Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
PHOENIX
Imarch through the forest without looking back.
Anger keeps me warm. It burns hot and bright in my chest, a living thing with claws and teeth. It feeds on humiliation and shame, the image of the dragon flying away from me without so much as a second glance.
My boots crush fallen leaves and twigs beneath me as I storm deeper between the trees, following the direction she took.
I move fast. Too fast, driven less by reason than by the need to put as much distance between me and the rejection at the feeding grounds as possible.
She didn’t choose me.
I grit my teeth and shove that thought aside. Just because she flew away doesn’t mean she rejected me. She didn’t, not truly. I approached her in the feeding grounds, like a fool.
Elder Arcon warned me not to. The trackers warned me. I knew the protocol, and yet…
I made a mistake. That’s all.
Mistakes can be corrected. It’s not too late.
The forest thickens around me, dense and old. The deeper I get, the quieter it becomes. Birdsong fades. Wind no longer stirs the branches overhead. Even the insects retreat into silence.
It feels as though the whole mountain range is holding its breath.
After awhile, the fire inside me starts to gutter.
I keep walking.
The path ahead of me disappears quickly beneath roots, moss, and uneven ground. My throat closes in. The trees crowd tighter together. Brambles catch on my trousers, scratching the leather. Low branches whip my face when I don’t duck in time.
No sign of the dragon. Barely any signs of what time of day it is.
When my breath turns ragged, I stop. My pulse pounds in my ears. I sweep the forest floor with my eyes, searching for something—anything. When I find no signs of life, a bitter taste fills my mouth.
I turn slowly, studying the trees. Have I lost my way? Got turned around in the forest?
There are no signs of a dragon.
I stand still for a few long breaths, surveying the forest around me. It’s quiet. Watching. But I don’t feel the same sense of odd dread I did last time.
Just in case, I poke the monster hiding inside my mind.
Are you planning on sabotaging my journey again? I ask Lorca directly.
At first, they don’t answer. But then, faint laughter rumbles in the darkest corners of my mind. A swish of a tail across my thoughts.
You’re fully capable of it yourself, Phoenix Wildarrow, Lorca purrs gently and retreats once more.
I grit my teeth.
Don’t give in to the provocation.
I close my eyes and draw a deep breath, centering myself.
When I open my eyes, I start walking. This time with more care. I pay attention to the shape of the land. The way the ground slopes. Which shrubs have been disturbed, and which haven’t.
The sun sinks lower.
My stomach begins to ache.
I ignore it all.
I need a sign.
By the time the sky above me dims, the heat of my anger is gone for good. What remains is a dull, grinding exhaustion and the cold realization that I have been walking for hours with no horse, no pack, and no plan for the night.
Shadows around me stretch long and strange between trunks. The mountain air has turned sharp enough to bite my skin.
I have my bow. My blades. A skin of water strapped to my hip. That’s all.
No blanket. No rations. No fur blankets. No fucking sense.
I close my eyes and exhale through my nose.
Great job, Phoenix, I scold myself.
I cast a quick glance around me, searching for somewhere to settle before the full dark falls. The ground is uneven, littered with stones and roots. Not ideal.
A little farther ahead, the land rises towards a ridge of rock jutting out from the earth like a broken tooth. When I approach, I see that beneath it, half-hidden by brush, is a shallow hollow.
Not quite a cave, more an overhang where the stone pushes outward enough to offer some shelter from wind and rain.
It will have to do.
I push through the undergrowth, duck beneath the rocky lip, and drop into a crouch. The space is cramped, but deep enough that I can curl up. The stone at my back is already cold.
I’m just about to step out again to go collect some dry branches and attempt to build a fire pit when it hits me.
I don’t have flint and steel with me.
Jax carried ours with him. He was the one to handle the fire pit every night.
Oh gods. I’m going to freeze to death with no fire or furs. Slowly, I sink against the stone and pull my knees into my chest.
Night falls fast in the mountains.
Once darkness settles in full, the forest changes again. Sounds carry farther. A crack of a twig in the distance makes my hand fly to my blade. Wind moving through the branches sounds like whispers.
But worse is the cold.
Gods, the cold.
Without the fur blankets or the warmth of Jax’s body, it seeps into me from every direction. Through my boots, my leathers. I sit with my knees drawn to my chest.
It’s as if my bones are made of ice.
I stare at the dark thicket and try not to think about the empty space beside me.
I greatly underestimated how much load Jax has been carrying all this time. While I was distracted, focused on the goal…he’s been practical.
He would have chosen a better camp before dusk instead of letting anger drag him blindly through the trees.
He would have noticed I left without supplies before I’d made it ten steps into the forest.
He always gathered more wood than we needed. He built fires that burned hot and long. He always made sure food appeared in my hands before I realized I was hungry.
My chest aches not because I miss him. It’s because I’m sitting here cold in the dark because I was careless and allowed my anger to cast aside an advantage.
As I shiver bad enough my teeth clatter, I hold on to that thought as tightly as I can.
When the night deepens, and the temperature drops further, there’s a moment where I slip. Half delirious, shivering so hard my teeth ache, I reach instinctively towards the empty stretch of ground beside me, seeking warmth that isn’t there.
My eyes snap open immediately.
A curse slips past my lips.
I pull away from the emptiness as if it has burned me and press my spine harder into the stone.
Get a fucking grip, I curse myself.
It’s my path to walk. I must deal with it.
There must be…must be a way to warm myself. I’m a Decarios, for fuck’s sake.
Desperately, I reach into the haze of memory, searching for old training from Wetra. Winter drills. Endurance trials in the northern passes. Long hours in the snow up to our knees while Dad barked at us to stop whining and master our own damn bodies.
A memory surfaces slowly, blurred by exhaustion.
Your breath is a weapon if you know how to wield it. Dad’s voice rings in my mind.
I sit up straighter beneath the stone overhang and force my stiff fingers to unclench. Then, I draw in one deep breath through my nose. Another. And another. Slow at first. Measured. I fill my lungs until my ribs ache, then let the air go in controlled bursts.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Nothing happens.
“Come on,” I mutter through clattering teeth.
I’ve mastered the blessed trinity!
Not by yourself, a dark voice whispers in my head.
I jerk, and push it away.
I try again.
Slowly, I drag the air in. Force it out. My head grows light. My fingertips tingle. The cold doesn’t leave, not completely, but after awhile something shifts deep inside me.
A faint ember catches beneath my ribs. I cling to it. Feed it with breath.
In. Out. In. Out.
By the time exhaustion drags at my eyelids, I’m still freezing but no longer convinced the mountain will kill me before dawn.
Sleep comes in scraps only. Short, restless stretches filled with jagged dreams.
Wings overhead. Golden eyes. Jax’s voice saying my name in that careful tone that only makes everything worse.
By the time pale dawn creeps through the trees, I feel like death.
Every joint in my body aches when I stand. My neck is stiff. My fingers clumsy from cold.
But I’m alive.
I didn’t freeze to death during the night.
I stamp life back into my legs and step out from beneath the overhang into the brittle morning air.
The forest glitters with frost. My stomach growls so violently it makes me wince. If I’m going to keep moving, I need real food.
Meditation overnight cost me more than I care to admit.
With a sigh, I sling my bow over my shoulder and head out. I’m a lousy hunter, but…I search for tracks. I never thought Dad bringing us hunting every spring would ever come in handy.
From what I remember, rabbits leave neat little prints in soft earth and mud, paired and light. Droppings. Nibbled bark. Paths through low grass.
It takes me some time, but eventually I find what I’m looking for near a strand of bush where the ground is softer.
I crouch low and wait.
The cold bites through my trousers. My breath fogs in front of me. A muscle in my shoulder starts to cramp from holding my bow.
But I ignore the discomfort and wait.
When I’m just about to give up, the damn rabbit appears. Small. Brown. Quick.
I draw the arrow.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Let go.
The arrow pierces the air in a heartbeat and lands true right in the rabbit’s side. It didn’t even have the time to bolt.
A grim kind of triumph settles over me.
The memories from my very last mission as a cadet surge to the front of the mind.
The crowd cheers. There’s the scent of blood and violence in the air as I draw the arrows, one by one. All landing true in those poor faes’ flesh.
Oh, the adrenaline that courses through me when my bow finally reveals its name…
I blink the memories away and shake my head.
Slowly, I retrieve the rabbit by the hind legs and carry it back to my camp. That’s where I’m faced with my first problem.
Killing the rabbit is one thing.
Turning it into food? That’s a different matter altogether.
I kneel by the dead rabbit and stare at it longer than I should. Its fur is still warm. One glassy eye stares blankly at the ground.
It feels wrong to hunt here in Ekios, where they don’t consume animal products.
My knife feels too large in my hand.