Page 41 of Raven's Dawn

A groin, legs, and feet.

“Well,” Laila murmured, approaching the body, “I guess they take that whole ‘go eat a dick’ thing seriously.”

I snorted.

“Laila.” Jeremy’s voice was almost parental.

“What?” She hooked a thumb in my direction. “He thought it was funny.”

Insensitive and bordering on cruel, yes, but also funny.

“Why the fuck would they do this?” Warren stood a foot or two away from my left, staring at the body in disbelief. “What purpose does it serve?”

“None that I’m familiar with,” Laila said. Gently, she reached onto the tips of her toes for the rope that bound his feet together. A heavy gust of wind rushed through the tunnel behind us. Settling around him, she released the rope. The wind formed something of a tornado around the remains. It supported his weight as she lowered him to the ground.

A rumble moved through my stomach, but I held my breath, and it settled. I walked in her direction. “Me neither.”

Kneeling beside her, I brought a flame to my hand for light. She gave me a nod of thanks, then looked down at the mutilated corpse.

Too low for anyone else to hear, in Elvan, she whispered a phrase that does not exist on Earth. In English, it translates best as, “We’ll avenge you.”

That had always fascinated me about Véa in the texts, yet it was hard to see it hold true now. She remained upbeat through the worst of times. But if you looked closely, you could see how much the gravity of things like this, the terrors people committed against one another, weighed on her.

With gentle fingers, she examined his flesh. She spoke in Elvan, but it was old, and some of the words didn’t make much sense to me. I recognized the rhythm, though. It was a spell. Didn’t know what it was for, not until his skin glimmered. Glittering light shined in the path her fingertips had traveled from his hip to his knee.

“What are you doing?” Rain asked.

“Looking for a trace of something. Help me flip him, Graham,” Laila said. I did, and she continued. “If they used him as some sort of sacrifice, there’d be something remaining.”

“Could you teach me that spell?” Rain asked.

“When we finish this mission, just remind me.” She started at the top again—his ass—but didn’t touch his skin until she made it to his upper thighs. Slowly, she brushed down his knee and onto his calf. The light glowed brighter. Instead of the line her fingers had followed, shapes began to form. “We’ve got something.”

I squinted at the markings, but then Laila’s white light obscured the body. When she lifted her hand away, it became clear. Still, I didn’t understand it.

They were shapes, trailing parallel midway down his calf all the way to his toes. Triangles, squares, circles, with intricate lines throughout them. Some resembled mandalas while others weren’t much different from symbols I knew well, like a triquetra and the triskelion.

That wasn’t what surprised me. Magic often included symbols I wasn’t familiar with. The surprise was Laila’s face.

Her breath hitched, and her eyes softened. Tears even burned in them.

“You know what that means?” I asked.

“I know it’s cuneiform.” Swallowing hard, she shook her head. “But no, I don’t know what it means.”

“Then what’s that face for?” Warren asked.

“Because I know where it comes from,” she said. “And no one alive should. It’s half a million years old, maybe more, and a long dead language.”

Jeremy took a few steps forward, looked at the markings on the man’s legs, then cursed under his breath. “You gotta be shitting me.”

“What?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

It was hardly noticeable. I only realized because I was sitting so close to her. But her fingertips trembled. She clenched them into fists. With a clear of her throat, she reached into her cloak. When she put her hand back on his thigh, bands of green snaked out from beneath her palm.

In Elvan, she recited the rites. From the ground, our flesh has come; to the ground, our flesh returns. Rest now, find your place amongst the stars.

With each word, the vines snaked around him, wrapping every inch. By the time she was finished, every bit of his flesh was coated in vines.