Chapter 23 #3
I have a thousand more questions … but I look up at the trees. Those curls of buttery sunlight filtering through the forest are weakening. It won’t be long before the light is gone completely.
It’s not just shelter from the demons I’m after. No, I want a way to travel quickly, to make up some lost time.
I pull the fangs from my pockets and show them to the hunter.
He raises a brow. “Saberwolf?”
I nod.
“Where did you find one?”
“The mists.”
At that, the hunter looks us over again. Me, then Raker, who I can feel has shifted closer to my side but still hasn’t said a single word.
“You’re here on the quest, aren’t you?” I nod. He frowns down at the fangs. “I suppose you want me to offer you passage?”
I nod again. That’s exactly what I want.
He seems to consider that. “I don’t trust either of you on my dragon,” he finally says.
“Not with swords like those.” I frown and am about to open my mouth again when he continues.
“But for those fangs … I will procure a creature that will get you out of these woods. Save you three days’ journeying, at least.”
“Safely,” I say.
His lips purse. “Fine. Safely.”
Maybe I shouldn’t trust the immortal … but it doesn’t seem like we have many options. If Raker opposes my plan, he doesn’t say so.
“You have a deal,” I say. I toss the fangs up, and the immortal catches them with breathtaking speed. He hangs them on his baldric. Then he turns back to the spines.
I wait just a few moments before saying, “Well?”
The immortal smiles at my impatience. “It will take a few hours to lure such a creature out.”
A few hours? My eyes slowly rise to the sky. Back to him. I try to keep my voice as steady as possible, even as my hands turn to fists. “We don’t have a few hours. The demons—”
The immortal looks amused. “You’re safe here from them.”
I stare at him, bewildered, and he just laughs. “You’ll see. Night is not a dark place in these woods.”
“But water—”
“Is not the only element those creatures fear,” he says. I open my mouth, and he gives me a look, as if asking me if I really think I know these beings better than he does.
Fine. He doesn’t make a move to mount his dragon as darkness descends, so I suppose it wouldn’t be in his best interest either to be wrong about a thing like that.
I wait as the hunter continues snapping off the last of the spines. Raker is leaned against a tree, looking unimpressed with the both of us.
The dragon looks over at me. Its eyes are glimmering green, darker than those of the dragon I saw in the Prism Pass.
A smattering of spikes adorns its back. Its scales are tough as armor.
It looks rock-hewn. Strong. I take a step forward, pulled by a yearning for my own dragon.
Do they know each other? Does she know where mine went?
The dragon sniffs at me. I wonder if she can sense my dragon. If any trace of her remains on me.
I reach out my hand to touch her scales, just as she opens her mouth—
And unleashes a torrent of water in a stream that hits me right in the chest and has me falling onto my ass. I slide along the ground until I hit Raker’s legs. I sputter, spitting out water, soaked from head to toe.
I look up at the immortal through the water clinging to my eyelashes, and he just shrugs. “She’s sensitive to smell. And you … well, you smelled human, what with the saliva and all.”
My cheeks burn with mortification. It doesn’t fade in the slightest when I look up to see Raker staring down at me, arms crossed over his chest.
I flip him off, and I must be imagining it—but I swear I hear him chuckle.
“Water … instead of fire?” I ask, trembling as I stand.
“Invira is a skyrend,” the hunter says simply. And I imagine there are entire classifications of dragons.
I take a shaking step. Wanting to get away from all of them, maybe go curl up and die of embarrassment.
Without missing a beat, the dragon sits back and beats its wings in my direction, sending me back onto my ass with the force. My braid blows in the sharp wind, and my eyes water.
She doesn’t stop until I’m mostly dry.
“Thank you, Invira,” I say through my teeth.
When the hunter is done collecting everything of value from the beast, we begin walking through the forest.
His massive bow is tucked to his side, almost as tall as he is. He keeps a single arrow clutched in his other arm.
“Still hoping to catch something else?” I ask.
His smile is pure charm. “There are plenty of things to ensnare in these woods,” he says. I roll my eyes.
I’m holding a frozen apple in my palms that the hunter tossed at me from his pack. It stings just the slightest bit and is smooth like glass. He said it would draw out the creature we’re looking for.
I just hope I’m not being used as bait for a deadly creature again.
As darkness finally settles over the forest like a blanket, and the stars come out, I look up to the sky and stop in my tracks.
This forest is not a dark place at night.
The hunter wasn’t kidding.
Fireflies make an entire constellation through the trees, orbs and galaxies. I inhale a shaking breath. My eyes burn, watching.
To my surprise, the hunter stops too.
I saw a single firefly once. It flew by my window, and I shook my sister awake. We both pressed our faces against the glass, marveling at it until it disappeared. We stayed up several nights after that, taking turns at our post by the window. But it never returned.
She would never believe this. Never believe there was a wood where thousands would gather.
“This world is a beautiful place,” I say.
He nods. “It is.” He sighs, and the sound is deep. Resonant. “That’s why I like what I do. I get to see the quiet places. The pockets of this world where the beauty has not been disturbed.”
For a moment, the blood, the fangs, the fear, it all falls away. It’s like staring at the night sky, seeing only the stars and not the darkness.
I stare so long that they become nothing more than blurs of light. A part of me, a wall inside, shifts.
I used to hate fire. I used to hate flames.
But I cannot hate this.
There is beauty even in monstrous places. Even in monsters themselves.
One of the fireflies dips low, close enough to touch. I reach up, and the hunter grabs my hand in a flash. His touch is gentle as he sets my arm back down.
“Careful,” he says. “They’re poisonous. Deadly to a human.”
I spin to face him, perplexed, and he just laughs. “Learn this. Some of the most beautiful creatures in this world are the deadliest.”
I look over at Raker, but he’s not looking at the fireflies. He’s not looking at the stars.
He’s looking at me.
I stare back.
I can’t see his eyes, but I feel his notice, piercing me. Our gazes are like blades between us. Skimming. Dueling.
The hunter keeps talking. “There’s an elk, for example … we call it a florisfang. It has five rows of teeth, but you would never know it. It’s beautiful. It usually has flowers in its antlers, like a crown …”
Raker tilts his head just the slightest bit, a whisper of a motion I wish I couldn’t interpret, but from traveling together this long, I can.
I glare at him in response.
And there it is. That sound again, resembling a chuckle.
“… you wouldn’t believe how long their claws are. They’re retractable. So, you don’t know until it’s too late, I guess,” the hunter finishes. And I’m not sure if he’s talking about the elk or another animal entirely. “Anyway. Best to keep moving if you’re going to find that horse.”
“Horse?” I say, whipping around. “I saw one earlier. It … it disappeared into mist.”
He looks impressed. “I should keep you around a little longer,” he says. “You bring out the best of the forest.”
“And the worst,” Raker says as he brushes by my side. I glare at his back.
The hunter doesn’t seem to hear him, too lost in his own talking. “That’s exactly the creature we’re trying to draw out. A skyhorse. They’re known to run through these woods. They seem to like the feel of them.”
“Are there many types of horses?” I ask.
He nods. “Just as many as there are dragons. With just as many variations and specialties.” He shakes his head and huffs. “The types of horses I’ve seen … you wouldn’t believe.”
I have the sudden urge to know. To see. To learn. I stamp that ember out, because that’s not why I’m here. This is not my world.
Though, sometimes, the traitorous, selfish part of me wishes it was.
As we continue through the forest, a galaxy of fireflies threading through the trees, a second sky of stars, I think again, This world is beautiful.