The warband had arrived.
His hearts hardened and he made a terrible choice. Astegur turned back the way he came before the centaurs noticed him. His mind was made up.
A dark, delicious thrill filled his skull, and with it, he saw everything he ever wanted finally within his grasp.
* * *
He rushed back downthe path, his pace deliberate and quick, as the mild green-tinted air crackled and sparked around him.Magic.It was Calavia’s magic. He knew it well after it had lingered within him for days, keeping him trapped. He now relished the heavy feel of it enveloping him from every side. Much like the cursed air, he had breathed enough of it in, had held it within his body long enough that it had changed him. Despite the tumultuous thrill of impending battle sizzling his thoughts, he felt comforted by her magic.
But this was more than he’d seen from her, and the chill of it upon his flesh unnerved him.
He was sprinting by the time the temple came into view, but stopped at the broken down dwelling to retrieve his stored packs and loot. He needed the contents to make his plan work. By the time he had them in hand, he was already rushing out of the dilapidated house and heading straight for the temple.Calavia could be slicing up her skin to build her power.Weakening herself because of him,forhim. She was sacrificing too much. He shouldn’t have left her. Not when her magic had been fully tearing out of him like it had.
He should have waited before he tested her trust at the barriers she held so dear.
She is sacrificing her life for nothing.The settlement of Prayer was all around him, still rotting, still dead, and he was suddenly filled with hate for it.
He was not going to let her die for such a place.
Astegur cursed, his tail lashing under his leathers. He lifted his nose to the air, but found it hard to detect her scent—her pure blood—without the magic and with the blood trail from the thralls clouding it.
He came upon the thralls at the entrance to Calavia’s temple. They had washed their bodies in the deeper waters and he noticed rivulets running down their sagging, barely clothed skin. They had sustained wounds, but none of them bled, and none of them acted as though they’d been injured.
Astegur had never seen them fight like they had.
Since coming to Prayer, he had never seen a thrall do anything more than wander the labyrinth aimlessly, or perform the chores commanded of them. He moved closer to a young man’s side. Looking closely, he could see a thin coating of wax over his skin.
She had sent them to help him.
His hooves cracked the stone as he tore up the temple’s steps. Her magic was thicker around the temple, and he sucked it into his lungs. He wanted that piece of her back inside him, he wanted what her thralls had.
Her loyalty, her devotion, and most of all, her affection.
He couldn’t remember a time when he saw so much compassion given from one individual to another. It was a human phenomenon and a rare trait at that.
But it was misplaced, he knew that now that he had seen the destruction and the warband that awaited them on the other side of her protective barriers.
He stopped right inside the entrance, pushing several thralls aside. Calavia knelt in the middle of the hallway, over a large bowl he had not seen before, staring into it. The bowl was filled with pinkened melted wax, and she had a fresh cut on her arm that was covered in cove paste. Several thralls dipped their hands into the bowl and scooped up the wax, covering the piles of stakes nearby.
“Calavia,” he said, taking a step toward her.
She looked up at him, and his hearts pounded to a stop. Harrowing, sad, desolate eyes met his gaze, and he felt his hearts bleed.
“You came back,” she whispered.
“I gave you my oath.”
“Oaths mean nothing when there are no consequences.”
“Do you not think there are many for me?” he snarled, watching her flinch from his anger. “The centaurs are here. I found their warband less than a league outside Prayer. My oath is binding.”
“I know. I know they are here. But how can that be? I should have sensed them.” She trembled. “Why did you leave? You could have died and I…I would never have been able to forgive myself.”
“I had to know if I could.”
She looked down at her bowl. “So, you do not trust me?”
Astegur bared his teeth. He stormed to her side and grabbed the back of her neck, forcing her to face him again. “I do not like it any more than you do. I trust little in this world, and never magic, but if I were to put my trust in anything, it would be you.”
