fingers. After an excruciating minute, flames caught on the logs, and she smiled in relief.
Her joy vanished as soon as Velten stepped into view behind the campfire, busy buttoning up a white shirt over his chest.
“Do not daydream for too long,” he said as he adjusted his sleeve over his wrist, “or you will lose your opportunity to act without witnesses. Maldoza will return. He left his bag here with ours.”
Semras glared at him. “Just so we’re clear, I am not riding with you on the way back.”
“I did not plan for you to. I planned—”
“Oh, great. Moreplans,” she hissed. “You always have the best ones, don’t you? Like your latest, brightest idea of—”
“Do not start a fight. You will not have to endure me for much longer.” A sobering finality tainted his voice.
Semras’ heart skipped a beat. “… What do you mean?”
“You will ride Pagan with Maldoza, and I will take the other horse. Far from my preference, but … do not accuse me of never thinking of your comfort.”
Velten would leave his precious stallion in the hands of the Venator knight he loathed so much? Semras arched her eyebrow. If he really wanted to, he could easily obtain another horse for her at any of the traveller’s inns peppering the area bordering the Vedwoods. Or he could simply borrow one from the farmer’s homestead they rode by just before entering theforest. That one was only a two-hour ride from where they now stood. He didn’t have to cede—
Or … hedidhave to if he never intended to pass by any inn where a requisition could be made.
Oh, the inquisitor had plans indeed. And they included neither her nor Themas. The bastard had learned the identity of the comfrey buyer at the coven grounds and had no intention of sharing it with her.
A bedroll lay a step away from the campfire, and Semras sat on it. “Your horse doesn’t listen to anyone but yourself,” she said with feigned disinterest, looking to confirm her hunch. “Are we going to get another one as soon as we can?”
“Pagan is not so bad,” Velten replied, arms crossed. “The Voidborn thing is half-fey. Give him blood and he will obey.”
“I’d still rather ride another horse.” Trying to entice him into revealing his ploy, she blurted out, “I’m—I’m not really comfortable around the Fey.”
He scoffed. “Youhavefey blood, witch. And you looked fine when we rode together on Pagan.”
“That was different.”
“How so?”
‘Because you held me, because you made me feel safe,’wasnotan acceptable answer. Not anymore.
Velten waited for a reply, but she refused to utter the words. That conversation was useless—he clearly had no intention of letting slip his plans.
After her continued silence spoke for her, he dropped onto his bedroll and watched the flames of the campfire dance in front of him. Minutes passed by in blissful silence before he broke it again. “Why are you scared of them?”
“… The Fey?”
He nodded, and Semras mindlessly trailed her fingers over the dried leaves. “I wanted to be a weirwitch once,” she said atlast, eyes fixed on the flames. “You know—study the Fey and their language and laws of Bargain. One day, I found a small tumulus near my previous coven grounds, and I crawled into it.” Semras scoffed at her foolish younger self. “Stupid, I know, but I wanted to see a real humanoid fey, and I knew that the only ones remaining on the peninsula had been sealed away in them. So I went in, thinking I’d come face-to-face with a Seelie.”
“I gather you did not meet one.”
“Oh no, I did. There was a Seelie within.”
Semras stayed silent, mind enraptured by the memories of sharp teeth and gleaming eyes pursuing her in the dark. She had crawled into the musty, primitive tumulus. She had met its Fey Lord.
Or rather, its living remains—along with all the tiny dark things nested in it. In the complete darkness of the tumulus, the pitch-black shapes of fey critters swarmed within the Seelie’s ribs of brambles and bones, ripping its rotten flesh apart in perfect silence. Hands darting to grab the smaller vermin within its reach, the Fey Lord consumed them while the others devoured its innards. Then the survivors gave birth to new critters before getting eaten in turn; the Fey Lord and its Court were sustaining each other in a constant cycle of renewal.
