CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #3
Wits recovered, her nostrils flared. “The forest has marked her. Something wants her. I’ve done what I could for her.
She’s with a friend of mine, a hunter from Preule.
Perrine. They’re already making plans to abscond across the border together.
And if she’s smart, she’ll be quick about it.
” She paused, gazing thoughtfully at the trees.
“It’s defending itself. I think it may loosen its grip if they give up. ”
He sensed their own time together was running short.
She was initially relieved to see him because she thought he had her things; now she knew he didn’t, he was worth less to her than if he had been a rabbit caught in the snare.
She had no interest in staying with him.
And why should she? He had nothing to offer.
Laughably, he realized he’d hoped she would be at least mildly impressed by his misguided attempt at heroism. But abject failure wasn’t very impressive, was it? She couldn’t think less of him if he’d tried – and he had tried.
Then he’d gotten what he wanted after all.
“The others,” he said carefully. “Most of them went back to ?bender. The ones left are desperate and will have an easier time tracking you than tracking the bird. Do you understand me?”
She did. Her eyebrows rose in a challenge. “I’m not afraid of them.”
“You should be,” he said, turning to go. As he did, she looked sharply away, pulling her braid over her shoulder, toying nervously with the end, and he hesitated.
Something was different; she had changed. More than the dullness of her eyes, the shine of her skin – a hollow desperation that hadn’t been there before. Automatically, he reached for his pen, though something told him it was futile. “Anya. Something’s happened.”
Like a bowstring, she snapped. “I didn’t touch your little friend, alright? Though the seven skies know she deserves it. The whole rotten lot of you do.”
Startled, he started to form a response, but at the sound of her rising voice, something moved in the distant undergrowth behind her.
He froze, staring. “Anya.”
She froze as well, eyes wide. “What?”
“You said the phoenix would be miles away,” he said, voice low.
“Yes.”
“Then what is that?”
Slowly, she turned to where he stared. A bird, the size and shape of a pheasant, but glistening, glorious, like a sunrise.
Without speaking, she reached over her shoulder for her quiver, running her fingers along the end of each arrow before pulling one free. She chose the arrow with the X carved into the end of the shaft. He saw that the arrowhead was covered in strange markings. Markings like glyphs.
She nocked it, pulled the bowstring, aimed straight for the bird, all almost too quick for him to follow. But just as she was about to release the arrow, he slammed into her shoulder with his. The arrow flew a few feet forward, lodging into the dirt.
Startled by the noise, the bird took off at a brisk run.
Anya let out a strangled cry and ducked for her arrow. Hoping she wouldn’t turn around and shoot him in the back, Sy chased after the bird.
It was fast, much faster than him, darting over familiar terrain with ease while he could barely avoid tripping over his own feet. And he was quickly winded, especially with the pack on his back. He ignored the impulse to drop it.
With every step, a stab of pain shot through his left ankle. He would never catch up to it. He had nothing to capture it with. But he couldn’t let it out of his sight. He would run as far as he had to.
If Anya didn’t kill it, or him, first. It wasn’t long before he heard her light step behind him. He sped up, eyes trained on the bird’s bright yellow spotted neck, its ruby breast, its orange tail feathers gleaming with hints of green and violet in the sun.
Then, before his eyes, the bird disappeared.
In an instant, he recalled something Anya had said about pheasant. I’ve even seen one dive into a rabbit’s burrow.
“Wait,” she cried from behind him, but he ignored her.
He reached the rough area it had vanished and scanned the ground frantically.
There, beneath a dead, silvery birch, split down the middle and blackened by lightning, its branches sharp and pointed as thorns, was a small, narrow divot.
He sprawled onto the ground, and, ignoring his instinctual fear, plunged his hand into the dark hole, feeling for feathers or a scaly leg.
It could be nowhere else, but it was not there.
Desperate, he dug, feeling dirt under his fingernails, but only dirt.
He dug, and the hole widened, deepened. Too wide, too deep to be sensible. No rabbit nested here.
As the realization hit him, he fell.
He felt a grip on his hurt ankle, and winced. With every breath, he slipped further into the dark, but Anya held him steady. She tried pulling him up, but he was too heavy, sunk too deep. Her weight on the edge widened the hole further.
It fell out from under her. With dirt crumbling and rocks crashing all around them, they both fell headlong underground.