Chapter 70
Blood pooled at Zeth’s feet.
He was standing before what was practically a mountain of corpses, all of them mangled and slashed apart, piled at the bottom of his stairs.
Astrys stood behind the pile, kicking one last body into the rest, and nodded to him. “That was all of them.”
Zeth cleared his throat, feeling a sting in his neck as he did, but nothing even close to as bad as yesterday. He rasped out, “You killed the whole camp?”
“Yes. After spending some time searching in the direction you pointed toward, I eventually found them. I investigated for some time from afar before determining I would be able to win in a fight if I had the element of surprise. I left their camp empty, and carried the corpses back here. You did want the corpses, correct? I assumed so, since you use blood to activate your magic.”
“I…” He hardly knew what to say. “I mean, yeah, the extra blood will be great. Uh, do you mind carrying them out of the entryway and into the storage rooms? I have some barrels we can fill up to help preserve it for longer.”
She nodded, leaning down and draping a few of them over her shoulders. Zeth grabbed one, feeling his weakened body threaten to buckle under the weight, and carried it through the hallway alongside her.
“So…” Zeth said as they walked, “I never asked you to kill them.”
Her eyes darted to look at him, face betraying no emotion, but Zeth had interacted with her enough to know the small movement was a sign of fear.