Chapter 11.5 The Wyverns
Once I'm covered, I make our own introductions.
"My name is Tarah. These are my companions.
Marton, Vakh, Cherry." I indicate them each briefly as I speak, not wanting to draw especial attention to any of them.
I use nicknames instead of full names for Vakhrin and Cherry, so as not to give anything away, and sandwich Vakh's introduction in the middle so he seems less interesting.
I note with some alarm that more than one wyvern gaze seems to fix on Cherry with interest. I tell myself this is because of the way Vakhrin seemed protective of her earlier—and was carrying her when we ran into them.
It is not because they've heard the tale of the Ithymian princess held captive by a dragon.
They're just interested in what makes us watch out for her.
Maybe they haven't met many of the kin who associate with humans.
Grimacing at the quagmire of my thoughts, I turn my attention back to the niceties.
"My companions and I are just passing through the wood on our way to Philostia.
We didn't look to run across anyone else today.
" Lie, lie, lie, and I don't even know why I'm lying.
How hard would it be to admit that I'm looking for more of my own kind?
Would a wyvern do for the dragon line of Ithyma, I wonder? Can it simply be any Dragomira who continues the line of protectors, or does it have to be a dragon?
Either way, something in me shies from revealing the truth to these people.
I know I've slipped up when Inobar frowns. "Why do you travel on foot? Surely carrying three should not be a difficult feat for you?"
"We were looking for a place to make camp for the night," I say quickly. Maybe too quickly.
So lying isn't a strong suit of mine, I'm realizing. And what a hell of a time to be realizing it.
"The woods are not safe for humans," says Besana with a concerned crease to her forehead. "The Lycan are thick throughout the forest. Even more so on the western side of the valley." She looks over her shoulder at the other end of the clearing, in the direction we were bound.
Marton's eyes light with excitement at mention of the Lycan, but I keep him silent by speaking before he can. "The Lycan? How interesting. I had heard they still dwelled in the Werewood, but I have never seen them for myself."
Edythe regards me with open amazement. "Never seen them—! Have you never visited the Werewood before?"
Wondering what I'm giving away by the admission, I shake my head no.
"Then you must be an Ithymian native," Inobar observes, "and all the forest is Philostian territory by name, though it belongs to our kind in truth.
Lycan and Dragomira both. But you have spent most of your time around humans, so you did not know that?
" There is a sinister tilt to his smile that I tell myself I am imagining.
"No, I did not know that."
"And how have you stayed hidden from discovery all this time?"
We are veering dangerously close to the territory I most want to avoid, so I voice the first lie I can think of. "I have kept to wooded areas and rundown villages mostly. Places with small populations, where there was little chance of being seen at all."
"Yet you made such kind human friends," Inobar eyes them as he speaks, "who know what you are, and do not seem afraid."
I clear my throat to buy myself some time to speak.
Decide on the lesser evil of my possible truths, mixed with bald lies.
"Marton is Philostian born. A student of a school there that studies ancient legends.
He came to Ithyma on purpose to visit some historical sites, and met Cherry and Vakh along the way.
I ran into them further south, and they saw my dragon form by accident.
But when I shifted back, they were not afraid, and I eventually offered to escort them all back across the border.
They are going home to visit Marton's family for the holidays, and thought it would be quicker to pass through the forest, since they had a dragon to guard them. "
I know my lie has landed successfully when Inobar and Edythe's eyes seem glazing with boredom by the end of my speech. It is convincing enough to cast off suspicion, and convoluted enough to repel further questioning.
Besana gives our group a pleasant smile.
"Well, you are all welcome to make camp with us tonight, for added protection.
And in the morning when you set out, you should try and fly as much of the way as you can.
In the future," her smile melts slightly, "it would be better not to bring humans into these woods at all. "
I can't decide if that is a blatant threat or not, but something in me shivers all the same. Because I did bring my nearly defenses human friends here, into great danger. Never mind that I have Vakhrin to help me protect them. It was a reckless move at best.
"Thank you for the kind advice," I mumble.
We make camp in uneasy silence. My friends seem reluctant to speak, for which I can only be gratefully, although it does not make us look exactly innocent. Perhaps the wyverns will just assume it is a human sort of caution around monsters.
For their own part, the wyverns seem perfectly at ease, chatting quietly over menial tasks as they spread out blankets and skin a doe Edythe hunted, Besana butchering it with practiced movements of her claws. When Inobar crouches to light the fire with flint and stone, I can't help but stare.
He catches me looking and gives a dry smile. "Wyverns do not breath fire as dragons do. I supposed you have not met many of our kind, either?"
I mutely shake my head, cursing myself for a fool at the same time. I need to stop giving away things that make me seem odd and conspicuous. I need to seem more like a dragon, and less like a girl who has been living in a tower for the past eight years.
But...maybe that does not matter? If all of the stories about me make me seem like a grown up dragon man who stole a princess for love, maybe they would not make the connection.
Or maybe the story told about me among other Dragomira, if there is such a story at all, is different than the one the humans tell each other.
There is too much I do not know, and no good way to find it out.
If I could only bring myself to trust these people...
We are slow breaking camp the next day. The wyverns invite us to stay for breakfast, and I can think of no casual way to refuse.
And breakfast, for them, means hunting and meat—and additional delays.
I watched them devour an entire deer last night, after my friends and I had eaten our fill.
Edythe accounted for it with a merry laugh.
"But you should eat more, little dragon.
You know, of course, that a Dragomira's appetite is never satisfied?
The more you eat, the bigger your dragon form will grow.
" She winked at me.
I pressed a hand to my stomach that suddenly felt hollow.
In my mind, I recalled my mother's horrified face as she watched me devour an entire roast chicken that had been meant to feed us for a week.
"You'll eat me out of house and home," had been her half-joking, half-grim adage, repeating multiple times each month.
Since then, I had always been careful to eat no more than a human hunger would require, and I had grown used to never feeling exactly full.
Even in the tower with Cherry, I had restrained myself, hunting in my dragon form but eating in my human one.
By the fire last night, Besana had smiled kindly and offered me an entire haunch of deer.
I had accepted it with hesitancy, but a rumble of my stomach decided me.
I felt Marton and Cherry watching me with something like worry, but I dug in anyway, deciding that so long as I was among my own kind, I could act a bit more dragonish than usual.
When I met Marton's eyes later, he was still watching me with a delicate crease in his forehead, but I hadn't been able to discern exactly what he was worried about.
That I would turn into a mindlessly devouring beast?
Or that I had been going hungry all this time?
This morning, I take the first opportunity I can—while Inobar and Besana are out hunting, and Edythe is noisily sharpening her claws on a boulder deeper in the meadow—of conferencing with my friends.
I particularly want to talk to Vakhrin, and I manage to catch him alone near our sleeping area, where he's bundling bedding into neat rolls.
He glances up at me with attentiveness, and I take a sweep of our surroundings.
No wyverns nearby. Cherry is sewing irritably in a hassock of meadow grass, while Marton studies wildflowers with what I can only assume is scholarly interest. As I watch, he breaks off the head of a purple flower and pops it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
Shaking my head in bemusement, I drag my gaze away and say in a low voice to Vakh, "Do your senses tell you anything about our new friends?
" I want to know if there's a possibility of confiding in them, of seeking their help in our quest. It feels a waste to leave without at least getting further information about where we might find dragons in the area.
Vakh's face tightens in a near wince, and he shakes his head.
"My senses only tell me the same thing about them that I—" He breaks off, looking at my face and then away.
"The same thing that I felt when I met you.
" He says it to the ground, and I instantly infer that what he sensed was not good.
My stomach tightens.
"And what was that?"
Vakh takes a deep breath, eyeing me as if wondering if he should answer.
Finally, he shrugs stiffly. "My senses told me then that there was something.
..bad about you. Something wrong. Untrustworthy.
" Another wince. "That is what I sense now.
But, having spent time around you, gotten to know you, I do not rely too much on the feeling.
"
My throat seems to fill with smoke, but I take deep breaths to dispel it, not letting any sign of it escape.
"Why did you take the chance of trusting me then?
" I have to ask, my voice a little tighter than I mean for it to be.
Vakhrin frowns down at the bedroll in his hands.
"You were travelling with two humans. Protecting them.
I haven't heard of any of our kind doing that since the protectorkin's reign ended hundreds of years ago.
I thought...you couldn't be so bad, if you were doing something of so little benefit to yourself.
And then you helped me..." With his grandfather, I understand he means, though he cannot bring himself to say it.
Another shrug. "It was just a feeling, a response to what you.
..are—not who you are—that made me wary of you.
"
"So you think it's possible that we can trust the wyverns?
"
Vakhrin stands, shouldering the bedding as he goes to stow it in our packs.
His eyes flick to me. "Do you think it's possible?
"
I huff. "I don't know.
That's why I was asking you. I thought I sensed.
..something. Maybe the same thing you described.
They seemed a little...strange to me." Strange is not the right word.
But I can't bring myself to malign my own kind by calling them creepy or unnerving.
"Then we move on," says Vakh easily.
"We keep searching for dragons our way."
"But that could take months, wandering the realm from one site to the next, chasing down Marton's legends.
"
"Not necessarily." Vakhrin considers it.
"The wyverns did say that the Werewood belonged to Lycan and Dragomira now.
If we're going to find dragons anywhere, this seems the place for it.
"
"But Cherry. And Marton.
Humans aren't safe here. Besana said so.
" And in a highly unsettling way, too. "I don't know if we should be tramping through the Werewood with them.
There are so many ways they could be in danger.
"
"There is danger anywhere," Vakh counters.
"And especially anywhere clouded with legends of monster sightings and mysterious killings and disappearances.
Chasing down those stories hardly seems a way of keeping your friends safe, or of finding a suitable husband for Shiree—for Cherry.
" I grimace at his slip-up, glancing around to ensure that no one's heard.
But Edythe is still leagues away in the meadow, and Besana and Inobar are nowhere to be seen.
I sigh. "But if we're going to keep searching in the Werewood anyway, it seems counterintuitive not to gather more information from the wyverns.
We could run into them again at some point, and then they'll be really suspicious about why we lied to them.
"
"So we ask them," Vakh concludes.
"You can tell them the same story you told me at first. That you're looking for more of your own kind.
Make it sound unrelated to the agreement you've made to escort us humans"—a sardonic smile—"through the forest to Philostia.
Say you plan to circle back once you've seen us safely through, and you're wondering where you might find an encampment of dragons.
"
I think on it. Could it really be that easy?
Would the wyverns see through my lie? And what if we did run into them again within the forest?
How would they react to being lied to? In what ways would they be interested in my human friends then?
"I'm going to ask Marton and Cherry what they think we should do," I decide.
"Good luck with that.
" Vakhrin's smile is layered, and I don't try to decipher it.