Chapter 2

Two

"Show yourself," came the Kylorr's voice, cutting through the foggy haze in my mind.

Night nettle poison.The most beautiful of blues, shimmering like a sunlit ocean, and the last color many saw before it took their life quickly.

Ignoring his words, though unknowingly obeying them, I scurried from behind the tree. The Kylorr's eyes fastened on me, his jaw tightening. As I approached, his head tipped back against the tree he was propped up against so he could keep my gaze.

His long, finely muscled legs were sprawled out before him, and I sank down beside his right side, peering at the wound.

"There you are, little witch," he said, his voice warm and husky, even in his pain. "I hope I didn't wake you this night."

"Hush and let me think," I admonished, already running through the antidotes I had prepared. I always liked to have the antidote for night nettle in my storage chests—I just couldn't remember if I'd sold the last of it at the prior market day. I'd been waiting for the next crop of brightbell in my garden, but they grew twice as slowly as all the rest, even with the glowflies' magic and perseverance.

I saw the flash of his sharpening ivory fangs out of the corner of my eye. When I looked from the wound to his face, I wondered if I should be more frightened of him. He was a Kylorr, or at the very least, he had a lot of Kylorr blood in him. Their berserker natures were fearsome enough…but it was their bloodlust that had always given me greater pause.

He could drink me dry right here and right now, I thought, and no one would know. No one would hear my screams in the Black Veil.

A shudder raced down my spine, but I didn't move away. His pale blue eyes flickered over my face, settling on my lips…then the column of my neck.

The Kylorr and the Allavari were a strange blend, but they'd nearly always lived in this place together. For centuries, their blood had mixed.

But three hundred years ago, a strong hybrid male named Veranis Sarin had begun to practice a darker form of blood magic. His followers rose to power, practicing ancient sacrificial magic and spells that the Allavari had already banned for thousands of years. And so…unease spread throughout Allavar. Kylorr and Allavari hybrids were driven out from their villages, their homes. Hatred flowed through the valleys and fear tinged the air, so acrid one could choke on it.

Or so the stories went…

By all accounts, Veranis Sarin had been a power hungry and ambitious monster. He severed his soul—and those of his followers—from the living realm to open the portal to the Below. And the Allavari had banished them there.

Severs.The name of Veranis' followers, though innocent hybrids had been driven out with them, discriminated against for their mixed blood and nothing more.

Even now, though hybrids were commonplace in the villagers once more, there were Allavari who gave them a wide berth, who whispered under their breath when they passed.

"I may have the antidote for night nettle," I said in a quiet rush. His gaze snapped up to mine and held. I saw his stomach dip, sucking in a sharp breath. I'd heard the pain from this particular poison was unfathomable. No wonder his pain had led me here, like a beacon in his dark forest. "But you'll need to come with me. Can you manage it?"

"Yes," he said. "Help me up."

I pushed to my feet quickly, rounding to his left side so I wouldn't jostle his wound. As I helped him to stand, he leaned into me heavily. I'd forgotten how large he was. I was tall for a human, and even then, he towered over me. His body was leanly muscled like an Allavari hunter, but I knew the Kylorr could morph into hulking beasts, given the proper stimulation. His wings hung limp, the ends dragging on the forest floor as I led him forward.

Heal him first…then ask questions,I thought. Night nettle wasn't a common poison. It was used only by certain individuals on Allavar, individuals who most knew to steer clear from. Even if one could afford the raw ingredients, it still needed to be extracted and prepared by a practiced hand, the process taking weeks.

If someone poisoned you with night nettle…they wanted—or needed—you dead.

There was a building dread in my belly which told me what I thought I already knew. That I didn't have the antidote, that I'd sold my last vial to a dark-eyed Ernitian who'd offered me a price I couldn't refuse at the last market day.

The Kylorr was huffing, his breathing labored, as we trudged closer and closer to my cottage. But it was slow going. His legs seemed like they were heavy and the Black Veil didn't make our path easy.

Every sound made my head whip to the side. Every branch blowing in the breeze or skittering of an animal's retreat held me on edge. Whoever had done this…they couldn't be that far away. Were they watching us, even now?

A chill went down the back of my neck, just as I felt the Kylorr's muscles bunch tight against my arm, where I had it wrapped underneath his wings.

Glowing white eyes were watching us. A tall, winged figure, shadowed underneath the canopy of a nearby tree. A Sever? It would be the closest I'd ever been to one.

They had sharp horns like Kylorr, but they were tall like the Allavari. A black cloak billowed out from its large body. I couldn't make out its features, but those eyes were eerie and they watched us steadily, spurring me to pick up my pace.

"Ignore him," the Kylorr grated to me, making me shoot him a sharp, incredulous look even as my heart raced. "Don't even look at him, little witch."

The Sever followed us to my cottage, always staying in the darkness, never stepping foot into the moonlight. When we finally jolted over the protection spell, the safe boundary of my property, I felt like I could finally breathe.

My glowflies were quiet, the hush ominous. When we finally made it inside my cottage, I shouldered the door closed, scrambling with the lock, before the male stumbled over to a chair at my dining table. His body was laughably large for the chair, but I was concerned when I saw the sheen of sweat covering his forehead and the dulled, ashen pallor of his usually luminous skin.

Taking a deep, steadying breath to calm my shaking hands, I hurried to my storage shelves lining the left wall next to my cauldron. Pulling open drawer after drawer, my eyes sought out the familiar cerulean vial of the brightbell-infused antidote. Every drawer ratcheted up my anxiety and the abysmal sense of failure.

"You don't have it," he commented, almost nonchalantly, behind my turned back. "Fuck."

Fuck, indeed,I thought. Think, Marion. There's always a way…

Brightbell. What properties made it an antidote for night nettle?

It thickened the blood, slowing down the night nettle in the veins. And in Kylorr…

A jolt of a realization spurred me into motion, and I snagged carrowroot extract, a bottle of keeper's bone, and dried wrathweed from last season's harvest. It wouldn't be perfect…but it would be something. I couldn't sit and watch him die. No healer who had taken the oath, bound in blood and magic, would be able to do that.

I didn't have time to extract the marrow from the keeper's bone, so I snagged a sizeable piece out of the jar and handed it over.

"Bite through this," I ordered him. "Get to the marrow. Quickly."

Luckily he didn't question me, and I turned my back on him, hearing his fangs crunch through bone. I dumped wrathweed into my mortar, grinding it down with practiced motions of my pestle before mixing it with the carrowroot extract, the liquid sizzling on contact with the fine dust. My eyes watered at the pungent smell, nausea rising in my belly.

I thickened it into a paste, thick enough that it clung to the stone pestle. Then I scurried out to the garden, not looking once into the forest to see if the Sever was still lingering nearby. I went to the wrathweed bed, to the tiny little grave I'd pressed the glowfly into earlier in the night. Rich soil stuck to its body when I unearthed it. I didn't have time to dry it out.

"I'm sorry, little one," I whispered, "but you just might save a life tonight."

A life for a life. Maybe there was a reason why this glowfly had died tonight of all nights.

Keeping the cold glowfly cupped in my palm, I returned to the cottage, catching movement out of the corner of my eye. The Sever was still there. Strangely enough, his white eyes weren't on me. They were on my garden.

Bolting the door once more, I returned to my mortar, dropping the glowfly's lifeless body into the mix, soil and all. When I ground him into the paste, his blood shimmered blue, a dark dye against the sickening gray mixture.

Turning toward the male—whose name I didn't even know but had imagined a thousand different ways—I set my mortar on the table, eyeing the arrow.

"You're going to hate me for this," I informed him, keeping my voice low and steady.

His jaw tightened. There was understanding in his gaze. He knew the arrow needed to come out.

"Do it," he said. "I've had worse, I assure you."

His lips even quirked up in a half smile, and I nearly believed him.

I didn't know if he was lying or not—but I couldn't imagine anything worse than an arrow covered in night nettle poison. His face was leeched of any color it had previously possessed. He looked on the verge of passing out, his wings limp around him, slumped as he was in the chair. He'd spit out the husk of the bone onto the floor, but at least the marrow would help clot his blood.

I grabbed my strongest shears. He groaned, low in his throat, when I secured them against the shaft of the arrow, jostling the wound when it clamped down. I snapped the wood, splintering it as the male flinched and the fletching dropped to the floor. It made a bright clink when it hit, and I frowned when I realized it was metal.

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"Trying to distract me, little witch?" he pondered, his words a little slurred.

"My name is Marion, not little witch," I told him, sweat beginning to bead on my brow, and I shoved a wavy clump of my auburn hair away when it escaped from my braid. "Lean forward."

The Kylorr's leather vest creaked quietly when he did as I ordered. By some small miracle, the arrow had gone cleanly through, the arrowhead—also metal, I noted—poking out the back of his shoulder. I took my forceps, hooking them beneath the points.

"Your name," I prompted…before I gave one mighty, swift tug—not hesitating because hesitation would only make it hurt more. The shaft was smooth, a great mercy. I'd seen barbed ones before.

The Kylorr bellowed, loud and hoarse, and I dropped the arrow, rinsing the wound with clean water before taking up my mortar.

"Face of an angel…soul of a demon wanting vengeance," he told me, his gaze fastening with mine, though his eyes were half-lidded. "That's what the villagers say about you, Marion."

I froze, the words spearing straight through me like I had taken a poisoned arrow of my own. I didn't think he'd meant to say them. He was half-delirious from night nettle.

"I'm trying to save your life, Kylorr," I replied calmly, as if my throat wasn't tightening. I blinked back the sting of tears. Even after all this time, the villagers still whispered behind my back. I didn't know if they would ever accept me, the strange human who lived in the Black Veil.

"Lorik," he rasped. "Lorik Ravael."

I began to pack the wound with the thick paste.

Lorik Ravael.After all these months, I finally knew his name.

That name proved what I'd already suspected. He was a Kylorr…but he was also Allavari.

I'd watched this male at the market before. Everyone watched him. He had an undeniable magnetism, an unparalleled draw that few ever possessed, that few might ever experience. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was magic.

"I don't have the soul of a demon, Lorik Ravael," I informed him.

His mouth widened, showing teeth—razor-sharp teeth that made me breath hitch. "Never said you did, Marion."

I continued packing the seeping wound, but the keeper's bone marrow was doing well to stop the bleeding.

Lorik hissed, his eyes closing briefly when I put pressure on his shoulder. I was hesitant about what would come next…but I didn't see a way around it.

Shoving my wrist in front of his face, I ordered softly, "Feed."

Lorik's eyes flashed open. "No," he grated, the word surprisingly harsh and quick.

"Yes," I said, my tone edging toward impatience. "After all this work, I'll be very annoyed if you die on me. The keeper's bone will thicken your blood. And luckily for you, Kylorr, you metabolize blood faster than most. But you still need more to help cleanse the poison from you."

"It's not me I'm worried about," Lorik said, making me frown.

"Even this might not save you," I snapped. The words were harsh but honest. It hadn't worked for Aysia, after all. "You're wasting time. Feed."

As if to entice him, I pressed my inner wrist to his lips, surprisingly soft and warm.

Lorik met my eyes. Pale blue and luminous, like the wrathweed glowflies.

"Very well, little witch," came his strained, whispered words across my delicate flesh.

It happened quickly. His fangs flashed, elongating swiftly, twice in size what they had been. He bit down, greed and hunger evident in his eyes.

The pain was fleeting, giving way to something entirely unexpected as his venom flooded into my bloodstream.

My eyes widened, my knees nearly giving way with surprise. Pleasure warmed me, flowing up my wrist into my throat, my chest, my belly. Down and down, it burst in me, pooling between my thighs, making me gasp.

Lorik groaned as my blood hit him, but I didn't think it was from pain.

No, no, no,I thought wildly. What have I done?

I might've just stepped unknowingly into the crosshairs of fate.