Deceit of Spirits

Chapter 10

A low, rumbling growl pierced into the conversation and shattered it.

For a shocking moment, Astrid met Sebastian's wide-eyed gaze, a tether of anxiety yanking them closer, before she pivoted on her bare, muddy heels. As swift as an Elaerien splaying its wings for flight, Astrid swung her arm backwards. Something snarled. The lithe muscles of her shoulders retracted. Bunched up her dirty tunic. Released. Her blade whistled through the air and struck.

The growl morphed into a pained yelp.

Astrid ran after her knife with a curse.

Blinking once to clear his vision, Sebastian held his breath to smother his erratic heartbeats and hurried after her.

"Vyre-pups." Astrid knelt on one knee beside an ebony mass of shimmering fur. There was a tender quality to her expression that pulled at his sternum. The same hand that had thrown the blade rested gingerly atop the creature's shuddering chest. She glanced at him shortly. "Another got away."

Sebastian crouched beside her, curiosity throttling the last of his fear. The creature laid on its side, one of its four, massive paws twitching with fur as black as midnight, but the ends of each hair flickered with an ethereal glow like stars against its canvas of night. As Sebastian watched in wonder, the lights began to blink out of existence, one by one, with each ragged breath the animal rattled into its punctured lung.

Astrid's knife stuck out from its ribs.

His words felt thick. "What is it?"

She glanced at him. "A vyre-pup." Her fingers trembled as they found her blade. "A breed of fae. Beautiful, aren't they?"

Sebastian sat back. "You hurt it."

Astrid's expression twisted, bloodied fingers snapping back to her lap. Its blood was a vibrant gold. "Vyre-pups are fae trackers," she snapped. "Hunters for the Avylon warriors. They know we're here." Her eyes were the color of steel when they met his own. "You have to kill it, Bash."

"What?"

"Use its spirit's threads. Sever them."

"No!" His stomach recoiled. "It was your knife that claimed its fate."

Her words escaped on a higher pitch, one that bordered on rising hysteria. "It's in pain!" She shook her head, tangled blond hair slapping against her bright cheeks. "Please. I cannot—I don't have the control. The curse. I—"

Without much conscious thought, his hand found hers. Their palms pressed together, breaths catching as her voice trailed into silence. He squeezed her hand. "I'll try." Her skin was hot, burning against his own, sticky from that bright, gilded blood. "I'm sorry you had to wound it."

"I've always wanted to see one," she admitted, words small. "They're meant to be very loyal. So much so that their owners feel their deaths as their own."

Sebastian could only nod. Rare were the moments Astrid revealed the softer emotions hidden behind her impenetrable exterior. Injuring this majestic creature had made her vulnerable; the reason hardly mattered, not when it caused Sebastian's chest to ache. So, trying to not acknowledge the nausea rising in his gut, he focused on her face and placed their clasped hands onto the suffering vyre-pup. Astrid's eyes shut, flickering chaotically beneath her lids. The vyre-pup's fur was as smooth as the richest silks, slipping between his fingers like water, casting splotches of golden light upon the back of his hand. Beneath him, the pup's breaths rattled, a sack of broken bones. One of its eyes cracked open, a whimpering, brilliant silver orb peering at Sebastian. Pleading. On the creature's next exhale, its feeble, translucent threads of Spirit looped around Sebastian's wrist.

Then, from its star-lit fur, a single burning thread of brightest white brushed against the crook of Sebastian's arm where one of his veins pulsed.

Take my light, Carissénas.

Sebastian jerked back, but the vyre-pup's threads wrapped more tightly.

"What?" Astrid's voice was abrupt and loud beside him. "What is it?"

Son of Kyiva, cut the threads. Lumu calls for my rays.

"It's—" Sebastian caught sight of his pale, startled reflection in the vyre-pup's tired eye—"It's speaking to me."

"Telepathy of Light." Astrid shifted closer to his side, fingers flexing beneath his. "They can speak through Light's threads. What is it saying?"

Trust not the lies of sinners, Carissénas.

The rapid rate of his heart caused his head to spin and fall into the silver pool of the creature's intelligent gaze.

"Bash, tell me—!"

Gaia has kissed her brow. Its Light thread burned brighter. Her lies curse your fate.

"Your forehead." He heard the accusation as if another's soul had pushed out his own and taken residence inside his body. "That mark. How'd you get it?"

Astrid stilled. "The vyre tells you something about me?"

Sever my Spirit, Carissénas. Now.

Reacting to the demand, an alpha to its beta, Sebastian twisted his thread-ridden wrist. His fingers pushed Astrid's to the side and wrapped around the cold hilt of her dagger instead. With a choked breath, he wrenched the blade up and out from between the vyre-pup's ribs, grabbed it with his opposite hand, and sliced it through the threads of Spirit falling from his wrist. The vyre-pup's chest deflated on a low sigh, the rest of its lights extinguishing as its single, mercury eye closed.

Sebastian's breaths felt harsh. The tip of the knife had even nicked his palm. He dropped the dagger before scuttling away from it.

"Holy Hel's Abyss!" Astrid snatched her blade from where he'd tossed it onto the ground; she rounded on him with it held aloft. "You didn't need to use my knife! You could have done it all elementally, not physically."

He scrambled to his unsteady feet. "You said the fae now know we're here." His palms scrubbed up and down his thighs, painting his trousers with reddish, golden stains of blood. "We needed our only weapon back."

It was a little insulting, the way Astrid's mouth hung open into a narrow circle of disbelief. Sebastian averted his gaze from her gaping expression, as well as the black-furred body behind her, and frowned at the bloodied blade. 

"I think you should teach me how to use that."

Her eyes narrowed. "What did the vyre say to you?"

His stare met her own. "How did you get that mark on your head?"

They watched each other, hearts slamming, resolves hardening, and Sebastian felt as if by taking a life, it had somehow born him anew.

"Is this what you want, then?" Her exasperated huff smacked him across the cheeks because she suddenly stood before him, cheeks flushed and blazing. "Shall it be a battle of secrets between you and I?" She flipped the knife around in her grasp and slapped the hilt of it into his bleeding palm.

"I will win, Bash," she said. "Just remember I warned you."