★ Wattpad Featured: #FreshReads #InHerWords2022
❝You're not taking me to bed. Ever.❞
❝...Who said it had to be on a bed?❞
A disgraced immortal and a legendary folk hero are desperate to locate a blacksmith who can break the enchanted handcuffs that...
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Xosa came to in a fog. Mushroom rot and roasted meat tainted the air. His vision fuzzed at the edges. The cut on his cheek burned awfully.
Xosa's first day as a mortal and he already mucked it up fantastically.
"You're up," someone said. "I thought your heart gave out."
The woman! She survived! Her sooty voice was unmistakable.
But Xosa couldn't see her. They landed in some sort of ceremonial tomb at the foot of the mountain and the mausoleum was walled in on all sides except the top. The chances of a good samaritan stumbling across the hole and throwing a rope down were slim.
They were utterly alone.
Xosa cleared his throat and tilted his ear down. "Still alive, I'm afraid. Where are you?"
"Oh, you can speak Misaelese now? How convenient."
Judging by her volume, Dayblaze was somewhere on the other side of the vault directly behind his back. The tomb was too high to scale by hand and foot. They'd have to improvise.
Xosa groaned and held his side. Sticky blood stained his thigh. "How long have you been awake?"
"Long enough to know we're in trouble."
She grunted and tugged her arm forward. Pressure squeezed Xosa's wrist and his arm shot into the air by a chord. He yelped with discomfort and hit the wall hard.
"Drop it! Drop it!"
Sunkanmi relented and released the chord connecting their arms. Xosa gripped his abused hand and swore. The chain twisted over the top edge and disappeared to where she sat.
"We're stuck together," she said. "The handcuffs probably snapped on during the fall. My best guess is a maliib stashed them in the temple for safe-keeping and forgot them during the revolut-... during the conflict. The chains probably laid dormant for years, just waiting to latch onto the perfect victims. Us."
Xosa fiddled with the shackle on his wrist, twisting it to and fro. It was thick, about three fingers wide from where the chain began. Curiously, the gold-plated metal was imbued with natural magic. Vines slithered through the chainlinks and fastened to his forearm, lending the shackles an organic aesthetic.
And it hurt.
The blue veins in his wrist throbbed headily.
"It's... it's drinking my blood," she said. "I'm not lightheaded yet, but I know it's sucking away as we speak."
Xosa nodded even though she couldn't see.
"Mine too. This looks like blood magic. It sustains itself by leeching off our lifeforce."
