“And because you’ve never seen something like that, it must mean they can’t exist,” Reece said.
Shea was left with the strong impression he’d just rolled his eyes.
“I don’t remember anything like them mentioned in our records either,” Shea said in a calm voice, even as her palm itched with the need to whack him upside the head for being deliberately difficult.
“Enough, boy,” her father said, his voice a quiet rumble before Reece could say anything else. To Shea, he said, “You’ll find them in no current records.”
Current implied there was a record of the strange beast. That was impossible. She’d gone through all of their archives, studied every beast they had information on. Multiple times, until she could recall things on command. Sometimes that information was thin, but it usually contained a description. Nothing she’d read had suggested a creature that walked on four legs, had a human torso and antlers on its head. She’d remember something like that.
“I’ve read everything in the library,” Shea said. Everything she could get her hands on. Once upon a time, she’d been driven to be the best, the most knowledgeable. Now she didn’t care so much about being the best, rather she focused on increasing the chance of survival for her and those under her protection.
“You didn’t think they let us have access to everything?” Reece said, a snide smile in his voice. “Please. No, only the privileged few are permitted access to the older archives.”
Shea’s attention shot to her father. “You have another set of archives? And you let him look at them?”
She didn’t know whether she should feel anticipation at the thought or jealousy at the implication that Reece had gotten to read them when she hadn’t.
Her father exhaled, the sound expressing some of his frustration for the two of them. “Yes. The guildmaster unsealed them shortly after the first stories filtered in about strange creatures no one had heard of before.”
“Then you know what those things were.” Fallon’s words were a statement, not a question.
Her father inclined his head. “I have a vague idea.”
“Don’t leave us in suspense, man,” Caden said, his voice sour.
“The closest thing I’ve read fitting the glimpse I saw is something called a centaur, though those were reported to be a melding of man and horse.”
“The beast looked closer to an elk or deer to me.” Braden’s voice was thoughtful as he stared into the dark.
“Agreed,” her father said. “It’s the best description I have, however.”
“If they’re half human, that would mean they have some intelligence,” Fallon said.
“Sometimes,” Reece said. “But it would be a mistake to assume. Just because they have human parts, doesn’t mean they have a human’s logic or moral compass. We’ve seen other, similar creatures that have been just as monstrous, with a more pronounced taste for human flesh than your average beast.”
“What are they? Where did they come from?” Shea asked, curiosity burning through her. She couldn’t help it. She saw a puzzle and she wanted to solve it. It was just in her makeup, something she’d been born with that had been nurtured until it grew into this all-consuming fascination.
“They’re the mythologicals,” her father said, turning toward her.
Shea blinked, then blinked again. Words deserted her for a moment. “That’s not possible. Those are only stories.”
Practically every village in the Highlands and a good part of the Lowlands had some type of tale featuring the mythologicals—beasts only seen in stories, as fantastical as the imaginations they originated from. Impossible. Wondrous. Imaginary.
Shea’s mother used to entertain her with tales of the creatures when she was young, right along with stories of the first pathfinders who’d by turns worked beside and against the mythologicals. Their origins were old, stemming from a time when the great cataclysm ripped the world in two, leaving the survivors dim shades of what they once were. Entire civilizations were lost and what remained were isolated pockets of humanity too afraid to stir from their safe walls to take back the world they’d once taken for granted.
But the mythologicals were just that, stories. There were no verified reports of their existence. Shea had always chalked their origin up to the fevered imaginings of scared Highlanders who seemed to thrive on the fear of what waited in the wilds.
“Evidently not,” Reece said, his voice sour. “I’ve seen some of these things with my own eyes. They exist, and they’re a real bitch to deal with.”
Shea frowned in thought. What would this mean for the Highlands? Beasts were difficult enough, but at least they were animals. Maybe with a bit more intelligence and a lot fiercer than the average animal, but humans at least had a fighting chance against them, if only because they’d been pitted against them for generations.
Mythologicals were a different problem entirely. They were harder to kill than the average beast, and three times as deadly. Oftentimes—but not always—they had an uncanny intelligence that approached a human’s. Given no one had seen any sign of them in the last thousand years, most of those living in the Highlands and Lowlands probably had no clue how to keep them at bay.
“The frostling,” Shea said in a soft voice.
“What do you mean?” Fallon asked.
Shea’s voice was distracted as she remembered. “A few months back when I was still riding with Eamon and Buck, we encountered something straight out of a story. A creature I’d only heard referred to as a frostling.”
