Kinked (Elder Races, #6)

“I got distracted by that.” She waved in the direction of the temple.

“Yeah, that’s a hell of a distraction.” He gave the view another long look. “I could look at it all day.”

She turned away and walked over to the door. It had an ornate metal handle. She held her hand over the handle, checking for magic. There was none. She tried it, and the door opened easily.

A waft of cooler air from the interior brushed her face. It smelled stale and vaguely exotic, like some kind of Elven spice. Curiosity was goading her forward, but she forced herself to be pragmatic. “Nobody’s been in here for a long time.”

Quentin approached and stood at her shoulder to breathe deeply. After a moment he said, “There’s a whisper of old Power, but it’s very faint, like dissipating magic, and it doesn’t feel active in any way. Exploring here can wait. We should move on toward the coast.”

She had known he’d had some kind of magical training in his past, and wasn’t surprised that what he said confirmed it. Mixed-race creatures who were “triple threats” were relatively rare and tended to have high concentrations of Power.

She said slowly, “I want very badly to take to the air and fly over the land just out of sheer curiosity, but I don’t think I should quite yet.”

He gave her a quick glance. “What’s your thinking?”

“If the Elves abandoned their post and came in here, they had a compelling reason to do so. That compelling reason might not be very … friendly. We don’t necessarily want to broadcast our presence right away.”

“Can you cloak yourself?”

“Yes, from most creatures.” She held his gaze with hers. “Could you sense me?”

“Probably,” he admitted. “But I’m pretty sensitive to magic.”

She shook her head. “We don’t know what happened. But they didn’t leave anybody at their post.”

He said slowly, “Which means that, if they came here, they were dealing with something that took all of their combined strength and concentration.”

She lifted a shoulder. “I just think until we know something, we’d better be wary.”

“Good point.” He turned away from the open doorway and looked across the scenery again. “Let’s see how far we can get before the sun sets.”

It needed to be said. She told him quietly, “You know they might be dead, right? I mean, there’s no recent sign of them anywhere that we expected them to be.”

His jaw and body tightened. He didn’t look at her. “Anything’s possible. Including that.”

After a moment, she sighed. “Well, hopefully we’ll discover a much less catastrophic explanation for what’s happened. Ready?”

He nodded. She took a few moments to repack her things, and he did the same. Guns and ammo went into the special side pocket created just to carry them. Combustible technologies didn’t work in Other lands, and guns were worse than useless. They were downright dangerous.

They strapped on short swords at the hip, stuffed sweaters inside the packs, and tied jackets to the outside. As soon as they were ready, she followed him down the path that wound down to the lower surface some distance away.

Nearby, a path led into the trees. The ground looked like it had been well trodden, but fronds of leafy, delicate greenery had grown over it. After considering it, they looked at each other.

Quentin shook his head. Following it was too obvious.

She agreed. She nodded.

They stepped into the forest about twenty yards away from the path and moved quietly through the underbrush. For a long time they remained surrounded by a silence that was heavy with the lingering heat of the day.

The sunlight faded as full night approached, deepening the shadows on the forest floor. Her sharp hearing caught the furtive sounds of rustling in the distance, but nothing moved anywhere near them. The wild creatures that lived here sensed their presence.

I want to hunt, she said in Quentin’s head.

He hesitated. Fresh meat sounds good.

He didn’t need to explain his hesitation. Lighting a fire to cook a meal would broadcast their presence more loudly than using the overgrown path would. She could eat raw meat, but she had lost her taste for it many generations ago. It was one of the things she had lost to civilization.

She sighed. Maybe tomorrow.

Definitely tomorrow, he said. Either that or we need to harvest more food supplies from any living quarters we find. We’ve eaten almost everything we brought with us.

How they acquired food might very well be dictated by what they found. It made sense for them to go quickly and quietly into Numenlaur as an initial approach, but if they didn’t find anything unusual, there would be no reason to remain quiet. Then they could hunt, cook and harvest food supplies in any way they liked.