“Pain,” he snorted, “I feel it now.” Her hands stilled upon him. “We heal but everything must run its course.”
He barely stopped himself from grabbing her when she stepped away from him, heading for the fire. She tugged open several of his pouches.
“Where’s that herb that you used on me? The one that cleared out my cuts and numbed the pain.” Aldora looked at her wrists then returned to her search. “I’ll tend to your back.”
Vedikus dunked both his hands into the water. “My wounds do not bother me.” They helped him focus on something other than Aldora and the ache of his bulge. His shaft pulsed.I need the pain.“If you are done eating, we should finish our descent while the light persists.”
“No!” She grabbed his arm and stopped him from rising. “Let me do this. Show me how to do this.” Aldora caught his eyes, her hair falling from her face to clear his view of her. Her brown eyes held his, still as clear as the first time he saw them and he saw himself in them. He stilled as he looked at himself through her, until she leaned away and snatched her hand back.
He had not seen his image in many years.I do not look the way I remembered.Vedikus settled back onto the stone floor. “The herb you’re seeking is gray and spiraled, like lichen.”
She laid the materials from his bags onto the floor next to him. One by one he named them. “Wetwort eases your muscles, mossrock stops infection and is used for cleaning, the blimbery clears your head, and that,” he pointed to the red leaves, “is cove and numbs the body. Grab the bowl.”
Aldora retrieved it to set among the plants. “I don’t recognize any of these. None of this grows in Thetras.”
“Everything is warped by the mist.”
“Even me.”
Vedikus grabbed her hand, and pressed his thumb to her wrist, feeling her pulse. “Not yet, not after today’s light.” She frowned again but nodded. He did not like seeing her hopeless like this.If she is to be helpless, it will be because of me.“Prayer has what we need.” He filled the bowl with water and handed it back to her. “Heat this up.”
Aldora placed the bowl near the fire. “What is Prayer? Does something grow there that you’re missing?”
“Something is there that we’re missing, but it is not grown. Prayer is a dark spot in the labyrinth where a hag resides. A thrall who had given birth to a human within the mist, which is where most thralls come from—”
“There are humans born here?”
“Yes. They are nothing but blights and incubators with mist taint in their blood from the moment of being conceived—”
“But there are humans, humans who have known nothing else?” Excitement edged her voice.
“Thralls,” he corrected. “They are not humans, not like how you know your kind. You will not find what you’re wanting to find with them.” There was nothing buthimnow. His fingers twitched.
“I don’t understand, they are human though? And they live here?”
“Yes. Most are born here, but there are some that ended up here, like you. You will not like the sight of them.”
“Because they are sick? I will like the sight of my own kind,” she snapped. “I’m glad we don’t all end up dead.”
Vedikus narrowed his eyes. “There are worse fates.”
They glared at each other and he dared her to say it, to say her fate was worse. A blush appeared on her cheeks, darkening her sun-kissed skin alluringly to a color that was not in his world. He wanted to run his tongue across it and take it into himself.
She swallowed and broke eye contact. “If I become one—”
“You won’t.”
“But if it were to happen...what would happen exactly?” She fingered the plants.
“You’ll lose your senses, and you’ll no longer feel the same as you do now. Everything becomes buried under a thick shroud. Your body is taken over by the curse and the curse doesn’t die. You’ll survive in pallor, in a nothingness, until your shell is destroyed. You’d be of use to no one but those who seek to harm you.”
Aldora nodded. Vedikus bowed his head and tipped the points of his horns back down in submission.
She does not know what I do.He did it because she did not know. His prick ached.
“Bring back the bowl,” he growled. The water bubbled, just breaking the edge of a simmer when she lowered it by the herbs between them.
“What now?”
