Chapter 72 #2
I move down into the suite, aware of Essi’s trailing presence despite her oddly silent steps. Coming to Raeve’s shitty pallet, I crouch beside the little beast, who’s wide awake, flapping about.
Beak open, Gruffin warbles at the ceiling, half his pin feathers now boasting a blue tuft at the tip. He’s gonna be a pretty beast, but if he screams any louder, we’ll get flocked by a thunder of wild Moltenmaws and that’ll be that.
I flip back the lid of the small wooden box, pinch a wriggling sowgrub, and stuff the fluffy thing straight down Gruffin’s gob. Only for him to spit it out with a pointed flick of his forked tongue.
“You little mite. Now’s not the time to be fussy.”
I try a smaller one, which proves to be easier for him to eject. The third try, Gruffin strikes before I even drop the grub and barely misses my fucking finger.
“Dammit. Maell lasted on these until her pin feathers had completely bloomed.” I gather all the runaway grubs and stash them in the box while Gruffin watches me—head up but wobbling about.
Looking like he’s brewing another piercing warble.
“He’s probably hankering for something more like what his parents would’ve brought him in the wild. Something bloody.”
“I can help with that.”
I look back at Essi seated on the stairs with her shirt pulled over her knees, her long red hair making it look like she’s caught in a flame. “Really?”
She nods. “Stay here.”
Turning, she flits up the stairs like she’s made of air. I can barely make out her footsteps once she’s in the livingsuite, though I do hear the trapdoor snap shut.
Twice.
When she appears again, dashing down the stairs, the last thing I expect to see is a fluffy white crowl leg dangling from her bloody fist, strips of meat frayed around the pale ball of bone.
Like it was only just dislocated and torn from the hip of a freshly slain beast, without the use of any blade. At all.
All the warmth drops from my face. “You just had that lying around?”
Last time my voice squeaked like that, I was pubescent.
Her cheeks flush almost the same color as her hair.
She dips her chin and scratches her brow with her non-bloody hand, peeking up at me for only a split moment. Like she’s shy. “You never know when a fresh carcass will come in handy.”
Right.
Not weird at all.
I accept the leg. Use Grihm’s blade to slice bits of bloody flesh from around the ball and drop them into the little beast’s wide-open maw.
Gruffin gobbles them down and immediately opens for more.
“Well, that works.” I cut off more strips that I barely get a chance to dangle before they’re snatched with growing gusto. I frown. “A bit too well, actually.”
I keep cutting—faster. Getting less and less careful with the shape and size of my strips, realizing it doesn’t really matter. The fucker’s gonna choke it back anyway.
Although Moltenmaws aren’t known for overeating, I start to doubt that logic as Gruffin clambers out of the nest. Wobbly but keen-eyed, he prowls toward the fleshy leg—tail flicking like a limp whip.
“Shit me. Hold on, you’re not supposed to be walking yet,” I rush out, forced to slit the shin open and access the strips of muscle when he starts trembling all over. Something Moltenmaws typically do when they’re about to stab you with their tail prong. “Fuck.”
I toss the blade aside and rip into the meat with my bare hands, finding it just a touch faster. Likely the difference between keeping my fingers and not.
Beads of sweat gather on my brow when I reach the bone, scraping off the tattered dregs with my fingernails. I wave the final scavenged mouthful over his head—
His eyelids droop.
He makes a soft trilling sound and clambers back into the makeshift nest, does a wobbly spin that drags his lengthy tail into the bowl, tucks his head beneath his fluffy blue wing, and goes still, aside from his deep, slumbering breaths.
I release the biggest sigh of my life, letting the last bit of meat slop to the ground. “Thank fuck,” I say, falling back on my ass, looking at what’s left of the ravaged loin. Then up to where Essi’s crouched, watching through wide eyes. “Thanks for the meat. Pretty sure you just saved my life.”
“You’re welcome. I—” A shyness sweetens her features. “I really like how you treat him. Like he’s your own.”
“Thanks. I’m pretty sure he wants to eat me.”
Another warm smile.
Another warm feeling in my chest.
I look away, setting the stripped haunch on the ground so I can wipe my bloody hands on my pants. “He should be set for a while after that.” Surely. “I might use the opportunity to hunt for my sister.”
And something else to drop down the little mite’s gob.
I glance back at the hole of doom, dreading the moment I squeeze past those puking runes …
“If you give me some of your blood, I can etch you safe passage in and out of the main entrance,” Essi offers with an eager hitch.
I frown. “The main entrance? Are you sure? You barely know m—”
“Certain,” she says, cutting me off. Nodding so fast I feel like I’ve won some mythical award for hacking meat off a bone.
“Okay, well, I appreciate it. Thank you.” I pass her a half smile. “Throwing up that delicious loaf might’ve broken my heart.”
Her face goes red.
She opens her mouth, closes it, then dashes into Raeve’s washroom, returning with a mug and a strip of linen.
Crouching before me, she grabs my dagger, cleans off the blood with the hem of her shirt, then takes my hand in hers and spreads my fingers flat—her touch firm but gentle.
Movements hypnotic. So much so that I almost forget to ask the important questions.
“You’re not going to bind me to an object or something, are you? Make my blood boil every time you pass a flaming weald over it?”
She frowns, looking at me with such innocence I’m struck breathless. “Why would I want to do that?”
“I— Sorry.”
It’s all I can blurt instead of you can do anything you want to me. Because I don’t want that. A handful of hurried heartbeats with Essi and I can already see she’s not someone you dash through the flames with, trying not to get burnt. She’s someone you set yourself on fire for.
Unfortunately, that’s not for me.
“Don’t be. You’re cautious. I admire that.” She drops her gaze and sets the tip of Grihm’s blade against a crease in my palm. “My parents weren’t cautious enough. Now they’re dead.”
She drops the words casually, like they’re bundled in so much wool they hardly make a sound, then presses on the blade. The pinch of sting pales in comparison to this deep sense that Essi’s had it bad. That she’s been through things I’m not sure I want to know.
Or maybe I do. Maybe I want to hunt every fucker down who’s ever bruised her existence—
“You want to find your sister?” she asks.
I look up from the welling red puddle in my palm to see Essi’s gone stone still, her wide eyes on the cut.
“Correct.” I tip my blood into the cup, wrap my wounded palm, then use my teeth to rip a split in the bind, securing a knot. “That’s the plan anyway.”
“You won’t find her …”
Her ominous tone ices me to the core.
“What do you mea—”
She peers up.
At the sight of her blown pupils, I still. Suddenly feeling as though I’m in the presence of something bigger than this room. Like I’m pushed against the wall, struggling to find the space to draw breath.
“I’ve smelled this blood before,” she rasps, brows pinched together above imploring eyes. “When I etched blood-runes for Queen Dothea Vaegor.”
My sister’s name strikes like a blow to the gut.
Well … shit.
I scratch the back of my head while I stare at Essi, trying to work out what the fuck just happened. How she discovered who I am by the smell of my blood alone. That’s not normal. Even for a self-taught Bloodlace, which I presume she is.
“To locate her, you’d have to break past my runes. Which is impossible.”
My heart hitches. “You know where my sister is?”
Essi nods. “She’s well. And safe.”
Relief heaves a weight off my chest. Like Bulder himself has been sitting on me for much longer than I care to admit and only just stood up. “But the moonfalls—”
“She’s deep beneath, in a city of caverns engineered to withstand the impact of any fall.”
Fuck.
For a moment, I don’t know what to do. How to sit or what to even look at.
I heard Dothea disappeared. Though I’d hoped for the best, some deep part of me assumed this was a recovery mission.
That Cadok had finally done the thing I’d feared the moment I watched the two meet eyes across the colorful dance floor so many phases ago, well before I was forced to yield any claim to the stone throne.
That he’d broken my beautiful, na?ve, too-trusting sister beyond repair.
“I’m hoping to get back there soon,” Essi says softly. “You could join me if you like?”
Her sweet offer churns my gut so much it’s like I just shoved past those regurgitating runes again.
I push the feeling down. Force my features into a mask of nonchalance. “How soon?”
“Not sure.” She hands me Grihm’s blade, twirling a curl around her pinkie finger. “I’ve been working on something I need to perfect first. It’s safer for me to do it up where there’s less folk around.”
I’ve dealt with Roan’s antics for long enough to know what that’s code for:
Whatever she’s working on is dangerous. Less folk around equates to less possible casualties if shit goes awry.
“Well then.” I drop my gaze to the stripped loin and blow out a sigh. “We’re gonna need more meat.”