The Will and the Wilds(42)

“How do you do it?” the rooter asks.

“Uh”—she glances to Maekallus—“I don’t know. It’s . . . something I was born with.”

Maekallus groans inwardly at the obvious lie, but Attaby accepts it. “Interesting. And you’re keeping him alive. But of course, the bargain spell is simply—”

Maekallus clears his throat loudly. Gesturing to Enna, he says, “We’ll worry about the bargain. What we need help with is breaking this.” He juts a thumb at the binding spell.

“Hmmm.” Attaby considers for a moment before walking to Maekallus and grabbing his jaw in his wide, rough fingers, turning his head this way and that. Maekallus resists the urge to knock the rooter away. Like it or not, he needs help.

Attaby releases him and looks him over, possibly studying the spots of black growing like mold over his body.

“You’re not corrupted,” Enna says, drawing the mysting’s attention away. “You’ve obviously been here a long time, but the mortal world doesn’t consume you.”

The rooter chortles. “Oh, it does indeed, young one. But a dip back into the Deep is all I require to return renewed. It is not hard to linger here if one visits home on occasion. That is why so many of our kind haunt uncultivated places like this wood. The weather here really is more pleasant, as is the food.”

“Truly? What is it like in the monster—”

“To the task at hand,” Maekallus interrupts. Even as he says it, black oozes out from the slice across his hand, eating up his palm. It stings.

“I’ve no mystium blood to unbind it,” says Attaby. “I’m surprised it lets you come all this way. Binding spells tend to have short leashes.”

“Can you break it?”

Attaby frowns. He places his large, woody hand against Maekallus’s chest. The thread of red light passes through it.

Then he digs in all four of his jagged fingers, and the tips begin to glow blue.

Attaby is an old mysting, well versed in the workings of both worlds and the sorcery between them. It’s why Maekallus sought him out. This time, and the last, though he’d been too late, then.

But Attaby’s workings are never pleasant.

Heat like a thousand suns pulses through the rooter’s hand, and it takes everything Maekallus has to stay standing. Air storms from their connection. Something beneath Attaby’s grip cracks and sizzles. Maekallus’s knees give out, but he doesn’t fall. The power holds him up.

It pierces him, and he screams.

“Stop!” Enna’s cry is muffled by the surge of Attaby’s power. She grabs the rooter’s other arm and tugs, as if she’ll ever possess the strength to move him. “You’re hurting him!”

The gusts and the light die down, as does the strength holding Maekallus upright. He drops to his knees, palms against the earth.

Enna runs to his side. His chest smokes and smells terrible. “Are you all right?”

He trembles. Grits his teeth to stop it, but his body is repelling the workings of the rooter. It will take a moment.

“Maekallus?” She grabs either side of his face, searching his eyes. Is she going to kiss him, like she did after the grinlers’ attack?

He reaches up a hand and grasps her wrist. “It’ll leave a mark,” he rasps.

“Hmm.” Attaby strokes his wide, flat jaw, completely unmoved by Enna’s screams or Maekallus’s . . . whatever. “Alas, this binding is absolute. It wavered for a moment, but that is all I can do without killing you.”

Maekallus looks down. A strange circular burn mars his chest, the skin there gray and waxen. The glimmer of the binding spell beams bright in comparison.

He spits the vilest curse the Deep had taught him.

“Interesting,” Attaby says, but when Maekallus lifts his head, he realizes the rooter isn’t referring to the spell. His dark eyes shift back and forth between Enna and Maekallus, a flat finger pressed to his mouth.

“Attaby,” Maekallus warns. The name scrapes up his throat.

Attaby turns to Enna. “You should know, little mortal, that there’s been more activity in this place than usual, closer to the heart of the wood. Magic quakes through the air. Mmm, yes. Mystings all about, sniffing something out. Not all are as tolerant of humans as I am. Or, apparently, as Maekallus is.”

Enna stands. “Tolerant? This is our world. We tolerate them.”

Attaby shakes his head. “Oh no, no. The strong prey on the weak, it has always been so. The setting is just happenstance.”

Enna frowns. Maekallus, biting down on a groan, gets up on one malformed hoof, then the other. Slowly, every muscle in his back pulling and twisting, he stands, albeit hunched over.

“Scroud’s minions,” Attaby continues. “Something around here he wants. I can’t think of another reason for them to brood about in the wildwood, unless it’s a grab for resources.”

Maekallus licks his teeth. Scroud. More mystings in the area. Do they know Enna has the stone? But the gobler who escaped him never made it to her home. Perhaps they have determined to look elsewhere.

“Hmm. May I?” Attaby steps closer to Enna. Places a hand on her shoulder. Maekallus can tell she’s trying not to shrink back.

Since when could he read a mortal like this? Since when has he cared to try?