The room was dim. Tiny slats in the walls high above provided the only light, dust motes dancing in the glow. A harsh smell hit Red like a wall as she stepped over the threshold after Eammon and Valdrek, acidic and cold, intense enough to make her press her arm against her nose. The room was small, barely big enough for the three of them to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, and the short ceiling nearly brushed the top of Eammon’s head.
In front of her, Eammon went rigid, stepping to the side as if trying to hide her in his shadow. Red pushed at his shoulder. After a moment of resistance, he moved enough for her to see.
They’d tried to make it as comfortable as possible, and that somehow made it worse. Bormain lay in a bed covered with thick blankets and surrounded by pillows, almost enough to hide the lengths of chain running from beneath the bedding to shackles set into the stone floor. One for each limb, and another that appeared to wrap around his middle, attached first to the bed frame and then to metal rings on the walls. Despite the restraints, there were gouges in the floor where he’d managed to scoot the bed from side to side. Red remembered the noises they’d heard above in Asheyla’s shop, and shuddered.
Bormain didn’t move. His eyes were closed, swollen black veins spidering from his eyelids to stretch down his face. The shadow-infected arm lay outside the blankets, at least twice its normal size and with skin fragile as a rotting fruit, staining the bedding dark and damp. The nails on his hands were hooked and overlong, the bones in his face too sharp.
The shadow-rot wasn’t just making Bormain sick. It was . . . remaking him.
The grit of Valdrek’s teeth was audible. “I haven’t let Elia down here in a week, since he started . . .” He didn’t finish.
Eammon’s expression was unreadable. He put out his hand, gently maneuvered Red back behind his shoulder.
She let him this time. Red leaned close, standing with Eammon before her like a shield. “Is he asleep?”
“Not sleeping.” The voice sounded like it came through a cut throat, thready and ragged. “The shadows stole my sleeping.”
Slowly, Bormain lifted his head. The angle of it had to be painful, restrained as he was, but he showed no discomfort. His smile stretched too wide, nearly ear-to-ear, and he closed his milk-blind eyes to take a long, exaggerated inhale. “Smells so sweet. Barren soil, rootless soil.” His eyes opened, snapped to Red, unnaturally quick. “There’s blood on the wood, rootless Second Daughter. Blood to open and blood to close, old things awakened. Eons of patience rewarded.”
Red fought the urge to press her face against Eammon’s shoulder, to block out the whole scene in his warmth and library scent. Instead she fumbled for his hand. “We’re here to help you,” she said, and the words came out clear even if they were quiet.
“Help me?” Bormain threw his head back, braying at the ceiling. The dark, swollen veins in his throat pulsed. “Sweet Wolves, poor Wolves, I’m not the one who needs saving. He’s waiting, they’re waiting, everyone will get their chance.” His head, still held at that unnatural angle, swung back and forth as he sang under his breath. “They wait and they spin, they spin nightmares new and old, remake the shadow and let the shadow remake them . . .”
Eammon glanced down at her, a question in his eyes, the expression easy to read. If she’d changed her mind, he’d take her out of here the moment she said so.
Red bit her lip, that sour guilt in her throat again. You begin and begin and never see it finished.
One nod, sharp.
With another burning look, Eammon started forward, moving almost soundlessly over the stone floor.
Bormain’s singing dropped to a tuneless hum, his eyes closed and his head swinging gently back and forth like he’d lost interest. Red took a deep breath of the stinking air and tugged at the power curled in her middle. It spiked upward, blooming toward her fingers and Eammon holding them, veins greening and the taste of earth faint on her tongue. They stepped forward carefully, soundless as possible, Eammon’s body drawn up like a spring set to snap.
Eyes still closed, Bormain stopped humming. “Your knotted string of death is fraying, Wolf-pup,” he said, his voice ringing clear and precise. “They have help now. They’re coming home, Solmir and all the rest.”
The name stopped both of them cold, Eammon with his hand half outstretched. Bormain’s laugh was broken and ugly. “So many endings, Wolf-pup, and you’ve seen them all—”
He was silenced by Eammon’s hand slamming over one of the only places on his body left untouched by shadow— his mouth.