Page 52 of The Blight of Hollowmire

Humor loosens something in me before I can guard against it.

“Were you aware that you snore?” I tease.

“I never!” She insists, her soft lips dropping open in mock outrage.

“Alas, Lady Fae, ’tis true. I’m fairly certain it was you and not Mistress Bones. What a racket it was—echoing off the back of the cave like another earthen tremor. I was worried for a moment there might be another wyreboar back there.”

“Worried because I was asleep and wouldn’t be able to protect you?” she shoots back.

A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. Her mouth almost softens in return, but she catches herself and tugs the cloak tighter. Nibblebones chirps irritably beneath the blankets as if we are disturbing her very important rest.

“I’ve half a loaf of stale bread left,” I tell her. “And three strips of dried fish. What supplies do you have left, and how much farther until the village and we can replenish our food stores? If it’s longer than a day, I can go out and set some snares for game.”

“Gods, how long have you been awake that you’re so concerned about your stomach?”

“Haven’t you heard? An army marches on its stomach. Food is the third most important consideration when you’re out on campaign.”

“I’d ask what the first two are, but I’m afraid to hear the answer,” she says with a throaty chuckle. The sound sends a rush of blood to my groin. I shift as discreetly as possible and turn away.

“Clean water,” I bite out. “And morale. Following those, shelter in foul weather.”

She makes a thoughtful noise.

“Well, that’s not nearly as thrilling as I’d hoped,” she returns. There’s a pause, and it sounds like she’s rousing herself from her bedroll, much to the exasperation of her corpse weasel. “As to your earlier question, I, too, am low on rations. However, Nibblebones is a very capable huntress, should we need fresh meat. And I can always summon mushrooms, if you’re not too… particular about them now. I mean, after last night.”

Her words take on an anxious edge, and my heart drops.

“You have nourished me well thus far with your gifts, Lady Fae. I would not be so foolish to refuse them just because I have more insight into their origins.”

She relaxes a fraction at that—again, obviously waiting for the disgust, the rejection that I am determined not to disappoint her with. What I’m to do about her becoming the Blight Mother, however, is another matter entirely, and not one I’m particularly keen on examining at this moment.

“Would you like to talk about it?” she asks of a sudden. “What happened last night, I mean.”

I purse my lips. “I believe the more important question is, would you?”

She keeps her attention fixed on the low fire. I become suddenly interested in arranging the edge of my sleeve over my wrist, a task that requires no thought and an abundance of attention. We both remember what happened last night… and what almost happened. Neither of us seems to possess the bravery to mention it.

She sighs after a time, opens her mouth to begin, then closes it abruptly. Shaking her head, she huffs a sardonic chuckle.

“For so long, all I wanted was to vent my spleen at anyone who might do me the courtesy of listening. And now that someone has offered, I cannot think of a single thing to say that I did not already sob into the ether last night, through a haze of pain and shame. You have known me for the least amount of time, Renard, and already I have admitted more to you than to my own kin.”

“I know little about you and your past, but I gather your gift—your decay magic—is a rather unique one. Yet it is part of the cycle of life, is it not? And if your people are so governed by their relationship with the natural order of things, why is it that you are shunned?”

She shrugs, but the movement is stiff with tension.

“You’re asking questions I’ve asked for all my years. What I do might be useful in the grand scheme of the gods, but it’s hardly something to be championed or put on display over a dinner table. We’re not technically immortal, Renard—we can be killed, we can grow sick, we eventually die. But we do so on a much longer cycle than you humans, so according to your kind, we are by rights immortal. That false immortality, however, sets my people so firmly in our ways. Perhaps we live too long and thus become blind to how the world needs to change. In that respect, you humans have the better of us.”

“Despite my familiarity with death, somehow I don’t envy your kind their long lives,” I admit. “And I rather think those of my kind who would hoard their years would do so selfishly, for no greater purpose than to guard their own pleasures.”

“Well, for all our immortality, the fae have a peculiar relationship with what may lead to or follow death, and so I’m best forgotten, until the beer needs to be fermented, or the cheese aged, or the compost turned. And, I suppose, it did not help that I was a difficult youngling who delighted in playing pranks on my elders by rotting or rusting their favorite things,” she says, smiling to herself at the memory.

I try not to be charmed by the idea of a small, oxblood-eyed, white-haired fae running amok in a kitchen, destroying things on a precocious whim.

“Do you think your magic is why the seer marked you out as the Blight Mother?”

“I don’t know. But I intend to find out. The village is half a day from here, so if we hurry, we can reach it before nightfall.”

I feed Magnar the last of the oats and lead him to a pool of clean, clear water deeper in the cave. He seems to have rested better than the rest of us, fortunately. After tending to him, we pack without much more conversation. The fire has gone to ash by the time we are ready to leave. The glowing mushrooms along the ceiling have dimmed as well, their caps curling inward and I wonder if they will shrivel entirely without proximity to Vireth’s magic.