The sun’s warmth kissed her skin as it gleamed through the dirtied glass windows. It beckoned her to wake up, pulling her from her slumber. She fought it off for a bit; she wanted to get as much sleep as possible before they had to continue their journey east. However, she is forced awake when remembering the events of the night before. Her eyes shot open and darted around in a panic.
Slowly coming to a calm, her gaze landed on Oren. He didn’t seem to notice that she had woken; his own eyes glued to the body that lay at the door. They were narrowed, and she thought she saw him sneering for a moment. But then his attention turned to the small journal set on the table, jotting something down. As she watched him closely, she wondered what he was writing about. With the look on his face, she would have guessed it was something in regards to the beast at the door.
Asteria’s mind wandered back to the night before, and she felt sick near instantly. Despite her best effort, she had fallen asleep on her bed with her blade in hand and back against the wall. She felt uncomfortable and clammy at the thought of what might have happened if she had not fallen asleep with her dagger in her grasp and the nightstand adding the extra blockage at the door. The sound of the beast slamming against the door and the clattering of the nightstand flying across the room had given her enough time to wake up and realize her dire circumstance.
Bile crept up in her throat when she remembered the smell of rot and decay billowing out of its mouth like a toxic fog. She had just about retched onto the bed with how it poured across her face as it had gotten closer and closer to her. She had put all of her strength into bracing her dagger against its fangs, but it wasn’t going to be enough. If it hadn’t been for Oren… the thought made her uneasy. What would have happened to her if that thing had bitten her? They didn’t even know what it was then, and she could have been turned into whatever it was, or poisoned, or many other things.
The journal slammed shut, the pencil used as its page marker. Oren rose from his seat and began to pace, flexing his hands as he walked back and forth. She watched him, his brows furrowed in serious thought. Muscles flexed beneath his shirt as he clenched and unclenched his hands, and she had a hard time looking away. She wondered what was going through his mind; what was making him so tense? Or was it that he was worried or anxious? She couldn’t tell.
“Uh, Oren?” Asteria asked gently, trying to get his attention.
He did not respond, only continuing to pace and think. She slowly rose from her spot. Unsure of whether to approach him or not, she simply walked in front of his path just beyond the point he was stopping and turning. He stopped mid-pacing and looked up at her, his eyes deep and mysterious. Yet, once they landed on her they seemed to lighten a bit.
“Sorry,” his voice was so soft, it was barely more than a whisper. “Were you saying something?”
She nodded and explained, “Sort of. I was trying to ask what’s got you so on edge or transfixed, but you seemed to have been so lost in your own thoughts that you didn’t hear me.”
“Ah,” he acknowledged, and he went on to explain what had him so focused. He told her that while she was asleep, he had been looking around and trying to find some simple home remedies for her cut. While he doubted he was going to find a poultice or something of the like to dress her wound with, he felt confident that he would stumble upon something like garlic and honey or perhaps even some turmeric. However, upon entering the cellar he was horrified by what he found.
Oren continued, detailing the symbols and sigils he had found. There had been some tokens and - what he described as- bobbles that had the same markings. While he was down there, he started to smell something revolting. The color drained from his face for a moment before he told her about this door, how ominous it was. He had pushed it open, and it led to a small room. The same markings were scattered along the walls, written in deep red. When he had looked down at the floor he saw bones and body parts strewn about. It had been an absolute mess, and he saw only one that remained mostly whole.
“You see,” he said, his voice shaking a little. He took a gulp of air, going on, “Last time I was here, there was a decently older man who tended the bar and ran this inn. I didn’t think much of not seeing him since that thing looked so much like him; I just assumed perhaps it was his son or grandson. Well, when I saw his body in the corner, chunks bit out of him…” And he stopped talking. His voice trailed off, and he took several minutes to regain his composure. She thought he was going to be sick, and he had become as pale as a ghost.
Silence fell between them, but once he got a bit of color back to his face he stated, “I feel confident in saying that thing was more likely a Hellspawn than it was any other beast. While my knowledge is pretty lacking when it comes to monsters and the likes, those symbols felt too occult to be anything else. They also feel familiar in some way, but I can’t quite put my finger on where I would have seen them before. Perhaps in a book or some odd shop.” He waved off the thought and resumed his pacing.
Though he had already told her of the horrors that resided in the cellar below, Asteria found herself creeping toward it. The entrance was in the kitchen behind the bar, the door still left open by just a crack. Food was scattered across the counter space, covered in mold and rot. At one end of the room were stairs that ran along the wall into the darkness below. She had barely taken a step down when the stench of decay swept over her. Quickly, she receded back into the kitchen.
“Did you really try to go down there? I already told you what you’d find,” Oren called out to her as she returned to the tavern.
“I thought it would be best to see those markings you mentioned for myself,” She replied. “However, I couldn’t make it past the first step.”
He walked to the table where they had both started their day and set down his journal. Carefully, he flipped through the pages until he found the right one, turning the book toward Asteria. Across two pages was a design. Circles intertwined with one another, strange markings bordering the exterior of the pattern. It looked ominous on paper; she couldn’t imagine what a horror it would have been to actually see it all scrawled in blood. She felt his eyes on her as she observed what he recreated, and her cheeks began to feel a little warm. Her fingers traced the circles gently, and she wondered what it could have meant.
“I think maybe it was some kind of summoning circle,” he explained, as though reading her mind. His fingers mimicked hers, tracing the circles until they met hers. Then he removed his touch from the sketched lines and brushed the back of her hand ever so softly.
A shiver rippled through her, and she looked up. Their eyes met, and she felt heat rush along her cheeks. He was standing much closer than she had expected, not even a full step back. Her heart thundered in her ears, and she couldn’t think or focus on anything except for the freckles on the bridge of his nose or the small, thin scars that dotted his face. A tightness grew in her chest; she felt like her heart was going to explode. She couldn’t breathe with how close he was to her, but she didn’t want any of that short distance to grow between them.
Oren was the first to move, taking a step backward. There was a light pink that began to show on his face, and she wished so desperately that he hadn’t taken a step away. Asteria had been enjoying taking in the many new details of him that could only be done getting so close.
‘Now is certainly not the time for this,’ she thought, realizing how inappropriate it was to feel a flutter deep within her while in the same room as the monster they had to kill the night before. She felt guilt wash over her, ashamed of her girlish curiosity of him.
“We need to get ready to leave,” he said, his voice gentle. “Go ahead and grab your things from upstairs; I’ve already got my things here. I’ll start figuring out what we are going to do with… him.” It was the first time he had referred to the crumpled corpse as anything but a beast or creature, monster or it. Now that they were more confident that it was a Hellspawn there was a subtle sadness settling around them.
He was a man at one point, only days before. And for some reason, that man summoned some beast from the depths of the hells. She could not imagine what would have caused him to make such a deal, take such a fatal risk. He must have been utterly desperate to risk- and ultimately lose- his life.
She rushed up the stairs, not even noticing the miniscule pools of dried blood beneath her feet. She didn’t see the small trail that led from her room, down the hall, and dotting down each of the steps to the tavern. The cut hurt, a reminder of what she had survived the night before. However, she remained blissfully ignorant to the details that also served as reminders.
Slinging the satchel over her shoulder, Asteria checked to make sure everything was still there. While everything important was still in its place, she saw that her dagger was missing. A flash of panic struck her. How could she lose it? Something so important and irreplaceable, she would never forgive herself. She rushed down the stairs. As she approached Oren and was about to tell him of her missing dagger, the shining blade caught her eye from the table.
He cleared his throat and asked, “Did you think you had lost it?”
She nodded in response, snatching it up from the table and placing the blade in its sheath. It was placed in her satchel, and she was relieved to have it secured back at her side. For a moment, she felt so overcome with guilt and panic at the chance of losing it.
“It was a gift from Adrin,” she started to explain. “He gave it to me a few months back. If I had lost it…” Oren gave an understanding nod and a sympathetic look. It was as though he knew what she felt, and she didn’t need to say another word.
It was a memory that Asteria looked back fondly on. The sun had been high in the sky, a fresh layer of snow laid out in the fields. She had been gazing out at the shimmering sea of untouched cold, daydreaming as she usually would. The crunching beneath his boots gave him away. He stopped to stand next to her and asked what she was lost in thought about that time, though whatever the thought had been was fleeting and was gone in an instant.
Adrin had been hunting with their father all morning, but it had been an absolute failure according to him. They hadn’t caught anything whatsoever. Their father had gotten furious, yelling at him that perhaps if he had set the traps right they would have had at least some bounty to return with.
“I think he must have drank his breakfast this morning,” he had said to her. She knew what he meant; their father could be a nasty drunk. Especially during the winter when he did not have a field to tend to during the day to at least keep him busy.
He had asked for her to close her eyes and stick out her hand. Gently, Adrin placed the dagger in her hand, closing her fingers around the leather sheath. She had asked him why, and she insisted he take it back. A low laugh had escaped him, and he explained that their father had given it to him when he was old enough to hunt. He said that he doubted he’d get much use out of it after how dreadful their hunting excursion had gone.
Asteria had kept it close ever since that day. Every night she would securely hide it away in the drawer of her nightstand, and everyday she would strap it to her waist, hiding it beneath her skirts. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t cherish the gift, even more so after he had disappeared.
Before Oren could see, she wiped away the tear that had trickled down her cheek. She turned away, trying to regain her composure. It wasn’t the time for her to be thinking back to such memories, and it certainly wasn’t the time to start tearing up about them. After she dried her eyes, Asteria turned back to face him. However, he had gone back to what he had been doing before she rushed down the stairs in a great panic.
He was tightening a knot, and she watched closely as he pulled hard on the rope. As she approached, she prayed he wasn’t doing what she thought, but of course she had to be wrong. Just as she stopped beside him, she swore she heard a snapping sound. Bile crept up her throat at the sound. She turned on her heels, unable to look at the state of the Hellspawn.
“Do you really think that’s necessary?” She questioned him, her tone stern. “For the love of the gods, he’s already dead, Oren. It’s not going to rise up and take a chunk out of you or I.”
He whipped around, confusion smeared across his face. He quickly stated, “I know damn well he won’t be having neither you nor I for a snack, Asteria. However, the people of this village have no idea if there’s still danger, even when presented with the very lifeless corpse. I’m just going to put him outside with a note; it’ll explain everything. Perhaps it’ll help them sleep better at night seeing that the beast that’s hunted and preyed on them for nearly a week is no more.”
While she could not see the reason in his madness, she knew that he must have a good reason. Though she wouldn’t say that she’d come to know him well, she was confident that he wouldn’t just do something so insane sounding if he didn’t believe it would serve a purpose. She held the heavy tavern door open as he dragged the body out into the morning sun. He threw the rope over the beam overhead, pulling the corpse up to hang beside the sign.
There was a piece of paper pinned to the body. It was too high for her to read, and she couldn’t help but wonder what he had wrote. Had he explained everything to the locals in some lengthy note? Or had he been vague, not wanting to scare them? She stared at him and caught something flicker through his eyes. Deep beneath the warm brown with hints of gold, she saw a flash of sadness and empathy.
Oren turned his back to the tavern and started to head east, back along the Merchant’s Road that had brought them into this dot on the map. They trekked along the dirt path, and Asteria took one last look at the old, rickety building. People had begun leaving their homes, cautiously approaching the building and its swaying body. A woman cried out, collapsing to her knees at the sight of the beast before her.
She hoped that he explained in his note what the man had become; she hoped that he wrote about what a desperate measure he took. For whatever reason, she felt a great deal of compassion towards the man who had become a monster. She imagined what he endured before such a choice was made and the destruction after... It all must have been dreadfully painful.
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