Page 56 of Bound and Tide

ONLY A FOOL EXPECTS SENTIMENTALITY

With the door bolted, the sounds of groaning undead and rusty blades were drowned out, the temple filled with only heavy breathing. Red’s hands were spread beside his, pressed up against the door as if the bolt would not hold. Their shoulders brushed one another, and he leaned into her just enough to feel she was real, that she was alive. Her littlest finger inched over his, hooking them together.

If ever I were to thank the gods, he thought and rested his forehead against the door. “We are all in one piece, yes?”

The comforting sound of murmured confirmation buzzed around him, and even the gurgling of the three imps, still living as they huddled at their feet, was a relief.

“You’re bleeding,” said Maia quietly from behind, poking at the wound he’d sustained across his back and making him wince.

“I’ll heal.”

“Are you sure?” That voice was not Maia’s—it had been too calm, too prepared.

Xander whirled around, thrusting the others behind him. Only Maia complained that he was squashing her into the door, but she was better off squashed than dead, his arms thrown out to block them as best he could.

Standing fifty paces off was a single cloaked figure, dwarfed by the vastness of the space. Preserved through arcana, the interior of the temple was eerily white and clean, its windows intact and filtering in light that hadn’t been outside.

The figure strode forward, her footsteps soft on the marble floors. “We don’t often get pilgrims.”

“And you’re still not.” Xander couldn’t fight off his scowl, no energy left for the charm he usually used to get what he wanted. “You’re one of Osurehm’s priestesses?”

“He doesn’t have any of those.” The woman stopped far enough off to not be a threat but close enough to show she was not undead, her skin pale and taut. She had the slow blink and the willowy limbs of an elf, and when she pushed back her hood, the ears too.

Red slipped out from behind Xander and greeted the woman in Elvish—at least, he assumed it was a greeting, but knowing Red it might have been a threat.

The two traded stoic and flowery sounding words, revealing nothing with blandly held features.

Red finally made an agreeable sound. “She’s from deep in the Kvesari Wood.”

“Well”—Xander gestured to her—“I gathered that much. What I really want to know is if we’ll have to kill her.”

Both women sighed loudly.

“My clan stations someone here at all times to watch over this place.”

“To protect it?”

“To watch it,” she stressed, clasping long fingers that didn’t appear eager to cast. “So things do not escalate.”

Xander blew out a breath and tugged at his lapels, stepping forward. “Well, surely you’ve been waiting on me then.”

“No?”

“But the prophecy—”

She held up a hand. “I am uninterested in human prophecies.”

Despite that he thought he felt almost exactly the same, Xander deflated. “Well, they come from the gods, but point taken. It’s a rather big one, though. A problem-solving one, as it were.”

The elf shrugged. “If you say so.”

“Well, no, it is the gods who say,” he repeated as if she had not heard the first time.

“Look, whatever you think you are here to do, I will not stand in your way. I will simply document the aftermath and act accordingly.” She waved a hand at the long hall behind her.

Xander swallowed hard at the sight of the narrow corridor. He’d avoided looking at it until then, the space all the darker with the whiteness of the temple, but the moment he did, his vision tunneled. The faraway voice that had been whispering into his brain grew louder though no more intelligible, and his heart sped up all over again. Limbs shaky, his hand found the vial about his neck before he even knew he was grabbing at it, and fear exploded into his mind.

“Xander?”

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