The Will and the Wilds(10)

He senses a tug through the magic. The bargain pulls him toward his quarry. Still alive? Close, very close. Maekallus turns—

—just as a knife sticks him in the heart.

His breath whooshes out of him, and he keels forward as a gobler—a second gobler, the one the wound on his hand screams for him to defeat—wrenches his blade free and steps back, out of reach of Maekallus’s horn. A thin thread of red light travels in the blade’s wake. Maekallus sees it’s a vuldor tusk, not forged metal. Realizing what it means, his insides turn brittle as shed snake skin.

“No!” he rasps, reaching forward, but that narrow light saps his strength. His elbow hits the ground. Still he reaches. Not that. Anything but—

Too late. The gobler plunges the tusk knife into the soil of the earth, and Maekallus feels a crippling tug deep inside him.

“Rot where you betrayed us,” the gobler says with heavy, scratchy words. He spits on Maekallus’s shoulder and flees deeper into the wildwood.

The telling pulse in Maekallus’s hand vanishes with him.





CHAPTER 5

Rabbit’s ear, a thick variety of grass, will stave off infection caused by magicked creatures or bespelled items.





I lay my blankets by the hearth after my father retires for the night. The fire burns bright, heating the house beyond what is comfortable. I do not open any windows. I do not sleep. I write in my book all the knowledge I gleaned from my meeting with Maekallus. Once that is done, I lie down, clutching the hilt of my mother’s silver dagger with my right hand, while my left squeezes the Telling Stone until the stone grows so cold I could not open my fingers if I wanted to.

I don’t notice when the stone begins to warm, only that it has. Sometime in the early morning, when the sun shines at the horizon, I drop the stone and rub my knuckles, coaxing the muscles in my fingers to soften. Both threats are gone. Maekallus kept the bargain.

I pick up my bedding and return it to my mattress, falling asleep instantly atop it. The sun is full and bright when I wake to my father’s footsteps retreating from my room. I imagine he’s checked on me several times. I rarely sleep in so late.

After I dress and comb my hair, I feel the Telling Stone. Cool to the touch. I focus on it, closing my eyes as I do so. It’s Maekallus’s presence that keeps the stone from warming entirely. He is either a ways off or docile, if the stone’s reaction is so mild. Yet those yellow eyes could never be described as docile. I immediately assume the first reason.

I returned all my borrowed things from my trek into the wildwood save my father’s remaining medallion—the rest of the mysting’s payment. With the gold in my pocket, I walk the perimeter of the house, searching the green spaces between old, tall trees. A fawn peeks out near me, and turns away just as quickly. The Telling Stone doesn’t change.

Needing to busy myself to stave off uncertainty, I join my father in the cellar and tend the mushrooms. They grow with little fuss, but it benefits none of us if a poisonous breed gets into the mix, or if ripe mushrooms go unpicked and wrinkle on the log.

I do not work for long before a sharp pain dances across my palm. I excuse myself back to the house to treat the cut on my hand. Peeling back the bandage, I frown at the mark. I do not know how mysting bargains work, but the cut has not healed in the slightest. At least there is no sign of infection. I wash it, apply a thick layer of salve—in which I include rabbit’s ear, in case the wound is magical—and bandage it anew. My father has not noticed the bandaging; if he does, I’ll tell him I scraped my palm on the nail that sticks out of the ladder to the cellar. The one I’ve known to avoid all my life, but Papa will accept the lie. Even so, I dislike spinning another tale to fool him.

Days pass. I wait for the narval to collect his payment, but he doesn’t come. No mysting can stay in the mortal realm for longer than a few days, but my Telling Stone neither warms nor cools.

My hand doesn’t heal.

My father slips back into his easy routine, the stress of the first gobler incident forgotten, or at least buried. I try to make a new salve for my hand with lavender and tapis root. It staves off infection, but the cut doesn’t so much as crust. I finally show it to my father, for he knows the basics of battlefield wounds. I give him the story of the nail, seasoned with truth—I say I injured my hand days ago, yet it has not healed. His brow pulls taut as he stitches my hand after liberally applying expensive thorrow herb, the seeds of which had been purchased from the apothecary in town. Despite the numbing medicine, the stitches smart. I try to bear them gratefully.

The fine thread holds the cut closed, but the wound does not heal. It grows more tender with each passing hour. Redder and darker. Two days later, with my father’s medallion weighing my pocket, I venture back into the wildwood to close the bargain for myself. I do not go far before I hear footsteps coming my way. My Telling Stone remains unchanged. Regardless, I breathe a sigh of relief when it’s another human who emerges between the trees.

“Tennith,” I say, my start leaving me breathless. A thin beam of sunlight spills through the canopy and dances off his light hair. He’s wearing leathers instead of his usual plain clothes, and four rabbits hang over his shoulder, back feet bound by rope. “You startled me.”

He smiles, reminding me again of how handsome he is. The leathers hug his person far better than his loose farming clothes, highlighting the broadness of his shoulders. I have to remind myself not to stare.