Sadie
I SHED MY JACKET, THE MIDDAY SUN WARMING MY SKIN AS I SAT perched on the edge of the whispering well. As we waited for Calla to contact us, I enjoyed the reprieve from the constant jostling of the wagon. I took another deep breath as the meadow air swirled around us.
“How much longer until the temple of knowledge?” I asked as I plucked a seedhead from the overgrown wildflowers surrounding the well.
“I don’t know.” Folding his arms, Navin leaned against a tree across the small clearing. “But we’re getting close or so the map says.”
“The map is a booklet of sheet music,” I muttered. “It would be helpful if you drew it out so I could read it.”
“It would be helpful to our enemies, too,” he countered. “Maybe I should just teach you to read the songs.”
“Maybe.” I stretched my neck side to side, my muscles stiff from the constant sitting. “Goddess, I hope it’s tonight.” I groaned as Haestas circled overhead like a burgundy vulture. “I can’t take another night in that wagon.”
“Eager for a real bed?”
“A bed, a cot, an earthen floor—I don’t care as long as it is stationary,” I grumbled. “More, I want us to be able to go somewhere that isn’t within earshot of all your Songkeeper friends, too, especially your brother.”
Navin coughed out a surprised laugh. “That is something I’ve been quite eager for myself.” A yearning, desirous look crossed his face as he studied me, and he let out a frustrated sigh.
“What are you thinking about right now?” I spread my knees wider from where I sat and arched a suggestive brow at him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he warned. “If you spread those legs any wider, I can’t be held responsible for what I will do next.”
“Here we are, alone,” I goaded, delighting in his torment, “waiting for my Queen. Whatever shall we do with this time?”
“You better think carefully about what you’re willing to let your Queen hear,” Navin countered. “Because once I finally get to have you again, I’m not stopping, not even if your Queen is listening through the well.”
I released a groan of frustration and Navin nodded in agreement.
We’d managed a few stolen moments in the quiet of the night, wedged into a bunk in the wagon where our positions were limited.
I didn’t want to bury my face in a pillow any longer.
I didn’t want to stymie my cries of pleasure.
I wanted him to make me howl loud enough that it rattled the trees.
I let out another growl, my lust-filled thoughts torturing me right along with him.
“Surely there are enough bedchambers in the temple to allow us some privacy at last?” I squinted up at the midday sun and the winged shadows tracing circles around it. “Preferably without your dragon waiting outside our door.”
“I’ll send her away.”
“You should be sending her out with more purpose,” I said pointedly. “See what else you can make her do. Command her to go catch us dinner at the very least. There’s only so long we can survive on rodents. There’s better game up the mountains.”
Navin let out a whistle and the circling pattern above changed. The rock beneath me wobbled as his dragon soared down to the edge of the clearing, kicking up dirt as she skidded to a landing. A dust cloud of floating dandelion seeds plumed around her as she came to a halt.
“Her landings are improving,” I called. Haestas’s warm breath whooshed past my face as I spoke. “She didn’t knock anything over this time, either.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Navin said to Haestas as he reached out and stroked her scaly snout. She released a pleased chittering sound and nuzzled further into his touch.
“She isn’t your pet,” I pushed bitterly, definitely not jealous of the fact that I hadn’t been stroked by him in weeks.
“Need I remind you, she is a manifestation of dark magic. She is a weapon, a war winner. She is the difference between our life and death.” Navin’s mouth pinched at that, but I knew I was finally getting through to him.
“I know you care for her and I know she’s still young, but the situation is too dire to not test her abilities thoroughly. ”
He hung his head as he gave Haestas one last sweep down her cheek. “You’re right.”
He started to sing to her and her pupils widened.
At first, she tilted her head in curiosity; then she started stomping her legs like an eager dog ready to chase a bone.
With a final chanted command, Haestas eagerly took flight again, heading out over the pine forest .
. . and only smacking the tops of three trees during takeoff.
“What did you bid her do?” I asked.
Navin frowned at the bright sky. “I’ll tell you if she succeeds.”
My sharp retort died along with a sound echoing up from the well—a violin.
Mina played through the reverberating hollow, the sound growing louder, and Navin sang back to her, the two speaking in a language I’d never learned.
It was a quick back-and-forth, but Navin smiled and gave me a look as if to say, I’ll tell you later.
“Sadie?” Calla’s voice echoed up the well.
“Calla,” I replied, my lips curving. “Are you well?”
“We are,” their voice was strained. “And you?”
I missed when our time spent together was more than just relaying information.
My mind flickered back to the dinners that stretched into the wee hours of the morning, the rowdy laughter and tales told.
I hated these simple exchanges, wished I had more news to share and that we had time to make conversation that was more than transactional .
. . preferably round a warm fire and with copious amounts of drinks.
“We still haven’t found the temple of knowledge,” I ground out. “But Navin promises we should arrive any day now.”
Grae’s voice sounded amused. “The wagon getting a little crowded for you?”
“You have no idea,” Navin replied.
“And your dragon?” Calla asked, clearly ignoring the exchange. I had a feeling my Queen was making a silencing motion to their mate right now.
“We are testing its abilities,” I said, giving Navin an equally sharp look. “Our hope is her hunting prowess can be extended to our enemies in time.”
“Good.”
“Yes.”
Nerves coiled in me at the stilted words.
I wished I had more rousing enthusiasm to share but that had never been my strong suit.
I knew how badly Calla needed this hope.
If Haestas wasn’t the weapon we promised she could be, if we couldn’t get more monsters to join in our battle, there was no hope of getting Briar back, let alone defeating Nero and stopping his human slaughter.
“We will keep working on it,” I promised, needing to fill the silence. “And once we find more songs at the temple of knowledge, we will be able to double our efforts.”
There was a long pause before Calla spoke again. “Any word from Rasil or the rest of the Songkeepers?”
“None,” Navin replied.
“We can only hope that they have decided to stay close to the Onyx Wolves and their new King,” Calla lamented. “But I fear that with the eternal songs in their possession, they will be pulled into this battle one way or another.”
“Rasil craves power, Your Majesty,” Navin said. “He wants praise and acclaim, too. And I do believe that he wants a world without Wolves and to position himself as the hero King for all of humanity.”
“Is that all?”
“But he is careful not to put himself in harm’s way,” Navin continued. “If he’s wise, he will stay out of the Wolf battles and wait to use his magic on whoever comes out victorious.”
“We will need to come up with a contingency plan to handle Rasil in the event he decides to ally with yet another Wolf King,” Calla said. “Right now, Taigos and Valta are too busy with their own infighting, but if Nero manages to pull either of them into a war against the Golden Court . . .”
They didn’t need to finish that sentence. There were very few paths to success and a hundred to failure.
“Has Ora arrived yet?” Calla asked.
Grae’s laughter sounded. “They only just left. The fishing boat isn’t due for another week.”
“Soon enough,” I said, trying and failing to sound comforting. “We will be prepared for their arrival.” Soon, so many things on the precipice but nothing solid. I hated to ask but forced myself to anyway. “Any sightings of Maez?”
I looked skyward, wishing I could see streaks of emerald lightning, wishing she would find her way back to us. I’d never gone so long without my best friend beside me. I couldn’t accept that she and I would never be standing side by side again, howling up at the full moon.
She had to come back.
“No sightings,” Call said, defeated. “And we are still working on a plan to rescue Briar. Highwick has yet to respond to any of my correspondence trying to negotiate for her safe return.”
I heard the pain lancing Calla’s voice but felt helpless to ease it.
“Right,” I stated, unknowing what else there was to say. “We will contact you when we reach the temple with any more updates.”
“Be safe,” Calla said.
Mina’s music faded away until only the wind sang across the opening of the well. We remained frozen in silence for a minute, our momentarily buoyed spirits struck low again.
“I hate these half-hearted communications,” I muttered.
“And I,” Navin agreed. “But neither do we have the capacity for joviality at times like this.” He rubbed a hand to his weary eyes. “I had hoped for better news, both to give and receive.”
I was about to reply when I heard a rustle in the forest just behind him.
A beating human heart. A stick snapping under a heavy boot.
Before I even gave it a conscious thought, a knife was unsheathed from my bandolier and thrown.
My weapon whizzed through the air, embedding in a tree trunk .
. . right beside Kian’s head as he emerged from the forest.
“Kian?” Navin blustered. “What are you doing here?”
Kian looked at the knife a hair’s breadth from his ear. “You missed.”
“I don’t miss,” I snapped. “That was a warning. Don’t sneak up on a Wolf if you care about your life.”