“I’m honest.”
“That too.”
They stayed like that for a moment, hands linked, the flowers swaying around them. Then Lilani came bounding back, breathless and grass-stained, and threw herself onto the blanket next to them.
“I’m ready! What are we doing? Papa, you said you’d teach me something. Is it fighting? Can I learn to fight?”
“Not fighting.” He reluctantly released her hand and turned to face his daughter. “Tracking. Do you remember what I told you about how Vultor warriors find their prey?”
Lilani’s face scrunched up in concentration. “With their noses?”
“Exactly. We can smell things that other species can’t. Fear. Sickness. Prey that’s hidden in the underbrush.”
“Can I smell things like that?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.” He stood, pulling Lilani up with him. “I’m going to go hide in the meadow. Close your eyes, both of you, and try to find me using only your senses. No peeking.”
“But Papa?—”
“No peeking.”
Lilani threw her hands over her eyes with a dramatic sigh, and Ariella closed her eyes as well, feeling absurdly nervous. She was a diver, not a hunter. Her senses were tuned for the water—for pressure changes and temperature shifts and the subtle vibrations of movement through the deep. On land, she felt half-blind, stripped of the abilities that made her special.
She heard Valrek’s footsteps moving away through the grass, growing fainter until they disappeared entirely. The wind whispered through the flowers. Lilani shifted beside her, making small frustrated sounds.
“I can’t smell anything,” the child whined. “Just flowers. And… and dirt.”
“Try focusing,” she said, though she was struggling herself. The meadow was full of scents—green and growing things, the mineral tang of the spring, the faint salt carried up from the sea. But Valrek’s scent? She didn’t even know what she was looking for.
Except… she did, didn’t she? She remembered it from yesterday, pressed against him in that narrow crevice. Woodsmoke and leather and something wild, something that made her think of predators and moonlit hunts and the thrilling danger of being caught.
She tried to find that scent now, but the wind was wrong, carrying everything away from her. Frustrated, she let her awareness shift to something more familiar—not scent, but sound.
The Song rose in her throat before she consciously called for it.
It was the same ability she used for diving—a low, subsonic hum that traveled through the air the way it normally traveled through water. It was different on land, weaker, but it was still there, still hers. She let the sound pulse outwards, feeling it bounce off the rocks and the grass and the slender stalks of flowers.
And there—a shape in the sound. A disruption. Something big, crouched in the tall grass to the west.
She opened her eyes. “He’s over there. Behind that outcropping of rock, in the tall grass.”
Lilani’s eyes flew open. “What? How do you know?”
“I… heard him. Sort of.”
She was already moving, following the echo of her Song towards its source. The grass parted before her, and she found him crouched there with an expression of pure astonishment on his face.
“You found me by sound,” he said slowly. “Not scent.”
“My song works differently on land, but it still works.” She couldn’t help the small smile of pride that curved her lips. “I told you—I was born for the water. But that doesn’t mean I’m useless on land.”
Something shifted in his expression. Something hungry. Before she could react, he was on his feet, closing the distance between them in a single stride. His hand cupped the back of her neck, tilting her face up to his, and she gasped at the intensity in his golden eyes.
“You are far from useless,” he growled. “You are extraordinary.”
Then Lilani crashed through the grass, and the moment shattered.
“Papa! You didn’t hide very well! The Star Lady found you in like two seconds!” She tugged on his arm, oblivious to the tension crackling between the adults. “Hide again! Hide better! I want to find you this time!”
