Page 29 of The Withering Wood

Cerise watched the mother and child. They stalked through the cold night, completely unaffected by the chill. Noses pressed to trees and snow, searching for food. Her heart sank to her stomach, and for the first time in decades, the back of her eyes stung with tears. These poor creatures. The end of their lives had likely been suffering, either starving or cursed. Even in death, they couldn’t find peace, trapped in this nightmarish plane, ever searching for food. Was this now the fate of all living creatures when they died?

“I think so. They must not know they’re dead.”

“You’ve never seen this before?”

“No, we don’t go outside at night. None must’ve been close enough to the cabin to shine through the windows.”

“Where do you suppose they are, during the day? Are they always there, wandering the world, just invisible to our eye?”

“I do not know,” Cerise whispered, imagining thousands of trapped human and animal spirits, endlessly wandering the earth.

With one last long look at the receding spirits, Cerise and the prince ducked back into the tent. The absorber sucked out the chill they’d let enter, and sensation returned to her nose and cheeks.

“Azkanix’s curse must capture their spirit, somehow. Keep them tied to the earth,” the prince murmured. “Do you suppose if we come across a ghost bear, it’d attack us? Or do you think they’re docile in death?”

“I do not know that, either. Let us hope it’s the latter.”

Heavy hearted, Cerise laid back. The prince must’ve felt the same, for he spoke no more. It seemed many hours passed before she fell asleep, knee crying with pain, mind turning over the prince’s words, the implications of the deer spirits, wondering how many ghosts wandered these cursed woods.

It wasn’t until the moment before slipping into unconsciousness that she realized she hadn’t placed Beloved between them.

Chapter Ten

Cerise knew a blizzard raged outside the tent before she opened her eyes. Even with the absorber, the glacial pressure of the storm pressed stiff coldness into her leg, as if it were made of old mountain stone. She kept her eyes shut, listening to the slap of wind and icy snowflakes against the tent. After days without pain relief, her body refused to move. Her muscles strained from keeping her upright, the area around her knee bulging as it swelled, draining her energy as her body fought off the aches.

Only a few more days. If things went well. They’d catch up to Vraethik, kill him, and return home. There she’d have a long, hot bath. Eirwen would pull out the chill from her body while she rested beside the crackling hearth, a steaming bowl of broth in hand. She’d take a whole day to rest and whittle. And the prince would return to Tyrnoraen, with no glory, no sign that he’d saved the world from rapid destruction.

A strange heaviness settled in her heart at realizing how little time was left in his company. She barely knew the man, yet there was something comforting about him. Warmth exuded from him, and not just from his body heat. His presence at her side made her feel a little less tense, as if she didn’t need to constantly be looking over her shoulder.

She opened her eyes to find the prince staring at her.

Without Beloved between them, they’d grown closer throughout the night. His face was less than a hand’s span away from her own, the soft blue light of the absorber casting silver streaks in his golden-brown hair. It reflected in his pink eyes, not dissimilar from the stars he cherished. She knew she should move away. That his touch would only ignite her horrors. But when he was this close, his face took up her entire field of vision, and she didn’t want to look anywhere else.

“What came first, Mirvadel’s blessing or the eye color?” Cerise asked, voice cracking with dryness.

Amusement flickered in the prince’s gaze, his lips twitching. “You’ve heard the tale, then?”

“I’m more inclined to call it a myth, but yes.”

“It very well may be.” The low grumble of early morning in Oberon’s voice sent a pleasant coil through Cerise’s body. “Whatever the truth is occurred so long ago that we don’t know what happened. Perhaps Mirvadel blessed us, a gift that led us to found Tyrnoraen and also changed our eye color. Or maybe it is a quirk of my family that they twisted into a Celestial legend to make it seem less odd.”

“It is still odd, even if Celestial.”

“True, even I have been taken aback by their difference at times,” the prince said. His gaze grew serious. “I am glad I get to look in your eyes, rather than mine.”

Cerise scoffed. Her hazel eyes were nothing special, besides the scar that ran over one of them.

“It’s true. They remind me of trees. I mean how they once were, of course. Green leaves over brown bark. They’re beautiful.”

She wanted to tell him how stupid that sounded, but the words caught in her throat. His breath brushed against her skin, and when his tongue darted over his lips, her gaze flicked to them. How gentle yet firm they looked. A brief curiosity of what it’d feel like to press them against her own flickered across her mind. When she returned her gaze to his, she caught him staring at her mouth as well, the pace of his breathing quickening.

“Cerise, please believe me when I say whatever rumors you’ve heard about me aren’t true. Yes, I’ve had my fair share of…dalliances, but I’ve never been so blithe or indifferent as it seems people think. I don’t go around fucking everything that walks. I take matters of the heart seriously. And am rather particular in my bedmates.”

“Is that why you never married?” she asked, despite herself. It didn’t matter whether he was as modest as he claimed or as rakish as the rumors. Whether he was married or not and why. He was just a prince who’d return to his kingdom. Yet still, a part of her thawed around him, a tender piece that wanted to bask in the glow of his body and words.

“No, that was a welcome side effect of the curse. I was engaged to a princess from Estryalath, but then Azkanix died and all communication between other kingdoms stopped.” He sighed. “Perhaps the rumors stemmed from my sneaking out and partying when I was younger. But those evenings rarely ended in random women’s beds, or them in mine. And they are long in the past. In truth, you’re the first woman to catch my eye in many, many years. You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”

He lifted a hand, as if to place it on her cheek. She blinked, and in that brief blackness, his hand transformed into the decayed claw that split her face. Cerise flinched away and sat, cool air swirling around her as the distance grew between herself and the prince. Reckless, to let him so close. Stupid, to dream of a touch that’d only bring nightmares.