Book One – Chapter 13

Behind the wizard, the scorchborn clung to him like a festering parasite, her diseased, fungal body pressed tightly against his hunched frame. Her arms coiled around his upper body like twisted vines. The tattered furs hanging from her body were soaked with thick, oozing secretions that bled onto the wizard and into the air like a toxic fog, taken up by the storm that raged around them. Beneath her furs, her bloated, distorted form pulsed grotesquely. Fleshy growths and dripping pustules writhed under her spongy skin; it was her skin heaving and breathing, her whole body exuding poison, both into the air and directly into the wizard through her touch. Her hand gripped his chest from behind, fingers curling around his ribs, while the other dug deep into his bare left arm. The sharp, root-like structures that were her fingers pierced his flesh, the tips of her jagged nails embedding themselves into his skin like thorns growing into the very marrow of his bones. The wizard’s arm twitched uncontrollably under her touch, yet he did not pull away.

Their connection was a strange, symbiotic bond — her presence was both protective and parasitic. Every drop of poison fed his corruption and drained his vitality, yet in that moment, what she gave to him also became of him, adding to his Rothar and seeping into the stone plates fused to his back.

Leaning close, the scorchborn hissed into the wizard’s ear, her voice a rasping whisper like dead leaves scraping across stone. Her words were drowned in the roar of the storm, but they reached the wizard’s ears — and beyond. They were not unheard by the observing darkness; the scorchborn was directing the wizard, guiding the incantations that flowed from his trembling lips.

All the while, the avian creature perched on the singular boulder situated right on the trail remained perfectly still. The wind rustled through his thick, dark feathers, but he did not move, did not stir. He was but a grim spectator to the carnage unfolding in front of him.