The wailing only lasted a few minutes more, but it made her feel as empty as the Spy’s void had. Her nose burned of emotion as she thought of what it was the Venari were having to do since one or more had been born. She could not imagine the torture that having to end such a life would have on a person.
It was an hour later that she heard boots hitting the wood of the steps. And when Draven’s figure turned the corner and he strode through the door, her eyes widened at the bewildering sight of him.
He was covered in dark, nearly black, blood. It was much darker than she was used to seeing beneath her own skin. His hair fell out of the bun he had it in, and the stains of the sticky substance covered parts of his hairline. He didn’t acknowledge her as he strode over to the dresser.
His fist punched into the vase sitting atop it, and the glass shattered to the floor.
“Draven?” she said into the still air.
His head jerked in her direction, doing a double-take at her as he had apparently forgotten she was there. “Shit,” she heard him mutter. He pulled a shirt out of the dresser and shook his head at her. “Go back to sleep.”
“I heard the wailing,” Aydra said as she hugged the blanket around her.
Draven stopped moving, but he didn’t respond. She could see the hurt reflecting in his eyes from the fire-lit lantern on the dresser.
“How many were born?” she dared ask.
“Go back to sleep, Sun Queen,” he growled as he turned on his heel towards the wash, “don’t bother worrying about us cursed ones.”
He turned the tap on the water for the clawed bathtub on the other side of the room. The three sectioned screen was pulled to the front around the tub, but she could still see him behind it, and she couldn’t stop herself from watching from the darkened bed.
The stick of his shirt thudded on the wooden floor, staining and running on the lumber. His pants did the same, and she felt a brow raise on her face at the sight of the Hunter’s body she’d long sworn to hate silhouetted in the firelight. She could just see parts of his stained chest reflecting. The blood dripped down his long torso, curling in the blackened hair stretched over his pecs and then thinning between his abdomen muscles, all the way below his bellybutton. He turned and the ripple of his shoulders made her mouth dry just as it had the days before. He didn’t bother wiping himself off before getting in the tub and sinking himself into the hot water, steam rising off the surface as his body disappeared beneath it.
“If you’re going to stare, you may as well join,” he muttered as he leaned his head against the edge of the tub and shut his eyes.
She forgot he could see in the dark.
Her jaw clenched. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she mumbled, pulling the cover up to her face. “I couldn’t walk over if I wanted to,” she heard herself say.
“Your hands and knees still work.”
An annoyed huff exited her lips, and she forced herself to turn over away from him. “Goodnight, Venari.”
She heard him sigh heavily, and the noise of him pushing himself under the water echoed in the still room. She tried closing her eyes to drift back to sleep, ignoring the movements of the water as he began to wash the blood from his body a few moments later. But it wasn’t much use.
Morning light drifted through the tree canopy a few hours later. A fog settled on the land, creeping its way into the treehouse and hovering on the floor around the bed. The damp mist kissed her skin. She sat up and forced her feet over the side of the bed. As much as she hoped her ankles would allow her to stand upon them on that morning, she could tell by the ache in them that she would not be able to on that day. Her left ankle seemed to be healing a bit quicker than the right. She could actually wiggle that ankle in a circle without her wanting to just cut it off and spare herself of the pain.
She was quickly growing tired of not being able to do anything.
She gripped the crutch Draven had left by the bed in her hand and made herself stand on the left ankle. It almost wilted beneath her, but she forced her weight into her fists and moved just a small step at a time. Eventually, she made it out onto the porch where the warmth of the just rising sun greeted her. A large wooden lounge chair sat in the right corner by the banister, a blanket laid across the back of it. She forced herself over to it and practically fell into its grasp, cursing herself for her injury.
Draven brought her more of the potion a bit later, but he didn’t say much. In fact, she didn’t see much of him through the day. There was an air of sadness resting in the forest through the daylight, as though the night before had been taxing on each of them. Every Hunter had the same darkened expressions upon their faces.
Aydra stayed on the balcony for the entire day, allowing the sun to bask on her skin as it came through the trees, and help aid her ankles back to health. She napped for most of it, and only when darkness fell did she see Draven again.
“Everyone was quiet today,” she said as he sat down across from her at the table.
He lit the pipe in his hands and took a long inhale of the herb—a different one than the two she now knew him to have. His head leaned back against the tree at his back, and the smoke filled the air with his exhale.
“The eighth
