Page 2 of To Bleed a Crystal Bloom
Them.
I keep going, passing limb after limb, head after head—the bubbled, blistering skin distorting features, but failing to hide the upside down v’s carved into some of their foreheads.
What are the fucking Shulák doing here?
The thought is discarded when my eye catches on a charred leg heaped against a boulder ...
Blood roars in my ears, and a wild, thrashing anger threatens to shred the carefully laid fibers of my constraints.
Not only is the torn flesh seeping an opalescent liquid I’m too familiar with, but the limb is small.
Toosmall.
I sit on my heels, close my eyes, bite down on my fist ...
Too fucking small.
That anger builds and builds and—
The ground trembles, followed by another strident screech, the commotion spawning from behind the collapsed and burning dwelling.
Murderous mutts.
They’re still here. Stillfeasting.
Again, that keen, scraping sound dissects the air, followed by a feral howl that carves up the length of my spine like a blade.
My upper lip peels back, and I shove to my feet, cracking my neck from side to side. I set off in the direction of the noise, but a gurgling whimper has my gaze darting to a willow tree; to the figure slumped at its base, her long, pale hair pooled beneath her head ...
Aravyn.
I rush to her side, landing on my knees, sword discarded on the ground. Carefully, I roll her toward me, heart dropping when my hands connect with the warm wetness of her half-spilled entrails.
“Fuck.”
She releases an agonized moan while I inspect the damage.
The edges of her wounds have already begun to gray and fester, emitting a rancid, throat-clogging stench ...
Too. Fucking. Late.
Her frail hand settles atop the clear, heavy jewel she’s always worn around her neck. “T-take it,” she begs, looking at me with eyes wide and luminous, like crystals caught in the sunlight. So different from the others staring blankly from the ground out there.
I swallow thickly, tuck her hair behind her thorny ear, and loosen the latch, catching the jewel. The silver chain falls into my palm, almost blending with the color of her treasured blood on my hands.
“For h-her,” she whispers, folding my fingers over the gift.
Folding my fucking heart just as much.
Last time I came, her belly was round and full, and I don’t have it in me to tell her there’s a small, severed leg lying in the dirt nearby.
A fatal injury.
That Col—her partner—is probably out there, too.
In pieces.
A wet hack spills more of her onto the soil, and her hand lands on the hilt of my blade. “Please ...”
