Vesper tucked Nef against his side, and Balthasar flanked his other as they entered the small block of shops. He rolled his eyes when he spotted a gathering of people in white. Their wrists snapped back and forth as they rang bells like their life depended on it, and from what they believed, it did.
He hadn’t seen these lunatics since he was a young man. These overzealous preachers claimed to be Instruments of the Gods to scheme people out of slate and allow them to ‘speak to the goddess’. The ludicrous lie spread the word of Kahlia, and conned desperate souls to sacrifice for redemption.
Now, it seemed, their open hands begged for repentance to ‘heal the rot’. Vesper had to admit, the one good thing Destonne had done was ban these crooks. Fucking nutjobs, the lot of them. Nothing short of a nuisance.
After their short sleep they were the last thing he wanted to deal with, so Vesper and Nef took a sharp right to avoid the group.
That’s when he caught sight of the tree. He hadn’t even realized what it was, probably because that red cotton shit shrouded it. He imagined the tree was once the heart of the town, where people gathered and celebrated Blood Moons and the blessing of their magic.
However, The Tree of Eternal Blood, like the people of Morana, was now consumed by the vicious plague.
Vesper took a few cautious steps toward it and held out his hand. When his fingertips grazed the bark, a deadly silence answered, unlike the steady pulse of magic from Ellynne’s tree.
This was ahusk.
The spindly branches looked as if they would turn to dust at any moment and cave to the plague’s wrath. As Vesper ran his hand along the trunk, the bark disintegrated under his touch. And along with it, all his childhood dreams of the north shattered.
Nef’s eyes widened, before she breathed, “That’s an act against the gods.”
What if itwasthe gods? Who else would do such a thing? But why would Deimos or Kahlia harm their own children? Yet theyhaddoomed and abandoned their people long ago. Maybe they’d cast aside their daughters too.
Nothing is free, nothing is fair. How badly did he want to be wrong about that?
Vesper responded with extreme intelligence, “Fuck.”
All his life, he’d wondered why he was some freak, some abnormality, with magic not even his twin sister shared, and Morana punished him with the burden of mimicry for some twisted reason. But now that he saw the state of this tree, it all fell into place. It seemed the gods had forsaken his magic, and now, evidently, the world had too.
A numbness settled into his bones. Gods, what he wouldn’t give to lie down on something soft and sleep for a while. He was too old for this shit, and this was all so catastrophic. “Let’s find somewhere to rest,” Vesper said, though he barely felt the words.
He searched the various shops on the exterior of the tiny town, but most were boarded up or simply abandoned. When he spotted an inn tucked beside an empty tavern, he breathed a sigh of relief and prayed for vacancy. Practically got on his knees and begged for it.
Vesper dismissed Balthasar and slung both horse’s saddlebags over his shoulders. Gods have mercy, his bad shoulder creaked from the heavy weight.
“Let me help,” Nef protested, scooping random bits from his arms.
Vesper wheezed, “It’s fine.” He nodded to the front of his trousers. “There’s slate in my pocket. Can you get us a room?”
After Nef fished a few out, she turned to the shop and shoved open the inn’s crooked door. It opened with a vexed groan and dragged against the worn wooden floor while she stepped inside, but it quickly slammed behind her. The useless doorbell rang a pathetic sound like a spoon against a tin can.
Truly glamorous.
Vesper waited a moment. Then two, though it bled into eternity.
As he watched the fibres stir into the air, his stomach twisted, begging him to run so far from this place, he never saw the colour red again. He hissed a curse under his breath andfollowed Nef inside. The moment the door shut at his back, he dropped the saddle bags with a grunt of relief then rolled his shoulder and exhaled between his teeth as it clicked back into place. His shoulder had never been the same since Callias’ childhood dare to see how long he could hang from that tree. At least he still held the victor title. The last time the old injury had given out, Emmery had popped it back in for him. Usually it went by itself, but that day he’d been particularly unlucky.
The dank inn greeted him, all dark, rotted wood and creaky floorboards.
A man behind a counter with skin the colour of parchment, surveyed Nef and Vesper with dull-brown eyes, the whites streaked in red webbing.
“Y’all need a room?” he asked, his voice muffled under the crow beak mask that concealed half his face. His shoulder-length locks were tangled beyond belief. Since he bore no vestige and Vesper couldn’t spot acavaeorzvezda, he was likely Forgotten.
“I’m with her,” Vesper said. He nodded at Nef’s back.
Nef threw over her shoulder. “One room?”
Vesper gave her a noncommittal shrug.
“One,” she affirmed.