The Nature of Magic (The Curse of Magic Book 2)

Chapter 2

Feeling his lungs start to burn as he continued to hold his breath, Feyrith adjusted his aim for the last time and finally let the arrow fly. He was already drawing another arrow even as a roar sounded, confirming that he'd been successful. He was about to shoot again, not giving the beast a chance to retaliate or fly away, but before he could, another, cut-off howl filled the air.

Knowing that the beast had been finished off by one of the humans, Feyrith turned around, looking for the remaining animal. But as soon as he did, he noticed a dark shape on the horizon, flying back toward the jungle. It was leaving.

And it didn't take long for the humans to realize it, too, the entire town soon erupting into cheers and talking as they began to survey the settlement for anyone injured. Feyrith took a few deep breaths to calm himself before jumping down from the roof, intent to also go and help them, but before he could, he found himself getting tackled into a hug.

At first he froze, tensing up as his body readied itself to attack whoever had grabbed him, but he quickly pushed the urge away when he realized it was Arbane. Both of Edwyr's friends had been doing this often enough that Feyrith had mostly learned to handle it, but that was only when he was given the time to get ready for it.

"Sorry, I know you don't like hugs that much," Arbane said quickly, pulling away. Feyrith studied the man in front of him with concern. His eyes were wide, and there was a cut on his nose as well as some bruising under his left eye, but he was beaming, apparently incredibly happy about something. "But you saved Lanna, I can't not hug you for that."

"I did?"

"Yeah, you shot that arrow just in time to stop whatever these things are from pouncing at her."

Lanna caught up as well in the meantime, panting. She looked about as lightly injured as her husband. Feyrith still got the urge to use the shreds of his magic that remained to heal them, even just to seal a bleeding scrape or two, but they'd scolded him for that before, so he would try to resist.

He didn't understand why they minded so much, though. It wasn't as if he could actually be useful and heal someone's broken bones or deadly wounds. All he could do was fix minor damage now and even that exhausted him. He tried not to think about this, though. It never failed to depress him.

"Oh." Feyrith still wasn't certain what to say in these situations. He'd thought being forced to live with humans would at least help him understand them, but so far he hadn't been very successful. "I am glad I could be of help."

They exchanged a look that Feyrith couldn't read, but over the weeks he'd been here, he'd gotten used to this. He'd made sure to pay attention to how they interacted with other humans, and he'd not noticed them making these faces with anyone else, so it was clearly related to him somehow, but Feyrith had given up on trying to understand what it actually meant.

"I assume the creature is dead? I would like to go study it."

Feyrith didn't wait for them to respond, walking around the people who were making their way up the road and to the stables. Quite a few humans were standing around the beast's body already, but he didn't let that deter him as he approached it.

Even from this far away in the dark, though, he could already tell the creature had dark feathers and was around twenty feet in length from its long, feathery tail to its sharp beak. Feyrith would have assumed it was an oriam, or bloodfeather, as the humans called them, if not for the number of limbs. These creatures had four legs, along with a pair of wings, not two like the oriam.

He didn't think he'd read or seen anything like this before. Creatures with more than four limbs were rare, and he'd certainly never read about any that had feathers. This was something new. And the fact that three had attacked Sunwood at once was not a good sign at all.