I held up my index finger. “One chance,” I said, with the tiniest hint of a smile.
“Fair enough.” Zach reached over and took my hand. Intertwining our fingers, he brought them up to his lips and kissed the back of my hand, where his mark rested.
His lips were warm and smooth. As shocked as I was, I prayed I didn’t noticeably tremble. A part of me wanted to jerk my hand away, remembering Brom’s comments regarding Zach’s bare chest earlier.
“You smell like citrus.”
I tried to push down a shiver at his words, but I couldn’t. He had to have felt it. “That’s Lorena. She…she likes orange peels.”
He smiled against my skin. “She and I have something in common, then.”
He lowered our hands from his lips but didn’t let go. As his gaze lifted to my face, the trees and the campfire turned into blurs of color—shades of orange, red, green, violet, and brown—around us. And while the rest of the world’s details dimmed, his face seemed strangely in sharp focus, so clear, so crystal.
“That’s not…it doesn’t…” I fumbled, unable to form a real sentence. Luckily I was spared any further struggling when the sound of footsteps crunching alerted us to Bromley’s approach, and Zach released my hand. I scooted away and immediately felt silly. Why was I acting like we were about to be caught doing something we shouldn’t?
Zach stood as Bromley entered our little camp. “Seas of Glyll, you’re loud, Brom. I’ve got to teach you to move through the woods without awaking every creature within a mile.”
Bromley caught my eye and grinned. “That might be a good idea.”
Zach clapped Brom’s shoulder. “I’ll take the first watch. You two get some rest.”
After clearing my head of any residual blurriness, I settled into my bundle and turned away from the fire, reaching into the pockets of my cloak and pulling out a folded piece of paper with the spell Brom had copied for me. I reread the spell over and over because, despite our conversation, I knew there was no way we could destroy the dragon without the Kiss. I trusted him to protect one princess, but how could he protect all the kingdoms from the greatest monster the world had ever known?
Chapter
Sixteen
An Unexpected Heroine
I woke up coughing. A shadow had fallen over my lungs, my Sense burning with the threat of another dark creature. But this feeling…was more like a mist than a heavy rain. I’d felt it many times on patrol—I knew what it was.
My cough woke Zach, and he shot to his feet, one hand at his sword. When he realized there was no immediate threat, he crouched beside me.
“What’s wrong? Is there something coming?”
“It’s just sparrow harpies. A whole flock of them. Must be close.”
At my words, Brom, who’d been keeping watch, made a face of disgust. “I hate those things. Any way we can avoid them?”
I frowned. “We shouldn’t waste time trying to feel around the flock with my Sense.”
Zach looked from me to Brom. “Sparrow harpies? I thought they only came out at night.”
I nodded. “Usually they do, but sparrow harpies during the daylight is a sign that a powerful dark force is gathering, like—”
“Like a Sable Dragon egg. Got it.” Zach sighed. He held out his hands, and I took them, letting him help me to my feet. “Are you okay to—”
“Of course I am. They’re only sparrow harpies.” I wondered if him leaving me alone with the griffin had really shaken him.
“Are you sure? I could—”
“Zach, it’s not like I don’t appreciate all the attention, but I’m used to carrying this burden, remember? You’re my sixth partner.”
At that, he dropped my hands, the tips of his ears tingeing pink. “Right. Of course.”
In no time, we were on our way through the forest again. Although Zach made no move to touch me, I felt his gaze flicker to me every once in a while. I was a little ashamed at the way the nerves in my stomach fluttered when I caught him staring, or the way I kept revisiting my hands in his. But then a healthy dose of fear would ripple through me—fear of losing grip—and I’d feel like myself again.
Two hours later, we heard the flapping of wings. Hundreds of them, if not thousands. In fact, it sounded more like buzzing.
The three of us simultaneously dismounted. We went forward on foot a few more paces, then Zach stopped. “Should we tether the horses?”
I hesitated. “Sparrow harpies don’t touch the living. The horses won’t like them, but if the harpies are feasting on something, we can’t wait out the swarm.”
“There’s no way to drive them off?”
“None that you would agree to,” I muttered.
“Okay, then the horses come with us.” Zach moved forward. I scowled but didn’t object.
The buzzing was impossibly loud now. It pounded in my ears and echoed in my brain, rattling my teeth.
The sky was thick with harpies. Great swarms of black bat-winged creatures the size of sparrows—if sparrows were lumpy and grotesque. They had tiny heads and flimsy arms and legs, their black leathery wings supporting their weight that mostly came from their gargantuan stomachs. Some hovered, some dove down, and some zipped through the air like flies, their wings a blur.
In the middle of the forest was a large meadow, and spread across it was…a massacre.
Corpses littered the tall grass, flattening the growth with gore and blood. It wasn’t people—thank the Queen—but it was a herd of red rowan deer. The majestic creatures had been slaughtered by some dark creature, but it was hard to tell how they’d been killed, since the sparrow harpies had pecked their carcasses down to their silver bones. Whatever creature killed them had to be fast to catch them—possibly griffins from the air or serpents from the tall grass.
The harpies dove and buzzed and burrowed into the deer flesh but paid us no attention. Sparrow harpies lived only for the scent of death and fresh blood, not the healthy or the living. They were scavengers.
Tears sprang to my eyes. The metallic scent of blood and decaying flesh lingered on the air. But the sight was worse. Red rowan deer were sacred creatures, so they were rarely hunted, and when they were, every part of their bodies was used—their fur, meat, silver antlers, and bones, which were made into many great Legion weapons. But more than anything, they were sweet, gentle creatures. It was said their breath in the cold winter air formed the wind wisps that traveled to the Seas of Glyll.
It was a tragedy beyond words. I pressed my palms to my eyes, tears clinging to my hands, and swallowed a few more times. Brom turned away and gagged. Zach stood slightly ahead, gripping Vel’s reins and staring at the massacre with a clenched jaw, a slight sheen to his pale skin. After a moment of silence, he said, “Let’s go.”
I stopped halfway across the meadow, my boots coated with blood and mud, sparrow harpies buzzing relentlessly, and bowed my head, offering a silent prayer to the Holy Queens. My whispered words were carried away by the wind, over the meadows and away from the Sable Dragon’s dark omens.
…
Two hours later, the forest had grown so thick, light had all but disappeared, and yet another shadow had fallen over my lungs and heart. Fighting down a wave of nausea, I lowered my head and breathed in Lorena’s mane, which still smelled of the stables back home, and watched the dark green foliage on the ground pass by at a slow trot. As the nausea receded, the shadow over my lungs tightened, squeezing air from my chest.
“Something’s close,” I whispered.
Zach turned in his saddle. “From what direction?”
“Southeast, I think.”
“How many?” His hands clenched and unclenched on his reins. Not for the first time, I wondered if he was angry that he no longer felt the Sense or that I felt it double.
“Either a lot of small things, or one big thing, and it’s coming fast.”
Zach withdrew a dagger from his belt. “Off the horses.”