DOTD Chapter 21

Lucien fights the Viel Mother. The ruins crumble. A run for safety.

More cries sounded from the shack, shrieks of pain, desperation.

I hastened my pace.
Up the path, up the steps, clinging to the shadows like a second skin. The vapor morphed from violet to black, and the flicker of firelight had grown more intense. Something was going down in there. Something had shifted it.


This was a rare chance.
I had it cornered, possibly distracted.


Wasting no time, I barreled through the rotting door, splintering the wood into pieces. The shack was on fire from the inside, thick smoke draping the air like heavy curtains. The smell of burning flesh filled my invaded my nose.

For the first time in many years, I was frozen in shock, body poised to strike.
What lay before me…who lay before me. I couldn’t believe my eyes, eyes that saw everything, eyes that couldn’t be tricked.

She was here. Collapsed into a small ball. Bloody, broken, unconscious.
She’d gone after the oracle.

I ran to her, dropping to my knees and rolling her head into my arms.
“ Fluer! Fluer, wake up!”

She didn’t move. She was as still as the grave.
“ Damn it Fluer! WAKE UP!”

A thunderous crash echoed through the room. A body lit with flames emerged from the hearth, screeching like a wild banshee. Laying her head back down, I shot to my feet and drew the crystal shard.

A face emerged from the flames. A face I knew. A face filled with bloodlust and centuries of evil. Red clouded my vision, volcanic rage consuming my body. A lethal calm fell over me, the kind that came just before black blood was spilled. My body coiled and settled into place, cocking back into position.

“ Mother Viel. We meet at last,” I boomed.

“ Hallowbane! You are not welcome here!” she shrieked through the flames, staggering towards me. The flesh on her face had begun to melt and sag, causing her eyes to pop out in unnatural, prominent ways.


“ What did you do to her?” I demanded, my voice an earthquake, threatening to crumble to burning structure to ash.

“ SHE’S MINE!” the witch shrieked.

In a flash of orange flame, she was upon me, charging full speed, teeth barred. My body caught the air and twisted, dogging her jagged claws, exposed and intent to kill. The momentum sent her rolling along the floorboards. I landed with ease, one leg propped to the side, hands pressed to the floor to balance my weight. She hurled a heavy orb at my head, the object barely missing me and shattering on the wall behind. Another scream.

“ Your kind are a dying breed! You will join them!” she cried, the flames on her rotting skin, dampening. “ MORS TE INVENIET—”

The earth began to shake, my brain rattling in my skull. Her chanting continued, arms thrown to the heavens. I threw myself into motion, twisting the crystal blade through the air like a paintbrush, each arc a stroke of deadly wind carving through the smoke. The ground shook more fiercely as her volume rose to deafening decibels. Losing my footing, I tucked and rolled along the floor, closing the distance between us.

Her deformed face snapped at me. A poisonous hiss steamed from her long tongue as she flew at me again, like a rabid wolf. Her supernatural strength pinned me to the floor, the burning flesh in her grip searing through my clothes. Her face closed in, teeth barred to bite out my throat. Forearm barred to her throat, I spat my next words. The last words she would ever hear.

“ No, Filth. She mine!” I growled. Before the word could resignate, I plunged the crystal shard into her heart.

I said the words, the words that sealed the kill.
“ Venenum Lamia.”


Curses caught in her throat. I twisted the blade, watching the color drain from her face, turning her a shade of lifeless grey. Her burnt skin shriveled and shrank, her body going limp onto me.
It was done.

I flung the lifeless corpse from me, allowing her to decompose and fade to eventual ash. I needed to hurry. It would only be a matter of moments before the flames would completely consume the structure, and it would come crashing down. Tucking the shard away, I scrambled to Fluer, still lying still on the floor. I hoisted her small frame into my arms and hurried past the flames and out of the crumbling shack.

Speed. I was racing against time itself. We had to get out, NOW! The stone maw would soon fall with it’s creator now dead. If we didn’t make it to the ruins in time, we would be stuck in here for all eternity. No loopholes. No way out.

I ran faster than the wind, faster than light, weaving through the mossy trees and winding turns. Every muscle in my body screamed, but I pressed on.

For her.
I wouldn’t let her die.

As I hurried through the dying brush, I glanced down at her in my arms.
“ Damn it, Fluer! Stay with me!”

The trees flew by.
“ Stay with me!”

The earth shook beneath my boots, the sound of falling rock echoing ahead.
Shit!
It was happening.

We were almost there. I could see the stone structure ahead, large boulders breaking and falling from thirty feet above.

“ COME ON!” I roared to my body, desperation consuming me.

An enormous piece of rock fell beside me, nearly knocking me to the ground. I gathered my wits and charged forward again. Seconds were ticking, time lapsing on itself.

Almost there.
Almost—

I wrapped her closer to me with all my might, leaping over fallen debris. Bracing for impact, we broke the dying veil, light blanching my sight. Ringing attacked my ears, the drop of spireweed oil burning hot on my neck.

BOOM!

We made it through, but we were far from safety. Just because we’d avoided being trapped inside didn’t mean we were invincible to being crushed by chunks of rock. The outershell of the Stonemaw was crumbling as well… the final break.
Move.
Now.

I raced on, muscles burning with hot coals. On and on and on. Around the bend. Across the winding path. Dodging here, dogging there until we finally reached a place far enough away that the flying stones could not reach us. I crouched to the floor, my chest heaving for air. Cradling her small head in my hands, I laid her gently against the mossy floor.

“ Wake up! Fluer, wake up!”

I shook her shoulders.
She did not move.

No, no, no, no.
Not again.

My eyes pleaded, my jaw quivered, teeth ground against each other.
“ Wake up!”

I scooped her into my arms, enfolding her neck. Pressing her gently against my chest, I held her. As the world shook beneath us. As ruins fell and crumbled. As time held its breath. My body, her shield, my hope, her life. I rocked her back in forth in my arms.

“ Please,” I whispered. “ I can’t lose you.”

Eyes squeezed shut, heart pounding behind my ribs, I clung to her with all I had. As if my strong, stubborn will would make her lungs rise and fall again.

This wasn’t happening.
This couldn’t be happening.
Please…fight.

Something nudged my chest softly. A jolt went threw me.

“ Lucien?” she mumbled, her voice barely audible.

Release washed over me like a tidal wave, cool and consuming. A huge breath was released from me. I cupped her cheeks in my huge palms, gently bringing her face to mine. My eyes memorized her striking features. The life warming her cheeks was breathtaking. She was breathtaking.

“ I’m here. I’m here.”

She groaned. Her heavy head fell against me once more, her chest rising with shaky, frail breath. She was weak, drained.

I had to get her back to the cabin.
Standing to my feet, tucking her close to me, I trudged back home. To warmth, to safety, to…mercy. Walking quietly in the moonlight, for the first time in two hundred years, I sent up a thankful prayer.

She was alive.




The fire was warm, the soft crackling of fresh wood pittering through the cabin. I eased open the door, my door, my boots creaking along the old floorboards. Like a feather in the hands of a lion, I laid her gently down on my bed. In the dim candlelight, I studied her. The soft pillows of her lips, thick, dark lashes, the singular freckle by her ear. Even covered in black blood from that filthy witch…she was beautiful. A sleeping ivory petal.

I moved the water basin, snatching a few washcloths and gauze to tend to her wounds.
My gashes could wait.
I would gladly bleed for her.

Kneeling on both knees, I dampened the rag and tenderly touched it to her wrist and began to clean away the mess. Her skin was warm, the side of my palm brushing against her. A shock nipped the cut on my hand.

“ Ahh.” I pulled it back, examining. “ What the–”

A curious tingle danced on the incision, like a sort of…buzzing. I ignored it, focusing on what mattered…her. Cleaning her cut free of dried blood, I examined the rest of her body, searching for more injuries. My focus was suddenly on her chest. Numbness hit me square in the nose.

Scars.
Long and deliberate.

Embers stoke within me, my left fist coiling into a tight ball.

Whoever made these marks would die for them.
A long, painful death.

I traced a finger along the cross-shaped marks.
These were recent, based on their looks. She hadn’t had them when we spoke at the river.

Who could’ve done this?
It couldn’t have been the Mother Viel, these wounds had been dressed with an herbal healing balm. No, this happened before.

Oh, they would suffer.
I would make sure of that.

A low growl rumbled in my chest.
I stuffed it down. I would make her tell me who. What fool decided to mar innocence? Then I would do what I was made for… eliminate the filth from this earth. And I would do it gladly.

Wounds clean and covered, I turned and slid my back down the side of the bed to sit.

When she woke, I would be here.
I would be waiting.