This Hollow Heart (Seasons of Legend #1)

10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Natasya

H ow could I have been so stupid?

I don’t know who saw us kissing in the woods, but if word gets back to Brom I’ll have ruined everything. My entire plan is about to go up in flames and all because one too curious outsider almost walked in on me practicing necromancy.

Although the blame can’t be exclusively laid at Evengi’s feet. After all, I’m the one who thought I’d use my feminine wiles to distract him from that fact. I’m the one who kissed him.

“Idiot,” I growl to myself.

There are easier ways to get rid of prying eyes. For one, I could always pluck them out. Not kiss and reward the man snooping into my affairs.

I press open the door to the cottage my father bought for me to use while I’m staying here in Sunder Hollow and freeze when I come across a note lying on the floor as if it had been slipped under the door. It has my name scrawled across it in Brom’s handwriting.

My heart stops, and I glance outside at the quickly lightening gray sky. Did someone wake him up at the crack of dawn to tell him what they saw? I’d thought I’d at least have some time to figure out my excuses.

Although I’m not quite sure how I am going to excuse my behavior. I’ve been acting the same I was when I was utterly unattached. It’s true that my marriage with Brom would be a loveless one, at least on my end, and very likely on Brom’s as well. He may act doting, but I know full well that he doesn’t love me. It’s a fairly well-kept secret by the Lower Elves, but if they come to love someone and then lose that person, they do not handle the loss well at all. They would rather die than face an eternity without them. They die quite literally of a broken heart.

I only know because I was raised by a Lower Elf, and Elwis has spent my entire life worrying he would lose me, my sisters, or my mother and he would die from the loss. He has given my twin, Bronwyn, and I time to live our lives as humans, but while we are given the choice to choose when we will become vampires, Elwis already decided for us that we will become vampires someday.

My mother Vala chose it when she saw her first gray hair, I intend to take my father up on his offer of immortality long before then. But for the time being I am enjoying the ease of a human life. I’m already an outcast as a necromancer, but as a vampire, I would be doubly an outcast. And this time visibly so.

Brom does not act like someone whose very life hinges on my survival. He sees me more as a prize, one that he won, and he is pleased about keeping for himself. Still knowing all this, I never intended to be unfaithful .

I place my hand over my heart as I draw to a stop. Dear gods and demigods alike, is that what I was?

I’d only been wanting to distract Evengi from my necromantic practices, but to anyone watching from the outside… to Evengi even, I was kissing a man who wasn’t my fiancé.

I suddenly start wondering if maybe I really want to be engaged if it comes with this much expectation. It’s true that it’s the easiest way to get my hands on the spellbook, but there are other ways to get it.

I’m pondering those other options as I stare at the note on the floor at my feet as I try to come to terms with the fact that my engagement is likely over already.

I may not love Brom, but I certainly don’t wish to kill him, so I will need to steal the spellbook from him somehow. That will not be easy, spellbooks are usually jealously guarded by their Magickers. And while Brom may be little more than a cheap illusionist, his spellbook is still very powerful. If he chooses to use any spells in it to keep the book from me well…

Once the wielder of that spellbook killed a hundred necromancers, so what good would I do against it?

I need to be smart, but first I need to figure out just how angry Brom is with me.

I bend down, picking up the note and unfolding it to read the message hastily scrawled across it.

My darling Natasya…

I feel my eyebrows rise. Apparently, he is not that angry enough with me that he would forego the terms of endearment.

I understand that it is late, but I have not been able to sleep. I did not wish to disturb you from your slumber, hence the reason for my leaving this note. Once you read this, please meet me at the old-gnarled oak at the crossroads outside Sunder Hollow. I have something of the utmost importance to discuss with you. Evengi Ichabod is not to be trusted. He is lying to this whole town. Come quickly and I will reveal all and then you and I can decide the best course of action for that lying scoundrel.

I lower the note, feeling my eyes widen in surprise. This has nothing to do with me at all, but actually Evengi.

Relief rushes through me, followed closely by a burning curiosity. Just who is this Evengi? It seems I’m not the only one in Sunder Hollow telling lies. I suppose it makes sense. The first man I’ve actually felt any sort of attraction toward, of course he must be a conniving liar himself.

I hastily throw on my heavy woolen cloak because the air has taken on a wet cold feeling. It promises a rain to come soon. I throw my hood up and hurry down the main road. There are very few people out at this hour. The blacksmith lighting his forge, the farmers heading to their fields, and me as I hurry down the dirt path to the wide road that cuts down through Ruskhazar. The crossroads that Brom referred to is the area where the road branches off to head to Sunder Hollow.

There’s a broken sign that once stated that Sunder Hollow was up that road, but the path is mostly overgrown from misuse, and many people actually miss it when they walk this road.

Most people, except for Evengi apparently.

And me, but that was because I was purposefully seeking out Sunder Hollow. Is it possible that Evengi did the same thing?

It makes me all the more desperate to learn what Brom discovered about Evengi. Does he have ulterior motives for being in Sunder Hollow just like I do? If that’s the case, then I can easily blackmail him and get him to leave before he further ruins my chances of marrying Brom the Bones and getting my hands on that spellbook.

I quicken my pace as I spot the twisted branches of the old oak tree that serves as a marker for the crossroads since the sign now lies rotting in the dirt, the words Sunder Hollow still etched into the wood.

This late in the year, the leaves are orange and red and seem to be barely clinging to the branches.

A gust of icy wind washes over me as I make it to the end of the path just where it becomes one with the main road. I don’t see anyone around. Not lying in the tall grass, not pacing along the road, not perched on the rickety fence in front of the oak.

It seems as though I’m the only one here at this oak so early in the morning.

“Brom?” I call, pulling my cloak more closely around me as I glance up and down the main road in case he decided to wander down it while waiting for me. “Brom?”

No one answers my calls.