Deadly Wicked

7 | the lover

"Abnegem!" Her voice floated across the arid expanse, the limitless horizon eating the sound and never spitting it out. "Wait!"

The spirit bore her lover's features, ones she wouldn't erase from her mind this early. It wasn't even a week since she last saw his smile, and now, she wove around jagged spikes, keeping his back on her periphery. Her breaths mixed with the fog hounding her head and vision with its chilling veil. She grabbed a lance-like rock, using her momentum to swing herself around it. Her feet cleared the edge of the toothed cliff, the mist parting with a flourish enough to show her what lay below.

Nothing.

The earth's pull gripped her ankles and dragged her towards its embrace. Her heart jumped to her throat, a scream lodging deep into the back of her tongue—alive, but not quite whole. She hooked her fingers against the spike's side, her other hand clawing the ground on her way over. A handhold, a ledge, whatever. Her boots scratched against the cliff's ledge, earning no purchase. Her magic flared to the surface. Figure out how to evade the Monarch's senses later.

As a spell was about to leave her mouth, her descent screeched to a stop. She craned her neck to find Valen down on the ground, hand wrapped around her wrist. With ease, he fished her from the edge until she could throw her leg over the gravelly surface.

"What are you doing?" Valen hissed through gritted teeth. Mavyn blew a shaky breath, bracing his arm to pick her body up. The landscape wasn't something she recognized. They were a long way from the Garden of Eden's walls. Where...

"Are you about to use Life Matter?" he pushed on after she staggered up and dusted her trousers. "Do you not know how dangerous that is? You are fortunate to have gone under my father's senses when you dealt with Noclys."

Ah, he noticed that little spell. How much had he known about her tinkering with the magic of the Kathari? "And throwing yourself off the edge?" Valen ranted, throwing his hands in the air. "Are you looking where you're going?"

Mavyn rolled her eyes. "I would, if I could see it," she snapped. "And where were you? Shouldn't you use your precious Death Matter to help me track down Abnegem?" She pointed to the vague direction she saw him last. "He was right there, and I lost him!"

Valen opened his mouth to spout another bout of weak nonsense, but she pushed off him and jogged towards the solid wall of rock rising to a mountain. Its peak disappeared into a mass of inky clouds, and whether this road led to the Underworld's ceiling or not was the least of her concerns.

The chase began anew.

She flanked the corners of her mouth with cupped hands. "Abnegem!" she shouted into the jagged and silhouetted horizon. "I'm here! Come out. Let's go home!"

What would she do if she caught up to him? She and Valen weren't anywhere near working out who could have endangered the Monarch, or if they harbored malicious intent or ill will towards the ruler of the realm enough to want to take his place. Who in her right mind would think the Kathari would fulfill their oath under these circumstances?