Infaust by T.D. Cloud

Author:T.D. Cloud [Cloud, T.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, dark fairytale, horror, dark romance, psychological horror
Publisher: T.D. Cloud
Published: 2024-05-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The howling started a few hours later. Night and day had no hold over this place, so it was beyond Rehan’s abilities to tell just how long they sat inside the hut licking their wounds and avoiding all eye contact. When the first spine-chilling cry cut through the silence, it broke something deep inside Rehan, something he hadn’t known had been cracked ever since coming here. He wanted to call it his courage finally failing him, but that would be a lie. Deep down, he chalked it up to losing his resolve.

Across the hut sat Piper, back against the wall and eyes closed. His face grew pale as that distant voice screamed the name it’d cried at them back by the witch-pyre. That made Rehan feel Piper wasn't long behind him.

“Duuuuuuuaraaaaaa.” It sounded thin, reedy, and distant. “Duuuuuuuuuaraaaaa.”

Rehan stared until a single green eye opened. The words were on Rehan’s lips, but instead of saying them, he just stared a little harder.

Piper sighed and cradled his wounded arm in his lap. “You really won’t let it die, will you?”

The voice outside let out its eternal cry once more, almost as if it were wandering the village, seeking the one who wouldn’t answer. “This place won’t let it die,” Rehan muttered, holding himself a measure tighter as his nerves frayed that much more. Gods, there was something about that spectral scream. It ate at his mind like termites boring into wood. “Why should I be the one to give you a reprieve instead?”

A pair of piercing eyes glanced in Rehan’s direction but only for a moment. “And just when I thought you couldn’t get any more unpleasant,” the chaos god mused. “You just go and prove me wrong yet again.”

Beyond the walls, perhaps in the direction of that terrible church, rose the cry, “Duuuuuaraaaaaaaaa.”

The name on those spectral lips had been familiar when the flames still licked the sky. There hadn’t been time then to do more than note it, but Rehan had had nothing but time these past few hours to think about why. He held his knees to his chest, his arms wrapped protectively around them. He held Piper’s stare evenly.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” he murmured. “You’re Duara.”

Rehan expected Piper to flinch. After everything they’d gone through before with similar topics, he expected, at the very least, for Piper to react, to get angry. They maintained eye contact, though, with no sign of rage or frustration to be found. Piper just... stared back at him, face pale, expression grimly sober.

A cry rose once more, further away. If Rehan closed his eyes, he could almost pretend it had just been the wind.

“Don’t call me that,” Piper muttered when the wail faded and silence bore its way through the walls. He broke the stare and looked towards the weak fire Rehan had cobbled together once the bleeding had finally stopped. “You of all people don’t get to use that name.”

“You’re actually admitting it?”

A humorless huff answered him. Piper glanced sparingly in his direction.

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