The Will and the Wilds(20)

Maekallus sits between the thick roots of an oak, his back pressed against the trunk, his hands touching the bandage wrapped around his middle. The wound hurts more than it should. Too slow to heal. But that isn’t what bothers him.

It’s the fire. The feeling. The soul.

Not even a soul. A sliver of a soul. But it continues to swirl inside him, every bit as alive as when he first consumed it.

It isn’t right. When he takes a soul, it burns inside him for a few hours, then fades into nothing. Dead weight. A too-big breath of hot air. Once he returns to the monster realm, his body digests it, and that is that. But more than a day has passed since Enna parted with this fragment of herself.

A soul’s vigor never lasts so long. Not for anyone.

His mind tries to piece it together. Is this slice of soul alive because the rest of it still lives inside its original host? Is it affected by the gobler’s damnable spell? Whatever it is, the bits and pieces of human feeling, that bizarre inner awareness they have, live within him. Perhaps that is what makes his chest hurt.

Or perhaps that is why, when a splotch of black begins to form on his shoulder, Maekallus feels a tendril of fear.





CHAPTER 10

Some mystings cannot be killed by standard metal-worked weapons. All, however, are susceptible to sharpened silver.





The cut on my hand is worse in the morning. There’s no trace of black in it, but the skin around the fissure is red and sore. I wrap it best I can before I set off for the wildwood. I have little hope when I wander to Maekallus’s glade. Although I skimmed both my and my grandmother’s notes late into the night, I found nothing that might save us.

He leans against the base of a tree, nestled between two thick roots, his eyes closed. It surprises me how peaceful he looks, almost as much as it surprises me that he’s asleep. I don’t know what I expected. I never put much thought to the question of whether or not mystings slept. I’ll note it in my book later.

I let myself stare at him, the way I never would were he able to witness it, all while trying to look away from the blots of blood staining his bandages. He does not know his age, but physically he looks to be in his mid to late twenties. If I put my bias aside, I can admit that his is a handsome face. A different one—no one in Fendell looks quite like he does, and I’ve never met a man or woman with red hair. His pants, layered like armor, are dirty and speckled with blood. The hem skims the top of his hoof feet. I wonder, beneath his clothes, how much of him is equine. His knees, bent slightly in rest, look entirely human. Somewhere between ankle and knee, he changes, then.

I wonder again at my grandmother’s words, the blood of bastards, as I near. I notice that his breathing is not smooth, like there’s phlegm in his lungs. I don’t get much closer before he opens his eyes, and their vivid canary-colored irises remind me of what he is.

My wound throbs. “You haven’t healed.”

He shifts. Something pops loud enough for me to hear. “This world . . . this spell. It’s weakened me.”

Even his voice has lost strength.

I roll my lips together and approach him, kneeling down by his knees. I don’t ask permission—it seems strange to be polite to a mysting—and gently pull at the edge of his bandage to peek at the wound inside. The poultice I applied has kept the scabs from sticking to the bandage, and a lot of the injury has clotted over. Good.

What is not good is the black ooze seeping between the stitches—the infection of the mortal realm.

And the smell. I pull back, and press the bandage back down. “The corruption didn’t happen this quickly last time, did it?”

He shrugs. “Last time I didn’t have an open wound on my chest.”

“Don’t talk like it was my doing.” I pick up a different poultice from my basket, but instinctively I know it will do no good. The mystical parts of Maekallus have kept him alive where a mortal would have died, but nothing monster or man will save him from destruction if he cannot descend to his own realm.

At least, nothing I possess.

I massage my fingers, thinking. “I’m going to go into the village. See what I can find there, unless there’s more you’re not telling me.”

He scoffs. “Unless you have a sorcerer on hand who can find the gobler, I fear we’re at an impasse.”

I don’t, of course. Sorcery is a dying craft, thanks to growing laws regarding mystings. Sorcery is enormously the conjuring and brewing of magical ingredients, many of which stem from the monster realm. Even if sorcery were still a viable profession, a sorcerer would never waste his talents on a wayward place like Fendell.

Maekallus perks up. “You could lure the gobler here. With whatever he wanted the first time. What did he want?”

I lean away from him, touching my forearm through my sleeve, seeing the black mark there in my mind. “I don’t know.”

He narrows his eyes. He clearly doesn’t believe me. “The only way I know for certain to break the spell is to obtain the knife he used to make it, or to kill him. If three of their kind have come here for the same purpose, they’re bound to come again.” He groans and leans back against the tree.

I stand slowly, pondering his words. I feel a shiver and, where Maekallus can’t see, grasp the Telling Stone in my hand. But the stone is only cool; the chill is all my own.