25
Jeryn
We discovered another secret before exiting the catacomb. A passage beyond intersected with other caves and crossways, including from the grotto and to the ruins’ entrance, joining with the area where I’d gone astray earlier. The network reminded me of escape channels beneath every castle in The Dark Seasons, as well as the trade route in Summer, from which this little fugitive had fled.
The entrance tunnel would enable us to cross the lake, in lieu of the decrepit bridge, while some conduits echoed with ocean waves. In one cavity, we tracked the sound until emerging from a concealed threshold of rocks and vines, which deposited us at the cove where we’d made camp. We spent hours retrieving our belongings and traveling through the outlets, from the shore to our new hideaway.
The ruins offered better shelter than the cove. It was mostly dry, with access to the bathing grotto and drinking fountain. But with exposed verandas and colonnades vulnerable to roaming fauna, we would have to share a chamber.
One of the suites comprised adjoining rooms, each divided by an open doorway. Close enough to monitor one another. Far enough to stomach each other.
The beds needed to be restored first. In the meantime, we gathered clean linens from the textile cellar, fashioning them into pallets in our respective quarters.
The ashes of Summer tinder would ignite the old torches from one source, rather than us needing to build individual blazes. However, we agreed to use this tactic sparingly and only in the ruins.
Over the next week, we dusted, scrubbed, cleared debris from the most utilitarian rooms, and salvaged what we could. Next, we restored the conveyor, which ran between the wilderness and the makeshift medical chamber.
The cellar offered several articles of clothing that suited our measurements. Flowing dresses, linen nightgowns, and bandeaus paired with lightweight trousers, either cut off at the mid-thigh or cinched at the ankles, replaced the beast’s chemise. Loose pants and shirts relieved me of the suffocating velvet ensemble.
However much Summer preferred nudity, a realm riddled with fatal insects was not ideal for exposure. The pants would suffice for me, but the beast collected scraps of thin material to weave into lingerie for herself. Promptly, I scratched the image of her wearing those skimpy articles from my brain, lest they should follow me to bed.
As it was, sleeping soundly became a chore. Separated by a mere twenty feet, her proximity dominated every corner of my addlepated mind. Visions of her tangled in the sheets, her mouth open and puffing air, her legs falling apart in slumber. Fucking hell.
Each morning, she caught fish and fried our meals in the dining hall fireplace.
In the medical chamber, I reorganized our supplies, making use of the alcove shelves. From the floor, I plucked samples of the ground foliage that had reminded me of pine cress.
Which led to thoughts of Winter’s universities. Which led to other thoughts of a botany volume that documented antiquated plants.
At the hearth, I ground one of the leaves atop a flat expanse of rock. The mashed plant darkened and lost its pungent fragrance, as the text had instructed it would.
This felt too simple. Nonetheless, without the proper necessities, something had to give. At worst, I’d have the most hostile stomachache of my life. Possibly a fever. At least, I hoped that would be the shittiest part of it.
I grabbed my scalpel knife and extended the blade into the flames. Once the metal glowed orange, the slime went in next, close to the fire’s perimeter. The mass fizzled and stank of rancid citrus, another encouraging confirmation.
After the pulp cooled, I sighed. “Motherfuck.”
Then I angled the scalpel toward my bare arm and sliced.
An hour later, the little beast gawked when I passed by her in one of the corridors. Crimson-stained fingers. A bandaged gash across my bicep. Still, she did not ask what I’d done. She must have deduced I wouldn’t tell her yet.
But when I did, it would hurt. Because it would be her turn.
***
I waited another week. Seven days in which we hunted for food, avoided carnivores, healed from our injuries, and worked on a map of the rainforest, which the woman drafted onto a wall in the vestibule.
Satisfied that my test hadn’t exterminated me, I approached her one afternoon. Dangerously, she perched on the cupola’s ledge, surrounded by hibiscus flowers.
Although cognizant of me leaning against the ridge beside her, she gazed in wonder at a dozing scimitar feline draped across a distant offshoot, the creature’s fur a marbled mixture of red and black. Its limbs were slung over the sides, its paws dangling in the air and hiding what I imagined to be a set of claws capable of scooping out intestines with a lazy swipe.
“I’ve seen jaguars on other coasts, but not with saberteeth,” she mused. “Those ones hang past her chin.”
“Give me your arm,” I commanded.
In my former life, having to say more would have been unnecessary. A glimpse would have guaranteed obedience.
This female tossed an uninvested glance toward the scalpel knife I’d withdrawn. “Has anybody ever told you that your weapon is about as polished as your bedside manners?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Has anyone ever told you I don’t give a shit?”
And for the record, my knife was not dull. This tiny minx was just trying to be snarky.
Her attention shifted from the blade to the green sludge I’d brought with me, the mixture newly ground and heated. Telling her it was a preventative earned me a hesitant look, so I took a seat beside her and explained about the treatment I’d recalled from the medical text, including details about the plant having been recorded during historic times. Although the bygone Summer remedy had gone extinct on the mainland, it had prevailed here, plausibly due to the forest’s undisturbed environment.
Pulverize, heat, insert. The poultice would seep into the blood and act as a lasting barrier against infections. Not all but a moderate amount, which was better than nothing. My leg injury, those cuts from the rainfall, and that odious story about how she’d lost her voice served as a reminder. With this humidity, wounds would be susceptible to festering. As it was, we had enough worries regarding nature’s influence. While I’d been inoculated from enough diseases to render me immortal, this rainforest and its fauna could transmit unforeseeable contagions.
None of which she’d be protected from. That fact thrust a bolt of alarm into my gut. What I wouldn’t trade for Winter’s surplus of syringes and vaccines.
“I tested it on myself,” I assured her.
Bitterness flashed in those eyes. “Isn’t that what so-called fools are for?”
For fuck’s sake. “Do as I say.”
“You tested it because I can die from it?”
“In the rare case,” I confirmed. “Without it, in the likely case. By the way, one of the ancients survived whatever virus claimed their brethren.”
She winced, compassion for the fallen cinching her features. But then she nodded, having drawn the same conclusion.
We hypothesized. The survivor must have composed the Summer song and brought it to the mainland. Feasibly, they’d hidden the map to commemorate this realm, paying homage while simultaneously preserving the wild’s anonymity. Back then, cultures held landscapes even more sacred than today.
But to leave this realm, they must have had access to transportation. Or they’d been found—by a “chosen one” who’d been called here, according to this dreamer who believed as everyone on this continent did. Though, if I pointed out how nature would never choose a born fool, she’d merely throw my argument back in my face.
I scoffed. “Shall we cut into you, then? I have other errands.”
Her eyes incinerated me. “You have less heart than a suit of armor.”
“We’ve established that already.”
Not unlike the last time she’d hurled a projectile at my head, the fool snatched a rock. My reflexes beat her to it, my palm seizing her knuckles. “Throw something at me again and I’ll slit off your fingers,” I said with deadly calm.
Flames rose up her neck, the hue imprinting to her forehead. “Give me back my hand.”
Then I felt it. Never mind that I had initiated contact, but the sensation of my palm covering her knuckles injected heat into my bloodstream. Her bare flesh trembled beneath my own, radiating like a combustible thing.
Yet she didn’t rip her fingers away. Nor did I respond immediately. Instead, we stared at one another, her breath rushing against my mouth with the intensity of a brushfire.
Seasons flay me. I prided myself on pacing, yet this delay exceeded my limits. It took far too long to react and even longer to withdraw.
Pulling myself together, I warned, “You will use those fingers to squeeze the rock for the pain. Nothing more.”
With caution, I backed off. At the same time, a pent-up exhalation left her mouth, and those long eyelashes fluttered.
My other hand clamped around the scalpel knife, its tip flashing. Breaking the trance, I clicked my eyes toward her arm in a silent request.
Lifting her chin, she extended that arm. With a spare cloth, I swiped water over her bicep, which was the best I could do to sanitize it. Her arm felt like a twig, yet it flexed—hard, alert, poised for a fight. I couldn’t fathom which urge was more tempting, to release this woman or grip her tighter.
“Relax,” I instructed, but to which of us?
“Focus elsewhere,” I tried again. “Concentrate on the jaguar or the flowers.”
She did nothing of the sort. Instead, the beast watched me raise the blade, her intakes growing shallower. Because the scent of hibiscus impregnated the forest, I debated if she preferred that botanical aroma or the sweetness of mangoes.
In short, I was behaving like an amateur. Instructing myself to wake the fuck up, I angled the scalpel. “Hold still.”
But as an afterthought, I added one word. “Please.”
“Please?” she quoted. “Am I imagining it, or did you beseech me? I can’t tell if you’re in earnest or if you’ve been influenced by a certain court jester who knows his way around a farce.”
My jaw hardened. “Never compare me to that cocky, gaudy, fucking—”
“Not a fan of Poet? That would put you in the minority.”
“Trust me, I’m aware of his overhyped popularity.”
The blade grazed her flesh. She gnashed her teeth.
“You’ll feel a pinch,” I lied. “Some discomfort.”
Her eyes clenched shut, and her left hand choked the rock. Her shoulder had blossomed a sunburn, then dripped crimson once I began to cut. As the blade slid across her skin, I pressed in deeper, slicing through a layer of tissue.
The veins in her throat inflated. The vibrations of her mouth signified whimpers, though she tried to visibly conceal the pain. In truth, the female’s resilience was impressive.
Many physicians sought to distract their patients during arduous procedures. I had never been among those doctors. All the same, her wincing expressions did something … unusual to me.
“So what do sand drifters do?” I inquired.
“H-huh?” she stammered.
“Tell me about your trade.”
“It’s not just a trade. It’s a lifestyle.”
“I’m listening.”
She hedged. “We’re voyagers. Free spirits of our Season and merchants of the sea. There are prizes that can’t be found near the mainland, so we sail to the ends of Summer, to the distant wilds and outer regions, to find them.”
“Prizes such as?” I prompted when she hesitated once more.
After another moment, she continued. “The plume of a ripple lark—it’s a bird that lives on the water’s surface. They’re hard to spot at sea, but they come ashore to mate, which causes them to lose their features during the act. Salt lilies—those are flowers that float in pockets of water under the sand, and nobles like to feast on the buds. A corroded trident from a past century. Ink from a silken octopus. It’s also a sand fish, so it has rich meat, but you have to dig deep to get to the dweller, and you need a sand net.”
Her blood dribbled onto my fingertips. “I assume you’re referring to the apparatus you rescued from the wreck. The hooped one with a handle and bristles like a comb. It has a different appearance from a common water net.”
“I haven’t caught anything with it yet. Not here, I mean. But maybe when I bond more with the rainforest, I’ll know how.”
She spoke of swamps and islands, then of her parents and life at sea. Nights on their tidefarer. Mornings catching water and sand fish. Wistfulness and devotion filled her voice.
To earn an income from traveling, sand drifters periodically returned to Summer’s mainland. Having acquired rare fish and trinkets, they docked to sell their wares at the markets most frequented by nobles. Some drifters also earned commissions from the upper classes, who hired them to extract priceless artifacts.
This clarified how she’d learned to read, write, and speak with a refined tongue. Being sand drifters—therefore, of the merchant class—her parents had educated her. Moreover, treasure hunting had given this female elevated knowledge about riches.
A frown crimped my eyebrows. My mind veered back to the one memory of this woman I hadn’t yet revealed.
Feigning nonchalance, I asked, “Your parents took you with them? To the markets?”
She winced. “Rarely. They said I behaved too fiery for those excursions.”
“As in mercurial,” I interpreted.
“Mercurial, yes. Dreamy, as well. And adventurous.” She ducked her head for a moment, seeming contrite about that. “Mama said I couldn’t keep calm, that I did things without thinking, or that I went wherever the tide took me. And with all the hustle, they couldn’t keep a keen eye on me at the markets. Because of that, my parents fretted about me causing a scene if something riled me up. So we split up, one parent to the market and the other remaining at the boat with me. Without fail, that’s how we did it until—”
She cut herself off. Those golden pupils glistened, haunted by a private recollection. Torment sat on her face like a bruise—dark, infuriating, unacceptable.
It had to be about her parents. She hadn’t said what became of them after she was imprisoned, but with loss gripping her face, it wasn’t difficult to guess. Yet there seemed to be more. In addition to bereavement, guilt consumed the female.
To stop those thoughts from burdening her, I pressed on. “What about other travelers? Did you grow up among them?”
“What are you playing at?” she snapped. “What are all these questions for? I told you, I’m not an experiment.”
“I’m not talking to you like an experiment. I’m talking to you like a person. Isn’t that what you want?”
She gave a start. As did I.
Where the devil had that come from? In Winter, I did not engage with fools, much less inquire about their lives and take interest in what they said. I simply told my assistants to strap them down.
Though if I went farther back, nor did I have prisoners relocated. I never demanded they be transferred to secluded cells where they wouldn’t be disturbed, as I’d done in Autumn.
Poet and Briar had construed my actions as sinister. They had assumed I wanted to punish my quarry by locking her in solitary confinement. Except they’d been wrong.
Fewer neighboring inmates amounted to tighter security, because the sentinels wouldn’t be distracted, thus they would guard the beast more safely. Keeping her separate from the other captives had also ensured a better night’s sleep. It may have deprived her of company, but Poet and Briar had that covered with their frequent visits. Moreover, the relocation had granted this woman the privacy to clean and relieve herself.
If I had explained this to the jester and princess, they wouldn’t have believed it. Not that I’d have wanted them to. Any conspicuous investment in my captive’s comforts would not have done either of us good. Hence, I’d allowed the jester and princess to think whatever the fuck they wanted.
As to why I’d treated this woman thusly, the answer had to do with that memory she didn’t know about.
Back to the task at hand, goddammit. The scalpel peeled back a flap of skin from her shoulder. At the action, she shuddered.
“Almost done,” I lied.
“Bastard,” she growled. “A pinch?”
“When muscles are tense, it exacerbates physical trauma. I needed you relaxed.”
“Is that what you learned in Winter, back when you were a runt waiting for your horns to grow? You learned how to gut people while making them feel at home?”
“No,” was all I bit out.
My voice had gone brittle. This woman didn’t know the first fucking thing about my upbringing, much less what it took to heal someone.
And now she was making me feel defensive. When the fuck had I ever felt defensive?
In case she detected this, I searched for something dignified to say, to cover up the mishap. “For your information, horned animals do not dwell in Winter. Our fauna have antlers and … ears.”
My patient gave me a puzzled look. “Ears.”
I cleared my throat. “Paws as well. And whiskers.”
Shit. I knew babbling when I heard it. The woman stared, a mirthful grin creeping across her face, the sight oddly infectious.
“What else?” she teased. “Do they have claws and talons and tails?”
This was my fault. Nonetheless, the absurdity of this conversation dragged a reluctant smirk from my face. “All of the above,” I played along. “In fact, they also have muzzles and fur.”
“Mmm,” she replied with mock intellectualism. “How extraordinary.”
“Quite.”
“Except I wasn’t referring to animal horns.”
Then what … oh.
I imagined the demon horns she’d been invoking, and my rueful mouth slanted farther. She folded her lips inward to keep from laughing, but her involuntary chuckles came out anyway, the sound of her laughter striking me in a disturbing place.
Abruptly, I sobered. Her own chuckles faded as she beheld something in my expression.
Unable to weather that look, I proceeded with her arm. She grunted as I lodged the mixture under her flesh and pressed the wound closed. The poultice would take effect quickly and keep the incision from putrefying. Fortunately, the preventative wasn’t so deeply rooted that I needed to sear and cauterize the area.
Dressing the wound forced me to lean closer, my mouth tilting precariously near to that sunburned shoulder. Warmth brimmed from her skin, and she smelled too fucking good to tolerate. As my lips hovered, the palpitations in her neck accelerated, the visual causing my teeth to ache. I could sink my canines into her and make another mark, this one permanent.
My cock twitched. Withholding a growl, I wrapped a cloth around her arm. Drawing back, my eyes stumbled across hers, colliding with them like a pair of comets.
Who marked you? What did you do to get caged? Why did Summer brand you as a fool, when I can’t discern anything foolish about you?
What are you not telling me about this forest? Why do you really want to be here?
Why can’t I stop looking at you? Thinking about you? Talking with you?
Wanting you?
An unforgivable question tripped off my tongue. “What is your name?”
Never once during my interactions with Poet and Briar had I interrogated them about this. While hunting my quarry, I would have demanded this only to help with the search, and only if I’d anticipated the jester and princess offering the information willingly.
If there were other reasons I hadn’t wanted to know, hadn’t wanted to see her as anything other than a prisoner, I wasn’t about to analyze it. No matter how the prospect had enticed me, I had resisted finding out. She’d been my prey, nothing more than a target to snare.
At this juncture, I attributed my curiosity to convenience. I’d grown tired of addressing her indirectly. That was all.
Predictably, she wavered. For some reason, disappointment gnawed on my ribs, despite the fact that I’d solicited this reaction.
Yet miraculously, she answered. “Flare.”
Her reply struck me between the ribs. My respiration hitched, indicating how long I’d been holding my breath.
Only when I shook off these disturbances did I register her silence, the evident refusal to ask my name in return. Yet if she ever did ask, that possibility led to another pressing question.
Would I give it to her?