Forever Green

~ 15 ~ The Corruption of Magic

Lenesa slunk lower in the copper tub, accidentally inhaling the large pink bubbles on the surface of the water in the process. She scrambled to sit back up, sputtering and coughing while wiping hastily at her face. The bathroom air was chilly on her damp skin despite the steam that rose from the tub and coated the windowpanes, but Lenesa hardly took notice. She was much too focused on what to do about the spellbound hunter in her home.

She wanted to let him return to the city. But no matter which way she thought about it, sending Theiden back could only result in trouble.

The witch took a bar of soap and began scrubbing an arm absentmindedly. She had cursed the hunter with a binding spell out of a mix of being furiously angry with him and frightened for his life on his own so deep in the forest. But then, there was also the matter of her own situation. The black threads that stained her skin were starting to appear more frequently, and it worried her. She had tried everything, from runes to herbs, but nothing had improved her condition.

Admittedly, her decision to take the hunter with her had been a bit impulsive, but she couldn't have just left him—in all likelihood, he would have ended up like the girl, Helaine. Dead.

Lenesa switched hands with the soap and began lathering her other side. Now, it was too late to send Theiden back. He knew where she lived, and even if he didn't have the capabilities to kill her yet—he could go straight to the witch hunters in the city, who did.

No, sending Theiden back would certainly not do.

Yet, if she couldn't keep him, but couldn't send him away, either, what other choice did she have?

You could tell the truth.

The thought slipped into her head with all the feel of a silk ribbon—soft, but strong. It twisted itself around her mind and tied itself firmly in place, refusing to budge no matter how much she tried to think of a different option.

"I can't!" Lenesa hissed, forcefully splashing off the soapsuds and climbing out of the tub, as if she could put physical distance between herself and the idea. Trusting Theiden with such a thing, and laying out her secrets for him to see—it terrified her. But the longer she thought about it, there was no other way. She had to do this, to try to make him see her side of things.

"Fine, then," she muttered, pulling open the bathroom door with a sudden, harsh yank. Steam roiled in the air and flooded out the door and down the hall to the main area of the cottage, where Theiden was sitting on a dining chair that had wandered near the hearth. The hunter looked up at her entrance and froze, wide-eyed.

Lenesa frowned. She had put on a perfectly decent gray robe, yet he acted as though she had on no clothes at all. Was the towel on her head slipping? Why was he staring like that?

In the next moment, Theiden had cleared his throat and quickly turned back to the book in his hand. Reluctantly, Lenesa approached him.

"Theiden," she began, slowly.

"Leave me alone."

Lenesa flinched, but continued anyway. "I need to tell you something."

He shifted on the chair away from her. "Go away."

Lenesa crossed her arms. "If you can't stand to look at me, at least listen." It wasn't like he could really run off anywhere—it was still raining outside, and her cottage wasn't that big. He would have to hear her out, sooner or later.

Theiden closed the book with a brisk thud and looked up to face her. "What?" he snarled.

Lenesa sat down in the wingback armchair across from him with a sigh. "You have questions," she said. "I'm here to answer them."