The Will and the Wilds(19)

My stinging palm openly bleeds against its bandaging, reacting to Maekallus’s self-inflicted wound.

“Lie down,” I urge him, and help him onto his back. Looking around the clearing, I search for any witnesses, but we are alone. I lift the cloak just a bit to look at the wound. Blood bubbles up, and I press down with both my hands.

I focus on my own breathing to keep my thoughts clear. “How long does it take you to heal, normally?”

“Not . . . long,” he wheezes, but the sound is not as bad as when he was a sludgy mess, so perhaps there’s hope. “Even here . . . faster, in the Deep. The immortal waters are swift . . .”

I’ve never heard of “immortal waters,” but I assume the “Deep” is his name for the monster realm. Were I not staunching the flow of blood from a very large and stupid wound, I would hasten to write down the information in my book. “Perhaps the binding spell is preventing you from healing.”

“Obviously.”

I push harder against the wound, and he cringes. “But there is something,” I go on, “for I think a normal man would be dead by now. Or closer to it.”

He manages to grin. I stare at it a moment, surprised. How can he grin when his chest has been cut open?

I should probably inspect the wound, but I don’t want to disturb any clotting, if mystings clot. “I need to go home, get some supplies.” The thought of the journey fatigues my body, but the sting in my hand reminds me of worse fates.

“A soul . . . will help.”

“I will not kiss you.”

“Doesn’t have to be yours.”

“And you think I’d lure some unsuspecting person here for you to feast on?” I shift my hands slightly and increase the pressure, almost enjoying the grimace the pressure elicits.

“For your own well-being? Yes.”

“No. And even if I did, I’d make it the ugliest, oldest man I could find.”

Maekallus frowns, winces.

I sigh. “Perhaps I can catch a hare—”

He coughs. “Do I look like a hare to you?” When I don’t answer, he explains, “We . . . consume human souls . . . because we’re of human make.”

The blood of bastards. “Here.” I take his hand and put it atop the cloak. “I’m going to get supplies. I’ll move quickly.”

“See that you do.”

I leave my father’s sword in the clearing—if anything will slow me down, it’s that, and the blade is smeared with mysting blood, which may result in questions I can’t honestly answer. Papa is not home when I arrive, or he’s in the cellar. I collect whatever I can and drag my weary body back to the glade, wrapping my own bleeding hand as I go.

Maekallus is where I left him. “Has anyone seen you?” I ask.

“If they did”—he wheezes—“they failed to introduce themselves.”

I drop my basket of supplies at his shoulder and ready a bottle of antiseptic, a jar of salve, and my father’s thread and needle. I’ve never stitched skin before, but having recently watched my father do so, I have some confidence that I can manage.

Though this wound is more serious than a surface cut.

Except it’s not quite as bad as I recall—perhaps Maekallus is healing. Either way, it’s a terrible sight, illuminated by that blasted spell. I pour on antiseptic, and Maekallus seizes like I’ve dropped a cannonball on his gut. New blood spurts from the wound.

“Lie down!” I push his shoulders back. “Gods, it will help you heal faster!” Or perhaps I’m wrong. What little knowledge I have about healing is specific to humans. Although it won’t help him to say so. If my own life weren’t inextricably tied to his, I might jump at the chance to learn more of mysting physiology.

Maekallus lies down, but his limbs remain taut and strained, and vile-sounding words from what I assume to be the tongue of monsters sputter from his lips. I’m somewhere outside myself when I stitch him closed and smear on green-tinted salve. The sun is beginning to set, and a well-trained part of my mind reminds me that it’s not safe to be in the wildwood after dark.

If only I’d avoided it entirely.

He sits up of his own accord, and I press gauze to the wound—I’ll need to buy more after this—and wrap it. I have to get very close to him to do this, and loop my arms around his chest. He watches me as I do, silent. Perhaps, were he a man, this moment might possess a flare of intimacy. But he is not, and so it doesn’t.

I tuck the end of the bandage in. My hands and fingers are stained red. Blood coagulates under my nails. My bandage is wet, but I don’t know if it’s from my blood or his.

I am a sight, and so I wait until the sun barely peeks above the horizon to return home, all the while clutching the Telling Stone in my hand, my book under my arm, and my father’s sword to my chest. The stone whispers of mystings at the perimeter of its reach, but none come searching for me.

Perhaps the greatest deterrent to them is the blood of their own.





CHAPTER 9

Grinlers are carnivorous pack hunters. Despite their small size and lack of speech, they are quick on their feet and manage to communicate hunting plans through grunts, snorts, and body language.





This is wrong. It isn’t fading.