𝗕𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗗𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 || Cregan Stark

50 | Mouth of the Forest

CHAPTER FIFTY
M O U T H   O F   T H E   F O R E S T

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TW: Violence

She stares at his sleeping form, the way his body slumps heavily against the leaf-coated ground, his head pushed up against a tree trunk.

Torwyn is still bound, this time both his hands and feet, causing his body to curl strangely, like a cradled babe.

He does not notice her standing there. He does not seem to notice anything. Only when the tip of her blade graces his throat— the one she had carefully pulled from Medrick's satchel— does he wake.

Viserra watches him startle, the subtle twitch of his muscles betraying the sudden awareness of the steel at his neck. His eyes snap open, grey and storm-tossed, the pupils dilated in the dying firelight. For a moment, the forest hush presses around them, broken only by the quiet hiss of the muted embers and the distant howling wind.

"Which direction have we been led?" her own hushed voice seethes, pouring into the air a stern urgency that is not her own.

His mouth presses close, then opens again, his entire body still. His eye, still swollen and purple from his days in captivity, blinks harshly.

"I am not a compass," he replies.

"Then why do you taunt me with your words?"

Her voice is low, edged with a brittle patience that has thinned over the long hours of their march.

He exhales through his nose, the sound heavy and sigh-like.

She cannot tell whether it is fear or tired defeat which rues in his eye.

"The further this journey goes on, the smaller the chances of me surviving it," he mutters.

"So it is your own survival which riles you?" she asks.

"What else but my life remains to me?"

She shakes her head faintly, not accepting his words.

"Tell me, where are we going?" she persists, bringing her face close to his, allowing their shuddering breaths to mingle.

He is quiet for some time; hesitant or uncertain, she does not know.

"Not to the coast, that is for certain."

"Then where?"

Torwyn swallows, the sound wet and uneasy in the chill of the night. He does not flinch under the blade, though his body remains coiled and guarded. "There are only a few villages of note in these parts of the land."

Her eyes search into his. "Which is the closest?"

He wets his lips and exhales once more.

"Hag's Mire, I'd say."

She frowns. It makes no sense. Nothing makes any sense.

"What is in Hag's Mire?"

The quiet of the night seems to envelope her as she waits for his answer. His momentary silence— laden and heavy— seems to seep into her, past her bones. A ticklish, uncomfortable thing.

"A sept."

His words silence her as nothing else could.

Her expression turns slack and cold, unable to form an impression. What fills her is something separate, something foreign, a different kind of discomfort. One she hasn't dared to imagine for herself.