Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Walking Right Into Danger

"Also called the God of Winter Trees, the God of Withered Trees, the God of the Dead Tree," Itek added. "The Elder God of Demise. He created the phoenix."

"She's a phoenix?"

"We're fairly sure she isn't."

"My home enclave was... close... to your enclave," I said hesitantly. "To the south. Or what I remember my home enclave to be. Except... it hasn't existed for a long time. I walked out after Asund rejected me, except what I remember as leaving the enclave wasn't... it wasn't real. I walked for days in the barren lands, and was sitting by a dry well, when an old man with a water cart pulled by two wretched donkeys came along the road. He offered me water and took me to Haven. He tried to convince me to stay with him, but I didn't trust him, so I bolted in the lower city and within twenty minutes met Korr, Itek, and Ethat. And Soir."

"She's leaving out some details," Itek lazily rolled his eyes towards Perhon, "but we've recently determined it wasn't a mortal man who rescued her from the wastes. It was the God of Barren Branches. And He presumably restored her to the world of the living. And also presumably put the glamor on her to obfuscate what she is."

"Since I'm not anything with my spine broken," I told Perhon. "At least... not much of anything. But enough of something worth fighting over."

Korr gave me a raised, frosty brow. To Perhon he said, "The God of Barren Branches asked a price for taking her to Haven. She's not quite a dalliance, she's not quite His lover. But He pleasured Himself to the pleasure of her company, if you will. My belief is that her allure is divine grace, and He brought her intentionally to us in Haven."

"From the realm of the dead," Perhon said.

"No," Ormiss said. "We believe she was in a pocket realm. Not a dream, but also not another realm itself. A little pocket, meant to... imprison her."

"A dungeon," Ethat growled.

Perhon sighed. "That makes no sense. A pocket realm? Like a little different reality? What kind of magic creates that?"

"No magic the gods would approve of," Ormiss said.

Asund shrugged. "Never said it was going to make sense. Neither does overly large and aggressive bugs that can shoot their legs."

"So they're hunting her," Perhon said, mostly to himself. He sighed and leaned back. "They're looking for her. You passed through that old ruin on the way to the Priestess of Dreams, and they caught her scent, and they're hunting her."

"Perhaps," Itek said. "They chased us out to the ocean, and when we came back to land, we flew a different route."

"Maybe she brought them with her."

"Maybe she did," Ethat growled. "And maybe you shouldn't imply it's her fault."

"They're going to keep swinging out wider and wider looking for her, and overrun the entire damn world just like the taint that ruins everything. Even the water has run away." Perhon crossed one ankle over his knee and looked at me, expression burning. "No offense, sister."

"None taken. I don't know what to do about the bug problem. We ran from them. Seems the best strategy, except entire enclaves can't run."

"I could--"

"You should not say what you're about to say," I cut him off. "Because Ethat will kill you. Ethat is...violent."

"Very, very violent." Ethat suddenly was behind Perhon, hands on the couch, and his mouth was full of needle-like black teeth, which he lowered to Perhon's face and hissed at him.

"Lizard," Asund warned him.

"Viiiooollent," Ethat hissed, nibbling Perhon with those awful teeth. Perhon leaned away, disgusted but appropriatly impressed.

Perhon shoved Ethat on the forehead. "Fine. Point taken. Now what the fuck do I do from here?"

"Turn around and go home?" Itek suggested.

"Fuck you."

Korr gave Itek a smack on the top of the head, shoved Ethat back into his corner, and sweapt around the couch to deposit himself right next to Perhon in a storm of frosty hair and loose, pirate-eque attire. "Here is what we are going to do. You are going to delay seeing the Lord-Wolf. In fact, we aren't even going to involve the Lord-Wolf. We are going to send Itek back to the Demonic Archives to look for some information on these bugs and the God of Barren Branches. And--"

"Korr," I interrupted. "We have to do more than that. The enclave is in danger."

"Theia, we're a little limited on what we can do," Itek said.

No, we weren't. "If the bugs are looking for me, then I'm willing to let them find me." 

/********

PEEPS

I am SPENT. /flop

See, things got a LITTLE weird with The SnowFang Secret, which had to have its final manuscript submitted...

...checks notes...

4PM my time TODAY

which would have been fine, except the 65K word story I sort of had in my head ended up being 109K and that kind of time was just NOT IN THE SCHEDULE. And it still feels too short and skimpy and I was VERY SERIOUSLY tempted to hack it at the 85K mark and just be like YOLO BOOK 4 but I was like NO, I WANT TO BE DONE WITH THIS SERIES. 

So. Now we're done. My first completed series. SEE? I CAN FINISH STUFF. 

And I basically am just spent and exhausted and my husband is taking me to dinner and I am going to go crawl onto the couch and watch Meteor Moon or some other travesty and drool and be like '....'

Until I get up and do it all over again because guess what... Gate of Chaos ain't done and it's got to be uploaded in March. 

Pray for me. 

~Merry

(prayerful pantster) 

*******/