Instead of sliding it into her view, he cupped her cheek and turned her head. It took more than she would ever admit to keep her face stone. His black eyes pinned hers momentarily. She looked up his long, sharp horns, only to drop her gaze back to lock with his.
He pressed the pad of his thumb into her bruised lips and rubbed them, making her ache further. But he released her, and she turned back to the bowl she still held over the candle. She set it down on the altar, picked up her knife, took his offered hand, and sliced his palm until he bled into the mixture as well.
“Blood guard us, blood sustain, until the day that only blood remains,” she said softly, using the tip of the knife to mix it. When it was done, she offered him the bowl. “Drink it.”
Astegur watched her as he lifted the bowl to his lips, stopping right before it touched his mouth. Calavia bit down on her tongue hard, fisting her hands into the folds of her dress to keep herself from slapping the bowl out of his hands.
“Blood guard us, blood sustain, until the day that only blood remains,” he said slowly, his eyes remaining on hers. In warning. In brutal hope. Possibly in distrust.
She whispered, “Everything I have taken from you and yours, I give back now.”
He knocked his head back and swallowed it. Pain ripped through her briefly, the exact same pain from when she’d compelled and bound him to her before. It faded quickly.
His throat bobbed with each gulp, in sync with her quickening heartbeat.
A long, rumbling noise sounded in her ears, coming from a distance, but ended up in Astegur’s throat. The bowl fell from his hands as the sound strengthened. He reached out to clasp the edge of her altar as he bent over, closing his eyes.
“Are you all right?” she asked and reached out to touch him, but the moment her fingers met his flesh, he jerked away. “Astegur?”
His head remained down, his chin touching his collarbone, poisoned horns pointed outward like a pair of daggers brandished by an assassin. She wanted to reach out and touch him again, but unease filled her heart. His back moved up and down, his chest expanding, heaving, the veins along his muscles rose with tension. She turned away, unable to watch her magic work on him. She knew what he felt inside: acidic pain.
It was her fault he felt the same sacrifice she had made to the mist.
Calavia rushed to the side of the room and shoved the vines on the wall aside to expose the stone shelves behind them. Inside, she found one of her wax vials filled with cove and blimwort and uncorked the top. She returned to his side. “Take this. It will help.”
A growl was his answer as he jerked away from her again, slapping his hand on the wall nearest him. Smoke poured out from his face to gather above his head.
“Astegur, please,” she whispered, moving slowly, nervously closer to him. “It’s cove and blimwort and a little bit of my—”
He shoved her aside and stormed to the entrance. She fell back but caught herself at the edge of her altar, wild, worried eyes landing on his retreating back.
He’s leaving.
Calavia felt fear like she had never known before. She pushed away from her altar and went after him. “Astegur, wait! Please!” She hated the whine in her voice.
He tore through her thralls and stepped off the stairs and into the swamp.
“I can help you, don’t go.” Her voice hitched. “I can help you.”
He continued to flee her presence without a word, and she stumbled down into the swamp herself, lifting her skirts to hurry her movements.
“Please don’t leave me!” she yelled after his retreating back, uncaring who or what heard. The mist flooded in between them, making him harder to see. “Please don’t leave me!” she screamed when he vanished from view.
Calavia stumbled forward a few more steps, searching frantically for him, but there was no sign of him. Nothing but thick, horrid mist. The same cursed substance that protected her, the same she worshipped because it had been the only constant, living thing in her life. Tears formed on the edges of her eyes, blurring the foggy brume to a swirl. “Astegur!” she screamed again, but there was no answer. Nothing.
She was alone again.
With the mist.
With the living dead.
With an army on the way to take everything she had left. She fell to her knees and wept. Calavia wiped them off her face, but they continued to fall, and she sank further into the mud. Horrible, wrenching pain squeezed her heart.
I can’t… I can’t be alone again. I don’t want to die alone.
She curled her arms into her chest and sobbed out her final defeat when something touched her shoulder.
Calavia looked up slowly, rubbing her eyes as a woman appeared standing next to her, a woman who looked like herself. Around her, and on all sides, stood the old townsfolk, her thralls, each with a crude stake in their hands. They had followed her. They had come for her. They relied on her, and she could not fail them. “Mother,” she cried.
