Anathema (The Eating Woods, #1)

by Keri Lake

I was no more than a few days old when I’d been found abandoned before that cursed arch in a wicker basket, a single black rose upon my chest. No one knew who’d left me there, but every villager speculated that, whoever they were, they must have hoped the woods would eat me, as well.

cardinal rule of the forest: never answer to your own name

How tragic that a woman’s worth equated to the depth of a man’s pockets.

Sablefyre consumed. It drew cravings out of him that he didn’t care to entertain. It was madness in the making. An unfortunate fate. One he’d hoped to spare himself from by collecting the stones that would fuel the most powerful scepter in existence. The septomir–an impressive weapon that Dolion had advised was powerful enough to banish the dangerous black flame from his body.

I knelt to the ground and dug at the grave, until I loosened what appeared to be a black and silver, scaled and oval object, roughly the size of a melon. An egg of some sort, judging by the shape of it.

“It’s your penance. A life for death.”

“You see the dead. You hear them speak to you.”

“I also know that the delicate black rose doesn’t grow well in these parts. Our winters are far too cold for its fragile roots.” I puzzled her words and their meaning. Everyone knew I’d been found with a black rose, but maybe she knew something more. Something they didn’t. “Where do they grow?” “Where the gods see fit to plant them.”

Those cold luminous rays that ordinarily bathed his bloodline’s powers failed to rouse them from their slumbered state in Zevander. While he could still feel his bloodline sigil when the moons were high, he’d never be able to summon those powers, not after they’d been corrupted by his curse.

“Your ties with the dead were eternal the moment you pricked yourself on the bone and sealed it with the blood.” Nabbing her cane propped against the fence, she hobbled toward a small stable, and pondering her words, I followed after her. “What do the dead have to do with the raven?” “They guide the soul to the after, and you share its blood now,” she explained, shoving barley straw into a netted bag. “You walk between realms of the dead and living. The world you’ve known, and the one that has remained hidden from you.”

Wild and unruly women have no place in this world. You’re meant to be tamed, or put down, if necessary.”

“I find it interesting that any time a girl is unusual, or dare I say, unique, she’s deemed evil, or cursed.”

I’d always found the light far too scrutinizing.

We’re divided into the Lunasier and the Solassions. The Lunasier get their powers from the moons. The Solassions, from the sun.”

“I thought you got your power from blood.” “We do, but it requires nutrients and energy. Without the moon, my powers are weak.” “I see. Is Dolion Lunasier?” “No. He’s Elvynira. Their power is a bit mysterious, but most can command glyphs, like mancers. It isn’t based on blood for them, but understanding, and nexumis, which is a spiritual connection that the Elvynira have with the glyph.

The Magelord can certainly wield sablefyre, but not as proficiently as Zevander.” “What is sablefyre?” “It is a black flame, so hot, it can disintegrate a body in seconds.” My mouth turned dry at the visual of that. It brought to mind the black markings on his skin. “I see. Sablefyre is your bloodline?” “No. My brother is cursed with it.” “And the scorpions?” “They’re his prodozja

“Pro-doh-ja. It’s the protective form of blood magic. A creature that unfailingly manifests in the form of whatever magic a person wields.”

“Do I still annoy you?” she asked. “Endlessly.”

“I’m afraid of being completely alone in the world.”

“I fear the unknown,” he said, his brows flickering with a troubled expression. “The uncalculated fragments of time that are left to fate.”

My inclination is to break whatever stirs my impulsive nature.”

“Pain and grief are entwined in every stone of this castle.”

Everything she did arrived with some evil plot twist.

“I have slept for a very long time. But since you arrived, I don’t want to sleep. I want to jump and dance and breathe again.”

The scribe from Foxglove. The one who’d pried into Grandfather’s business and who I’d seen again at brunch with Moros, when he’d asked about the white stones.

am angry at you.” The deep timber of his voice rumbled in my ear, and he spun me around, keeping in time with the other couples. “For wearing this dress. For looking so painfully exquisite, you’ve managed to draw everyone’s attention. Including mine.”

She was chaos wrapped in fine silk. The embodiment of trouble that’d nearly brought him to his fucking knees

“Fuck it all, you stubborn bastard. She’s your mate, Zevander!”

“Some women are fire in your veins and hell between your teeth, Brother. Accept that Maevyth will never be safe. And no one will be safe from you because of it. Now, go find her, or by gods, I will make every day of your life a tribulation.”

“Because I’m a jealous cunt who refuses to entertain thoughts of you lying next to another man. Is that explanation enough?”

Elowen had said that only death could break the spell. Perhaps her death?

Mine. Like a vast night sky claimed by a single star. A fierce and beautiful darkness that I had neither the right nor business to call my own.

“If preventing this plague means sacrificing your life, then I’ve no interest in saving everyone else. The whole world could perish of disease and famine, for all I care.”