Page 107 of Anathema

“Corvugon.” Fascinated, I caressed my fingertip over the bird, and it flapped its wings.

Another gasp locked my lungs, and I stared as the bird sprang to life on the page, attacking an armored man with its beak and horns that sliced through the metal with ease. A strange, moving picture that animated the attack, as if I were standing there in the thick of it.

I touched the lower part of the image, and one of the warriors with the raven makeup lurched into motion, running toward an armored figure who sat perched on a horse. The armored figure raised his hand, and the warrior shot backward to his original position as if by some invisible force.

How? How was this possible? Pictures didn’t move that way; they captured a single moment in time.

A tingling sensation prickled my fingertips, and with both hands, I smoothed them over the image, and the entire scene came to life, as if I were watching it firsthand. A battle.

The cluster of markings to the right flickered to words I understood.

The men with yellow hair and steel weapons came upon us in the night. They sought the vein. But we did not relent. For this land is ours. By the strength of Morsana, we defend it.

I watched in horror, as the raven people fought with lesser weapons and were slaughtered by the armored men. A violet glow drew my eyes to a crevice that ran along the castle, and when I glided my finger over it, a white-hot sting pricked my fingertips.

“Ouch!” I drew back my hand, frowning.

Within the dark and scorching chasm, black fire flickered and moved, and a figure rose up, as if some being had been swallowed by the flame. Had become part of it. It lashed out at the armored men and turned them to ash. Careful not to touch the flame, I slipped my thumb across the symbols beside it, and Deimos appeared.

Something about the name sent a shiver down my spine. I studied the figure in the flame a moment longer, and for reasons I couldn’t explain, my heart clenched.

Feathered dragons in the sky battled with golden scaled beasts that breathed fire, but they were no match for the raptors who flew right through those flames. The two beasts clashed, claws tearing flesh. The silvery flames of the black dragon birds sent the golden dragon riders plunging toward the ground in a fiery ball of death.

All at once, everything stilled, and the image flickered. In the next breath, all the figures returned to their original positions, like when I first opened the book.

Yet, the questions lingered in my head. Who were the armored men? What had happened to the raven warriors? Had they survived? What was trapped inside that black flame?

And how in god’s eyes had the image come to life that way?

Again, I stared at my fingertips where a tingle still hummed beneath my skin.

I turned the page to a new puzzle–a raised wooden circle with symbols etched both within and outside of its edges. Other strange symbols adorned the edge in deep, black carvings, the arrangement of it reminding me of a multi-faceted clock. I ran my fingers over the symbols, thinking they might change, as the other markings had, but they remained. And for the life of me, I could not begin to imagine what they meant individually.

Eyes burning, I sighed and double blinked to stave off the exhaustion tugging at my eyelids. I needed sleep. I’d have to save the next puzzle for the morrow.

As I closed the cover of the book, the wooden circle slid down into a depression, flattening itself so the cover would close again. A genius design. Something one might find marveled by scholars at a university, and it left me wondering how Dolion had acquired such a thing.

Before lying back on the pillow, I glanced over to where I’d last seen the spider and performed a quick visual sweep of my room. While I may not have minded the presence of mice, spiders, on the other hand, terrified me.

When I finally lay back on the pillow, I forced my mind to think of something else. Something that would chase away the image of that spider sinking its fangs into my flesh.

The first and only thought I could summon was Zevander.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

MAEVYTH

The clank of metal reached through the void, and I opened my eyes to a mantle of dim light that blanketed the cell. Groaning, I shielded my eyes and lifted my head from the pillow.

“Wake up, Bellitula!”

The fog in my eyes sharpened on Rykaia swinging the door open, carrying a tray of something that smelled delicious.

I groaned and shook my head of the last remnants of sleep. “What is Bellitula?”

“A classic story my mother told me when I was little.” She placed the tray on the table beside me, the savory scent taunting my tastebuds, and it was then I noticed clothes folded on the chair. “Bellitula was a dancer who longed to be the best in all of Aethyria. So, she made a pact with a malevol–”

“A malevol?”

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