“She said it was for protection.”
“And did you think to ask how it would protect?”
“Yes! Listen to me, please—”
“—would you have told me this if I hadn’t asked?”
Aldora lowered her head.
His anger grew.
“She would have nothing else,” she continued.
Lies!And yet he knew it was the truth the moment it left her lips. Vedikus reached for his axes, sending Aldora staggering to the ground on her backside, her legs tangling in thin material. He wanted to rip it clean off her and force her nudity in his presence.
“Please,” she gasped. “She swore it was for nothing else, and nothing else would satisfy her. What would you have had me do?”
“I would have had you sleeping by my side while I dealt with the bitch!” he roared, releasing steam hot enough to sear into the air. “She’ll die this daybreak.” He rose to his hooved feet, stamping one down to crack the stone beneath. Aldora looked up at him wide-eyed with fear. Vedikus went for the exit.
“She’s gone,” she rushed to say, and he felt a tug on the back of his leathers. Aldora stopped him, and he turned, sneering.
“Where?”
She shook her head and he was momentarily transfixed by the way her hair moved in the subtle light. “It was either your seed or my life,” she pleaded. “Your seed or nothing else.”
“The hag dies,” he hissed, pressing his hand against her chest and pushing her back. Aldora refused to let go and he rounded to fully face her.
“After everything I’ve been through you will listen to me!” she yelled, startling him. “What is worth more to you? My life, which you so desperately saved at every opportunity, or control and authority? Did you think we would be handed what we needed with nothing on our bodies but bloodied rags and wounds? She could have asked for worse, could have asked for so much more, but she did not. I’ve sacrificed enough and was willing to sacrifice more. Now you know how it feels to lose something you did not want to lose.” She released him and returned to the ashen fire pit, taking a plate of food.
Vedikus stared after her for a time, feeling his blood pumping through his veins, his rage darkening to simmer into something else. He wanted to feel bones snap between his fingers, to hear the struggle of his enemies falling before him. His palms dampened with sweat as other sensations poured through him, like how he wanted to feel Aldora back in his arms, to struggle within his grasp, but with a look of pleasure on her face instead of pain.
She faced away from him and would not turn back to meet his eyes. He detested that he did not know what happened between her and the hag, but he knew Aldora was right. The hag was gone. He could no longer sense her presence among all the dead that inhabited Prayer. Looking for her now would just be a wasted effort and time they could spend elsewhere.
Light began to stream in powdery, grey wisps through the cracks in the ceiling and he knew they could no longer linger. Vedikus looked down at the vial still resting in his hand. The edges of the wax slipped with the first hints of melting from his body heat.
Was his seed, old seed given to her, worth more than her life?
His rage tempered in the silence as Aldora finished up the meal, not leaving a single morsel behind.
“I do not relish not knowing what the hag could use it for,” he said, finding a hard-earned calmness return to his voice. The steam roiling in his lungs dispersed to be absorbed back into his body. He turned back toward the shadowy passageway. “We will leave for my lands when you are done. By nightfall we will be in the mountains.”
“I trust her,” Aldora’s voice trailed after him, but he did not turn back.
And I trust you.
