Chapter 9.5 The Search
The rain has faded to nothing outside, but no one moves to get up.
"You truly lived in a tower," Vakhrin finally breaks the silence, "for years?
"
"Eight years," Cherry whispers, prying my fingers from her mouth.
I let her. "Almost nine. Almost more years inside the tower than I spent without.
"
"And you," says Vakhrin.
I don't look up, but I think from his tone that he is speaking to me.
"You truly killed men—dozens of them—who came to claim the princess as a prize?
"
"Fifty-seven," I croak.
I don't look at anyone as I say it, keeping my eyes on the damp grass, and I hope that no one can see me in the darkness.
I could never admit this in the light of day.
"There were—fifty-seven—men." Every word is an effort to get out, as if they are shards of glass being pulled from the gristle of my heart.
There is so much blood in my memories.
Cherry falls still beside me, not even breathing.
I have never given her a number, and I do not think she ever tried to keep count.
Abruptly, her fingers tighten where they rest against the sleeve of my gown, as if she must hold on to keep me from slipping away.
Vakhrin swears softly, and then louder, more colorfully.
"Your king did that—to his own men?"
"He wants the dragon blood in his line renewed.
" My reply is perfunctory, and tastes almost like a lie.
It does not seem a good enough reason, not for all the lives it cost. We all know that, but it is all the explanation we have.
"He must be very desperate," Vakhrin states.
"There must be something—some threat, some reason why fifty-seven lives seemed a worthy exchange to gain a dragon husband for his daughter.
"
"Perhaps," says Marton thoughtfully, "he is just very selfish. "
The next day, we're on the move again, patrolling the skies for signs of a fellow winged beast—while carefully avoiding areas of human habitation where the sight of us, winged beasts that we are, might contribute to the existing legend.
We fly throughout the day, reaching the wide lake to the south that marks the end of the territory in which sightings of the creature have been reported.
With an hour or two of daylight left, we turn back to make the circuit again.
Still, there is nothing.
For four days we fly in an endless loop throughout the area, sometimes splitting up, Vakhrin going one way and I another.
Sometimes we leave the humans on the ground so we can fly and search for longer without tiring.
Once, Marton even rides on Vakhrin's back and Cherry on mine, but the boys return to our temporary camp with Marton wincing and Vakh in a foul mood, muttering about Marton pulling his fur.
Marton confides to me later that Vakh's flying was erratic and wobbly—probably unused to carrying a human's weight.
Marton was forced to hold on for dear life.
I smother my laughter behind my hand, but Vakh glares daggers at me anyway, as if he knows exactly what we're saying.
I wonder how keen his hearing is, and if it's better than my own.
The next day, Cherry demands to take her turn riding with the manticore. Her logic is simple: anything that Marton gets to do, she should be able to do as well.
I'm disturbed. Uncomfortable at the thought of Vakh's unsteady flying, the weakness of Cherry's arms, the thought of being separated from her.
The whole idea seems terrible to me, and I find myself hoping that Vakh will refuse her on principle.
He seems to take perverse pleasure in being able to refuse Cherry the things that she wants.
He's prickly by nature, and she's demanding, so it isn't a surprising intermingling of their two characters for them to be always at odds.
Which is why I'm surprised when Vakhrin easily agrees to let Cherry ride on his back.
"I—Wait!" I say without thinking, stepping almost between them.
They both look at me in surprise. I fix my eyes on Vakhrin, and I feel my pupils contract into slits as I try to peer into the contents of his soul.
I just end up getting a close-up view of his pores.
"Are you sure you can handle this, manticore?
" My voice comes out deep and growly. More beast than girl.
Vakhrin narrows his eyes at me, and something about the way he holds himself makes me feel as if his tail would be lashing if he had one in this form. "You didn't seem to have a problem with me carrying the scholar yesterday."
"That's different." I poke him in the chest, and his eyes flare, twin silver blades. "This is Cherry we're talking about. The princess. My princess. If she comes back with so much as a scratch, I'll rip your tail off and beat you to death with it."
Vakhrin's mouth tightens, and he flicks my hand away. "Don't make threats you can't carry out, dragon."
I snarl from down low, and Marton and Cherry both stare, Marton with a spoon of porridge halfway to his mouth. We purchased a few dry rations in town a few days ago, and the wheat porridge—which was an unfortunate staple of my impoverished youth—is like gold to us now.
Vakhrin blows out a breath, his defensive stance and eyes softening all at once. He looks at me with something akin to sympathy. "I'll bring her back in one piece. You have my word. I'll protect her."
I almost believe him. I'm not very good at this trust thing yet, but I'm trying.
"See that you do." My hands and elbows feel funny again.
Vakhrin and Cherry take off not long after that, and I watch them go in a welter of anxiety. Marton sets his empty bowl aside and stands beside me. He nudges me with his shoulder. "You did well."
"What do you mean?" I'm too distracted to focus much on his words or expression.
"You let her go with him. That's...healthy. That's normal friend stuff."
"I'm getting really sick of the word 'normal'," I grumble.
That makes him laugh. "I don't think 'normal' is a thing you have to worry about too much. You're not anywhere close to it."
I frown at him, wondering if I should be offended, but his eyes are bright and warm. I feel a reluctant softening in my chest, although I want to be annoyed by his hovering. "I don't—I don't like being apart from her. It doesn't feel...safe."
"I know." He glances down. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to push you away from you friend. I just want you to be okay. To be...happy. No matter what the future holds."
"And what do you think it will hold?" I feel a little sick, not really wanting an answer. He's repeatedly indicated that he envisions—for some reason—a future in which I'm apart from the princess.
Marton exhales roughly. "I think it will hold whatever you want it to. Whatever you decide it will. And I hope you'll keep your options open. That you'll choose what you want for yourself, and not what anyone else decides for you."
"What does your future hold?" I ask. "After all of this," I twirl a finger around our makeshift campsite, "do you go back to the Academy?"
Now he laughs, the sound more anxious than humorous.
"I don't know if I could go back, after everything.
.." Marton trails off, face darkening in a way I don't fully understand.
After a long moment, he starts again, "It would never be the same, anyway, studying about legends in books, after walking among them.
" A wry smile pulls at his mouth, and his gaze is fixed on the ever-present line of the Werewood Forest to the west.
A sudden light comes on in his eyes, and he turns quickly to me. "I think we've been doing this wrong."
"Doing...what?"
He flings an arm out towards the tangle of redwoods.
"Right there is the widest swath of unoccupied land—unoccupied by humans, that is—in probably all of the realm.
The legends say that it's the home of the Lycan, and it was for generations.
But the trees are too wide and thick to cut down, the land too wild to tame, and full of too many fell legends for anyone to want to venture into its depths for long.
So humans have never settled there. After the protectorkin scattered to the winds—as Vakhrin claims they did, hiding from persecution by humans—what better place to settle than a place where humans never go? "
"But we're not looking for Lycan—"
"That's what I mean!" cries Marton excitably.
"We've been thinking of the Werewood as the home of the Lycan, because in the old stories it was.
But these are new days, and there have been sightings of a large winged beast in this area, not fifty yards from the forest. Yet we've been flying up and down the same stretch for days, and we've seen no sign of it.
So what if it was only seen in this area a few times—because its true home is there," he points, "in the Werewood Forest? "
"You...want to go in there?" I'm surprised, though I don't know why. This is the same man who left his safe, cushy home among the books and globes to cross a nation, scale a mountain, and confront a dragon. "Into the Werewood Forest?"
Marton grins like a fiend.