“Alyx!” she gasped, hardly daring to believe her eyes.
Seraphina’s usuru lay coiled in a miserable knot, one wing dragged half beneath her body. An arrow jutted clean through the delicate membrane, pinning it like a torn scrap of silk.
The little serpent’s chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths. Her tongue flickered weakly.
Oh, Lord…
Edith dropped to her knees without thinking, heedless of the damp earth soaking into her skirts. Gently, she slid her handsbeneath Alyx’s narrow body, lifting her as carefully as if she were a newborn child.
The usuru hissed in pain but did not strike.
“Percy,” Edith urged. “The arrow.”
“I see it.” He lowered himself beside her with a grunt, cane laid across his lap. His fingers were steady as he reached for the shaft. “Hold her still.”
Edith cradled Alyx against her chest, murmuring nonsense comforts under her breath. Rogue hovered nearby, whining softly, nose sniffing at the air. Percy snapped the arrowhead off with a muted crack, then braced his other hand near the wound. With the next breath, he eased the broken shaft back through the torn wing with one smooth pull.
Alyx hissed, then sagged, trembling in her arms.
“You brave usuru,” Edith whispered, gently stroking the creature’s smooth scales as she rose to her feet. Hope flared to life in her heart like a signal fire. Alyx was never far from Sera’s side—not when she could help it.
Her goddaughter must be close.
But where? Was she…? Edith’s throat tightened. She combed the underbrush with her eyes, reluctantly hunting for a glimpse of a woman’s foot peeking out from amongst the briars. A flash of chestnut hair behind the next tree trunk.
What if they had been set upon by archers while trying to flee?
What if—
“Where was she going, do you think?” Percy asked, drawing her out of her spiraling thoughts. He pushed himself back to his feet with a wince.
Please, Lord. Let her yet live.
Edith glanced around them, trying to orient herself. She had grown up in these woods, but that had been so long ago… “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Alyx rumbled faintly against her palms. The serpent’s head lifted, scales catching what little starlight there was. Her eyes fixed on a point off to their right, deeper into the forest.
But there was nothing there.
When Edith shifted a step in the direction they had been heading before, Alyx hissed, a low, insistent sound, and strained instead toward that other direction. Her injured wing trembled.
Percy narrowed his eyes. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think she wants us to go that way. But”—he huffed out a quiet laugh—“that would be ridiculous.”
They shared a glance, her brow furrowing.
Her duke frowned. “Would it not?”
“It is not as if we have any better ideas,” she murmured. They had been wandering for hours. She hated to admit it, but they were lost.
Gently adjusting her hold on the usuru, careful of the injured wing, she whispered, “Very well. We shall do things your way.” She turned to the right, aligning herself with the angle of Alyx’s head. “Lead on, then, Your Ladyship.”
The serpent purred, as if inagreement.
They moved.
Edith kept her steps where Alyx’s gaze led—over a fallen log, around a thicket of brambles, down a slight incline where the ground grew damp underfoot. Rogue padded ahead, nose working, tail swishing. Percy followed close behind, cane thudding softly, breath laboring but steady.
Now at least they had a direction. A purpose.
