My Primal badassery wasn’t exactly needed from there. No more Gyrms appeared as we entered the cave, coming upon the bone-smothered casket at the end, resting halfway under the earth in the center of a chamber that was barely large enough for all of the Gyrms to have waited in.
I didn’t want to think about that. About how Nyktos had sought to protect his son. Reaver destroyed the roots of the blood trees that had wound their way around the chains. I didn’t want to imagine how his inability to find Ires and do the same for him must plague him every second, both awake and asleep. It had to be why the Consort slept so restlessly.
We left the bone chains on the casket in case the movement stirred the one inside. All of us were quiet, listening for any signs of life as the wooden, unmarked casket was carefully carried out from the cave and placed in the wagon. Reaver stayed with it as we began our trek back to Padonia.
At first, I thought it was out of worry that Malec would wake and attempt to escape, but I saw Reaver a few times, sitting beside the casket with his hand resting on top of it and his eyes closed. And that…that left me with a messy knot of emotion in my chest.
As we neared the edge of the Blood Forest, and Casteel and I rode beside the casket, I finally asked Reaver what preyed on my mind. “Were you friends with Malec?”
He stared at the casket for quite some time before answering. “We were when we were younger, before he began to visit the mortal realm.”
“It changed after that?” Casteel asked as he guided Setti around several piles of rocks.
Reaver nodded. “He lost interest in Iliseeum, and that loss of interest became a…a loss of affection for all who resided there.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Casteel said, his gaze flicking over my head to where Malik rode beside Naill.
Reaver’s stare followed his. “It is strange, is it not, that he was named so closely to Malec?”
I didn’t say a word.
Casteel did. “My mother loved Malec. I think a part of her always will. Naming Malik was a way to…”
“To honor what could have been?”
“Yeah.” Casteel was silent for a moment. “I was thinking about what you said. If Nyktos could send Sentries to watch over Malec, wouldn’t he have known when Malec was entombed? Couldn’t he have prevented that?”
Reaver was quiet for a moment. “The Primal of Life could have. Malec must have been weakened greatly to be entombed. Hurt. Both Nyktos and the Consort would’ve felt that. Neither intervened.”
I stared at the casket, a general sense of unease returning. They sought to protect him but not free him.
“Do you know why they didn’t?” Casteel asked.
Reaver shook his head. “I don’t, but I imagine they had their reasons.”
None of us slept all that well when we stopped to rest the following nights. I thought that we were more than a little unnerved about who was in that casket more than the creatures that called the Blood Forest home. That feeling didn’t ease until we finally rode out from beneath the crimson leaves on the ninth day.
“You think we’ll reach Padonia by nightfall?” I asked as we rode farther ahead.
“I do,” Kieran said from the horse that kept pace beside ours.
“We’ll have a day of rest before we have to leave for the Bone Temple,” Casteel tacked on.
“I wish we had longer—ouch.” I leaned back, pressing my palm against my suddenly aching jaw.
Casteel frowned as he glanced down. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” A taste gathered in my mouth, iron-rich. “My mouth hurts.” I prodded at my upper jaw—
“If it hurts,” Casteel said, curling his fingers around my wrist, “then maybe you shouldn’t poke at it.”
“That would make too much sense,” Kieran remarked as Casteel drew my hand away from my mouth.
“I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” I shot back.
Kieran grinned. It faded quickly, though.
“Poppy.” Concern radiated from Casteel as his gaze flicked up from my hand. “Your mouth is bleeding.”
“What?” I ran my tongue along my gums. “Well, I guess that explains the taste of blood in my mouth. That’s kind of gross.”
“Cas…” Kieran eyed him.
I frowned, opening my senses to them. The concern had disappeared. “What?”
“Is it your mouth or your jaw that’s been hurting?” Casteel asked, still holding my wrist as if he expected me to keep poking myself.
Which was possible.
“It’s more like my jaw—the upper. And the pain sometimes radiates to my temple,” I said.
“And it comes and goes?” Casteel changed his grip on the reins.
I nodded. “Yeah. It doesn’t even hurt anymore. And I think it stopped bleeding.” I glanced back at him. “Why are you asking?”
One side of his lips curled. “Because I think I know why it’s been hurting.” The grin deepened until the dimple appeared. “Or, at least, I’m hoping so.”