Page 36 of The Scattered Bones

“It’s hard when you promise the impossible.”

“For others, yes, but not for you.” I sense a warm presence at my back as he speaks. “You survived the Sivatag when its heat kills all others. You reclaimed Lovec’s temple when his faithful could not. You climbed the Verdens Kant and returned when most die on those rocks. You faced Udens and gained his favor. He is a brutal god who takes his vengeance in blood, yet he did not spill yours. I don’t understand how you struggle to believe my promises when you yourself defy the odds, the gods, the darkness. Now go before the sun falls from the sky,” he orders when I hesitate. “I won’t abandon you.”

He’s right. I should be dead one hundred times over, yet my broken body still fights. Perhaps it’s not The Stranger I should fear, but myself.

“Watch over me?” I step into the towering grass, its height making me dizzy.

“Always, my child.”

* * *

The grass is surprisingly sharp,the ground below me uncomfortably soft, and I can barely see more than a few paces ahead. The reeds are taller than me in some places and come to my breasts in others, but no matter where I walk, it’s too thick to see where I’m stepping.

The wind rustles the grass, forcing it to bend, and anxiety settles in my chest. Moving stalks are my only warning of the predators hunting this endless nothing, but if the wind doesn’t stop, I won’t see danger coming. Even the smallest insect can be deadly, especially in the presence of black magic. That’s why I’m here. I sensed the draw of his bones, the darkness thick about him, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to feel its effects. How many poisonous creatures hunt these grasslands, fueled by this oppressive evil?

Something wet slides across my skin, and I yelp with an undignified squeak. I faced the evil that consumed Death’s abandoned temple. I fell from Verdens Kant and killed tigers bred from dark magic, yet the slimy trail left by a small hidden creature disturbs me the most.

“Are there predators here?” I ask The Stranger.

He doesn’t answer.

“Stranger?”

“Do you truly want to know?” His voice is a warning.

“Yes… no.” I fall silent, the sharp grass stinging my arms as I push through it. “Yes.”

“They say it has a taste for human flesh,” he answers. “It’s grown impossibly large, its teeth able to rip apart skilled soldiers. It’s said he started small and innocent, wandering among the grass and mud. His home is a cave hidden in the nothingness, and while it never appears in the same place twice, he finds it each night. Legend tells of a vast treasure lost inside his lair, but all who seek its entrance must first kill its inhabitant. In the first age of men, warriors tested their skill against the Mitte Midagi, and the creature killed them in self-defense. Their blood on his tongue changed him, though, transforming him into a monster. He swelled to an unnatural size and craves human flesh. He may already have scented you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

“Would it have stopped you?”

“No.”

The Stranger huffs with self-righteous satisfaction.

“What is he?”

“A beast you don’t want to meet. Follow the call, my child. Find his bones before the creature finds you.”

“He’s in the cave, isn’t he?” I don’t have to ask. I know Valka hid him there, in the home of a monster to hide the magic.

“If that’s what you think.”

“It’s what I know. He’s always left in the darkness, always in pain and suffering.” The ache in my thigh worsens with each step, souring my mood. “I wonder if I constantly sense him because the gods abandoned me. In their anger, they wanted me to know they scattered him to the worst parts of the realm.”

“That’s not why, my child.”

I cock my head, wishing The Stranger was here so I could look at his dark visage and ignore the fact that my own feet have disappeared below the mud.

“You say the gods abandoned you, yet your face burns with Lovec’s mark. You’re welcome to return to the Vesi, and you always hear the call of his bones. You swore your marriage vows in the way Elskere did, and the wed gods blessed your union. They accepted your faith, and despite Hreinasta’s claim on you, you no longer belong to her. You belong to him, even in death.”

When my bones are nothing but dust coating the earth, I’ll still want you.

“Elskere didn’t protect us,” I argue. “Our marriage lasted hours.”

“But they protected your bond. It has not broken. It’s why you always find him.”

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