He cackled. “Ah, so you were terrified by the rain and the wind and the darkness.”
She hadn’t been afraid. She had remained awake the entire night, but it wasn’t because of the storm itself or the reminiscent noise it made, it was because of the creatures that dwelled in it, specifically the one that now stood before her. Calavia twisted the wax in her pocket to keep her fingers busy.
Astegur continued when she remained silent. “Or was it something else that made you feel fear?”
“I did not feel anything at all,” she snapped. “You said you thought about why I summoned you here.”
“Your plea.”
She narrowed her eyes. He was goading her. “Call it what you will.”
She stepped to the side and around his large, imposing frame, and made her way down the rickety wooden path that led home. She didn’t bother seeing if he followed but looked around for her mother. She had not neared when Calavia was giving orders to the thralls, though that was nothing unusual. Her mother always watched from a distance.
When she entered her temple and the long path that led to her altar room, she took a quick left instead after the entrance and entered another shadowed hall that led to a series of additional rooms she now used for storage. Several thralls came and went as she walked by.
She stopped and knelt before a stone hearth and swept the ash inside it to the edge before she placed some of the fresh blisterbark her thralls had sourced for her. Calavia had begun setting the bark in rows to ignite a flame when Astegur pushed her aside and bent low, blowing on the wood and erupting it into a fiery glow.
“Thank you,” she said as she leaned back, her eyes watering. It was unusual having someone else with her. Most of her visitors were creatures and beings seeking temporary sanctuary that kept to themselves if they did not need something from her directly.
He retreated as she rose to retrieve some of her prized stash of dried tark meat and added it to a pot full of herbs and local ingredients. Once she was finished, she placed the pot on the hook over the fire, stirring it as she went. Soon, the room filled with an earthy aroma and the air warmed, going into a state of comfort. She felt anything but comfortable in Astegur’s presence.
Calavia tucked her hands into her dress as she settled back on her knees and finally glanced his way.
The minotaur wasn’t watching her, as she had thought, but stood by the entrance and stared out, as if he was on guard.
“You do not need to watch for enemies here. I will know if something approaches that means us harm,” she said.
He looked back at her. “I mean harm and I am here.”
She cocked her head and would say otherwise but she knew that would only rile him further, and they were running out of time. “I will let you go if you help me.”
Astegur pinned her with his dark gaze, his brow furrowing before a burst of smoke left his mouth. “We cannot take on a warband of centaurs on our own.”
“We don’t need to take out an entire band, we need to take out just enough for them to fear us.”
“That will never happen, not unless they want a constant threat to their lands.”
She licked her lips. “What do you mean?”
He glanced out the doorway once again before joining her within the room. Her belly curled as his muscles strained with the movement, and she twisted her fingers further in her dress.
“Outside of Prayer, I came across an old centaur campsite that smelled of my brother and his human. Their blood was old but still fresh enough to discern. If what you say is true, that the centaurs were after his human, they’ll not take an insult like that lightly. They will not stop.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“If the same happened to one of my brothers or myself, we would not stop. How long have the centaurs dwelled in the south?”
Calavia tried to remember when she first encountered them long ago but shook her head. “Sometime after the mist finished swallowing up this swamp, and the barrier lands moved farther east. I stopped tracking time when I stopped aging.”
“The wall is established far from here. How old are you?”
She looked down at herself. “Young? I wish I could say. Old? Perhaps parts of me are young while the others have grown old? I do not know. What I do know is that this place is in danger now and that my…my magic is nowhere as strong as I need it to be. Not anymore. It cannot keep me safe from what is about to come. It is why I have summoned you here, why I’m willing to risk everything.”
It was hard for her to say, but she told him that morsel of truth anyway. Though she was weakening, the power she held was still great—not that she would say that aloud. It wasn’t just the wax. Her power was greatest when her mother was near, when she breathed her magic all over Calavia’s flesh. When her mother infused her with the curse of the mist and buried Calavia’s humanity deep under it.
But with her mother often hiding these days, that added power had begun to vanish within Calavia, furthermore her wax supplies dwindled more with each passing day...
Astegur grunted. He had moved and now stood tall beside her. It made her eyes level with his lower legs and she couldn’t help but look at his loincloth, wondering what was hidden beneath, and wondering further why it even mattered to her.
