She pulls her gaze away first, focusing on a bloodied bandage around her hand, where the deal had been struck. She tugs off the gauze and holds her hand to the light. It reflects off a thin, smooth scar. Had the bargain been fulfilled, there would be no mark at all. But this . . . this exchange had healed it, for now. Maekallus looks at his own hand. His own matching scar.
He licks his teeth and flicks his tail, considering. He can break the bargain, of course. Free the mortal. But then she’ll have no further reason to help him. He’ll die and descend into nothingness, but not before going mad by this cage of trees . . . gods below, he’s still bound to this cage.
Even if he refuses to release the mortal from their deal, no consequences will come to her should he die. Yet his survival depends on this woman—this strange woman—believing otherwise.
He breathes deeply, savoring the vitality, the feeling, inside him. “What are you?” he asks.
Her eyes look back to him, one shadowed by night, one lit by the lantern. “What do you mean?”
“You’re different from other mortals,” he says, crouching so he can see the rest of her soul through her eyes. Humans have such telling eyes. “What are you?”
Her fine brows cross. “I am what you call me! What have you done to me, mysting?” Her gaze falls to the narrow web of red light projecting from his chest. “Why is it not broken?”
Maekallus growls. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to break it, without killing the gobler. And I cannot kill the gobler because even if I could leave this forsaken glade, I wouldn’t know where to find him. Not until he resurfaces in this realm.” And close by, else Maekallus might be unable to decipher the tug of the bargain. Perhaps if he can get the blood of a mystium . . . but that is just as unlikely as finding the ga’goning bastard who’d bound him here. The only binding spells he knows are the ones that seal promises between mortals and his own kin.
The woman clutches her breast, breathing deeply. He can almost sense her pain through the partial soul’s vigor. How strange.
“What is your name?” he asks.
“Perhaps if you answer my question, Maekallus, I’ll be tempted to continue answering yours.”
He grins. Fiery, for a mortal. “Part of your soul lives within me.”
Her head snaps up, eyes brighter than the lantern. “What? But you said—”
“I said I wasn’t sure what would happen.” He stands to his full height. A lie. A partial one, at least. He hadn’t known this would happen, but he can steal the soul of any mortal with a willing kiss, whether or not he wants it—though he always does. To feel the way humans do, with their cluster of ever-changing emotions and vitality, even for the few hours it lasts . . . yes, he always wants it.
Humans attribute their emotions and their ability to experience them to their hearts, but hearts are simple flesh, just like all the body’s organs. It’s the soul that hosts those sensations, and the soul alone.
She takes several deep breaths before speaking again. “But you are healed . . . and so am I.” She grabs the lantern and struggles to stand. The light from the tiny flame swings through the glade, making the trees’ shadows lean and bend.
“For now.” He studies the binding, passing his hand through its red shimmer. “For now.”
CHAPTER 8
The best song for keeping away mystings is “The Widow’s Lullaby”: Bai sharam, sharam, on whi. Bai sharam on whi, repeated over and over. I theorize that it is not the words that stave off evil, but the rhythm in which they’re said.
“My name is Enna.”
The words hurt as they come up my throat. I feel as though the narval reached his hand down it, up to his elbow, and grabbed something from deep inside me. I’m raw and sore and so very tired. I struggle to keep my eyes open, despite the revelation that Maekallus hosts a piece of my soul.
A piece of my soul. What does it mean? I squeeze the Telling Stone for comfort and focus on keeping the lantern steady.
“Enna.”
I look up at him, at his yellow eyes and calculating stare. The moment I kissed him, all the tar, all the rot vanished as though it had never been. The way he looks, the way he stands, is entirely predator, as though I’m an injured boar and he doesn’t know if I’ll fall or summon the strength to strike one last time. He seems almost as surprised at our predicament as I am. At least there is some tiny comfort in that.
He snorts. “Mortals have such simple names.”
“Then you can start calling me by my simple name and stop calling me ‘mortal.’ Or ‘girl,’ or ‘woman.’” I falter, and the light of the lantern swings. “I feel . . . ill.” And Papa must have discovered my absence, unless he fell asleep in his chair. I pray that he has. I should not leave him for so long, besides. “I must go.”
“The binding still holds.”
“I know. I’ll come back tomorrow.” I can’t think like this. I don’t even know if I can walk all the way home, but I know better than to sleep in the wildwood. “You’ll have to suffer until I’m back.”
He steps forward, his body tense, tail twitching. “I cannot stay here.” He looks at the surrounding wood as though it’s ready to come alive. What does a mysting have to fear from the wildwood?
“You’ll have to.” I eye him, the shadows hugging his shirtless body, masked by the night. He’ll last at least a few days. He did before, he can do it again. And maybe . . . maybe the piece of myself that lives within him will make him last a little longer.
I can feel it, somehow. My heart aches for its return.
I don’t offer him any more goodbye than that. I press my hand against a tree, then another, picking my way out of the wildwood. Trying to listen to the forest beyond my own labored breathing. I think I fall asleep on my feet a few times as I trek toward home under the light of the moon, praying and chanting verse to keep evils away.
I don’t even remember arriving home, but when I awake, that is where I am.
The hurt is less in the morning, as is the fatigue, but they’re both present, as though it’s the end of the day and not the start of it. So is the nagging sensation that something is missing, like I’ve forgotten something, yet I can’t pinpoint what it could be.
The Telling Stone is cool where it touches my wrist, reminding me that Maekallus is near, while promising that other mystings are not.
I wash my face, comb my hair, and change into my favorite dress. Sage green with a high neck and long sleeves trimmed with homemade lace. I trace the mark the gobler left before wrapping it with more salt and tusk nettle. I help my father with breakfast, chatting with him as though I hadn’t kissed a mysting in the wildwood last night, giving up part of my soul. As if I hadn’t offered myself to Tennith Lovess just before. I wonder what Tennith thinks of me, then realize it doesn’t matter.
What does matter is the scar on my hand, smooth and slightly pink. Healed, for now. There’s a bit of a stitch embedded at the base of it, and I pull it free with my teeth.
My father goes down to work with the mushrooms and some hides he’d hung earlier. I don’t make an excuse to leave. If he’s busy, I’m free, so I take my basket and fill it with my silver dagger, breakfast leftovers, some bread, and my book, more for the purpose of taking notes than from the hope of finding an easy answer. Flint and steel and a candle, just in case. Then out to my garden for lavender, rabbit’s ear, oon berry, tusk nettle, blue thistle, aster leaf, and tapis root. I harvest all of it before venturing back into the wildwood.