Stepping into the next room, he sighed with relief at what he found. The room was indeed the kitchen and it was in much better shape than the rest of the house. Candles were lit and a large open window looked out onto the plains, allowing a great deal of light into the room. A table, in much better condition than the rest of the furniture in the house, sat in the middle of the room surrounded by five equally well put-together chairs. Against the far wall was a stove; the door opened showing off the fire inside. On top sat a pot, steam and the smells of meat and vegetables wafting out of it. Both Azalea and Dotain were standing in front of the stove, speaking loudly over the crackle of the fire.
They stopped speaking when Ean entered and turned to face him.
"Well, you moved a lot faster than I thought you would, brother," Azalea said through a tight-lipped smile. "I was hoping to get a little more time alone to talk to this pleasant man."
"No worries," the old man said quickly, "I'm sure after dinner your brother will want to catch up on some sleep. We could continue our conversation then."
"I'm not sure that's--"
"An excellent suggestion!" Azalea said, cutting Ean off. "My brother has been pushing himself a great deal and could use the rest."
The look Azalea directed towards Ean sent a chill through his body.
"You're right, of course, sister. A little extra rest will be good for me. Especially knowing that the two of you will be safely inside."
He tried to put as much emphasis on the word 'safely' as he could. Azalea had agreed to listen to him, and she was smart enough to understand what his words really meant. The smug grin that his words earned from Azalea did nothing, though, to ease his worries. Ean shook his head, the realization that he might not get much sleep that night souring his mood even more.
"Take a seat." Dotain stirred the pot as he spoke. "Tell me your story. I want to know why anyone with a lick of sense would stray from the main road through the forest."
"I didn't want to leave the road," Azalea said, sending Ean a glare. "You see, my brother means well. I love him to death, but he's a headstrong fool like our father. May the gods give me the patience to continue to travel with him on our way to the city."
"What my sister isn't mentioning is that we ran into some bandits on the road and had to abandon most of our supplies to get away from them." Ean flashed Azalea a self-satisfied smirk. He could lie just as well as she could.
A slight movement out of the corner of his eye made Ean turn towards the old man. Ean caught him glancing over his shoulder at the two of them but as soon as their eyes met, the old man quickly turned back to his cooking.
"Bandits, you say?" His attention on stirring his stew, the old man's voice sounded disinterested. "The traders that buy my crops have been talking a lot more about bandits. They say whole packs of them roam the land now, some even setting up camps in the forest somewhere. I don't much worry about that though. Only people I see out here are the traders. And now you, I suppose."
The old man leveled a hungry look at Azalea, and she returned an encouraging smile. Ean's stomach churned. He wondered if anyone would blame him if he hurled all over the table. The old man had no shame either.
Turning back to his pot, the old man continued on. "Off to the capitol you said, right? I haven't been there in years. No need to really. Too busy for my tastes, all them people running around doing who knows what. That city can be as dangerous as the woods. You two are better off finding a nice place in the country. You know, I could always use another hand around here, boy, and I'm sure we could find something for your sister to do."
"That sounds lov--" Azalea began, as she moved to take a seat across from Ean.
"That's a generous offer, but we have to go to the city. We've got business for our village that we have to take care of."
"Well, your sister could always stay here while you--"
"Again, a generous offer, but my sister will be staying with me." Ean had tried to keep his voice civil, but he must have missed the mark as a look of anger flashed across the old man's face. Ean watched as Dotain reached at his side, grasping for something that was not there.
A sharp pain struck Ean's left shin, and he bent over in his chair to rub at it. Looking up he caught Azalea frowning at him and shaking her head. She had kicked him! Ean sat fuming, rubbing at his leg while Azalea spoke.
"Excuse my brother. He gets a bit over protective. He often forgets that he's just a poor village boy while I've had much more experience out in the world. I've been trying to teach him to respect his elders, but as I've said, he is quite the hardhead."
Waving her off, the old man returned to his stew. "It's nothing. That's good that your brother is protective." Then Ean heard him say under his breath, "And even better that you don't listen to him."
Ean was done. If the fool man wanted to try and "take advantage" of his sister, let him try. It would serve him right if she drained every last drop of his life...
Flashes of his nightmares ran through his mind. Torture, corruption, murder...
He couldn't let her kill him, regardless of how little he thought of the man. He would not even entertain the thought. Ean would just have to have a talk with Azalea before anything happened. She had promised to listen to him after all.
"All ready!" Dotain said, interrupting Ean's thoughts. "I'm sure you'll like it. It's a family recipe. A rabbit stew with a few secret ingredients."
Grasping the pot with a towel, the old man carried it over and set it down in the middle of the table. Producing three bowls and a set of spoons from a nearby cupboard, he distributed the utensils and began dishing out the stew.
Ean's mouth watered as Dotain poured some stew into a bowl in front of him. He had been so worried about what Azalea might do that he hadn't realized how hungry he really was. Stirring around the contents with his spoon, it was easy to pick out the bits of rabbit meat, and the potatoes were a staple food in his village of Rottwealth. While his stomach growled he studied the flecks of oniony greens as they floated at the top. Not many people knew that onions could thin the blood; he had used them as a remedy often enough on sick patients. The peppery black herbs smelled similar to Balalur, an herb useful for fighting off colds. He had never thought to add it as seasoning to a stew before.
"This smells wonderful!" Azalea said, clapping her hands together excitedly. "I've never had rabbit stew before."
Ean couldn't help but laugh. "I know soup isn't your usual meal. Are you sure you can handle it?"
The look she shot him could have curdled milk.
"I don't understand where the sarcasm is coming from, brother. Why, only just this morning you were harping on me to try new things. Would you prefer that I go back to my usual menu? It would be a simple matter of..."
"No," Ean said vigorously. "My apologies. Go ahead and fill up on the stew. Lots and lots of stew. Only the stew."
Azalea's green eyes scrunched in merriment as her lips curled back in victory. It annoyed him the way she took such pleasure in seeing him squirm.
"Yes," Dotain encouraged, the real meaning of their conversation lost to the man. "Eat up. Plenty here. Enjoy."
Dotain pulled his own bowl closer and sprinkled something into it. He stirred the contents around before bringing a spoonful to his mouth. He took two more mouthfuls before he noticed Ean and Azalea staring at him. "What?" he mumbled.
Ean spoke first, more curious than anything else. "What did you put in your stew?"
"Just some spices, nothing special, just adds a little kick to the flavor is all." Keeping his eyes down, Dotain continued to shovel spoonfuls of stew into his mouth.
Moving closer to the man, Azalea reached over to put a hand on his arm. "I like a little kick in my food as well. Can I have some spices to put in mine?"
"No!"
Both Azalea and Ean were taken back a bit by the sudden outburst. Dotain had an annoyed expression as he looked at Azalea, but it quickly turned into one of embarrassment.
"So
rry, I...that was the last of my spices. I'm sure you wouldn't have liked them anyway. Just give the food a try, I promise it tastes good just the way it is."
Shrugging, Azalea pulled her bowl close and began to eat. She shoveled the food into her mouth and seemed to be enjoying it, but Ean couldn't tell if her expressions were sincere or just a part of her act. His rumbling stomach interrupted his thoughts and told him to get to eating. The stew did smell extremely appetizing, especially after a day without eating. Filling his spoon with stew, Ean took a tentative slurp.
The stew was as good as Dotain had said! Ean began to scoop spoonful after spoonful into his mouth. He could understand now why the man had said they wouldn't need extra spices. The broth had a little kick to it that was starting to numb his tongue. It wasn't enough to make him stop eating though, and he continued to scoop large spoonfuls into his mouth.
Looking over in between gulps, he noticed Azalea had slowed down a bit. She only took little sips as she watched Dotain eat. Her expression was peculiar, but Ean dismissed it as just another quirk. Probably some way she was trying to seduce their host. It was obvious that Dotain was already picturing the two of them together by the way he was openly looking at her now. Shaking his head, Ean focused on eating.
Whew! Whatever was in the stew was really starting to get to him. His tongue was almost completely numb now and he felt a little flushed. Tired too, probably the days of traveling finally taking its toll on his body. He had to pause from eating for a moment to wipe some sweat from his forehead, but only for a moment. He could handle being a little warm, the stew was that good. He continued to scoop more and more of it into his mouth...
...and then dropped his spoon.
His fingers suddenly felt very heavy, as if something was pushing down on them. Had the past couple of days worn him out that much? Reaching over to where the spoon had landed on the table, he tried to pick it up, but his hand had gotten too heavy, and he had trouble working his fingers. Frowning, he tried to lift it again but had no luck. It was becoming quite frustrating as he wanted to eat more! Maybe his other hand...no, that was hanging limply at his side. His thoughts were fuzzy, more so than if he was just tired, like he was trying to think while...uh...doing something that made it hard to think.
A dull pain washed across the side of his face. At first he thought he had been slapped, but realized that his head had dropped down onto the table. From his vantage point he could see both Dotain and Azalea looking at him. The man was wearing a grin that did not instill a good feeling in Ean's fuddled brain. Azalea on the other hand was looking at him with chagrin, shaking her head as she slowly pushed her own bowl away. She was always judging him. He was just tired...so tired...
THE FIRST THING EAN noticed was that he was face down on a wooden floor covered with brownish-red splotches. Years of being a healer had made him familiar with stains like those--blood. His tongue felt stiff and dry like it was coated with dirt. He licked his lips trying to push away the nastiness with his own saliva. And that's when he noticed it. A pale face with lifeless eyes staring right at him--well, no, more like through him. As if the eyes were looking past this world and into the next.
Giving a yelp, he scrambled backwards on the floor until his back hit the wall. He struggled to make sense of what had happened. Dotain was dead. A chill went down his spine. What had happened? The man had been so hospitable...
"Don't look so upset," a woman's voice cut through the haze of his mind. His eyes found Azalea leaning back in her chair, her wings tight against her back and her pale blue feet up on the table. She was picking at her teeth with a long, blue fingernail. "The fool man tried to drug us."
"He...what?"
"Drugged us. Planned on killing us. Well, kill you then do some things to me most would find unpleasant. You should have seen the look on his face when he realized I was unaffected. Of course that paled in comparison to the look he had when I revealed my true form."
"So you killed him!?"
A look of surprise crossed her face for a moment and then was gone. "That surprises you? He tried to kill us. Well," pausing for a moment, she tapped her cheek with one long fingernail. "Drugged you, at least. Whatever he put into that stew didn't seem to have much effect on me."
"If it didn't affect you, you could have stopped him from doing anything to me. You're certainly strong enough to handle one man. You didn't have to kill him."
Azalea threw her hands into the air. "I don't get you, Ean. This creep wanted to have his way with me and then kill us both. He as much as said those exact words while I was feeding off of him. He said a lot of things, wouldn't shut up actually. What if I told you he had done this before? That this wasn't even his farm? He killed the family that owned it and has been using it mostly to do to random strangers what he was about to do to us. Does that make it okay that I killed him?"
"Now you're making things up to justify feeding off of him. There is no way you could have learned all of that from him."
"You're an idiot." Rising, Azalea's face couldn't have looked more disgusted. She moved towards the door, kicking the lifeless body of Dotain as she left. Once she was out of the room and into the hall, Ean heard her yell back, "I don't know what that stupid imp sees in you, but you two fools belong together."
Ean sat there, not knowing if he should go after her or not. She was probably right, but he couldn't justify killing the man. There had to be some kind of law in the area or at least in Lurthalan. And Azalea could have easily handled Dotain. On the other hand, if every despicable thing about him was true, maybe he did deserve death.
Ean spread his arms over the table and laid his spinning head on top of them. Sure, a healer's job involved decisions about life and death, but innocence and guilt was out of his domain. Dontain might have deserved it, but that wasn't for Azalea to decide on a whim.
The energy of the Abyss twinged in his chest, alerting him that someone tied to its power was approaching. He sighed in relief when he saw it was Zin, not Azalea. The little imp's brown skin was covered with small scratches.
"What did you do to anger the Yulari?"
"We had a slight disagreement about her feeding habits and she stormed out."
"Well, YOU upset her and she decided to take it out on ME. It's really a bad idea to push a Yulari too far you know. She might decide that getting sent back to the Abyss will be worth killing us both. They can be very emotional creatures."
"All I said was that she didn't have to kill the man, and I don't think I even said it that harshly."
"Oh." The imp glanced at the corpse spread out on the kitchen floor. "She saved your life and you lectured her for it. I have to say, I'm glad you are ok, but you really can be an idiot sometimes."
Climbing up onto the table, Zin sat down in front of Ean and shook his head.
"You have to keep in mind that life in the Abyss is much different than it is in your world. Down there it's kill or be killed, and there is always someone stronger than you trying to take what's yours. Azalea saw that killing that man, and more importantly keeping him from killing you, as a huge show of generosity. In the Abyss, no one and I mean no one, would offer aid to another unless they were getting something out of it in return."
"Is it really that bad?" Ean could feel his anger faltering.
"Worse than you can imagine. I have no idea how old she is, but since her wings look fully grown, I would put her at least over fifty. That's fifty years in the Abyss where I can guarantee that she has been bullied, used, or hurt hundreds of times in her life."
Now Ean felt bad. Not so much because of how angry he had been at Azalea. He still didn't want her going around killing people, especially once they got to a highly populated city like the capitol. But he could have thanked her for saving him, and he certainly could show her a bit more understanding. He knew almost nothing about her kind, and it would probably take her a while to get used to living in his realm and not the Abyss.
"I will go apologize then. Maybe if I
explain why I got so angry, she will understand and hopefully not resort to killing someone as her first option."
"Nope, you shouldn't do that. That's a bad idea."
The way the imp said it, so matter-of-factly, just confused Ean even more. "And why not?"
"If Azalea is ever going to respect you--"
"She doesn't already?"
"If she ever is going to respect you, you can't go back on your decisions. If you get angry, yell, scold, or take any kind of stand, you absolutely cannot back down whenever she throws a little tantrum. If you start giving in to her moods, she'll simply try to get away with more and more. That's just how Yulari behave. Best to stay strong. She'll get over it eventually."
"Even if it means she takes out her anger on you?"
Shrugging, Zin climbed to his feet. "I can handle it. She may be strong, but I'm still much quicker. For the future, if you know you're going to get her angry, give me a little heads up first, hmm?"
Flashing him a toothy smile, Zin leapt off the table. Hitting the ground softly, he moved towards the door.
"Come on," Zin said, waving Ean after him. "I found a supply of jerky in the shed out back, so we can eat and get back out on the road. After your little village and Rensen, I'm looking forward to seeing what passes as a major city in this world nowadays. Plus, that body is starting to smell a little ripe, and not in a good way."
The imp was certainly right; the room was starting to smell a bit foul. Ean's stomach was growling as well. What little stew he had eaten before passing out had not been very filling. Climbing to his feet, he took a quick last look at the dead man and left the room. He really shouldn't feel bad about his death; the human had tried to poison and probably kill him after all.
Human.
That was strange, why did he call the man human? Of course the man was a human, but it was strange that he thought of him that way. Why not "the man" or Dotain? It probably had to do with all the time he was spending with the imp and the Yulari. No need to overthink it.
Descent Into Darkness (Book 2) Page 3