Page 62 of Tethered In Blood

“They refused to go near the fields. They would cower. Snarl at nothing. Then, one morning, they vanished as well.”

Oberon’s expression remained the same, though his hands twitched at his sides while the candlelight cast shadows along the sharp planes of his face. He wasn’t pleased by the situation either. “Have you seen it yourself? Whatever is lurking out there?”

Lord Everette’s eyes flickered toward the covered windows. “No,” he admitted. “But I have heard it.”

A pause.

Oberon exhaled, stroking his jaw before speaking again. “Is there an inn in the village?”

Lord Everette’s expression revealed the answer before he even spoke. “There are two rooms prepared for you in my home,” he offered.

I stiffened.

Two rooms.

The manor walls closed in, thick with dust and oppressive with my discomfort. A draft moved through the corridor, carrying the smells of old parchment and damp wood.

Staying somewhere with locked doors, warmth, and accessible answers felt safer. Yet, I couldn’t shake the unease that settled in my gut, the sense that accepting his hospitality meant stepping deeper into something we might not escape.

Before Silverfel, the idea of traveling with Oberon had been intolerable and sharing a space seemed unthinkable. He embodied jagged edges and bitter silence, a storm under careful restraint, and I hadn’t been interested in being caught in it. But as I stood in the grand, suffocating halls of Lord Everette’s estate, my skin prickled with apprehension. The air felt too still, too clean-scrubbed of life and warmth until only emptiness remained. The polished floors reflected the candlelight in an eerie, sterile glow. The towering walls, lined with aging portraits and tapestries, loomed like silent sentinels, watching.

It was too similar.

Too much likehim.

I forced my jaw to unclench, fingers twitching toward my sleeve before restraining myself. I managed a stiff but acceptable smile. “Thank you.”

Had Oberon noticed?

His eyes flickered silver when he glanced at me before turning back to Everette. Then, he inclined his head. “Lead the way.”

After Lord Everette showed us our rooms, I turned to Oberon, folding my arms across my chest. “We should investigate and see what the travelers experienced.”

He huffed. “At sunrise. We’ll get a better view then.”

“No. If the sightings occur at night, then we need to observe them at night.”

He swept a hand across his face as though I had drained the energy from his body. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

I shrugged. “I’ve heard worse.”

For a moment, he stared at me. He muttered something under his breath, likely a curse aimed at me, before gesturing toward the stairs. “Fine. But if you end up dead, I’m leaving your body for the crows.”

I grinned and started walking through the hall. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” I had to escape this place. The mansion’s walls loomed over me with old secrets and silent judgment. Waiting until morning wasn’t the choice I wanted to make when the answers we needed might be waiting outside.

THENIGHTUNFOLDEData sluggish pace until the faintest glow of dawn crept over the horizon. I squinted at my notes, struggling to interpret the symbols and trinkets we had encountered. A few felt familiar, protective wards and charms designed to ward off sickness or spirits, but others…

Others made little sense.

I turned the page, jotting quick notes beside rough sketches of the carvings we had discovered near the village perimeter. Other symbols seemed too intricate and deliberate to be mere superstition. Someone had placed them there for a reason.

Oberon let out a long sigh behind me. “We should have just waited. Rested.”

“And miss all this fun?” I muttered, jotting down another note.

A breeze stirred, crawling through the air with a thick, cloying scent that made me stiffen. My stomach twisted. The stench intensified, permeating my flesh and clinging to the back of my throat, reminiscent of something decaying in the sun. I gagged, pressing my sleeve against my nose. “Seriously, whatisthat?”

Oberon turned toward the field. The wind shifted his cloak as he turned his head. His jaw muscles tensed before he gestured for me to follow. “Let’s find out.”

---