Eryshae

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The herbalist moved toward the counter with a quiet ease, the clink of glass bottles and faint rustle of herbs the only sound in the shop for a moment. Sam stood frozen, unsure if he should stay hidden or reveal himself. But then the old man; the one the herbalist had called Elder Thornhollow; turned slightly, his eyes sharp beneath silvered brows.

"You going to lurk in shadows all day, young man?" Thornhollow rasped, his voice edged like gravel but not unkind. "Come forward." Sam hesitated, then stepped out from the back room, boots light against the worn floorboards. The herbalist gave him a slight nod, somewhere between permission and quiet reassurance. Thornhollow's gaze narrowed, studying him. "You've got the look of someone who's been hunted."

"I have been," Sam replied. "And nearly caged." The elder coughed once into his handkerchief, then lowered it. "Name?"

"Sam."

A moment passed, quiet but heavy with consideration. "Full name?"

"Samael Faeloc"

"Elder Bryndel Thornhollow," he said, inclining his head faintly. "You've already met Myrtle, I presume." The herbalist offered a curt wave without looking up from her mortar and pestle.

Sam dipped his head slightly in return, then took another step forward, his voice growing steadier. "I need to know something. Ruwan. He… he poisoned me." Thornhollow's eyes sharpened. "Did he now?"

"I woke up in a stone room. Couldn't move. Could barely think. It was like… everything was fog. But I heard them talking. Said I was more valuable alive." The Elder exhaled slowly, studying Sam the way a scholar might study a puzzle missing half its pieces. "What did he use?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "But it's still in me. Or… something is. I can feel it." Thornhollow's fingers tightened around his cane. "Ruwan deals in rare poisons and rarer allegiances. If he gave you something tailored, it wasn't just to keep you down. He's not a careless man."

"Then why spare me?" Sam asked. "Why keep me breathing?" The elder didn't answer right away. Instead, he shifted his weight, slowly pacing to the shop window to peer out into the evening-lit street. His posture was stiff, deliberate. The kind of movement that came from pain buried deep and endured too long.

"You said you overheard them?" Thornhollow asked at last, not turning around. "Yes. A woman said Ruwan cleaned up some kind of mess. And that I was… more useful alive."

"That means you're involved in something you don't yet understand," the Elder muttered. "Or that you carry something Ruwan needs." Sam didn't speak. His arms remained at his sides, tense, as he fought the urge to glance at the veins still hidden beneath his sleeves.

The elder turned back, his expression unreadable. "If it's Ruwan, you'll need more than luck. You'll need someone who knows how to track rot to its root." Sam swallowed hard. "Do you?" Thornhollow smiled faintly, wry and without humor. "I know how to survive his father. That's a start."

When the conversation lulled, and Thornhollow turned his attention to a satchel of tinctures Myrtle handed him, Sam quietly stepped back toward the corner of the shop. The herbalist gave him a fleeting glance; measuring, curious; but said nothing as she busied herself grinding a sprig of something pungent into powder.

Sam's breath came shallow, his pulse still unsteady from the escape, the chase, and now this… shift in knowledge. He sank onto a low stool near a shelf stacked with dried root bundles and wax-sealed jars. The weight of the moss-green cloak settled around him like fog. Safe, but uncertain.

More useful alive.

The words replayed again and again. It hadn't been pity that kept him breathing. It had been strategy. A calculation. That thought dug deeper than the poison ever had.

He pressed the heel of his hand to his temple. There was still that lingering buzz behind his eyes, not pain exactly; but pressure. Like his body was holding something in it that didn't belong. Or worse, he thought, something that did.

His fingers twitched. He looked down at his arms, sleeves hiding the veins he couldn't name, couldn't understand. Whatever Ruwan had done, it wasn't wearing off; it was evolving. Spreading. What did I carry? And why had the woman said Ruwan "cleaned up the mess"? Was it about the garden? Or was he the mess?

Sam closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of ground herbs and lamp oil. His thoughts skittered through the last twenty-four hours like rats in the walls; too quick to catch. One minute he was an office worker with an interest in history and now it felt like he was living through it. Now he was marked by a gorgeous woman. Now he was being chased.

He opened his eyes again and glanced toward the window, where dusk now deepened into indigo. The street outside Ichi City slowed but never slept. Somewhere out there, guards might still be looking for him. Or worse; Ruwan himself. The thought made his skin crawl.

Myrtle set a steaming cup on a low table beside him, not saying a word. Something fragrant; mint, maybe, or elderflower. Sam gave her a grateful nod and wrapped his hands around the warmth, letting the heat settle into his fingers.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He still didn't trust the safety here, not completely. But Thornhollow hadn't turned him in. Caldra hadn't asked questions she didn't need answers to. That, for now, was enough.

You'll need more than luck, Thornhollow had said. Sam took a slow sip of the tea and let the bitterness ground him. He'd need answers. He'd need strength. And most of all, he'd need time before whatever was inside him finished changing him into something even he wouldn't recognize.

Thornhollow cleared his throat, a low, gravelly sound that crackled with lingering illness. He passed Myrtle a small satchel of coin and nodded once, as if concluding some unspoken arrangement. Then his gaze drifted back to Sam, lingering with a faint crease of thought etched between his brows.

"You'll want to keep to the shadows a while longer," he said. "At least until morning. The streets aren't safe tonight." Sam looked up from his tea. "You think they're still looking?"

"I know they are." The elder's voice held certainty, not speculation. "And if Ruwan's involved, they won't stop because the sun sets. If anything, night makes it easier for them."

He turned to Myrtle. She met his glance with a faint shrug and a slight quirk of her brow, a silent conversation passing between them. Thornhollow nodded. "He can stay in the back. There's space."

Without a word, Caldra moved toward a narrow curtain behind the shop counter. She didn't beckon Sam, didn't instruct; just peeled it aside and disappeared through it. The gesture alone was enough of an invitation. Sam hesitated, then rose from the stool, his knees stiff with weariness. He glanced at Thornhollow. "Thank you."

The elder just gave him a look; somewhere between tired and watchful. "I'm not the one offering you shelter," he said. "But I will offer you this: if Myrtle lets you stay, don't waste it. She's saved more than one fool who stumbled through that door bleeding or cursed."

"I'm not cursed," Sam muttered under his breath. Thornhollow gave him a long, unreadable look. "We'll see."

Sam followed the scent of dried herbs and candle wax through the curtain and into the back room, where Myrtle was already unfolding a thin mattress beside the wall. Shelves of neatly labeled jars lined the narrow space, and a tiny stove flickered with low, steady warmth. It was quiet. Close. Safe, at least for now.

Myrtle gestured toward the mattress. "You sleep. I keep watch." Sam met her eyes, unsure how to thank her; unsure if thanks were even the right thing. But she was already turning away, back to her workbench, as if his presence meant little more than an extra shadow in the corner.

Still, Sam laid down carefully, the tea still warm in his chest, and exhaled the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. For the first time in what felt like days, he felt safe. Out of reach.

The world was quiet in the dream.

Sam sat on the edge of a cliff, his legs dangling over stone worn smooth by time. Below, the valley stretched endlessly; a tapestry of shadow and pale mist, stitched with threads of dying starlight. Above them, the broken moon loomed, fractured into drifting pieces that hung in the sky like forgotten promises.

Beside him, Vael.

She didn't speak. She didn't need to.

Her green hair caught the moonlight, a cascade of shifting shades that moved with the breeze. Her eyes; black as obsidian and just as deep; were fixed on the valley, though there was no fear in them. Only thought. Memory. Silence.

Sam didn't look at her. Not directly. But he could feel her presence like gravity, like something old and familiar stitched to the edges of his soul.

The wind rose and fell. Leaves whispered in trees far below, though none grew on the cliffside where they sat. Yet, Sam thought he heard something in the hush between gusts; roots creaking in unseen soil, the faint stretch of bark across bone.

He blinked slowly. His fingertips felt stiff.

When he glanced down, his hands no longer looked like his own. The skin had taken on a rough texture, darker in tone, ridged with fine lines like bark. At first he thought it was dirt, but no; his veins were fading beneath woodgrain. Fibrous. Solid.

Still, he felt no fear. Only a distant ache. Like he was being returned to something.

A leaf fluttered past his shoulder, slow and golden, though the trees below remained untouched.

Vael remained beside him, unmoving. The hem of her cloak stirred faintly in the wind, her presence still and eternal, like a monument carved into time. Sam wondered, distantly, if she saw what was happening to him. If she knew. If she mourned it.

He shifted slightly, or tried to. His legs were rooted now, sunk into the stone of the cliff as if they'd always belonged there. He could feel the veins of the earth beneath him; damp and ancient, pulsing with forgotten things.

A breath passed through him, not from lungs but from something deeper. He didn't exhale. He simply was; a part of the stillness, a branch growing from silence.

The moon cracked again above them; one more shard drifting loose, slow as grief.

And still, Vael did not speak.

She reached out; just once; and her fingers brushed his. A touch without weight. A memory of warmth.

The bark crawled over his chest, spreading like moss, like inevitability.

He closed his eyes, and felt the dream anchor itself in his blood.

And the wind carried on.

He woke with a gasp, breath catching like roots pulled from deep soil.

"Vael," he murmured, her name slipping past his lips as if it had always been there, waiting to be spoken. The dim light of early morning bled through the herbalist's shutters, painting long, thin stripes across the wooden floor. The scent of moss and old leaves clung to his skin, as if he'd carried the dream with him.

His fingers twitched beneath the blanket, and for a moment, he half-expected to see bark instead of skin. But they were just hands; warm, flushed, human. Still, he didn't move right away. The weight of her silence lingered, curling around his ribs. The cliff. The broken moon. The way she had touched him; not to stop the change, but to witness it.

He closed his eyes again, just for a breath. Her name was still there, a root beneath his tongue.

Then came the slow creak of a cane against floorboards, and Elder Thornhollow's voice gruffly stirring the morning. "Up," came a gravel-edged voice.

Elder Thornhollow stood just inside the room, his cane in hand, eyes sharp despite the shadows beneath them. "Get yourself together, boy. You're coming with me." Sam sat up, groggy. "Where?"

"To the Court," the Elder replied. "The vote begins at High Noon. Best we're there before the square floods with eager fools." Sam blinked at him. "The vote?"

Thornhollow gave a slight nod, moving closer. "Today we choose the 99th Cardinal. A rare event that happens only a few times every decade, and rarer still that it happens without blood."

He leaned on his cane, eyeing Sam with a level gaze. "A lot of power shifts hands when the Cardinals gather. And when that much power stirs, so does everything hidden beneath it. If Ruwan's playing a part in any of this, it'll be near today's vote."

Before Sam could speak, Myrtle stepped into the room with her usual quiet grace, setting a tray beside him; tea and porridge, steam curling in the light. Thornhollow glanced at her, then back at Sam.

"Eat quickly. Wear the cloak she left you. Keep your head down, and don't speak unless I ask you to." Sam nodded slowly, processing each word as he reached for the tea. The warmth helped drive back the lingering chill from sleep; and the dream of Vael that still clung like dew.