At first, I wasn't sure why Lanie looked like he was about to burst into flames until his father's hand touched the auzir markings and muttered a few words - and then my focus was torn from the livid young man to a dull, blinding pain that spiked in the back of my head.
"Oh, fuck," I swore, pressing a palm against my forehead as I stumbled back. Something else stirred within me - something other than the cruel source the Circle had forced into me during my teenage years.
Oh no.
After all this time, keeping it asleep.
You're not helping.
I'm not supposed to.
I gritted my teeth, squeezing my eyes shut to block out the outside noises.
Everything was a mixture of red and gray. Bleak chunks of stone and rock stretched high up to the sky, aching to scratch the orange flashes of lightning shooting through smoky clouds-
A man, missing half his face as he laid slumped over an old, rotting stump. His fingers were bloody from keeping his intestines from pouring out of a deep, ugly wound in his lower abdomen. He couldn't see me. His eyes were fixed on the black wisps of something flying high above.
"The High Lords save me," he kept muttering - over and over. I wasn't sure if he was talking about the Nevhian gods the Circle followed or something else-
"Stop," I managed, hating the cold pit rising in the pit of my stomach. A scream, followed by an enraged yell-
The silhouette of a woman sauntered over to me from across the desolate plain of ruin and debris, dragging a longsword in the ash behind her.
I strained, desperately trying to break myself free of the vision. This wasn't real. At least, not anymore. This was in my head, there was something snaking up my spine-
It was gone. The colors, the voices, the fucking screaming . . . It all stopped mid-second. I gasped, slowly opening my eyes to assure myself that I was indeed in the middle of the woods just outside of Canden and not in one of the most terrifying realms ever created. That I wasn't about to stand face-to-face with her.
Orik stood with a startled expression, watching me with his hand still pressed against the doorframe. Lanie didn't take as long to overcome his shock, taking a step forward to grab my arm with very little care.
"You need to leave," he stated. I shoved him away once I got to my feet, still struggling to breathe. Orik regained his composure, stepping between me and his son.
"Hold on, lad," he said. The lad didn't appreciate that answer very much.
"You think she should stay?"
Leaning on the wall, I watched them as my breathing slowed, noting how the accent they originally spoke in was being replaced with a different, somewhat rougher one.
"What the hell was that?" I demanded, hating the way my voice cracked when the man fixed his eyes on me without replying to his son.
"You're not a bounty hunter," he said, but he didn't sound angry. Or scared.
I hesitated. "Listen, I'm about to finish a contract. I have one more, and I'll be free from them. If you kill me beforehand, you'll just-" I stopped myself, not wanting to speak the words out loud. I shouldn't even be telling them any of this, and yet here I was. Grovelling in front of them so that they won't kill me before I've finished the one job I was called to do. Orik made no attempt to stop me, only raising a hand once to keep his son from interrupting. I shook my head, suddenly angry.
"Them?" Orik pressed.
It was beginning to look like my lack of sleep was seriously starting to kick me in the ass.
He just knew that I'm not a normal bounty hunter. He didn't know anything about me being a part of the Reftin Circle - not many people were familiar with how they worked. Or maybe he was just waiting for me to confirm it.
"I'm not going to beg for my life," I snapped, ignoring the prompt. "I'll guide your hand to kill me myself, but fuck, I need to finish a couple of things first."
"What are you?" Lanie snipped, ignoring the warning look his father shot him.
"Human," I raised my eyes to meet his, keeping my chin levelled. "First and foremost, I'm human. But I've been hunting things for a while, and some of those things never left."
"Never left," Lanie retorted, glancing at his father. "So you're possessed."
It was nothing short of creepy, hearing him put it like that. It was something I've learned to hide, something even Bogdan never brought up, but we both knew it. Knew that I caught something that would never come out, even if we refused to admit it out loud. I glanced down at my toes, noting the swollen wound around my ankle before my eyes trailed over at my exposed arm. The chunks of skin that had been torn from it just hours ago were nearly healed, although the scars were going to continue testifying about the constant danger I threw myself in.
"The only person in danger is me," I said softly. "If it wakes up, it will only consume me, and then it, too, will die." I looked up at Orik, at the symbols he had somehow activated. "I don't know how you used auzir. I've tried and failed many, many times, and I don't know a single person that's managed it. Quite honestly, I'm impressed with how much you two know - or think you know. I don't recommend telling anyone else about this, however."
"Agreed," Lanie said, shooting yet another glare at his father - who has said very little in regards to my current predicament.
"Hmm," Orik hummed, moving to stare outside at the night sky. "Both of you should get some sleep."
"What - Father, surely you don't believe her-" Lanie began.
"I do."
The young man looked like his head was about to explode, and for a moment I thought he was going to find something to lop my head clear from my shoulders, himself, but then he opted to simply release a frustrated sigh. He eyed me up and down, his lips pressed into a thin scowl. I returned the look by crossing my arms over my chest, leaning casually against the wall whilst keeping my own expression neutral. I wasn't intimidated by him. Sure, I knew I was far too weak to fight at the moment, but that concerned me little. It wouldn't be the first time I'd gotten into a fistfight with another human being, and if Bogdan showed up before someone got killed, it certainly wouldn't be the last.
Finally, he scoffed.
"Stay away from my sisters," he said lowly, then turned on his heel and retreated to one of the closed doors nearest the hearth. I merely watched him, wishing that I could hate him for his obvious distrust in me, but I couldn't. It was hard to be upset when I was constantly at my wit's end figuring out which of my own thoughts I could trust and which ones to discard.
"The guest room should still be open," Orik remarked mildly when I made no move to head in that direction.
"I don't sleep."
Orik patted the doorframe.
"Nothing with ill intent can come in," he insisted. "Whatever it is that you are scared of - it won't get you in here."
I cocked an eyebrow at this, the episode that occurred only minutes before still fresh in memory.
"Then what was that all about, hmm?" I questioned. I didn't think I needed to elaborate what 'that' was.
"A seal," he answered. "It keeps the unwanted out there," he gestured outside. "With you . . . My guess is that it's keepin' whatever is inside of you at bay."
I opened my mouth to refute this - obviously, it was just a bunch of wishful thinking, hoping that such a protection spell existed - but then paused. It was quiet. Not the kind of quiet I've grown accustomed to, with some sort of madness going on inside my head while the rest of the world remained still.
No, it was actually quiet. Internally, I shifted my focus on the inner parts of my mind, wondering if that stupid little voice was just trying to trick me. Sensing nothing, I leaned back against the wall, unsure if this was a feeling that I wanted to get used to. It was how I'd imagined someone recovering a dismembered limb would feel after spending years going without it, only for it to suddenly appear out of nowhere and wholly intact.
Orik watched me with increasing patience, waiting for me to come to my senses while I stood there struggling to figure out how to take this.
"Is . . . is it permanent?" I ventured, resisting the urge to raise my hands to my head. To my disappointment, Orik shook his head.
"It will only last until the sun rises," he informed.
Don't question him, the reasonable part of my brain said. I should just take this unexpected gift and do what my body had been aching to do for the past several weeks: sleep. Just sleep. But the man didn't seem at all concerned about having a woman who had something otherworldly residing in her sleep beneath the same roof as him - and despite him practically admitting that he wasn't sure what just happened to me, he was far too comfortable accepting the answers that came to his own lips in seconds.
"You've done this before," I said, already berating myself. I really shouldn't push this. "But your children don't know."
"And you've been to the underworld. Deep inside, to have caught a traver," he stated evenly. When I made no move to elaborate, he gave me a curt nod. "Would you like for me to wake you at dawn?"
This seemingly average middle-aged man had knowledge about things most people often mistook for legend and myth, yet he wasn't bonded to the Reftin Circle. Those who resided in the Circle rarely had children, much less a stable home to raise them in. Orik had four and had been married twice in an odd twenty years. So, what exactly did he know? How was he able to use a magic thought extinct by every single High Scholar the Reftin Circle had?
And why was he risking the chance of exposure to help me? If my employers ever caught wind of Orik being able to use auzir, they would never let him or his children live in peace.
"Yes, please," I found myself responding, almost in tears at the prospect of resting my eyes for longer than a few minutes. A part of me knew that this was going to be a mere tease, that it wasn't going to be enough. That it was going to be straight up hell once I had to leave tomorrow, because unless Orik could somehow teach me how to use those symbols properly, I wasn't going to get another round of sleep.
The older man nodded once, not bothering to ask the questions I knew were bubbling on his lips as he made to walk past me. Without thinking, I reached out to lightly grab his arm.
"Thank-you," I said when he stopped, slightly turning his head to acknowledge me.
"You should go get some rest," he responded firmly, tugging his arm out of my grip.
Every muscle was begging me to head to that cozy little guest room, my legs threatening to collapse and have me fall asleep right where I stood. Yet somehow I was able to watch the strange man retreat to the room in the far right, his footsteps light against the dusty floor despite his bigger size. Releasing a sigh, I bowed my head. Maybe it was a foolish idea, trusting a stranger that after weeks of being on edge for what awaited me in my dreams, I could finally have a night's worth of peace.
My thoughts refused to elaborate further down that route, too muddled to care that I could very well be about to die a brutal death in my sleep and Bogdan was still nowhere in sight. I tensed, waiting for a snippy remark to hit my ears, when once again none came.
Time to risk everything for a chance to rest.
~ 2068 Words ~