Page 238 of Vasmora

Again, I looked around for something I could use to douse the flames. Nothing but satisfied expressions stared back at me.

The crowd’s fervor heightened. “Witch! Witch! Witch!”

Her cries fractured to a high-pitched scream, and I slammed my hands over my ears.

“Stop this!” I screamed. “Stop!”

Thick, black smoke burned in my lungs, that greasy scent choking me. I bent forward, coughing and retching, desperate to spit it out.

The heat at my back dissipated.

The air around me stilled.

I expelled a long exhale and opened my eyes.

The crowd had disappeared, leaving behind nothing but rotted food and scattered stones on the ground.

I hesitated to turn around.

Look at her. Remember what happened here.

It was only the need to see for myself what they’d done, and I turned to find the flames had burned out, leaving behind nothing but a pile of ash, and a bloodstone which sat atop of it.

Tears blurred my vision as I stepped toward it.

Kneeling, I carefully lifted the still-warm bloodstone and stared down at it.

As the echo of her screams clawed through my mind, I shook my head to banish the sound from my thoughts, but the agony in her voice heightened to the high-pitched cry of a baby.

I turned around.

In the distance sat a small basket, around which ravens had flocked, set before an archway of bones that resembled the entrance to The Eating Woods. Except, there was no eerie forest on its far side.

In its place stood a vein and the violet flicker of sablefyre.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

ZEVANDER

Zevander stood over the table in the library, flipping through the strange book still lying there. He stared down at the drawing of a tree, a red light glowing at the center of its trunk.

Turning the page took him to a series of drawings that, on closer examination, seemed to tell a story. The first showed a woman in a flowy black dress, who resembled Maevyth with her long, black hair and silver eyes. She reached into the red glow, and he flipped back a page, noting the resemblance of the two trees. The next image showed her opening what looked to be a wooden case in the shape of an actual heart, inside which something small, black and silver lay embedded. She appeared to eat the small, black object, and in the next frame, her eyes closed, her face resting against the book. Zevander frowned, studying the series of events that ultimately ended the way Rykaia had found her earlier. He also noted how, in each frame, the moons merged closer together, an observation that seemed to hold meaning to the illustrations.

He strode toward the window, peering up at the sky, where the moons had almost overlapped.

The script beside the page described Morsana’s ascension into the vessel. Frowning, he noticed a smaller image of Maevyth holding a child, standing alongside a figure who resembled himself without the black veins. He ran his fingers over the likeness, the blue eyes that matched those of his mother. What he might’ve looked like without the curse. The way the sketch had been positioned off to the side appeared as if a thought. Or a dream.

Caligorya.

Realization struck him as he scanned the drawings faster, his eyes moving across the page so fast, he could almost see the images coming to life. Playing before his eyes.

Morsana would ascend and Maevyth would remain in Caligorya.

“Fuck,” he said, slamming the book shut and swiping it up from the table. Part of him wanted to confirm his understanding of what he’d just read with Dolion, but if the merging of moons was pertinent to the goddess’s ascension, he was running out of time. He had to find her. And fast.

He stormed out of the library, heading toward the wine cellar, his body so tense, he risked putting a hole in the wall with his fist en route.

“Zevander!” Rykaia called from behind, and he managed only a glimpse that showed her hobbling toward him, carrying a glass of wine. “Wait! Wounded leg, remember?”