7. Seven

Ryurikov paced, each step scuffing dirt, mind steeplechasing. Suddenly, he stopped, spun around, and snapped his fingers at Awimak with a realisation. “You steal dreams!”

I DO NOT STEAL THEM.It was hard to tell, but he thought Awimak sounded offended. I REPLACE ONE WITH THE OTHER.

“Hm. So how do you know Valka?” He regarded the hag, still trapped by roots and sitting in damp soil.

“We met every once in a while in the woodlands.”

A simple enough answer, but Ryurikov knew what this meant. “So, the Thuidal forests are your home.”

“Well done.”

He hummed. “And of course, you think it’s my fault some of the land was destroyed.”

“Some?” Jezibaba seethed, sinewy arms flexing against the restraints. “All of the woodlands were burned to the ground!”

Ryurikov jerked his focus elsewhere, refusing to let her see his shock. There were rumours, but he hadn’t known the extent of the damage and in truth, had not been inclined to find out. He certainly wasn’t going to take Jezibaba’s word for it, either.

“Do you know where she is now?”

Jezibaba grumbled, “It’s been years since I’ve last seen her.”

“Fuck.” Ryurikov lowered his hood and combed fingers through his messy hair.

So, his only other option was to return to his kingdom and sift through the ashes for traces of her.

There had to be another way.

“You’ll take me where I need to go,” he said at length.

“Why would I?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Ryurikov ran the broom handle across his thigh, holding it with both hands. “You seem attached to this broom. Would be a damned shame if something happened to it.”

That earned him a nasty glare and he grinned. “Awimak,” he held the broom out, “would you be so kind as to accompany me and hold on to this broom, ensuring this hag can’t get to it? In exchange, I’ll suffer all the nightmares you want.”

YES.Awimak readily grabbed the broom.

Ryurikov clapped his hands together. “Perfect!”

He trudged alongside Awimak, allowing Jezibaba to lead the way. Since he would rather stick his cock in a nest of glowants than trust her, the hag’s arms remained roped to her sides by roots.

Reappearing from the strange Awimak-dwelling into the forest was as simple as crossing the threshold of a doorway, yet it left Ryurikov disorientated. Like waking from an intense dream and not quite knowing his ass from his face.

“Are you allowed to leave the woods?” he asked the demon. He trailed his gaze along Awimak’s lengthy body. Goodness, the demon was something to behold, and surprisingly benign. Even if he stole pleasant dreams.

I AM NOT TETHERED TO THIS FOREST, ONLY HAPPEN TO ENJOY IT.

“That’s fair.” It was a pleasant forest, murderous hags aside.

Finding the hut was irritatingly simple when all Jezibaba had to do was tap her foot three times for it to come running like an eager pup. Except it was a burl of soaring trees that could easily stomp things to death.

Coming to a gentle stop just before the hag, it lowered, trunks bending like knees and tree crowns parting to create a path directly to the steps. A look up at Awimak, and Ryurikov followed, temporarily walled in by branches and greenery until he, for the third time, marched up to the arched front door.

His stomach turned in protest, and he hesitated going much further than the entrance. Jezibaba came to stand in the middle of the room by a clunky table, only a tree trunk sawed in half. She glowered, arms still strapped.

“Are you just going to stand around like the idiot you are?”

Repeated thuds behind him wrenched Ryurikov’s attention to the door. He paused, staring, while Awimak attempted to get his large horns in through the doorway. He burst into laughter. It sounded nervous to his own ears.

“Allow me to assist,” he said.

Awimak breathily grunted as he placed both hands on the large coils. He pushed the demon back out, then helped manoeuvre the horns past the frame with minimal damage. Broad shoulders and the rest of Awimak followed. What they ended up with was a squatting demon whose deer-skull looked disgruntled despite a lack of facial features.

“Maybe we should keep you outside,” Ryurikov mused, earning himself an unhappy snort.

With a faint smile, he strode past Jezibaba, headed upstairs for the mirror. He tried to ignore the painful, queasy clench in his stomach, rolling his shoulders against the lingering pain of death.

The stained glass window momentarily caught his scrutiny upon entry. The birds in its design—Mourning Doves, he realised—flapped their wings, movements staggered. They took flight into a mixture of sky coloured glass, gradually transforming into smaller and smaller flecks until vanishing.

He took a minute to look over the desk, the many books piled atop it. Several bore a script he couldn’t decipher, others appeared to be journals on herbs and medicine, even studies of the human body. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought Jezibaba to be a practising doctor.

Running his finger down the leather spine of a particularly large tome, Ryurikov realised he was stalling, hating the possibility of looking into the mirror only to see himself again. He didn’t like being nervous, it was a nuisance.

He sucked in a breath, then closed the distance to the mirror in three quick strides. It was still plain and tarnished, and still only reflected him. Even when he lowered the hood and scarf, all that stared back at him were empty eyes and a scarred face.

“I told you.”

He didn’t bother to cover himself back up. “You certainly did.”

It interested Ryurikov to discover Jezibaba’s reflection wasn’t visible in the mirror. In fact, it showed very little, his surroundings an inscrutable blur.

“Now what?”

Ryurikov faced the ancient woman. She had righted herself, more or less, binding roots gone. A beetle crawling around her stacked hair glinted green in the light sifting through stained glass. The birds returned, coming to settle at the forefront on branch-like shapes.

“Did Valka tell you where she was going at all?”

Jezibaba glowered up at him. “She didn’t tell you?”

Ryurikov scoffed. “Don’t make me ask Awimak to break your broom.” He stalked away from the mirror, back to the door. “You know damned well I couldn’t know where she was headed.”

“Because the King would’ve tortured it out of you?”

Words that jabbed him like hot iron right in the back. He didn’t whirl, barely resisting the need to lash out. “I’m fucking tired of those rumours. My parents weren’t anything like that before—”

“Before the Skin Crawlers infested them? There’s a reason they were infested in the first place, Prince.”

Ryurikov gnashed his teeth, glaring without seeing down the dim hallway. “I should’ve just ignored those stupid spirits and rammed your broom down your throat, crone.”

Said crone huffed in amusement. “Too late now.”

“Never too late to kill me a witch,” he said coolly, then walked off.

Jezibaba’s voice chased after him, “It’s still two-to-zero, about time you tried!”

Angry as he was, he couldn’t help the snort as his gaze landed on Awimak upon reaching the bottom of the stairs. Long legs covered in glossy, undulating black fur drawn up to his chest, he sat cramped in a corner, still holding the broom, only a twig in his oversized claws. Cages and bundles of dried herbs had caught on his horns, some now littering the already messy floor.

IS THIS WHAT HUMANS MEAN BY COSY?

Ryurikov’s eyebrows furrowed with amusement. “More or less.”

He shifted things away from the demon to give him some room, including what turned out to be a large sack of grains. Dragging it to a different corner left him panting.

“What’s your deal, anyway?” he asked, grunting with the effort it took to move an entire cauldron of something away from those giant hooves. Certainly not stew. The indigo contents were pungent and sharp in his nostrils, sloshing over the rim in thick glops. “With the whole dream thing.”

I DEVOUR NIGHTMARES.

Ryurikov glanced at him in confusion, kicking an empty bucket into another corner of the room. “Don’t you mean ‘feed people nightmares’?”

NO. I PROTECT.

Awimak was either lying, or unaware of the difference between protecting and harming. He was a demon, after all.

“Are you related to those other spirits?”

Awimak shook his head, knocking down a bird cage. It clanked to the floor, the cage door falling open. The sound of frantic wingbeats carried through the hut.

YOU REFER TO THE QUINARY.

“Sure?” Ryurikov looked around for the source of the noise, but saw nothing.

NOT RELATED.

“Good.” Ryurikov let his eyes journey over thick hooves, the muscular legs and dark grey skin. All the way up to those burning eyes. “You…protect people from nightmares?”

Again, Awimak tried to shake his head. Dried herbs fluttered down. IT IS A BURDEN I WAS CHARGED WITH. BUT I AM TIRED.

Ryurikov opened the front door, walked back to the broken cage, and kicked it hard. It clanked and rolled out, down the stoop, disappearing into rustling leaves. He hadn’t realised the hut was on the move already.

The wild flapping of what had to be an invisible bird zipped past him, and out. He shut the door after it. Jezibaba needn’t find out.

“I can relate to that, my friend.”

So, Awimak had decided he wanted to feast on good dreams instead. Ryurikov now understood why the demon was after him, specifically. With a slight shake of his head, he meandered to the log table and dropped onto a low stool. Leaning back, he kept his eyes skinned for the hag. What in the hell was she doing up there?

WHAT IS YOUR DEAL?Awimak asked.

Ryurikov’s lips twitched up. “What do you mean, friend?”

YOUR EYES.

“Ah.” He leaned his forearms across his thighs. “They’re—”

LIKE THE MOON.

Ryurikov raised his brows. He hadn’t thought of them like that before. “I suppose they are. I’m not overly fond of them, truth be told.”

WHY?

“They’re…” He shrugged.

Awimak’s eyes flickered in the sockets of the deer-like skull. THEY ARE TRANQUIL.

“That’s one way of looking at it.” Ryurikov’s smile returned, he couldn’t help it.

A scoff, paired with the slap of bare feet on wood, announced Jezibaba’s return at last.

“And what have you been up to?” Ryurikov demanded, certain she was devising plans to regain her broom, or another way to kill him. “We need to stop for food.” He didn’t think he could stomach anything yet, but he hoped to eat eventually.

Jezibaba passed him with a scowl, hobbling to the hearth. “I have food here.”

It was Ryurikov’s turn to scoff. “I am not eating anything from here. Stop the hut.”

“Go out in the garden if you want something to eat!” Jezibaba lowered into the rocking chair. “I don’t know what you think this is, but I’m not looking after you, child.”

“Garden?” asked Ryurikov, flatly.

The witch jerked her head to the kitchenette behind her. Ryurikov made his way to the paned windows, the glass dusty and rippled. Through it, a sizable vegetable patch was visible, and what he presumed to be fruit trees. That made sense. The hag had to survive somehow.

Crashes behind him told Ryurikov the demon was on the move. He didn’t even bother to look, Jezibaba’s angry screeching said plenty.

“Where is Panellus?” she cried.

“What’s that?” Ryurikov asked, now admiring the beautiful skies, dotted with birds and flocked clouds.

“Her cage is gone!”

“Oh, the invisible bird? Yeah. It escaped.”

“You useless nitwit!” Jezibaba wheezed. “That was a mushroom and it took me months to capture!”

Ryurikov moved down the short hallway to reach the backdoor. He suppressed a chuckle, watching the demon struggle between narrow walls with those broad shoulders, hooves relentlessly sliding across wood boards as he scooted forward.

A warm zephyr greeted Ryurikov when he emerged onto a porch overlooking the garden, an islet held aloft by the boughs of the trees below. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought it to be a pleasant summer morning. Despite the distant creaks of large trees on the move, it was peaceful, bright green birds twittering in a berry thicket just to the right. They didn’t seem bothered when he plucked a raspberry from it. He held it up for inspection.

Could Jezibaba spell poison into food, or did she have to touch it? He would have asked, but something heavy and hard rammed into his back.

Ryurikov flew forward, sent sprawling on stepping stones and scuffing his cheek.

MY APOLOGIES. I WAS STUCK.

Ryurikov groaned. “It’s fine.”

This was going to be a long and painful trip.