Chapter 9 The Search
Three days later, we enter the strip of land near the Philostian border where Marton claims the mysterious winged creature has been spotted.
We fly for a stretch, tracing the border south, but there's nothing large to be seen in the air except for me and Vakh.
To our right, the darker, thicker forest marking Ithyma's border with Philostia looms like a shadow.
When we land in a shallow gulley to make camp for the night, Vakh eyes the forest with trepidation.
"What is it?" I ask the boys, because Marton has a thoughtful look on his face as he observes the forest as well.
"That's the outskirts of the Werewood Forest," says Vakh, with tension bracketing his mouth.
"The ancestral home of the Lycan. Even before the rule of protectorkin ended, most of the wendigo and jackals lived there.
It was the wargs alone who safeguarded the Philostian throne.
"
"And the jackals and wendigo are.
..bad?" I can't keep up with which monsters are secretly nice and which are not.
Vakh shrugs. "That's like asking if all humans are bad.
" He glances at Marton and Cherry before focusing on me.
"They're all different. But...the wendigo and jackals who lived in the Werewood—my people say they made less of an effort at being civilized than almost any other group of the kin.
"
"There are lots of legends about the Werewood," Marton agrees, his gaze fixed on the massive redwood trees that rise from its depths.
"It's called the Crimson Forest now, by most people in Philostia—for the color of its trees, they say.
But some still whisper of the blood that has been shed there over the centuries.
"
A shiver walks up my back as I look out at that shadowed mass, but Cherry just sighs in exasperation.
"It's like having the world's most melancholy tour guides," she says to me in a conspiratorial whisper.
I make myself smile back at her, but my thoughts are far from true lightness.
How is it that Cherry can be so uninterested in legendary monsters when she's lived her life with one—and is looking for another to marry even now?
Then again, maybe that is why she cares so little.
She's met the monsters, and they're the ones who raised her.
What's one or two or even a dozen more monsters to her?
Still, they're something to me.
Proof that I am not the only thing like me in existence.
Proof that the world is wider and more complex than I have ever imagined.
Dark clouds have been gathering in the sky above us for hours now, and as we ready for bed, the skies finally open up with a deluge of rain.
Vakhrin and Marton both have tarps in their packs, being more prepared for travel than Cherry and I were when we left our tower.
We prop the tarps on branches and sticks we were saving for use as firewood and take shelter underneath.
Vakhrin is the only one with a tent, and it's not large enough for the four of us, so none of us will get any sleep until the rain is through.
As the minutes pass, the storm shows no sign of stopping.
The rain only increases, threatening to flood our gulley, and thunder and lightning join the fray to rattle the land around us.
We huddle together in the darkness, and Cherry begins to tremble where she leans against my side.
I think at first she's shivering from the cold of the rain, but I belatedly remember her childhood fears.
When we first came to our new home in the ruins of the old castle, the very first night we spent in the tower, there was a thunderstorm that seemed to shake the very foundations of the stone structure beneath us.
Pitted and broken as the castle was, the wind whistled terribly through its halls, and every boom of thunder echoed and cracked as if it would bring the tower down.
Cherry screamed at every burst of thunder, cried at the screeching of the wind, and made herself sick with panic throughout the night.
I did all I could to comfort her, patting her awkwardly and trying to say soothing things.
But I was a young girl myself then and unused to the ways of nurturing.
All my confident assurances that the castle was strong and had stood for thousands of years did nothing to ease her, and I was at a loss.
It took me months to understand rational discussion was not what she needed.
It happened by accident one night when an especially close blast of lightning crackled outside our window.
Cherry leapt into my arms in fright, crying out, and I held her to me on instinct.
That was the first night she had ever slept peacefully through a thunderstorm.
Now my arms go around her with the ease of old practice, and Cherry leans her head against my shoulder—though she's far taller than I am now, and has to bend ridiculously to reach it.
The lightning strobes outside, illuminating the faces of our companions in a hectic silver glow.
The rain eases before the thunder, but a light drizzle still falls, and we don't move.
But we can hear each other breathing now.
"Tell me a story," Cherry whispers against me.
This is another thing we used to do on stormy nights when she couldn't sleep.
In the low light, I'm very aware of the boys nearby, watching us.
Not a very imaginative person by nature, all fiction now flees from me, and I have nothing to share that might soothe my friend.
Not a fan of horror stories or sadness of any kind, Cherry has always liked tales filled with adventure and romance.
"Um," I say, "what about the one with the princess and the pirate?
"
Cherry pinches my side indignantly.
"I meant a new story."
"Ow," I mutter.
If Cherry were actually strong enough to hurt me, I would have been forced to toss her out a high window as a child.
She was always pinching me then, any time I did anything she didn't like.
"You start one," I suggest.
Cherry sighs.
"Once upon a time," she whispers into the darkness, voice dropping low with seriousness, "there was a princess who lived in a tower, guarded by a brave and noble dragon.
"
"Not that one," I say automatically.
Because that's no story at all. That's the life we spent so many years trying to pretend away with stories.
Cherry continues as if I haven't spoken.
"The princess's father, the king, had locked his daughter away in the dark.
For her own protection, he said. For years, the princess and the dragon lived in solitude together, playing games and telling stories to pass the time.
Then one day, the danger arrived."
"Cherry," I warn, tensing unconsciously at what I know is coming.
"A man came to the bottom of the tower.
A cruel and terrible man, who wanted to carry the princess away and hurt her.
But the princess's dragon protector was there, fiercer and braver than any man has ever been.
When the man drew his sword on her, the dragon snapped his head off with a single bight, and the princess was safe again.
"
My breathing is ragged in the silence, embarrassing and painful.
I don't want to hear this. It's bad enough that I have to remember it.
"For months and years, the men came, one man after another, sometimes a dozen men together.
They all wanted the same thing, to slay the dragon and steal the princess for themselves.
But they didn't really care about her.
They just wanted what the king had promised—to any man who was strong enough to fend off the dragon and bring his daughter home.
The throne to the entire kingdom.
"Only the dragon really cared," whispers Cherry, and I don't think I'm breathing at all anymore.
"Although it began as an act of duty, because the dragon had sworn to protect the princess from all threats, it became an act of love.
Because the princess was the dragon's very best friend, and the dragon was the princess's.
That's why the dragon killed for her, and that's why the princess never tried to leave the tower.
"But it was all a lie," Cherry says softly.
"For the king had engineered the danger against his own daughter.
He had sent her away with the dragon, and then sent men after them to bring her back.
To kill the princess's only friend.
For years, the princess and the dragon lived in their tower, not knowing the tales that were spread about them throughout the realm.
Not until the day a young scholar showed up—a student of ancient magic, who wanted to see the dragon instead of slay her.
When he realized the dragon could speak, he told her of the king's true plans.
And the decade-old spell was broken. The princess and the dragon were free from their tower, and could go anywhere in the land that they wanted.
"Unfortunately," Cherry's voice goes suddenly wry, "they had only two extremely gloomy boys for company, who wanted to look at old, dark forests and discuss blood and sinister monsters instead of taking the girls somewhere nice—like, say, a beautiful estate full of rose gardens or a house made of strawberry candy.
"
I wheeze out a slightly hysterical laugh—amused, despite everything, by this very light ending to such a heavy tale—and clap a hand over Cherry's mouth to prevent anything more along this vein.
Vakhrin is frowning on the other side of our lean-to, and Marton's eyes are wide where they reflect the moonlight. I wonder what they are thinking.