The Will and the Wilds(68)

Too warm.

I . . .

I?





CHAPTER 29

Narval horns make for excellent sorcery, or so a rooter named Attaby has claimed. The extent of his meaning is yet to be determined.





Once, not long after Maekallus was made, before Enna was ever born, he fancied a mortal woman.

He hid from her for a long time, watching, intrigued. Narah worked at a brothel—those aren’t too different across realms, save for the customers. She was tall and lithe with hair like midnight that fell in soft curls down her back. Her breath smelled like dying roses. Her lips were stained red. She was coy and curious and bold, and Maekallus learned how to charm just about anyone from watching her. He’d found her during one of his scouting missions for Scroud; she’d been a diversion from the orjan’s dominating presence in the Deep.

Maekallus had already coaxed out a soul or two by then. Lost himself in the brief ecstasy of the vigor. So long as the mortal was willing, the soul came. Willingness could come from lust, fear, or trickery. An easy obstacle to overcome.

When he’d finally shown himself to Narah, she’d hardly reacted at all. Perhaps it was the smoke in her lungs or the drink in her belly. It didn’t matter. She was kind and curious. Invited him into her home, and her bed.

It was a dark night, the sky congested with those strange white clouds of the mortal realm. She told him about things he’d never experienced—dancing and comedy and heartache—and he hung off her every word like they were drops of water in the middle of the Azhgrada.

It wasn’t entirely his fault. She’d leaned toward him, smiling, reaching for his mouth. He’d kissed her, and he’d taken her soul—the entirety of it. He hadn’t meant to. But intentions don’t matter when one is a narval.

It burned brightly inside him, blissful and sweltering and agonizing. It made him regret. And like the other souls he’d consumed, it began to fade. He panicked.

Then he heard about Attaby. Sought him out. The rooter was interested, quiet, contemplative. Even now, Maekallus remembers their conversation. The immortal waters might do it. Then again, once a soul leaves its body, the pathway is carved, isn’t it? Who is to say it wouldn’t leave again, and of its own volition? You’d need some sort of talisman to keep it in place. But it doesn’t matter.

Why? Maekallus asked.

The rooter shook his head. Her soul is dead, dear lad. It died long before you found me.

Just like that, he’d lost her. And the moment he digested her soul in the Deep, he’d stopped caring altogether.





The Deep has no sky, just endless red light that isn’t really light at all, but somehow it enables the eye to see. It has trees, but they’re ruddy and short with jagged limbs bearing fruit that will kill any mortal taster. Its soil is darker, where there is soil to be had. Much of the Deep, at least where Maekallus dwells, has uneven ground that’s spongy with one step, steellike with the next. But there’s water—brooks and streams and rivers of it, though not nearly as bounteous as in the mortal realm. Even mystings have to drink.

Sometimes, in the mortal realm, on a snowy night, one can experience pure silence. But it’s never silent in the Deep. There is always something breathing, crying, laughing, feeding. Always something writhing, usually unseen.

It had bothered Maekallus at first, at the beginning of this existence. Then he’d stopped noticing it, stopped caring. But with Enna in his arms, he notices every click and whine, every shift of the endless red landscape.

Enna doesn’t. She stares straight ahead, a puppet without a master. The light is gone from her eyes, captured inside his own body, burning inside a lantern that won’t let it shine.

The Deep lends him the ability to digest what he stole in the realm above, and the mysting in him longs to do just that. His stomach growls with hunger. A strange thirst forms at the back of his throat, begging to be quenched.

He squeezes the stone and focuses. He has to be swift. He will not let her soul die.

Grabbing Enna by the hips, he throws her over his shoulder. He can move faster that way. She doesn’t so much as peep at the discomfort.

Her reaction—her lack of one—spikes fear through him.

He runs.

Enna doesn’t draw attention; she’s soulless, a husk. But Maekallus does. He feels eyes, seen and unseen, follow him as he navigates through the Deep. His destination is the immortal waters, but no one can travel directly there. Its magic nullifies circles.

He passes through spiny trees, a poor imitation of the wildwood. Hears a low growl issue from the shadows between them. By habit he reaches his free hand for his horn—but his trusted “blade” won’t come, even here. The soul cements it in place. It’s barely a knife now, besides.

Then he remembers the stone, and he pushes toward the predator, and the pursuit halts before it begins.

He grips that stone until his hand aches, afraid to use it lest it draw attention. He doesn’t understand how it works in the mortal realm; he certainly can’t comprehend the consequences of its power in the Deep.

He nearly cries when he sees it—another absurd new sensation. The immortal waters. A great rusted hill with a crater where its crest should be, and in that open mouth laps an enormous pool of silvery water. It feeds the Deep, little by little. It’s why Maekallus and his kind live so long, though he has no knowledge of its source.