“Get the human witch!” another yelled.
Astegur managed to open his eyes again and look up at her, now over him, staring at something beyond his view.
“Calavia,” he rasped. “Run.”
She turned to him and shook her head. “And live when everything I love is dead?”
“Run!” he ordered, louder this time. He knew there were other, hidden, smaller cracks and holes in the walls where she could escape. If she left now, as the centaurs focused on him, she could get away.
She startled upright and looked back down the passageway again, and when she rose to her feet, a calmness overcame him, knowing she would finally listen to him. That she would survive.
That he had done his job, completed another quest, and kept his oath.
He stared up at her, picturing this terrible moment and capturing it in his skull to last him for an eternity...or at least for the next several minutes as he lay in wait for his death. The edges of her sodden dress, wet with blood, with sweat, brushed his skin and dripped down upon his skin. A minor comfort, a final touch to bring him comfort for the remainder of his life. He groaned and clenched his jaw, raising his hand to touch her dress one last time before he never saw her again.
But when he was about to caress his fingers over the bottom edge of it, she moved away.
Farewell, Calavia.
Astegur groaned again, exhaling to expel her scent from his nostrils, to alleviate the heavy pressure in his chest. The heat in his belly had cooled in his weakness, and no smoke trailed up from his mouth.
Damn you, Vedikus.
He closed his eyes once more and waited.
And waited.
The hollers stirred him. They were closer now, the fire from the blisterbark having died back. He spread out his fingers at his side, searching for his axe. He found the edge when a powerful gust of air rushed over him.
His eyes snapped open to see Calavia standing over him, her hair flying forward, her mouth hanging open. She released a scream.
He flinched, feeling a terrible pressure build around him, a thick, wet, heavy swirl of magic that coursed over his flesh and settled on it. The noises vanished, drowned out by it, consumed by its force, and his mouth slackened.
Faint, feminine words could be heard among the shrill sounds. Offerings to the mist, sacrifices promised, and as his vision began to fade, the power around him built to a crescendo, capturing him up in the growing frenzy.
And then he was rising, moving, using his body without meaning too. A chilling numbness engulfed him as Calavia’s magic wrapped around him like shackles, not unlike those she placed on him many days prior.
He tried to stop it, but his body wasn’t responding to his commands, it responded to something else… A nearly mindless, rumbling growl tore out of his mouth as his shaft primed, lubricated, and straightened.
Then he was on Calavia, behind her, his ears filled with words she sang, words only he could hear. Gripping her dress with his right hand, he ripped it from her body and forced her to her knees in front of him, facing away from him. He fought the compulsion, fought himself, but his will was no longer his own.
She continued to chant as Astegur pushed her down to her elbows, kicked her legs apart, and bent over her. Even if he could control his body, he wouldn’t want to stop. With one devastating thrust, he buried himself deep. He paused for a moment before he fucked her wild. Raw. Powerfully, deliciously,wrong.
The last thing he saw, as the room flooded with the living, cursed energy of the mist, was Calavia being swallowed by the miasma. Then it covered him too, drowning him within its depths.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Calavia gazed up at the ceiling of her altar room, lying flat on the stone floor where she’d fallen unconscious some time ago.
A storm raged outside.
She’d awoken to it, to the lightning and thunder, to the fury of it blasting the outside walls of her home, as if it wanted nothing more than to wipe it from the world.
I summoned it.The weight of her power brimmed at the tip of her tongue and the ends of her fingers. It teased and oiled her skin, making her want to simultaneously rub it off and play with it to see how far the slick could go, but every time she mustered the courage to try, a terrible heaviness settled over her, stopping her. The lightning would blast the ground outside, making her temporarily deaf, or the thunder would make the temple tremble, and dust and small stones would fall around her and Astegur’s forms.
Everything she held dear, everything she had ever cared for, loved, or held precious and sacred, was being destroyed all around her. Everything but her champion.
A small smile formed on her lips as she slid her hand across the floor to grip his.
