Book 3: Chapter 50: Bones of the Forsaken
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Jasper kept his gaze on Larissa the entire time as the bog witch placed a hand over each restrained cattle. He resented the skeptical and malicious glares the knights directed at her as Larissa passed the poison she had ingested into each frightened cow with a single kiss. The black taint of Arachne’s affliction slowly receded from the bog witch’s eyes, skin, and veins, even as the two beasts beside her collapsed with a thud, panting as they suffocated from the black foam and bile that poured out of their mouths.
“Saints above,” Lieutenant Hadley whispered as the knights that restrained the cows between two wooden posts released their ropes and stepped back from the foul scent of rot and decay.
Larissa stepped forward slowly, her strength wavering as she reached out to the Huntsman, her eyes gazing somewhere else. Jasper quickly took her hand and wrapped a supportive arm around her waist as he led her away from the knights that stared between the sacrificial animals and the witch that had cursed them with equal disgust.
“So—” Larissa drawled weakly as she rubbed a streak of dry poison from the corner of her mouth, “Now that you’ve found her, what’s our next move?”
“Well, to start, I suppose we ought to be honest with her first.”
“That seems advisable, given that the true Kirsi would already know what we want.” The bog witch tilted her head towards him as her cold, pale fingers tightened around his hand. “But will she agree?”
Jasper pulled her closer and kissed the hair above her ear before nodding to where the Scarlet Witch appeared between the row of tents ahead. “It looks like we’ll have our answer soon.”