Complaints about such things were forbidden.
After she washed the plate and bowl they shared for dinner in the same basin she washed her hands in, she crawled into her flat, uncomfortable mattress on the floor, and pulled her shawl tight around her to try andhold in the warmth.
She lay awake near the window, staring at the silver moon and stars from a world far beyond her own.
One day, she thought, she’d like to be closer to the stars.
Her mind began to drift back to the goat and the claw marks, thinking hard about what beast could have caused such an injury.
She remembered a weight in the air she’d never felt before, but quickly corrected herself. She was surely just imagining things.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had watched her there in the forest, and maybe even hunted her.
Elowen closed her eyes, forgot about the goat, and dreamed of wings bringing her high above the clouds to touch the stars.
Three
He smelledher before he saw her.
She did not smell of manflesh—not entirely, at least. Her scent was slightly different. The humans always reeked of fear and sweat and the acrid tang of metal they worshipped, a stench that clung to them like rot.
But she smelled of crushed herbs and damp soil, of river reeds warmed by sunlight. There was another thing too, buried deep beneath the surface of her skin, a faint sweetness like the sap from the trees his mother once gave to the hatchlings as a treat during cold seasons.
It stirred a memory he had long since buried: the warmth of a nest, the brush of gentle claws turning eggs, the soft hum of contentment that filled the caverns before the war.
He inhaled again, slower this time, and found something else threaded through the layers of her scent. A subtle, trembling note: fear of her own world. Fear of cagesand rules and silent cruelty that radiated from her village like poison.
It confused him, intrigued him, angered him. She smelled like two things that could not coexist: softness and suffering.
He was already hidden when she arrived, curled into a rocky ledge high above the glade, just out of sight. His wings were tucked close to his side as he pressed himself into the cold stone to make himself smaller and unseen.
He had barely clawed into the goat when her smell filled his nostrils.
A human woman stepped into the meadow like she had walked the path a million times. The trees seemed to part for her. The silence seemed to welcome her.
He narrowed his eyes with distrust, ready to strike at any moment.
She was slender, cloaked in dirty, old fabric. Her hair was in a messy, intricate braid and her cheeks were flushed with a soft, natural sweat. Her shoulders were strong and unafraid, posture far too regal for the rags she wore as clothes.
She had seen the body of the goat, but she did not seem to fear the thing that had injured it.
He watched her and waited, expecting a recoil, a scream, a whispered prayer to the old gods. But she did none of those things. She approached the goat slowly and kneeled next to it.
Her hands were delicate and did not tremble. She examined the wounds carefully, examining the depth of the gashes and felt over the hide.
She was not frightened. She wascurious.
His nostrils flared as she stood, slowly, turned, and left.
No panic. No fury. No fear.
Just a slow, deliberate, and quiet return to her village. He followed her there. Not close, but just enough to keep her in sight.
She moved like someone who was familiar with these woods. She stepped over roots without looking, avoided thorn bushes with ease, and touched leaves softly as she passed. She even picked a small handful of berries and shoved them into her mouth as she walked.
He tracked her to the edge of her village, where tall stone walls broke the serenity of the forest and tainted it with the stench of human. She slipped through the iron gate and vanished behind the stone.
He could not follow further, so he turned back silently and returned to the goat. He approached the corpse, huffing smoke out of his nostrils to ward off the flies, and resumed his meal. The meat was cold and unsatisfying.
