by Naomi Lucas
“They will heal.” Keep your hands upon me.
“How can you be so sure? Does your kind heal differently than mine?” Another cold rush of water fell across his back.
“We’re harder to take down and even harder to kill,” he mumbled, one hand still on his weapon. “Minotaurs are more resilient than most beasts in the mist. My skin is tough and layered with extra muscle and sinew to give a natural barrier, and my bones are nearly unbreakable. Some of the most prized weapons and tools of the goblin and centaur tribes are made from the bones of my kin.”
“Doesn’t that bother you? Monsters are carrying around the bodies of your ancestors.”
“The mist has no patience for sentimentality.”
“You haven’t answered my question. I know you’re hard to kill...but to heal? Wounds like these would fell a human, but they would also scab over by now, or at least stop you enough so that you’re forced to heal. Do you feel pain?”
“Pain,” he snorted, “I feel it now.” Her hands stilled upon him. “We heal but everything must run its course.”
He barely stopped himself from grabbing her when she stepped away from him, heading for the fire. She tugged open several of his pouches.
“Where’s that herb that you used on me? The one that cleared out my cuts and numbed the pain.” Aldora looked at her wrists then returned to her search. “I’ll tend to your back.”
Vedikus dunked both his hands into the water. “My wounds do not bother me.” They helped him focus on something other than Aldora and the ache of his bulge. His shaft pulsed. I need the pain. “If you are done eating, we should finish our descent while the light persists.”
“No!” She grabbed his arm and stopped him from rising. “Let me do this. Show me how to do this.” Aldora caught his eyes, her hair falling from her face to clear his view of her. Her brown eyes held his, still as clear as the first time he saw them and he saw himself in them. He stilled as he looked at himself through her, until she leaned away and snatched her hand back.
He had not seen his image in many years. I do not look the way I remembered. Vedikus settled back onto the stone floor. “The herb you’re seeking is gray and spiraled, like lichen.”
She laid the materials from his bags onto the floor next to him. One by one he named them. “Wetwort eases your muscles, mossrock stops infection and is used for cleaning, the blimbery clears your head, and that,” he pointed to the red leaves, “is cove and numbs the body. Grab the bowl.”
Aldora retrieved it to set among the plants. “I don’t recognize any of these. None of this grows in Thetras.”
“Everything is warped by the mist.”
“Even me.”
Vedikus grabbed her hand, and pressed his thumb to her wrist, feeling her pulse. “Not yet, not after today’s light.” She frowned again but nodded. He did not like seeing her hopeless like this. If she is to be helpless, it will be because of me. “Prayer has what we need.” He filled the bowl with water and handed it back to her. “Heat this up.”
Aldora placed the bowl near the fire. “What is Prayer? Does something grow there that you’re missing?”
“Something is there that we’re missing, but it is not grown. Prayer is a dark spot in the labyrinth where a hag resides. A thrall who had given birth to a human within the mist, which is where most thralls come from—”
“There are humans born here?”
“Yes. They are nothing but blights and incubators with mist taint in their blood from the moment of being conceived—”
“But there are humans, humans who have known nothing else?” Excitement edged her voice.
“Thralls,” he corrected. “They are not humans, not like how you know your kind. You will not find what you’re wanting to find with them.” There was nothing but him now. His fingers twitched.
“I don’t understand, they are human though? And they live here?”
“Yes. Most are born here, but there are some that ended up here, like you. You will not like the sight of them.”
“Because they are sick? I will like the sight of my own kind,” she snapped. “I’m glad we don’t all end up dead.”
Vedikus narrowed his eyes. “There are worse fates.”
They glared at each other and he dared her to say it, to say her fate was worse. A blush appeared on her cheeks, darkening her sun-kissed skin alluringly to a color that was not in his world. He wanted to run his tongue across it and take it into himself.
She swallowed and broke eye contact. “If I become one—”
“You won’t.”
“But if it were to happen...what would happen exactly?” She fingered the plants.
“You’ll lose your senses, and you’ll no longer feel the same as you do now. Everything becomes buried under a thick shroud. Your body is taken over by the curse and the curse doesn’t die. You’ll survive in pallor, in a nothingness, until your shell is destroyed. You’d be of use to no one but those who seek to harm you.”
Aldora nodded. Vedikus bowed his head and tipped the points of his horns back down in submission.
She does not know what I do. He did it because she did not know. His prick ached.
“Bring back the bowl,” he growled. The water bubbled, just breaking the edge of a simmer when she lowered it by the herbs between them.
“What now?”
“Take the mossrock and the cove and add it to the water.” He pulled out several dried flowers, no bigger than his finger. “Crumble these up to bind the materials and mix it. The water will turn green when it’s done.”
“Is that all?”
His lips curled. “Unless you’d like to add some of your blood to strengthen it. Human blood is wanted for a reason. Your essence is anathema to the mist, however, nothing can remain pure in this place, as everything that is enveloped in it changes. Soon the mist will bind you to itself. Our focus now is to make sure that it does so with your mind and spirit intact.” Aldora stopped swirling the bowl for a moment at his words, and to his shock, pulled the dagger from her boot. She winced as she slid the blade over her palm. The blood dripped into the mixture and made it a murky brown.
“Is that enough?”
Vedikus stared at the mixture, hungering. “Yes,” he rasped. “More than enough.”
Aldora cleaned his wounds then ran her hands across his back, bringing the sodden cloth with them. Her touch was gentle and the water was cool against his heated skin. It wasn’t marked with pain or torment which he so readily felt, but of something else, something he hadn’t known in many years. It calmed him. The water slithered off him to pool on the stone floor around his hooves.
He could feel her pure blood seeping into his cuts, destroying the rot and empowering his body.
I should not let myself get distracted. His chin hit his chest. Just because we are safe now, does not mean we will remain safe. His hands loosened at his sides. Don’t let them...win.
“They’re healing,” she gasped. He barely heard her through the fog. She caressed her fingers over his spine. “Faster than my own wounds.”
“Your blood.”
“That can’t be it. Blood is blood. If human blood was truly magic, Savadon wouldn’t spend it so freely.”
“Woman, if only you knew.”
***
Vedikus turned on her as he rose to his feet. He gazed down at her with eyes darker and fuller than before, with no white in them at all. The sudden change left her uncertain. The hair on her neck rose.
He won’t hurt me. She’d come upon that realization after he touched her. That they were both changing the longer they were together. Aldora pressed her hands to the floor, still gripping the cloth. It had numbed her fingers and softened her pads. Years of hard work, skin calloused from tending her mother’s farm, had been reversed in minutes.
A plume of steam rushed from his nostrils. It rose up in white tendrils over his eyes and around his horns, lapping at the razor-sharp bone. He made no move toward her, and her eyes slipped down
briefly to where his shaft poked at his loincloth. She could still feel it press against her sex, feel it wanting entry into her, could feel the pressure radiating off him in waves. It made it hard to breathe, hard to think clearly.
It was a threat that lingered in the space between them. Her thighs clenched. There wasn’t an hour now that she didn’t imagine the burn of his body penetrating hers.
“Is my blood that powerful?” She swallowed around her words.
He released another bout of steam to play at his horns. Her hands ached to touch them, to wipe the condensation building along their curves. Will our children have horns? The thought stopped her. Sweat formed on her brow.
“Yes.” His voice came out hoarse. The fire crackled.
Aldora rose slowly to her feet, wincing from the lingering stiffness in her frame, and faced Vedikus head on. “Do you want more?” she asked, trying to figure the monster out.
The darkness in his eyes cleared abruptly, and his breaths cleared of heat. The tension wafting off him vanished as if it had never been there to begin with. “No.”
She watched mutely as he downed the water in the bowl and licked the remaining drops off the edges. Aldora glanced at her sliced palm but blood no longer seeped from it. She wrapped the wet cloth around her wound.
In minutes they had broken camp. The herbs made their way back into pouches that now hung on his hips, his weapons were sheathed, and the fire was stomped out. Small, dusty slivers of light fell from cracks farther down the corridor leading away from their camp, and Vedikus moved toward them.
“Are you going to leash me again?” Aldora asked, catching up to him.
“Is it necessary?”
“No.”
“Then I will not.”
The light brightened and the air warmed as they walked further from their space. When the sting of her eyes adjusting began, Aldora glanced back at the shadows she was no longer within. The mist pooled around the corners of her vision but only small tendrils quested towards her. The bulk of the mist remained just out of reach. Waiting. Biding.
She brought a finger to her lips and dabbed at it with her tongue, already knowing what she would taste.
“Aldora.”
She turned back to Vedikus, snapping out of her fugue. He stood central beneath a stone archway, a black figure that stopped the light from casting through from behind. Already, she could hear the near and distant sounds of the creatures out of her view. Wiping her hands on her pants, she moved toward him, anxious for the silence once again.
He remained motionless, watching her as she reached for his hip and tugged the rope from where it was hooked, letting the coarse threads run across her palms. The mist licked at the stone wreckage and overgrown moss at their sides, shielding them even while out in the open, hiding them from the world’s view.
For a moment, it made her feel safe, protected.
The curse hides me, hides us. The murk of this place gave her a freedom she had never known. Aldora hooped the rope around his waist and tied it together, leaving the excess out for her to hold. He remained still as she tugged and tried her knot.
“I don’t want us to get separated,” she said, refusing to meet his eyes. “If something should happen.” The thought left her mouth dry. Part of her wanted to backtrack into the ruins and find their camp again, to sit by the fire and hide.
I’m always hiding. Vedikus turned around and walked out into the open without a word. I was good at hiding. The rope grew taut in her grip and she followed it—him—away from the shadows.
Before him.
The view that met her was different from the night before.
Her eyes remained on his scarred back as they made their descent.
Chapter Eleven
***
Aldora licked her lips, lifting the back of her hand to swipe her tongue across her skin. She stayed a step behind Vedikus and well within his shadow as the path narrowed halfway down the cliff. His shoulder scrapped across the rocky ledge, dislodging dirt, moss, and shriveled, long-dead overgrowth with each step.
She refused to look out over the foggy ocean as they made their way deeper within the gorge and squeezed the rope tighter in her fist. It became her lifeline.
Don’t let go. Even though the mist had cleared around her, she was still afraid it would envelop him whenever the rope tightened. She accepted it for what it was: survival. Nothing else mattered.
She turned her wrist and tasted her palm.
Vedikus grunted and stopped as part of the ledge crumbled and broke away under his hooves. Aldora slapped her hand against the wall and clutched the roots hanging from it. They wiggled against her palm and into her cut. She jerked her hand back. The rocks fell quickly out of sight and into the white void below. Her stomach roiled.
The rope tugged and they continued on.
“When will it end?” she asked after a while. Her voice seemed louder than usual.
“When it does.”
“Haven’t you been here before? You seem to know exactly where we’re going.” Her eyes darted from his shoulders to the path at her feet. It had begun to change from that of stone back to one of dirt.
“There are many paths through the labyrinth, more so than any being can memorize, but for me... I know these lands. The smell, the sounds, the way the light falls through the mists, and the direction is always ours for the taking. The shape of the land can’t easily change.”
“So you do know where we’re going?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t have it in her to pry, not when she believed him. But it did not stop her from checking her surroundings constantly, trying to get a lay of the land. It all appeared the same; a cloudy haze swirled over everything in her periphery at all times. Whether it be a row of dying trees, a stone monolith, or a hedge wall, after awhile, it was all the same. She was directionless here.
Aldora peered over the edge once more, her stomach jumping with unease. Endless brume. She reached forward and rested her hand on Vedikus’s back to steady herself. His body tensed under her fingers before they continued on.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, her soles hit flat ground and the ledge path widened. Her boots sank into moist soil, and the ground became thick with long stalks of grass the farther they moved away from the stone cliff. Vedikus pulled her toward the grass and tore several of the flowery bulbs growing atop them off.
“What are those for?” she asked.
“These plants are dyes. Willow growth. They stain red.” He pocketed the flower tops and moved on, deeper into the grasses.
“How is that good for anything here?” She stepped gingerly as the weeds thickened, each rustle sending flies and other critters scurrying away.
“Here? Nothing, but for blood magic, it’s quite useful. Mist-spawned willow growth can be ground to a paste and mixed with human blood without reducing the blood’s efficacy. This has been used by warlocks for decades to extend the lifespan of human slaves, as less blood can be used for each ritual. The mixture is delicate and must be protected from the sun, otherwise, the blood-paste will harden inside the ritual warding and the spell will backfire, often catastrophically. It is highly valued.”
She licked her lips. “Magic is forbidden,” she said. “In Savadon, only witches use it, and to be caught... Most do not live long enough to be sacrificed.”
Vedikus snorted. “Not every one of your criminals become a sacrifice?’
Aldora shook her head. “No...some are too dangerous to keep around long enough for that.”
I’d been accused of witchery. And she had done nothing otherworldly or out of the ordinary except hearing a voice in the darkness. She spent her entire life walking the border path, and the sounds that came from beyond had always been garbled and animalistic, incomprehensible, and unnerving.
Her eyes drifted back to her captor, his tall outline caressed lovingly by the fog. She watched the flexing of his muscles, the horns atop his head. His tail flicked back and
forth, causing eddying swirls of mist to spin lazily around his thighs.
She wanted to touch it but didn’t dare.
His hand rested on the large axe hanging off to one side as he peered forward. Aldora followed his gaze and saw nothing but the grass getting higher before it vanished. There was nothing else around them. No landmarks, no walls, nothing but the same open grass field in every direction.
“My mother was a witch.”
His words startled her. He’s here. If there’s nothing else to follow... he’s still here. “Your mother?” she asked, curious.
“She was a human, like you, sacrificed by her people for a crime she very much committed.”
Aldora looked from where his hooves were hidden then up to his horns. “Your mother was...a human?”
Our offspring will be...
“Yes. My bull father was determined to become the next chief of his tribe and sought to win through conquest and prowess. He, with several of his brothers, traversed to the wall to capture human breeders and bring them back. He returned with my mother—filled with his seed and mated—pregnant with my elder brother Thyrius, and won his claim to lead.”
Aldora placed her free hand on her stomach. She shuddered with the imagery.
“How does that work?”
Vedikus turned to look at her, wearing an expression she couldn’t read. “How does what work?”
Her mouth was suddenly dry. “A human and... and someone like you?”
“A minotaur.”
“You’ve said this word before. Is that what you are?”
“I am part bull and part human, female.” He smirked, dryly. “Would you care to find out?”
Aldora stared at his marred, pale flesh, and considered everything that was different between them. The ache from earlier returned between her legs. I’ve never heard of minotaurs. Although she remembered the word being yelled on the first night. Part bull, part human. An image of the beasts on her farm arose, making her blush.
His smile grew as her eyes dropped from his horns to settle on his loincloth, where his stiff shaft was outlined by his coverings. The tall grass swayed and tugged at her pants.