Chapter 39

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

MAEVYTH

A s I waited for Rykaia to bring me the basin and sponge, I flipped open the puzzle book to the next mechanism–the clock-like box with all of the various symbols. Eyes sweeping over each one, I twisted the book around, and paused on one I’d seen before–the spiny glyph that’d shot forth bones from my hand. Frowning, I studied it closer and, on the clock’s edge, noticed the three squiggly lines Rykaia had taught me for Aeryz.

Glyphs. The symbols were glyphs.

I turned the top of the box until it clicked into place, and discovered that each glyph on top lined up with the glyphs on the side somehow, though they were not the same symbol. They also aligned with what looked to be the different phases of each moon, carved on the outer edge of the top just outside of the clockface.

The question was, how did each glyph on top link to those on the side?

I would’ve asked Dolion, but I could already hear his snores through the wall.

A tiny hole in the center of the clockface caught my attention. Flipping back a page, I plucked out the lever that I’d used to open the book, and stuffed one end into the small hole. The other end of it stuck up like a crank, and when I turned it, something plinked inside. I turned it again to more plinking, a beautiful song with the impossibly rich melody of a harp. Turning and turning, I kept the song going, until it stopped and the box clicked louder than before. I looked at the arrangement of glyphs. The spine lined up to a scorpion. Aeryz to flame. The two halves of the moons united at the top and bottom of the clockface to form one full moon. With ease, I lifted the top of the box. Inside, lay a black rose, perfectly intact, as if it’d recently been picked. I plucked it from the box, noting the beautiful, metallic silver edges along every petal. After inspecting the flower, I turned the page for the next part of the story.

What looked to be Morsana, as she appeared on the first page of the puzzle book, stood over a baby lying in a bassinet, holding a rose similar to the one I clutched right then. When I ran my fingers over the page, the scene came to life. Morsana placed the rose on the baby’s chest, and ravens flocked around the bassinet.

Another brush of my finger unveiled words below the scene. From death, we rose. A new generation was born.

I thought back to the conversation I’d had with The Crone Witch, when she’d told me she had been the one to find me. That she hadn’t seen who’d left me there. Had she left the rose? What did it mean?

I turned the page again to yet another puzzle. A circular object, with various lines and a peg at the center. Beneath it appeared to be some kind of maze made of deep grooves, but too weary to decipher it right then, I lay the book down with a sigh. Between my earlier training and studying bones, my head was spinning.

The stars through the window captured my attention as I curled up in my blankets. As it had on previous nights, my mind drifted to Aleysia. I thought back to the vision I’d seen of her earlier in the day, lying calm and alive beside a warm hearth. Had someone found her and taken her in? I couldn’t imagine who, in Foxglove, would’ve done such a thing after her banishment.

Except for one.

The Crone Witch.

She was the only one who wouldn’t have been troubled by rumor, or the supposed evil that my sister represented. Yes, I prayed that she’d found Aleysia, and that my sister was safe with her.

My eyes prickled with tears.

Something moved in my periphery, and I jolted upright.

Long, spindly legs stepped into view.

The spider I’d seen the night before, just outside my cell.

The quickening of my pulse accompanied the rough pounding of my heart as, again, I searched for something to throw at it. Unless I imagined it, the spider seemed to have grown since its previous visit, and it was then I considered that I may have been hallucinating the damned thing.

It didn’t advance closer, as if it couldn’t for some reason.

“Shoo!” I waved it off, not daring to step down from the bed.

From its furry back, it tugged an object that its long skinny leg placed on the stony floor on the other side of the bars. Frowning, I leaned forward, trying to make out what it’d placed there.

The spider skittered to the side, out of view, and I pushed to my feet, eyes glued to the object it’d left behind. A mirror, from what I could see of the shiny surface.

With no sign of the spider, I padded cautiously toward the cell door, eyes sweeping from one corner to the other. A thread of tension wound inside my stomach as I opened the door it seemed no one had bothered to lock, scanning for that damned spider.

My reflection stared back at me in the mirror, when I lifted it from the floor, and on lowering it, I caught the shine of something else ahead of me. I padded carefully toward it, eyes peeled for the slightest movement.

Dolion’s snores reverberated off the walls of his cell as I passed, and I kept on, toward the dark end of the corridor. Until I came upon the second object. A key.

In the distance, a sconce flared to life, startling me at first. And yet another object caught my attention.

On the floor.

A lock and chain.

I glanced down at the key in my hand and back to the door. Still no sign of the spider I’d seen. The logical side of my brain told me to leave it alone and return to my cell, because nothing good ever came from chasing after enormous spiders. As a child, I’d once tracked a tarantula along the edge of the woods and ended up getting bitten, leaving quite a knot on my leg.

The illogical and maddeningly curious half of my brain needed to know what was locked away, though. Surely, Dolion and I wouldn’t have been expected to sleep near something capable of harming us. It could’ve very well have been nothing more than more spiders.

A thought that squeezed my spine.

Questioning my sanity, I tiptoed closer, and the gravity of my decision to open the door left my hands trembling as I shoved the key into the lock. On a click, the lock opened, and I loosened the chain from the anchors that held the door closed. Every muscle shook, as I lifted the door on a creak of old wood and rusted hinges. Grabbing the sconce from the wall, I held it over the open door to peer inside. Nothing but darkness, and a ladder that disappeared into shadows.

I shifted the sconce to the other side of the door, the light illuminating a horrifically colossal spider web that took up the entirety of the wall.

A crashing sound snapped my attention away from the hole. “Maevyth! What are you doing!” At the end of the corridor, just outside of my cell, Rykaia stood over broken porcelain, her eyes wide with fear. “Get away from there! Now!”

A force banded around my waist, yanking me through the hole. On impact, zaps of pain shot up my spine, jagged flashes of light behind my eyes converging into an explosion of agony at the back of my skull. The door overhead slammed shut.

On the gravelly dirt beside me, the sconce burned, and I trembled as I turned over onto my stomach. Above me, I could hear Rykaia and Dolion pounding against the door.

“Branimir!” Rykaia’s muffled scream bled through the barrier, and I reached out for the sconce, lifting it into the air.

In the dark corner, something shifted. What little I could make of its shape told me it wasn’t a spider, though I felt like eyes were watching my every move from every corner of that small space. The putrid odor of rot and mold assaulted my nose, and I coughed and gagged, swallowing back the acids in my throat. I pushed onto my knees, trailing the flaming torch back and forth.

“Hello?”

A deep, guttural growl answered, and it was then I realized I’d made a grave mistake in opening that door.

Slowly, I backed myself away toward the ladder, but a tickle on the back of my calf brought me to a halt, and I slowly turned my head.

Looming over me were the largest set of fangs I’d ever seen, and above them, hundreds of beady eyes watching me.

I let out a scream and scampered away on all fours, dropping the sconce. “Somebody, help me!”

“Maevyth!” Dolion’s voice carried an edge of panic.

“Quiet,” a deep, raspy voice spoke from behind.

I turned to the corner where I’d seen movement only a moment ago. “Is someone there?”

“They don’t like screams,” it answered.

I didn’t dare to look back at the gargantuan beast blocking my escape. “Wh-wh-who are you?”

“Sing. It will calm them.”

Sing? Had he lost his senses? How in seven hells could I be expected to sing anything, under the circumstances. “I … I don’t know if I can. I’m … shaking.”

“I won’t let them hurt you.” Though hoarse and terrifying, his voice held a certain sincerity.

“O-o-okay.” I inhaled a long, shaky breath, and exhaled one equally as shaky. Don’t think about the spiders .

Closing my eyes, I imagined my sister, and the nights she’d ask me to sing to her. I imagined the stars and my bed, and all the things that brought me comfort. I hummed at first, to see if I was even capable of forming a single note with my throat tight and my muscles locked. Fortunately, my body didn’t fail me, and I sang the song I knew best. The one that reminded me of watching my father mourn.

So wrapped up in the song and the memories playing inside my head, I didn’t notice the figure moving closer.

Until I opened my eyes.

Before me, a beastly creature crouched, his skin like bark and covered in black veins, his eyes two black and soulless orbs that stared back at me. Crooked horns protruded from his head, his lips peeled back over sharpened teeth.

A scream blasted out of me, as I kicked myself backward. The fear inside bore teeth that hooked into my stomach and chest, paralyzing me as the beast prowled closer.

The wrathavor from The Eating Woods!

“Please. Sing,” he said, lifting a bony finger to his lips that reminded me of a tree branch.

Every cell in my body shook and bounced, wild with the fear that cinched my lungs. My bottom lip quivered with the urge to cry, but I swallowed it back and nodded. Because I was trapped, and I had no intention of having my skin ripped from my flesh. Closing my eyes again, I forced myself to another place. Anywhere but there.

Something scratched my thighs, and I opened my eyes to find the humanoid creature resting his head in my lap, his thin, pale body curled into himself.

I could scarcely draw in a breath as I watched him. Waiting for the moment when he’d snap and dangle me from those bony hands, while he clawed away my skin.

He didn’t, though.

Instead, he merely lay across my legs, and I felt a bead of moisture slip over my shin.

Tears. His tears. Weeping, as I sang to him.

My pulse slowed. My breaths calmed.

He no longer looked terrifying to me.

In that moment, he reminded me of a child. A sad and desperate child who longed for contact.

As I sang, I lowered my hand toward his face, hesitating a moment. I stroked a gentle finger across his shoulder, and he startled, but didn’t move. I kept on singing as I rested my hand against him, and I felt him shake with a sob. Tears formed in my eyes. My heart clenched and broke for this poor, helpless creature, who seemed to want nothing more than a gentle touch.

I was no longer afraid.

I was furious at whoever had hurt him.