Page 36 of The Withering Wood

“There’s something else I’m wondering,” he added when they reached the last stair.

Finding her footing in the snow, she faced him, careful to keep her gaze on his eyes rather than the tempting lines of his mouth. “Go on.”

“How to make you say my name again.”

Heat rose to Cerise’s cheeks. “There’s a necromancer raising a dead God who wants to destroy our world and that’s all you’re thinking about?”

“Not exactly,” he replied. “It’d be more precise to say I’m wondering how to make you shout it.”

He grinned, the curl of his mouth catching her attention. The smirk grew into a smile as he caught her glance at his lips.

“If you need threats to remain focused to the task at hand, I can provide them.”

“Now you’re just tempting me with a good time.”

Cerise laughed. Not out of scorn or disbelief. But a genuine, joyful laugh. It erupted loud and deep from her belly, surprising both her and the prince, his eyebrows arching briefly before his smile stretched into a bright beam.

“One thing at a time, prince. First, let’s deal with Vraethik. Depending on how that goes, maybe afterward we can discuss how you should be punished or rewarded.”

A desirous grumble rumbled in the prince’s chest, gaze sharpening as he focused on her face, his rapt attention piercing her to the spot. “I like the sound of that.”

Chapter Thirteen

They left camp with nothing more than a few canteens of water, strips of dehydrated meat, their weapons, snowshoes, and the absorber. If they defeated Vraethik, they’d be stranded in the forest at night. It’d take too much time to take down and rebuild camp, so they decided taking the absorber was the best they could do. They could either hike all the way back to camp once Vraethik was dead or find a nook to shelter in. Either way, they’d need the absorber to have a chance of living through the cold night. Assuming they survived Vraethik.

Bone fragments littered the woods, shredding through bark and branches, spreading pools of necrotic blight through the ground. They hiked in heavy silence, cautiously avoiding the splintered God’s bones and the expanding curse.

Farther away from the Merathel Mountains, and with the slow, steady descent toward the plains, the snowpack decreased. The woods widened, sunlight slanting between blackened oak branches, melting away more of the ice. Soon, they removed their snowshoes, since although a light layer of snow remained, the shoes became more of a hindrance as it diminished.

They hiked in heavy silence, dread sitting low in Cerise’s gut, abolishing all thought except for the battle that lay ahead of her. With each step, her knee popped, a sharp ache still stinging through the joint. The sun shifted overhead, her leg growing stonier, jaw clenched to shove down the pain. Zyrdriel’s Mercy staved off the edge of discomfort, but it persisted. And she could not afford to rest yet. Not with the zap of necromantic lightning reforming Azkanix’s body getting louder as they neared. Not with the thinning forest revealing the sickly green glow around his rib bone.

Cerise and the prince stopped at the last vestige of forest, a humming throb pulsing in her leg, cascading from the knee up to her hip and down to her ankle. She stared out at where the old trees bowed to the young, the wilted, cursed saplings dotting the forest edge before melding with the plains. What was once likely fertile land lush with knee-high grass that swayed in gentle breezes now sat smothered by frost and snow. The necrosis around Azkanix’s towering bone filtered through the white plains, amplifying the blight’s blinding brightness.

There, at the edge of the glistening necrosis, stood the horrid necromancer himself, ragged cloak and tattered clothes billowing in the wind created from his magic. Staff raised, pulses of that same puke-purple lightning ignited from the gemstone and shot toward the rib, mixing with the other twirling sparks around it, materializing undead muscle and ligament. Crackles of thunder followed the pulse of zapping magic, the terrible booms thrumming in Cerise’s body. As the magic reverberated up the arched, fractured bone, it coalesced at the highest point. It formed into a writhing mass of dripping black and violet sparks, dangling off the spliced pointed bone tip like an icicle. With each new thrum of energy, the mass bulged and expanded.

No, it pulsed.

Chills, unrelated to the eternal winter, swept through Cerise’s body.

Vraethik was reforming Azkanix’s cruel, undead heart. How long would it take to fully grow? Would his fully created heart instantly reform his entire being, erupting into existence as abruptly as his bones shattered?

The heart couldn’t have been larger than she was. They still had some time. Just not much.

Cerise dropped her gaze back to the necromancer. The wretched lichboar, Threxilon, circled Vraethik, streaks of molten red and deathly green illuminating its thick, bristly body and horrendous tusks.

“It’s funny,” the prince said, twisting the spear he’d wedged upright into the ground. “I was so focused on finding him, I didn’t plan what I’d do once I did. Do we simply confront him? Try to lure him away?”

Cerise opened her mouth to respond just as Threxilon abruptly stopped, lifted its snout as if sniffing the air, then whipped its head in their direction.

Shit. So much for strategizing.

The lichboar bolted across the plains, its sudden charge snapping Vraethik’s focus away from the summoning.

Swinging Beloved into her hands and bracing into her battle stance, she said, “Kill Vraethik first. He’ll raise the lichboar again if we kill it, so there’s no point in fighting it until Vraethik’s dead.”

They stared at the dashing lichboar, hooves kicking up tufts of loose snow. Vraethik trailed behind it, a stern and eerie calm in his steps. Annoyed, perhaps, but unconcerned.

As if he’d already succeeded.