RED
A wet snout pressed into my cheek. I jerked awake, startled by the cold touch after the smothering heat of my dreams. Fire and blood - and lightning. It had felt like the whole world was ending around me.
Now my whole world was encapsulated in the horizontally slitted pupil of a Kirin's golden eye, the moment trapped there, as if preserved in amber. Eventually, I summoned enough courage to reach out with trembling fingers, brushing ash from the bridge of the foal's nose. Its scintillating scales were cool beneath my fingertips, and the foal even arched into my touch, nuzzling at my hand. Tears welled in my eyes as I realised it had come to no harm.
The same couldn't be said for the woods around us. The fire had razed the trees to blackened husks and charred stumps, and not even bones of the fallen had survived the flames. I looked down at my own body, concerned that my lack of feeling was symptomatic of a grave injury. But my arms and legs moved fluidly, without a whisper of pain, and my hands -
I blinked stupidly at my hands. My makeshift bandages had torn free at some point, leaving pale stripes on my grimy palms. But where there should have been raw and exposed flesh, decorated with little frills of rolled skin, there was nothing. Not even a sliver of a scar, to testify to the injury that had plagued me over the last day and night.
Indeed, I felt stronger and surer in myself than usual. Despite the lingering smoke, the air was cool in my throat, and I was surprised to realise that for the first time in years, I no longer had that dull, persistent ache in my chest. It made no sense, given that the clothes on my back had barely survived the ordeal. My red cloak, which must have shielded me from the worst of the heat, was nothing but scraps on the forest floor. I might have panicked at the loss of those life-saving herbs, if it wasn't for the reassuring weight of the canteen at my side. Somehow, miraculously, liquid still sloshed inside. I screwed open the lid, peering inside to judge what was left, only to thrust it away as I gagged. The residual heat from the fire must have boiled the herbs inside, resulting in an even more potent version of that awful concoction.
Later, I decided; I would take a sip later, when I started to feel worse again. This feeling, like waking up for the first time in years, was too invigorating to sully with that bitter taste.
"Was this you?" I asked the Kirin, gesturing at the hint of muscle rippling beneath my smooth skin. Thankfully, all traces of fear and lightning were gone from its features.
But it only looked back mutely, with a decidedly boyish frankness, and I felt foolish all of a sudden for expecting a coherent answer. Not every creature of the Wylds had a human lurking beneath its skin.
Still, I thought, chewing on my bottom lip as I surveyed the charred wasteland around us, he could use a name. There was no sign of his mother, only ashes blowing in the wind. But the destruction made it easier to scout the terrain, and I was surprised to realise how close the Grey Fist Mountains were. In Brollo's stories, that vaulting landscape had always seemed so far away, as mythical and elusive as the Kirin and wyverns reported to prowl those rocky peaks. Now it looked only a few days travel away, though I was hesitant to trust my judgement of such things. Certainly, I would have to find a way to retain my bearings once I entered the woods again, but if I cut a straight path through...
"Eddy," I said to the foal, naming him after the whorls of light in his up-flowing mane. "I'm going to take you home, okay? Let's see if we can find your mother."
My cheeks complained as I grinned, more fully that I'd ever done in my life. I had a quest; a new purpose, all my own, not tied to Hunter or contingent on a man's approval.
When I set off for the Grey Fist mountains, the warmth of the sun almost felt like a hand on my shoulder, a reassuring squeeze after a seemingly endless night. And Eddy was an equally reassuring presence at my side. I started to relish the burn in my calves, in my chest, for I knew in that fire I forged myself anew.
The setting sun raged against the advance of the night, unleashing fiery strokes of orange and pink that speared through the clouds and into the navy sky. I grimaced at the open plains of ash, which we seemed no closer to crossing than we had this morning. The mountains were deceptively large, dwarfing my sense of scale. Not even the sun could warm their frigid peaks, or soften their rigid grip upon the land.
That cold had swept across the plains in the late afternoon, driving up flurries of ash that stung in my eyes and burned in my throat. I could barely see ten feet in front of me now, and the mountains were becoming steadily indistinct against the darkening sky. I didn't trust my ability to navigate without them at night.
"We need to make camp," I muttered, but there was nothing even remotely intact enough to provide shelter against the elements. The fire had been thorough enough in its work that I could only marvel at the fact we'd survived the beating heart of it.
Eddy, who'd been nosing at the ground all day for shoots that simply weren't there, looked up at me balefully.
"You're not going to find any grass here, you daft colt." I shook my head when his tail fluffed up. If he didn't understand my words, he at least understood my tone. "Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm just cranky because I'm hungry, too."
It wasn't a lie. My stomach was a tangle of barbed wire, mincing my innards with each step. It had been almost two days since my last meal of jerky, and even longer since I'd had anything more substantial. It was bizarre to think that only three days ago, I'd been living as the unofficial pariah of the Blood Moon Pack, going about my menial chores and a slow death of the soul. So much had happened since then that it felt like a whole other lifetime, a whole other girl who'd climbed over the ashwood gates.
Eddy only huffed at my apology, stuffing his nose right back into the ashes. I rolled my eyes when he sneezed, only to shove his snout right back into the incriminating dust. I was about to say as much when he froze, every muscle in that supple body bunching up in anticipation as he waited and watched, scaly ears flicking forward. Little threads of electricity ran along the tip of his horn, charging the air and making my hair stand.
He lunged, a blur of motion, followed by a distinct crunch. Eddy reared up with what could only be described as a smug grin, a surprisingly large rodent clamped between his teeth. It must have burrowed to safety during the blaze.
Eddy trotted about like a show pony with his kill, flicking his tail and tossing his head, cracking the creature's spine as he went. I grimaced when he tossed the rodent at my feet, hoping the expression would be misinterpreted as a celebratory smile. If it hadn't been killed instantly, the creature was certainly dead now. It was almost cute, an odd mix between a rat and and a rabbit, with the scaly tail but fluffy ears. Almost.
Eddy nudged the pulverised corpse toward me, stepping back. My stomach lurched at the sight, but not in a good way.
"Thanks," I said, picking it up by the corner of an ear. I was desperately hungry, but... Not that desperate. I decided I'd wait at least another day before risking a gutfull of raw meat, lycan heritage or no. "But it's your kill. You deserve it."
Eddy merely gave the horse approximation of a shrug and snatched the rodent right out of my hand, tossing it up into the sky. He caught it head-first, and I shuddered when it disappeared with a few quick gulps. So the Kirin are omnivorous, then, I thought, suddenly glad that Eddy was a foal, and not the enormous steed Brollo had depicted his kind as. I could only hope that Eddy's kin would take as kindly to me, but resolved to proceed with caution just in case. Good to know.
We continued on with our trek, and I started bundling up any charred sticks I could find that didn't disintegrate into pieces of charcoal. If I couldn't find shelter, I'd just have to make it. Eddy had caught and gobbled up three more rodents by the time I found something serviceable to work with, the blackened husk of half a tree stump. Judging by the size, it must have belonged to a tree hundreds, if not thousands of years old.
Now it was a porous wall against the wind. I slotted the ends of my sticks into the jagged splinters along the top, forming a lean-to that was only slightly better than nothing against the elements. I was about to squeeze into the gap, only barely large enough for myself and the foal, when Eddy dumped another rodent at my feet.
But this one was steaming, and the smell that wafted from it was almost appealing. I crouched down to ruffle Eddy's mane, careful not to touch the crackling energy running along his horn.
"You zapped it," I realised, as I pulled charred flesh away from leathery skin and brittle bone. Some parts were rawer than others, as the electricity must have stuck to the path of least resistance, but it was too close to real food for me to care. "You clever boy! Thank you, Eddy."
The Kirin foal merely huffed and stared, as if waiting to make sure that I actually tried it. It hadn't been gutted or cleaned before he'd cooked it, but...
I indulged his fussing, popping a thin strip of meat into my mouth. It was greasy and tough to chew, certainly a little bitter, but the fact that it was hot overrode any potential misgivings that might have deterred me on a normal day. I laughed between bites and sucked the bones clean, leaving only the roasted offal behind, which I promptly buried in the dirt. I didn't want any scavengers picking up our trail.
The stars were pin-pricks of silver in the sky when I deemed my shelter was as water-proof as it was going to get. There weren't any clouds to signal rain, but after my last experience of sleeping through a storm, I resolved to spare myself the discomfort of sleeping in mud again. I was brushing the dirt from my hands, ready to retire to for the night when thunder rolled through the mountains, echoing across the plains.
"Was that you?" I asked Eddy, arching an eyebrow at the way the foal had stiffened. "Because I'm going to sleep soon, and I'd appreciate it if you could keep it down."
The foal shot me a dirty look that seemed to say shut up. I smirked at how easily I'd gotten under his skin, but the expression was wiped clean off my face by another boom of thunder, closer this time. But there were still no clouds in the sky; not so much as a whisper of lightning along Eddy's horn. I instinctively reached for the arrowhead resting against my chest, letting the sharp edges bite into my fingers as I searched the sky. Thunder boomed again, so loud that blood trickled from my ears, but still I searched, even though I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for. Every muscle in my body was tense. Every single instinct screamed to -
"Get down," I hissed, scrambling for the nearest pile of ashes. I'd only seen the slightest shifting of colours in the sky, a darker blue that briefly rippled through the stars, but it was all the warning I needed. Something was gliding up there, camouflaged by the night. Something enormous, if the thundering sound of its occasional, leisurely flaps were any indication.
But Eddy was not well-versed in stealth, nor cool-headed in the face of danger. He whinnied with fear, his flowing mane flaring brighter, purple electricity arcing along his golden scales as he reared. That ripple in the night slowed, lingering as thick, grey clouds ballooned from seemingly nowhere, forming a deadly maelstrom above. I swore as the wind whipped even harder, sending up blinding droves of ashes.
Brilliant lightning cracked the sky, with a real boom of thunder that drove my hands to my ears. What it revealed drove me to my knees.
Wyvern.