Chapter 12 #2
Farrah slowly tilted her head the side, gaze flickering toward Aven. “Yes. I heard about the quest from court gossip… and maybe the gossip originated with the king and queen, who tasked Aven to—”
“Supervise and record,” Aven said quickly, cutting Farrah off.
“Sure. Anyway, I tried to talk to you, Ellinore, at the last feast, but you ran out of there like your hair was on fire.”
Oh. Right. I’d forgotten. “I was a mess,” I said, patting down the flyaways escaping my ponytail, because I was still a mess, figuratively and literally. “And I wanted to get home. That was all.”
“You announced your retirement. And I saw my last chance to talk to you slipping away. So I took my shot. But you blew me off.”
I grimaced. “Sorry. Again.”
“Does your mom know where you are?” Aven asked. Their expression had softened slightly, but their tone was clipped and strained.
Farrah rubbed the toe of her expensive boot into the dirt, small bits of gravel popping underneath the leather. She pouted, twisting her staff in her hands. “No?”
“No?” Aven threw up their hands. “Great. Once your parents realize you’re gone, they’ll come looking.”
“I left a note,” she said. “That said I was with you and Ellinore.”
Aven face-palmed. “I can’t believe you would be so irresponsible to—”
“Follow a famous quester on a dangerous mission that may result in injury or death?” She batted her thick eyelashes.
“I was ordered by the Crown!”
“Uh-huh.”
Okay. There was something weird brewing between these cousins by marriage, but I was not interested in family drama other than my own.
And speaking of, Zig was traveling on his own.
And the countdown parchment at my hip was no doubt burning steadily, taking another mark off the timeline. We needed to continue on our way.
“Well,” I said as diplomatically as possible, “if the king and queen think it’s okay for Aven to come gallivanting along with me without a bodyguard, maybe they’ll deem it okay for their niece to come along too.”
Farrah’s face brightened. “Does that mean you’ll let me join? You’ll teach me?”
Great. Another one.
“This isn’t fun and games, Farrah. This is life or death. I need you to understand that.”
She nodded quickly. “I do. I heard that you’re looking for the Elder Beast. I don’t know what that is, but I’m certain we will find it together.”
“Fine, but only if Aven agrees,” I said.
Aven jolted. “Really?”
I handed them the bouquet as a gesture of passing off the responsibility. They eyed it as if it were poisonous.
“Yes. Look, it’s a big responsibility keeping someone safe. And it would be on both of us, just like Zig.”
“If she really does know all the maps, she could be useful,” Aven muttered.
They puffed up their cheeks and blew out a breath.
Farrah shifted on her feet, her lower lip sucked between her teeth, her hands clamped around her staff.
Her big brown eyes wide and pleading. “Are you really good with that thing?” Aven asked, nodding toward the quarterstaff.
Farrah perked up. “Yes. I told you I practiced with a knight.”
“Which one?”
“Sir Pellam.”
“He’s not a bad fighter.” Aven narrowed their eyes, crossed their arms, and tapped their chin in thought. “Okay. Fine. I agree.”
Farrah pumped her fist and let out a whoop. “Best quest ever! You won’t regret it, I promise!”
Oh, I already regretted it, because it was difficult enough to keep two people in the dark about my so-called amazing questing record, and now it was three. But I could do it. I could. I just had to keep in mind what Ellinore the Brave would do.
No big deal.
I’d be fine.
Maybe.
We walked for hours.
As we ascended, the sound of the Simmer grew distant, now rushing somewhere below us. The space we needed to cross was no longer a surging, boiling river, but a deep canyon that dropped… intimidatingly far.
The sun had reached its zenith about an hour ago, and a gentle breeze blew from the mountains, ruffling and drying my sweat-damp hair.
Despite the whole bridge incident and the constant concern about Zig being alone in a new town, it was a nice day.
The sky was bright blue, and even though we’d risen in elevation as we walked, we were still in the foothills below the mountains that towered above the landscape.
The path was lined with a smattering of vibrant green grass and small flowers blooming in purples, yellows, and pinks.
The scene was almost idyllic, and if things had been different, it would’ve been a perfect place to have a romantic picnic.
Or a nap. Normally, I wasn’t one to complain, but having spent the whole night awake, I was exhausted. And I hurt all over from the events of the bridge. I was ready to collapse in a bed by the time Farrah pointed to the outcropping ahead of us.
I was so ridiculously tired that I must have hallucinated that this all looked absurdly familiar.
“Is this the source of the Simmer?” Aven asked, peering down into the canyon, where the river bubbled.
Wait. I rubbed my eyes and looked at a rock formation in the distance that sported the distinct shape of a cow.
“Yes,” Farrah said, clapping her hands. She pointed to a trickling waterfall in the distance. “The water coming over the falls is quite cold because it’s snow fed, and then it hits a hot spring down there”—she pointed to a pool below us—“and it boils.”
Oh no. Oh nooo.
I quickly glanced around, my mind whirling. The cow rock pinged a memory of a joke Dave had made about wanting to eat it but how it would cause indigestion. I shook my head, pushing my palm against my forehead to quell my burgeoning headache.
“I’ve never been up here,” Aven mused as we approached the outcropping.
The path ahead of us was a slab of blackened rock that at one point may have been a natural bridge, carved by the stream over the years.
But the ground had since shifted, and the end of our route was several feet above the other side.
We’d have to jump. If we made it that far.
I peered tentatively over the edge, looking for a glimpse of red or a slither of a tail, but luckily saw only the rush of water.
“Have you, Ellinore?”
I jumped. “Have I what?” Aven had joined me by the beginning of the bridge, while Farrah had wandered off to a plateau a few feet ahead.
Aven raised an eyebrow. “Been up here before.”
“Oh, I don’t believe so. I think. I’m not sure. Maybe.” That sounded convincing. I smiled as winningly as possible. It didn’t work.
“Not sure, maybe?” Aven asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you okay? Do you need to rest?”
“No!” I cleared my throat. “I mean no. We should keep moving.”
“Ellinore,” Aven said, expression too sincere, too caring, too honest for me to handle. They gently touched my shoulder. “We can rest if you need to. It’s not a crime to be human. I promise.”
No, it wasn’t a crime to be human. But as Aven had jokingly told me in the past, it was a crime to lie to royalty.
“I’m fine. I’m good. I swear.”
“Oh my,” Farrah gasped. “What are you? You’re so adorable.”
I froze. When I returned to my blank parchment on my table at my house to write my memoir, I would make it abundantly clear that I was not responsible for the creation of the Simmer, and that it was the result of an earthquake that had split the ground beneath the river and created a geothermal spring because there was liquid earth not far from the surface.
There was a whole underground river of the stuff, and it followed the same path as the stream, heating up the water for miles.
I would, however, take the blame for the reason that Farrah’s “you’re so adorable” struck fear in my heart.
Because this was the location where Dave and I had herded the troublemaking fire salamanders years ago.
This was their territory, and we had unknowingly encroached on it.
Maybe if I weren’t sleep deprived, I would have realized sooner, but it was too late now.
I ran to the flat area where Farrah stood in a bed of tall grasses and wildflowers, an ecosystem rife with bugs and small animals, perfect food for fire salamanders.
When I crested the incline, it was worse than I’d thought.
There wasn’t just one baby fire salamander staring at her with its big, filmy eyes, but two baby fire salamanders.
And where there were babies…
“Farrah,” I said calmly, staring at the two youngsters, who blinked adorably at her. They were bright red, about the size of small dogs, but much more dangerous. “Please back away.”
“But they’re so cute!”
They were cute—in this form. They were less cute when they grew to their adult size, which was frighteningly large, and, oh yeah, developed the ability to spit fire.
Fire salamanders were distant cousins of dragons, according to Dave—not ancients like him, but second beings, folklores.
They grew to about ten feet in length, including their tail, and were more vibrant in color—usually red with yellow or black markings.
They mostly inhabited places near still or slow-moving water and were drawn to warm locales, which was why they preferred the hot spring’s basin.
The Simmer itself couldn’t support life other than the fire salamanders, so they had to venture out to find sustenance.
They couldn’t fly like dragons, but they were amazing at climbing with their long, knobby toes.
Oh, and they flicked their elongated tongues to capture their prey, then rent its flesh with their sharp teeth, and did I mention that the mucus on their skin was toxic?
It was their natural defense from predators, though they wouldn’t find many now that most varieties of folklores had dwindled to a handful.
Aven jogged up and stopped at my shoulder. “Are those—”
“Yes,” I said, cutting them off. “Farrah, come on. We need to get across the rock before their mother appears.” I shoved Aven behind me and pointed toward the outcropping. “Go.”