He nodded though he wanted to tell her not to follow, queasy at the thought there was danger in the forest and he was leading her into it. But Celeste was far from helpless, she’d proven that many times over the last few days, and as much as he tried to forget, shehadalmost killed him, so together they left the gates of the temple for the heavily wooded outskirts of Briarwyke.
The forest was livelier, as if spring had come early under the branches of the trees, the mossy floor thick with ferns. They were quick to go deeper in, but the light was scant, and the disturbed feeling was gnawing at Reeve’s insides as he continued to cast, his arcana searching what little sunlight filtered through the trees.
“Oh, my goodness.”
Reeve swung around, throat thick, but then he saw what Celeste had whispered at, not a danger at all.
Hiding betwixt the trees sat a cottage. Somewhat similar to Ima’riel’s, it was small but disheveled. The window boxes had once been expertly crafted but were broken now, shutters fallen off and piled on the porch, and the thatched roof was collapsed on one side, the whole thing in a sad state. Yet Celeste was grinning at the place like she’d spent a moon sleeping on the road in the dead of winter, and it was the most luxurious inn in town.
His senses were pinging it though, and the sunlight glittered over the place like a spell. Had Valcord brought him there? It radiated the warmth that he would expect when under Valcord’s urging, but also there was a warning, an alertness he felt pressed to keep up. Perhaps the cottage was inhabited with someone evil, and if Celeste was so smitten with it…
He shook his head and touched her arm so she would stop her slow approach. “Wait.”
Reeve went ahead, drawing Sid and using the sword to push open the door to the cottage. The front room was empty, a hearth and mantle central to the space, and at its back a set of stairs leading upward. A shaft of light coming through the broken ceiling illuminated the steps, still in good shape if slightly damaged by the elements. There were additional rooms beyond the front one, but the doors were open and nothing appeared to be lurking in the shadows there. That tingle within Reeve intensified though, and he searched for the murkiness he had originally felt.
“Can you sense it?” he asked the sword.
“Not really,” said Sid, voice taut. “It actually feels…good?”
Reeve wandered to the cottage’s center, and Sid was right: there was nothing maligned about this place. In fact, it was the opposite, the single shaft of light drawing him toward the stairway. It fell on the post at the end of the banister, and within the light, the glinting metal of a key.
A shriek pulled Reeve back out of the cottage. He burst through the door and off the deteriorating porch, collapsing a step as he went. The underbrush shook as something barreled toward Celeste, but she cast, a wall of shadows blotting out the dim lights in the wood. The growling rattle of some creature tore its way through the darkness she conjured just as she fled from the spot.
Reeve bolted toward the wall of noxscura as it fell. He called a spell up through the Obsidian Widow Maker and struck out. A mass of fur and tusks and squealing anger propelled itself at him.
There was a terrible shredding sound, a splatter of blood, and the force of something into Reeve’s arm as he dodged out of the way. The boar was nearly the size of Earlylyte, but much less agreeable, and while a slice up a horse’s belly would have surely brought it down, the boar was still on four legs, thrashing through trees between where Reeve and Celeste stood as if unstoppable.
But then it did stop, and it turned. Angry and covered in blood, it dipped its head and stampeded again, its innards toppling out of it as it ran. Reeve pulled back to swing, arm searing with pain, calling another spell into the blade. Any divine spell should have taken down a boar, even that size, but something kept it alive.
As the thing ran, a black haze rose from its wound. Reeve lowered his weapon even as he stood in the way of the beast, mesmerized. The boar slowed, squealed, and with a choke of blood and bile, it fell into a massive heap. The hazy magic gathered above the body and then shot right for Celeste.
Reeve sprinted for her as the arcana swarmed, ensnaring her limbs, her body, her face. He shouted her name and abandoned his blade to grab and pull her close. Reaching into himself, he called to his divine sense to cleanse her of the darkness that was swallowing her, but then the haze cleared on its own, drawn to her chest. No, to the locket she wore.
Celeste sucked in a shocked breath and stared up at him, stiff in the hold he had on her.
“Are you all right?” He struggled to keep his voice from shaking.
“Uh huh.” She nodded gently, eyes flicking down to his hands wrapped tightly on her upper arms, and to the nonexistent space between their chests. “Are you?”
No. No, he wasn’t. But he couldn’t bring himself to say so, only to stare down at her, wondering what in all the planes he would have done if she’d been hurt.
CHAPTER 15
SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS AND HOW TO DRESS THEM
You’re looking pale, buddy,” said Sid from the place he’d been abandoned on the forest floor. “Better thanimpaled though.”
The dead boar was splayed out beside the sword, a trail of gore behind it and blood covering one of its tusks. The murky disturbance Reeve had sensed was no more.
Celeste remained within his grasp—he couldn’t seem to let go. Her wide eyes were equally pale, and she gasped. “You’re bleeding!”
That shook him of his iron grip, and he released her. “Huh? Oh, no, I don’t think this is mine.”
But she was hearing none of it, pushing up the ripped sleeve of his tunic and twisting his arm to look it over. There indeed was a gash that ran up to his elbow, clear it was not only the boar’s blood splashed across him.
“Oh, this isawful,” she said as she gathered up her skirt and ripped.
Reeve reeled as she tore off a long swatch of pink linen, shocked at how easily it came away, but then she grabbed his wrist, and he couldn’t step farther back. The linen was tied around his arm, but it didn’t cover the whole of the wound. Reeve had been injured far more times than he could count, and by his experienced eye, this was mostly surface and would be fine with a little cleaning and care, but Celeste was going for her skirt again to dress it further. He grabbed her wrist only to stop her, afraid both that she’d be naked if she kept going and that he would be too pleased if she ended up that way.
