It would be crawling with barrier lurkers but he was ready to spill blood. If the female was to be thrown to the monsters, to him, it would be there.
He hated hope, had never believed a warrior should have it because a warrior should either know his outcome and believe in it, or fail; but as he quietly crept toward his destination, the slimy emotion whittled through his skull. Hope was an enchantment as lucrative and lying as the sun in his world.
I won’t let the Bathyr down.
Anticipation fueled him.
Chapter Three
***
Tiny rivulets of bloodleaked from her wrists and down the backs of her hands. It didn’t stop her from pulling at the rope that bound them, though. She had no other option if she wanted a future. A little pain now could save her a lot of pain later.
Aldora dragged her feet as the Laslite hauled her by her arm. They stopped briefly at the spot where she had been discovered and picked up her bag.
Silence was heavy between them as he tied her to a branch and crouched to shuffle through her stuff. A couple of her mother’s apples spilled out and onto the ground.
A bruised apple was a bad apple according to her parents, and it saddened her to see them handled so poorly.
It wasn’t her privacy being invaded that kept her lips shut, but the possibility that the beast might still be there, waiting, listening; that he would speak again and damn her so completely that she’d have no recourse to talk her way out of this nightmare. Because that was what this was: a nightmare. One she and every other citizen of Savadon had at some point growing into adulthood. Savadon didn’t build dungeons to house criminals. Savadon had a maze.
The monster didn’t speak again and she was at once grateful and wistful. Despite her circumstances, her curiosity was piqued, and a beaconing tendril of dark adventure tempted her. Aldora wanted to hear the beast’s voice again, wanted to feel its deep tonal heat enthrall her. The rumbling cadence of its words penetrated all the way to her bones.
It was wrong—deceptive—but achingly haunting. All she had were stories and a scattering of illustrations of what lay beyond the misty wall, and she wantedmore.
He spoke my tongue.Her eyes narrowed to look at the looming treeline and vines, cast in monotonous shades of shadow and darkness.How did he know my language if he isn’t human? If all humans died crossing the barrier?She ducked her head to rub it along her shoulder, removing the tangled hair from her face.
Not all humans died,Aldora corrected herself. Some made it back out alive. However, those that did were tainted and shunned by society. They were banished to the worst parts of Savadon, the deep swamps, the craggy shores, the mines. That’s if they didn’t go back into the mists. She’d never seen one of these survivors but was told she would know it if she did.
They came back marked.
The Laslite hefted her satchel over his shoulder with a snort of disgust and untied her from the tree.
“You must have offered up your demonic wares, your bat wings, and will-o-wisps, before I caught you, witch,” he spat. Spittle hit her collarbone and dribbled down into her tunic. “It matters not, the masters will see through you.” He threw her forward and back onto the path. Her knees hit the ground and she cringed from the blunt impact. A moment later she was hauled back to her feet.
“I’m not a witch,” she tried to say calmly but it came out shallow and shaky. Her fear hadn’t abated, if anything, it had gotten worse. Sweat beaded her brow and under her arms. It mattered not that the night air was chilly, she felt nothing but anxious waves of heat.
