Contents
Chapter 60
Overview
Maevyth wakes to Zevander trapped in abyssal binding, burning and convulsing beyond reach. While Elowen searches for herbs, she is bitten and transformed, forcing Maevyth to manifest a new death glyph that disintegrates her attacker. Hunted by more creatures, Maevyth flees to the warded cottage, where Zevander remains imperiled.
Summary
Maevyth wakes to Zevander convulsing, eyes blacked out and body burning. Elowen diagnoses abyssal binding triggered by caligorya, warning there’s no reaching his mind, only cooling the fever. As Maevyth tends him, she notices brutal scars and piercings that reveal his past Solassion abuse, deepening her resolve to protect him.
Elowen goes to gather shadowroot and foxfell. When she doesn’t return, Maevyth searches and finds Elowen collapsed, bleeding from the neck. Elowen awakens with glossy black eyes and begins to twist into a pale, fanged creature, then attacks, overpowering Maevyth.
Fixating on a strange twin-eye sigil carved in a nearby tree, Maevyth feels heat flare in her palm. Blackness floods her fingers, and a matching glyph—two inverted scythes—appears on her hand. Power surges through her grip; black veins race across Elowen’s body until Elowen collapses into drifting black dust.
Two more pale creatures close in. Maevyth runs, bursts through the archway, and reaches the cottage ahead of the pack. The warded door repels the monsters, confirming protective symbols on the wood. Shaking, Maevyth wraps her blackened fingertips, returns to Zevander’s side, and pleads for him to wake as his fever rises again.
Who Appears
- MaevythPOV; tends abyssal-bound Zev, discovers a new death glyph, disintegrates transformed Elowen, and retreats behind the cottage wards.
- Zevander (Zev)Falls into abyssal binding with burning fever and blackened eyes; unconscious and convulsing throughout.
- ElowenDiagnoses Zev, leaves for herbs, is bitten and transforms into a pale creature; reduced to black dust by Maevyth’s glyph.
- Pale creaturesPredatory, black-eyed beings that pursue Maevyth; repelled by the cottage’s warded door.