Page 23 of Solivagant

I’d been bored of Avaran for some time, though that was an entirely different problem I’d deal with later.

I let my eyes follow my fingers as I messed with my braid rather than look at her, not wanting her to see too deeply, though not wanting to provoke her in order to conceal myself as I usually would. “Just answer the question.”

She sighed, and I felt the weight of her gaze on me a long moment before she responded. “No, Thalin. There’s no improvement. And I suspect there’s not going to be.”

I nodded, letting my eyes drift up to the golden elder birds perched around the temple’s eaves. “If perhaps… he could regain the human soul that started all this… might there be improvement?”

Silence extended for long enough that I finally turned to look at her and felt a chill ripple through my body at the coldness delivered by those lilac eyes. “Speak now. Tell me everything.”

My entire skull ached. I was certain Aerith had ripped hair from my scalp as she pulled me by the braid through the cursed lands.

Entirely unnecessary. I’d have followed her anyway, as I had on the soul deer we’d taken to get this far. The deer that had rightfully decided they weren’t going to pass into this dreadful place.

It was all wrong. The life sucked from the land, siphoned to a central point where a perfect garden existed like a beacon. The stench of the area made my skin crawl.

Whatever magic had done this was dangerous and wrong. I had absolutely no desire to meet with its caster.

Yet that appeared to be exactly where we were headed.

My hooves sunk into dank mud until we stepped into the false sanctuary and plush grass softened our steps, the stink of decay replaced by something sweet and foreign.

Aerith continued storming ahead, using my hair like a leash to keep me to her.

She pounded on the front door.

It opened after a moment, just enough for a female shadow elf to peek through the crack, looking between us.

I snapped my teeth at her and the door slammed closed.

Aerith beat it a second time. “Open, witch. And drop the façade.”

Cackling, and then the perfect little house and its perfect garden warped, the grass shriveling as it turned black and died. Blooming flowers morphed into rotted hands sticking up out of the ground as macabre decorations. That sweet scent twisted in my nostrils, turning repugnant. A previously pristine, quaint cottage now a rotting den as the door swung open once more.

The shadow elf was no more. A Benygal stood in her place, larger than any I’d encountered previously, with sleek, straight horns forming a crown, and long black hair that touched the ground. She was clearly powerful, but there was not a single soul flower in sight, and the diamond at her chest that should have been glowing was replaced by a crimson scar. She had so many scars.

“You’re good.” She smiled at Aerith. A cold smile.

“Perhaps you’re just sloppy.” Aerith smiled back in the same way.

The larger woman’s smile faded, only for a moment, then a loud husky laugh replaced it.

“Come inside, then, if you dare.”

Aerith frowned, lilac eyes examining the entryway for something unseen before pain tugged at my scalp and she shoved me into the crumbling home first.

I froze, waiting for some form of trap to ensnare me. The witch laughed again.

Content there was no trap after having used me as a sacrifice, Aerith stepped inside. I snarled at her. She rolled her eyes in response.

The door closed on its own.

“We’re here on behalf of Khorli.” Aerith spoke, raising her chin at the witch as if in challenge.

“What of him? The runt never returned after I helped him last. I figured that meant he was very successful in his ambitions…” She smiled. “Or very unsuccessful. Either way, my role in the matter has ended.”

“You turned him into a beast,” Aerith snarled.

“I did nothing he did not consent to.”