Page 85 of Avelina

Aaron looked back toward the house, then gave the other überzombies a once-over. They were all still on the ground but were stirring. The skeletal man was trying to roll over. Man, that bony guy was persistent.

“Can you heal them like you did Ellis?” Aaron asked.

I nodded, giving Ellis a sideways glance. “You’ll have to hold them down,” I said.

“I can help,” Ellis said, grimacing. I wondered how many girls Axel had made him hold down. More than one, I’d bet.

“Okay,” I said.

One by one, I broke their Projection trances with Transformation, combined with Connection, Protection, and Conjuration. The skeletal man, Shane Smite, was the easiest to heal. He had no strength left in him. His older brother, Fitch Smite, the large man, was also easy to heal but much harder to hold down. I was as weak as a kitten, so had to rely on the men for that.

Shane and Fitch hadn’t eaten in almost three weeks. Once they were released from their trance, however, they were mostly concerned with saving their other brother, Cobb, who was still enthralled.

The other two men, Markinius and Falondeitric Eboros, were also brothers and the sons of one of Axel’s political enemies, Regalinius Eboros. They’d been kidnapped two days prior. They hadn’t eaten in that time, either, but were in much better shape. They appeared to be in their late teens, younger than I’d thought when they were a towering presence behind our earlier defensive position. They both had the same black hair and pale skin as the Smite brothers.

“Seleca could send someone to follow up at any time,” Aaron said. He glanced up at the sky, then into the distance. Snow covered the ground in a fine powder and cast a peculiar beauty over an otherwise gruesome tableau.

“She’ll send more than a handful the next time,” Ellis said.

“We need to feed these men and let them sleep,” I said, shivering again. “We can leave in the morning. Let’s go in. I’m fa-freezing.”

“I can stand guard,” Ellis said, hugging his own shoulders.

“We’ll rotate,” Aaron said. “Lina is right. You need to sleep first, Ellis.”

“I feel fine,” Ellis said. “Great, actually.” Ellis smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, which darted to me for an instant, then looked away. He turned and headed for the house. Aaron watched him go, then narrowed his eyes at me.

I coughed. “I need to grab my pack,” I said, then turned and stumbled back toward the side of the house.

Chapter Twenty-five

“Viktor?” Linorra called. There was no answer. There were no guards anywhere. The cells were all empty. The sound of a door slamming at the top of the dungeon stairs sent a spike of dread into her heart and she nearly toppled over with fear. Then the bolt turned, and a muffled laugh floated down to her like poison gas from a troll spider’s bog.

Aaron moved Axel’s body while I retrieved my bag. He found the man’s golden dagger and strapped it to his own belt. Then he walked me up to the tiny bathroom, grabbing the lantern along the way for my weak eyes. He left Ellis to guard the front door while Shane and Fitch guarded the back. Spirit opted to follow Seleca’s spiritual stench back to her palace full of stolen heirlooms to make sure that she wasn’t headed our way.

Aaron stood guard at my bathroom door while I got cleaned up. He didn’t trust the Eboros brothers and wanted to make sure there weren’t any “misunderstandings” while I was in there.

When I finished, he bathed himself, then he drained the filthy water and refilled the tub with clean water for the other men, providing them with dry clothes from Terik’s and Jorin’s closets. None of the men had bathed during their captivity and were grateful.

I helped Aaron prepare a meal for everyone from an oardoo he’d killed and brought back from his walkabout. Over the last two months, he’d taught me the cooking techniques he’d learned from his aunt, Clare, and I was finally becoming semi-useful. I’d never learned to cook as my mother had always dominated the kitchen, but Aaron said I had a knack for it.

“I found the flock down at the southern edge of the property,” he said once we’d sat down to eat. “They’d been intentionally penned there. Jorin and Terik probably went to the Moore farm to help them in some way. He does that on rare occasion, and the flock follows him.”

“Where is that?” I asked.

“It’s just southeast of here, down the coast. He may have gone to Seagral as well, which is a village just on the other side of the farm. That’s the only explanation for why the flock would be down there. I would have gone to search, but I didn’t want to leave you here by yourself overnight.”

“Good choice,” I said.

“I didn’t think so at first, but now I’m glad,” Aaron said.

I didn’t respond to his jab. I focused on my food, pushing it around my plate. It was just after midnight, and I was too exhausted to be hungry. The fire crackled in the hearth behind me, and I wanted to curl up next to it on the thick braided rug and fall asleep.

“What did you do with Axel’s body?” I asked.

“It’s too cold and wet out for a pyre right now,” he said. “I hung him in the butcher shed. The body will freeze tonight, but it’ll be fine. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

“I’ve never known it to snow this early in the season,” Ellis said. “The Harvest Festival isn’t for another couple of days.”

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