Today’s trip is less productive. Soren trips more than once because he’s looking at me instead of the ground, and I laugh at him.
Then there’s the fact that our climbing keeps getting interrupted with kisses.
I could blame Soren, but it’s not always him. I put a halt to our progress just as often by pushing him up against the nearest tree.
At one point, we stop to refill our canteens. Soren is bent over the stream while I take in the scenery below the mountain.
“I can see the villages from up here. There’s Seravin. And Restin is only a bit more north, right?”
“Yes.”
“So there it is. Then there’s Mallimer and the rest sprawling northward. And the wild! It goes on forever. Come look, Soren!”
“I may have overcome my fear of heights, but I don’t think I should see just how high up we are. I’ll settle for listening to you describe it.”
“The trees grow thicker more to the north. And—they’re greener. I wonder what we’d see on the other side of the mountain! Do you think the wild continues on in an endless expanse or would we see something new?”
“When we discover the otti bird to be only a myth, we’ll have all the time we want to explore it.”
My heart drops a moment. What if Soren is never allowed to go home? What if he is doomed to stay in the wild forever?
I won’t let that happen.
I pull Soren to me in a fierce hug. “You won’t be stuck out here alone. I will earn my place back as my father’s heir, and I will change things. I will find a way to bring you home.”
He returns the embrace, and we stand like that for a while, just holding each other.
But over his shoulder, I see a hint of movement. It blends in almost perfectly with the surrounding trees. If it weren’t for its open eyes staring fixedly at us.
I whisper, “Don’t move.”
My hands go to the sheath at Soren’s back. So very slowly, agonizingly slowly, I begin to slide the ax upward.
The mountain cat doesn’t blink as it watches Soren and me. I wonder if it’s the same one from before. Perhaps the goat got away and it followed our trail until it caught up with us?
Its haunches sway back and forth, steadying, readying to pounce. In a decisive move, I rip the ax the rest of the way from the sheath and sidestep Soren. I feel pressure on my back, but I ignore it. Because as soon as I decided to move, so, too, did the cat. It leaps forward and sprints the few yards to us, before leaping again, this time with the intent to pin me.
My mind works at an impossible speed. I should dodge the strike and go for one of the clawed legs, but sidestepping leaves Soren open. If only I had my ax, I could activate the spike and get the cat in the neck as it lands.
Instead, I shove Soren’s ax straight ahead of me and brace myself for impact. The two tips of Soren’s double blades pierce the cat’s chest, but only just. That thick skin holds against the force of its own pounce. Its back legs land on solid ground, but the front—
They go to my shoulders and dig in.
At first, I think my armor will hold, but there’s a chink sound, and then needle-sharp pain. The cat bends at the neck, trying to bring its gaping jaws closer, but I hold my arms steady, letting the weight of the cat dig deeper against the ax. My arms tremble from the force of it.
Out of the corner of my eye, a slice in the air, a blur of a blade.
My ax in Soren’s hands.
He embeds it deep in the cat’s back. Trapped with my blade beneath it and Soren’s above it, it can do nothing except extend its claws, digging them deeper into my shoulders.
I set my teeth, let a wisp of air snake through, as I hold back a scream.
Soren dislodges the ax, and the cat releases me, backs up so it can take us in, readying to strike again. Brown-black blood drips from its chest onto the ground.
Everything darkens all of a sudden. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see a shape blocking part of the sun. Not a cloud, something nearer and swifter. I’m torn between not taking my eyes off the cat and seeing what the blur of movement is.
It’s growing closer. Growing bigger.
It’s coming right for us.
I can’t help it.
I look.
Blue and white, a mixture of cloud and sky. A perfect camouflage—just like everything else in the wild.
As if the otti bird needed the extra advantage.
Razor-sharp talons that match the azure of its underbelly stretch out, each one the size of an arm. They clamp firmly over the middle of the great mountain cat. The feline didn’t even hear it coming.
A mighty growl lets loose, but it’s nothing to the shrieking caw of the victorious bird. It takes off in flight, the great cat clutched in its talons. Wings flap against the ground, sending rocks tumbling over themselves. I waver, nearly knocked over from the wind gust. Soren reaches a hand out, whether to steady me or himself, I don’t know.
And we watch as the bird and cat disappear from sight.
With a grin, I turn to Soren. “It’s real.”
CHAPTER
19
“Don’t just stand there,” I say. “Let’s go. It went that way.”
Soren still stares at the last point he saw the bird before it disappeared. I wave a hand in front of his face. He blinks and finally turns his head away.
“I didn’t think we’d actually find it!” he shouts. I step back at his loud exclamation, one composed of sheer shock. “Sorry,” he adds.
“We did. And it’s getting away.”
“It’s already gone.”
“But the trail is fresh, you idiot. Let’s go!”
He finally finds his feet and starts upward again, trailing along to the right, the direction the bird went off in. It was definitely going toward the peak, but from a slightly different angle.
Soren leads this time, his motivation escalated by the sight of the bird that could be his salvation. I trail behind, not saying anything. My excitement grows as I watch Soren’s grow. He picks up the pace, his breathing frantic, but knowing how close we are seems to give him more energy.
I’m staring upward, trying to guess how much farther until we reach the top, when I hear Soren stumble.
He must have fallen onto his back, because by the time I see him, he’s moving himself to a sitting position.
“What happened?”
“I must have run into something?”
He says it like a question. Up ahead, clumps of enormous boulders lie about the area as well as some trees, but they’re too far away for Soren to have stumbled into.
I step past him, thinking perhaps he stepped into a hole in the ground and stumbled, but I can’t see how that would have sent him falling backward rather than forward.
I connect with something solid and teeter backward, but I manage to catch myself. I look back at Soren on the ground, whose expression is just as puzzled as mine. He watched me the whole time, saw that I ran into … nothing.
I reach out my hands in front of me.
They connect with solid air at the wrists.
“It’s just like the god’s lair,” I say. “This is exactly what it felt like when I tried to enter.”
“Could he be close?” Soren whispers, eyes flitting about our surroundings.
“Or he doesn’t want us approaching this part of the mountain. Perhaps it’s part of his domain.”
We wait, not daring to move, in case the god is nearby.
But after a few minutes of not being struck down by inhuman forces, we relax.
“You said the barrier keeps out metal?” Soren asks.
“Yes, but we can’t very well leave our armor and axes behind to climb the peak. Not after our mountain cat attack. We’ll circle this area. Maybe there’s a break. Peruxolo’s power can’t encompass the whole mountain or else we wouldn’t have made it this far.”
With one forearm pressed against the invisible wall, I start walking in a direction parallel to it, Soren trailing behind me.
Only about twenty feet later, my arm falls through the nothingness with no resistance.
“It’s gone,” I say, turning toward the peak once more.
We start the upward incline, but it’s only seconds before we run into another wall.
“What the hell?” Soren says.