Page 72 of Tethered In Blood

What did it mean when his eyes turned silver? What was it tied to?

A foul, cloying, meaty stench slammed into me, curling in the back of my throat. I gagged, and my hand shot up to cover my nose.

The dirt beneath my hands crumbled. Something inside the effigy moved as a deep, wet pop echoed from beneath the sigil-carved surface. I recoiled, and my fingers dug into the dirt behind me as though it could steady me. Oberon’s hand shot out and wrapped around my arm, yanking me back just as a sliver of black goop oozed through the cracks in the sigils.

The air shuddered.

A long, unnatural groan rumbled from the thing buried before us, reverberating through the ground. The runes along its surface pulsed a sickly, blue-green glow that flickered like the afterimage of a flame in the dark.

The thing breathed a rattling, hollow breath.

No.

Oberon was on his feet, sword drawn, his body rigid in an unfamiliar way. “We need to go.” His voice was fierce, low, and steady. His silver-lit gaze never left the shifting soil.

I could only stare at the thing lying half-uncovered. My mind struggled to make sense of it. I had expected bones. Roots. Something dead. But this wasn’t old. This wasn’t dead. Someone had put this here, had carved those sigils to keep it buried, and now we had disturbed it.

The ground shuddered, the withered crops trembled, and the stench of rot swelled around us, wrapping tight and winding down my throat. A sudden, jerking spasm from the thing sent a spray of dirt flying as a shape lurched from the pit. It had once been a hand. Tendons knotted where flesh had withered away, stretched too tight over elongated bones. The fingers curled, each one tipped with broken nails.

It twitched.

And twitched again.

My stomach lurched. I took a slow, unsteady step back. “Sinclaire.” The hand snapped toward me before Oberon’s sword sliced through the wrist. A spray of inky black liquid spattered the dirt, and the stench of decay thickened. The severed hand writhed where it landed, fingers still flexing—still reaching for me.

My pulse pounded against my skull.

The ground split, and a wet, sucking noise filled the air as the thing dragged itself free.

Oberon grabbed my wrist. “Run!”

The field lurched beneath us. The once-dry soil turned damp as it began to shift and breathe. The stench of rot thickened, curling in the back of my throat and coating my tongue in something sour.

A horrid, rattling shriek split the air.

I stumbled, but Oberon’s grip tightened. His firm hand was burning hot around my wrist. He yanked me forward before I could hit the ground. My lungs burned. My legs ached. But if we stopped, we were dead.

The shriek turned into laughter. Twisted. Gurgling. Inhuman. My stomach dropped as I risked a glance over my shoulder and immediately regretted it.

It stood, unfolding limb by limb.

It had once been human or close to it. The thing that clawed its way from the dirt had no right to move. The tight skin stretched over its frame, splitting its flesh at the joints and exposing blackened sinew.

Where there should have been eyes, there were only hollow sockets, writhing with something wet and moving. The skin around its mouth had rotted away. The lips stripped back to reveal a jagged grin of broken, splintered teeth.

And it laughed. The noise crawled through the air, a dry, rattling rasp that burrowed into my ears, into my skull. I choked on my breath. It didn’t just come from the thing in the field. It came from beneath us.

Oberon muttered something in another language before yelling, “Move, Herbalist!” The ground split, and dozens of blackened fingers shot from the ground that clawed at our boots, grasped at our legs, and pulled. I faltered as cold, dead hands wrapped around my ankle. Oberon’s blade flashed in my vision with a spray of black ichor. The hands fell away, twitching.

He yanked me forward. “Don’t stop!” We broke free of the field just as the ground buckled inward, collapsing beneath the weight of whatever lay beneath. A pit. A mass grave. A burial ground that should have never been disturbed.

The laughter followed us into the trees, which swallowed us whole. Branches tore at my sleeves, whipping across my skin as we hurtled forward, our footfalls uneven against the gnarled roots beneath us. A fire burned in my lungs; every breath was like swallowing embers.

Oberon was a creature built for the hunt ahead of me, traversing the trees with ease. But this time, we were the prey. The laughter grew, slithered between the trunks, and twisted as if it were alive.

I forced my focus ahead. We needed to get out of the damned trees.

Whispers began, faint at first, rustling through the leaves. But they grew louder and clearer.

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