“Because you love him. You’re a lot of things, my girl, but a seasoned warrior isn’t one of them. He’d worry if you were out there. Just like Parnon would worry for me.”
I cut my eyes to her. “Parnon, eh?”
She shrugs. “An old hound isn’t the same as a dead hound, eh?”
I smile at that. “Right. I just didn’t think—”
The wyverns chitter and get to their feet. Clotty grips my arm as the handful of guards here to defend us pull their swords and hurry toward the front of the camp.
“Something’s here.” I pull my small dagger—okay, it’s a dinner knife—from my belt and stand.
The wyverns keep chittering, one of them snorting sparks.
“What’s the hullaballoo?” Sabine materializes from the vale, her head cocked at the wyverns. “You two bitches want to wrestle?”
They chitter some more, but back away as the obsidian witch strides into camp.
“She’s a friend.” I dash forward to keep the apprehensive guards from finding their death at the end of Sabine’s claws. “She’s with us.” I hold my hands up.
“Yes, I’m with the pretty changeling.” She loops her arm around my waist and gives me a wet kiss on the cheek. “See?”
“Come, you must be hungry.” I lead her away from the guards and toward the fire.
“No.” She picks a bit of gristle from between her teeth. “I found a misguided goat on the road.”
“Oh.” I sit as she reaches into the fire with her hand.
Clotty stares.
Sabine turns her head completely around. “Do you want to jump me, old changeling?”
“No.” Clotty looks away quickly. “I’ve just never seen—”
“A female so beautiful? I get that a lot.” Sabine clacks her sharp teeth together, then turns back to the fire.
Thank the Ancestors—whenever she does that head-turn trick, my insides go all squirmy, and not in a good way.
“What are you doing?” I watch as she pulls out her hand, the fire dancing in her palm as she looks closely at it.
“Scrying for the future.”
“Can you see what’s going to happen?” I sit forward, trying to read the greenish flames. Of course, I see nothing. I’m a changeling with no magic.
“I see before, now, and after.” She sniffs, then spits a wad of phlegm into the flames. “I’m alive at all times, so that’s a relief.”
“What about Gareth?”
“Gareth? Hmmmm.” She reaches over and plucks some hair from my head, then winds it down into the flames. “Your mate. Your mate. He looks quite good naked, I must say. And when you ride him …” She flicks her tongue out like a snake. “I’m going to save that little image for later, when I’m alone.”
I nod. “Great, but what about his future?”
“He soars now. On the back of the great beast. Cenet’s army presses toward him. They will meet presently.” She grins. “So much blood. All those bodies. Meat, meat, meat. I could drag them to my cave, could wait for them to become so tender and juicy—”
“Okay, Gareth, what about him?”
She points a long, black finger at me. “Don’t interrupt a witch, dear girl.”
“Quit stalling.” I cross my arms over my chest.
