Chapter 3: The Devouring Bond
1650 Words
The pain was a quiet, constant companion. It had settled into Nysera’s bones during the night, a deep, grinding ache that was worse, in its own way, than the sharp agony of the mark’s first appearance. This was a slow, patient misery. This was the curse getting comfortable.
She woke on Eldra’s cot, the witch’s home, smelling of damp earth and bitter herbs. The first thing she did was touch her neck. The mark was no longer glowing, but the skin was raised and tight, a network of black and red lines like a poisoned river delta under her skin. And it pulsed. A slow, steady thump-thump that was not her own heartbeat.
Vaelric’s heartbeat. A ghost living in her veins.
“It has rooted,” Eldra’s voice came from the hearth. She was grinding something in a stone mortar, the sound harsh and grating. “The curse is no longer a seed. It is a vine, and it is beginning to climb.”
Nysera pushed herself up, her muscles screaming in protest. Just sitting up left her breathless. “It feels like I haven’t slept for a week.”
“That is because you are being consumed,” Eldra said, her tone brutally matter-of-fact. She brought over a wooden bowl containing a thin, grey broth. “Your life is fuel for his. Drink. It will not stop the drain, but it will slow it. Like plugging a leaky barrel.”
Nysera drank. It tasted like mud and sorrow. “How long?” she whispered, the question she’d been too afraid to ask.
Eldra’s ancient eyes held hers. “Until the next Bloodmoon rises in its fullness. A few weeks. Maybe less. The bond strengthens faster when the chosen are… resistant.”
“Resistant to what?”
“To the inevitable. To the hunger.” Eldra took the empty bowl. “The curse offers a terrible choice: die quickly from the drain, or die slowly from the cure.”
Nysera frowned, her foggy mind struggling to keep up. “The cure?”
“Proximity,” the witch said. “Being near him. Touching him. It will slow the drain, fill you with a strength that is not your own. But it comes at a price. Every second near him will deepen the bond. It will make you crave him, not just as a remedy, but as a need as vital as air. It is a trap, a healer. A beautiful, merciful trap.”
A knock at the door, sharp and urgent, saved Nysera from having to reply. Eldra opened it to a young mother from the village, her face pale, a wailing toddler on her hip.
“Healer,” the woman gasped, her eyes darting towards Nysera. “It’s my boy. He fell. His arm… I think it’s broken.”
The words were a lifeline. A purpose. This, Nysera understood. Pain that could be set. A wound that could be healed.
“Take me to him,” she said, forcing strength into her voice she did not feel.
Eldra shot her a warning look, but Nysera ignored it. She pulled her shawl high around her neck and followed the woman into the village.
The walk was torture. Every step was like wading through deep water. The vibrant village she knew seemed muted, the colors washed out, the sounds distant. People glanced at her, their usual wary respect now edged with something darker—fear. They had seen the mark. They knew what it meant.
By the time she reached the small house, a cold sweat beaded on her forehead. The little boy, Kellen, was sobbing, his left arm bent at a sickening angle.
“Shhh, little wolf,” Nysera murmured, kneeling beside him, her own pain forgotten in the face of his. Her healer’s bag felt impossibly heavy. Her fingers, usually so steady, trembled as she laid out her tools.
She had set bones a hundred times. It was a simple, brutal process of pulling, aligning, and binding. But today, her strength was gone. She pulled, but the bone barely moved. A wave of dizziness washed over her. The room swam. She was failing. She was going to fail this child because a curse was eating her alive from the inside.
I can’t, she thought, despair closing its cold hands around her throat. I’m not strong enough.
And as if her desperation were a prayer, she felt it.
A warmth, sudden and intense, flooding her veins. The debilitating weakness vanished, replaced by a vibrant, humming strength. Her vision sharpened until she could see the individual pores on the boy’s skin. The bone in his arm seemed as simple to maneuver as a twig.
It was the same feeling from the forest. The same shocking clarity.
Her eyes snapped to the open doorway.
He stood there, a shadow against the bright day, leaning against the doorframe. Vaelric. His arms were crossed, his silver eyes fixed on her, burning with a grim intensity. He had known. He had felt her struggle, her failure, and he had come.
The mother gasped, pulling her other children behind her. “Get out,” she whispered, her voice trembling with terror.
Vaelric didn’t move. His gaze remained locked on Nysera. Finish it, his eyes seemed to say.
With this borrowed strength, it was the work of a moment. A firm pull, a clean snap as the bone slid into place. Kellen cried out, then slumped in relief. Nysera swiftly splinted the arm, her movements sure and efficient, her mind brilliantly clear.
The moment the bandage was tied, the warmth began to fade. The clarity dimmed. The ache and the exhaustion rushed back into the void, worse than before. The craving hit her like a physical blow—a desperate, screaming need to run to the doorway and press herself against him, to feel that power, that wholeness, again.
It was a poison. And she was already addicted.
Vaelric pushed off the doorframe. The mother flinched, but he didn’t even look at her. His eyes held Nysera’s for one more second, full of a shared, terrible understanding. Then he turned and melted back into the daylight.
The trap had been sprung.
Nysera gathered her things, her hands shaking once more. She mumbled instructions to the stunned mother and stumbled out of the house.
She didn’t get far. The borrowed strength was gone, and the crash was devastating. She only made it to the village square before her legs gave out. She crumpled onto the edge of the stone well, clutching the cold stone for support, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The world was grey and distant again. The mark on her neck burned.
“It is easier just to give in.”
His voice was soft, coming from the deep shadows between two houses. He had never left. He was always there, just out of sight.
“Stay away,” she choked out, the words lacking any force.
“I wish I could.” She heard the rustle of his clothes as he moved, still keeping to the shadows. “You felt it. You know what I am. A walking cure that is also the disease.”
“Why did you help me?” she asked, tears of frustration and weakness welling in her eyes.
A pause. “Because I could.”
It was the simplest, most devastating answer he could have given. It wasn’t about strategy or the curse. It was because he had seen her need and had the power to answer it. A monster would have let the child suffer. A man helped.
“Eldra says the proximity… it makes the bond stronger.”
“It does,” he said, his voice low. “Every second I am near you, the roots dig deeper. Your craving for me will become a physical pain. My hunger for your light…” He trailed off. “It is a vicious cycle, healer. We are trapped in it together.”
“So what do we do?” she whispered, the question hanging in the air between them.
“We run,” he said, the words filled with a hollow finality. “In opposite directions. It is the only way to make the end quick. Anything else… anything else is just a slower, more painful death.”
But they both knew it was already too late for that. The craving was a hook in her soul. The memory of that strength was a siren’s call. How could she run from the only thing that could make her whole?
That night, back in the safety of Eldra’s cottage, the dream found her.
She was in a field of silver flowers under a bleeding moon. Two figures danced in the center, their bond a shimmering ribbon of gold light connecting their hearts. It was beautiful. Then the sky cracked. The gold ribbon blackened, turning thorny and sharp. It wrapped around the woman, digging in, and she began to wither, her life flowing down the blackened thread into the man. He grew taller, his form blazing with stolen power, but his face was a mask of utter agony. He was screaming, but no sound came out.
A shadow, formless and cold, slid between Nysera and the vision. It had no face, but she felt its attention like a physical weight.
“The bond is hunger,” it whispered, a sound like dry leaves skittering over stone. “It is all he is. It is all you will become. Why fight it? The Devourer must feed.”
Nysera woke with a start, her heart hammering. The pulse in her neck beat a frantic rhythm.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
And from the forest, miles away, she felt an echo of the same terror. He was dreaming too. They were sharing this nightmare.
The Devouring Bond had them, and it was only just beginning to feed.
- Writer
