Wystwood

41. Liar and the tithe

The light that slipped through the gap in the ceiling was as weak as the candle flames. Like sunshine through eyelashes, not yet bright enough to rouse a morning sleeper, it cast the cauldron in a hazy glow, and despite herself, Ada stumbled back into its circle. 

But even that wasn't far enough away from the bird-masked fae, with her rattling eyes and twisted feathers. Ada edged around the stalagmites, and something snapped in two beneath her boots.

"Careful, careful," hissed a voice from the shadows. A bowl just above Ada's head spilt several sharp claws onto the ground, and from beneath its shelf emerged another figure. The fae had contorted herself between the rocks, her wrinkled skin stretched taut until it was smooth across her elderly body. She unfurled into the room, long arms twitching outward and head rolling back in jerks and spasms.

A candle stuck upon the shelf quivered at her movements, and its light shimmered across the scales layered down her neck. The pointed flakes gathered at her jaw, before sliding lower, each one beneath another, to cover her neck and dip down beneath her tattered clothing. Glinting with each shift of her body, the seer's throat looked like the skin of a snake, though her scales were not nearly as sleek. The tips of the scales were encrusted in filth, as if they had been pierced into her flesh and left there until the skin had been forced to heal over.

The snake-seer wrenched her head forward, her eyes fixing upon Ada, before she hurtled towards her. Ada leapt away, any sense of stealth forgotten as she staggered back to Raeph, who stretched an arm out to catch her. But footsteps did not follow her, and she glanced back to see the old seer crouched in the dirt, her fingers digging through the topsoil and picking out small fragments of bone. They piled together within her palm, some spotted with crude rings, while others bore jagged lines and crosses. 

"The bones, my bones," wailed the snake-seer, cradling the pale pieces against her chest. "She broke one of my bones."

"Whittle yourself another, Sister, there's no harm," replied the bird-seer, shuffling into the room, her back hunched and legs decrepit.

"Another, my sister" repeated a third voice from the cavern's entrance. "You should have gathered them up when I heard our guests coming."

Raeph startled into the hollow, hand on his knife hilt as he spun around. He backed away until he felt Ada's body behind him, his free hand dropping down to catch the hem of her cloak. The ebony dagger sliced the air above the final old seer, who was squatted on her haunches beneath the bulging rock. Hidden in Raeph's shadow, she must have been waiting mere inches behind him.

Even in the low light, Ada could make out the empty spaces where her ears should have been; matted hair falling unhindered around the seer's face, with roots stained crimson where two fox ears had been sewn to her scalp. 

Her stare darted from Ada to Raeph, which caused her face to twitch and merge her wrinkles with the scars above her gaunt cheekbones. The cuts stretched out from both sides of her nose, like a creature had clawed at her flesh and left behind red-whiskered slashes.

"Guests old and guests new. Guests knew and guests foretold," she cackled.

"You found her, you found her! We told you that you would," cried the snake-seer to Raeph.

"Too bad about the wait," continued the bird-seer, stooping down and blindly rummaging around in one of the cages. "And too bad about your brother."

She withdrew her arm, and dangling between two crooked fingers was a rabbit's heart, no longer beating, but still wet and weeping. Raeph snarled, the sound ripping from his throat, animal and savage. Ada felt him go tense, ready to pounce, and placed her hand near his elbow. His arm loosened, though Ada saw his finger's shaking as they clenched around his dagger.