Chapter 24 #2
Aric’s horse whined, hooves shuffling in agitation, as the predator silently slinked forward.
Intelligent eyes danced over us, razor sharp teeth peeking through an open maw.
Harthon urged his reluctant horse beside Aric and Conrad, putting three beasts and three men before the lone wolf. It paused, one paw curled in the air.
Its gaze stopped on me.
Harthon inched forward, but the animal didn’t retreat—didn’t even spare him a look. It just watched me like that seabird had, like it could see within me to the warmth behind my ribs.
It was a crazy thought.
Absolutely insane.
This was an animal. One we should be killing to eat. Or killing before it ate us.
But before I knew the path, there had been no butterflies landing on my lap, no birds perched in front of me like I was their friend, no wolves facing a pack of humans and horses just to stare at me.
Harthon palmed a dagger.
“Don’t,” I blurted.
The wolf’s ear twitched. Harthon didn’t release the blade, but didn’t sheathe it either. “Why?” he asked.
“I don’t…I don’t think it’s here to kill us.”
“You do realize that we are food, and that saliva is dripping from its mouth,” Aric deadpanned.
He said it like I was daft. Maybe I was. But it didn’t feel like the animal was here to hurt us, and to take its life when so much death surrounded us—the thought made the back of my throat thick.
Following instinct, I swung down from my horse.
“Etarla, get back on that horse,” Harthon demanded, peeling his eyes away from the animal to spear me with warning. “Now.”
Ignoring his threat, I stepped forward. “I will. After I show you that it isn’t here to eat us.” My voice might have wobbled with fear, because I was a human who didn’t want to be torn apart by a starved predator, but I didn’t stop.
“Etarla.” With a curse, he glanced at the wolf, which still hadn’t moved, before jumping down.
“I know this doesn’t make sense—”
He snatched my arm. “Get back on the—”
The animal growled.
We froze. Well, I did. Harthon yanked me behind his body. The wolf’s paw landed on the ground, hind legs bunching.
I gripped Harthon’s arm. “It thinks you’re threatening me.”
“It’s a starved wild animal.”
“Harthon, please, just trust me.”
“Fucking crazy,” an unfamiliar voice muttered. Conrad.
Harthon waited for the wolf to spring. A breeze rustled the dead branches overhead, but the sound didn’t trigger the animal. It only watched.
It was no small effort for Harthon to peel his fingers off my arm. “You get three steps forward—small ones, and that is all.”
A quip about his controlling tendencies almost came out of my mouth. Almost. I was approaching an emaciated, pissed-off animal, a few of which had attacked us just weeks ago. I’d be snatching my arm, too.
The wolf relaxed as I edged around Harthon.
I took one careful step, then two. On my third, the wolf sedately sat on its hind legs.
“What is it doing?” Aric asked, still gripping his sword.
A damn good question. “Waiting?”
One of Harthon’s hands landed on my waist like he was ready to whisk me away. “Could it be a trap? A distraction from some clan here.”
Aric quickly dispelled the thought. “I doubt it. We aren’t close enough to First.”
“I thought you said there was no game in your Territory,” I pointed out.
“There isn’t,” he confirmed. “Which makes this even stranger than it already is.”
Unease poured from Harthon in waves, but as I regarded the wolf, sitting so calmly, I couldn’t find it in myself to feel the same way.
“I’m going to say something that sounds crazy.” The wolf cocked its head, as if daring me to follow through. “I…” Are you sure you want to say this? “I think it knows.”
“Knows what?” Harthon asked quietly.
I swallowed, shaking my head at the impossibility. “I think it knows that I can access the Domus and the resources there. I think maybe…maybe other parts of the natural world can sense it, too.”
When I voiced it aloud, it sounded so much crazier than I was anticipating. And I’d already been anticipating a lot of crazy. The responding silence to my claim just made it worse.
But then Harthon spoke. “Going to need more information than that, carella.”
He might not believe me, but he wasn’t laughing in my face, either. It was encouragement enough.
With a deep breath, I gave voice to the wild thoughts that’d been forming at the edges of my mind for two weeks now. Thoughts I’d been ignoring because they were outlandish, but were now teetering into possibility.
“Before I came across the magvis, the only encounters I had with this land and these animals were hostile. Animals have always run, seeing me as their hunter, and this land has only ever made my life more difficult.” I waved my hand, spitting out the rest of it.
“But now I’ve stood before a line of seabirds on a ship.
The seas got us here quicker because they were favorable, and you said they’re never that way.
The sun has made a number of appearances.
Back when I escaped Koerlyn, I survived river rapids and a waterfall far too easily.
That vine held against my attacker in the Citadel, when it should have snapped.
” A deeper memory resurfaced. “And before all that, when we came across that pack of wolves after visiting Josenne, the wolf I killed could have attacked me, but it hesitated.”
I finally summoned the courage to drag my gaze away from the animal and gauge the two men’s reactions. Aric’s face was thoughtful, while Harthon was staring at that wolf, his expression undecided.
“It sounds just as impossible to me as it does to you,” I murmured, needing them to know I hadn’t entirely lost my mind.
Harthon’s fingers gently squeezed my waist and fell away. “Not impossible.” After another beat, he asked, “Are you doing it intentionally?”
My shoulders relaxed. “No. As with everything else, it’s just happening.”
It was Joris who spoke next, breaking his typical silence. “It isn’t just that the seas and the animals know. It’s almost like they want you to get there. Like they want you to help them,” he mused.
That was where my thoughts were going. When he said it, though, a new problem came to light. “But the Domus’ resources aren’t going to restore the land. Those walls will keep sucking life from the Territories. What we find inside will just help us survive for longer.”
“This is true,” he conceded, perplexed.
“The reason behind it changes nothing,” Harthon decided. “You can’t control whatever this is, so it can’t be used as an advantage. We may get lucky and have some help in First if we take a ride down any rivers, but we can’t count on it.”
Everyone but Aric nodded in agreement.
“The magvis has always had the ability to manipulate the natural world, which means she’s always had a relationship with it,” he stated slowly, eyes still riveted to the wolf.
“Thing is, my father met a magvis once. His horse nearly went feral because it was terrified.” He spared us a glance.
“Any relationship she had with the animals in this land was based on fear, not whatever you think this is.”
In other words, we were foolish to think these were anything more than coincidences.
Maybe we were.
Lips in a flat line, he nodded at my horse. “Regardless, you need to mount. We can’t afford to waste time standing here. Let’s move.” He sheathed his sword and drew a dagger.
I jerked toward him. “You aren’t throwing that.”
“I’m not allowing a predator to stalk us.”
“And I’m not allowing you to kill it.”
He loaded his arm. “Sorry, love.”
“You need to remember you’re outnumbered here, Aric,” I threatened. “Kill that wolf, and I’ll slice your neck the moment you fall asleep.”
He barked a patronizing laugh. “We both know you wouldn’t succeed, and Conrad here wouldn’t like that very much.”
Conrad’s bulky shoulders hiked in warning.
“Oh, I’m fully aware.” I cocked my head. “But when I fail and I’m harmed or killed in the process, these three men will tear you both apart. And we both know they might succeed.”
His lips tightened. “I like you, Etarla, but I don’t like being threatened.”
Etarla. Not an endearment. Perhaps he was coming to respect me.
Or I’d just put him in a bad mood.
“And I don’t like that we’ve just wasted more time standing here because you’re afraid of a starved dog.”
His eyebrows shot up.
“Can we go?”
Aric chuckled, shaking his head. The dagger disappeared into a sheath on his chest. “Domus help you, Harthon.”
I heaved myself back on my horse just as Harthon replied, “It already did. By bringing me her.”