“How many?”I asked. I could sense the movement ahead now, the rustling of pine needles and crackling of old snow that was too concentrated to be a single wayward beast.
“Two humans.”
I held up two fingers to Garrick. He nodded his understanding, and then inclined his head, but his eyes went to my hands.
I nodded, inhaling slowly and then letting the exhale out through my nostrils. The quiet of the forest helped me throttle my power, smoothing the ground ahead of us with a sheet of ice. Garrick started forward, but I stopped him with a hand onhis arm. He froze as suddenly and completely as I had at his command a minute earlier.
I flipped my palm over, swirling my fingers through the air. Technically, I did not need to move my hand to summon my power. But it had always helped me shape it to see my hand in motion as the power flowed from me.
A thin layer of snow formed above the ice. It would provide just enough traction to allow us to walk without slipping, but was not so thick that it would slow us down if we needed to retreat.
Garrick’s eyes flared, the pupils blowing wide in time with a smile that was nowhere near a smirk climbing his face. I might have called it a look of pride, if such depth of feeling existed between us.
We all moved forward by silent accord. Or at least, Garrick and I did. Isanara kept up a running commentary inside my head.
“Humans are weak. One well-placed bite is all it takes to fell them. I will go ahead,”she said as she wove between my legs, the tip of one of her spikes catching on the leather strap of my boot. It sliced directly through the strap and did not slow Isanara at all.
“You will wait until we know what we are facing,”I ordered. I expected the plumes of heated air from her nostrils as she whipped her head back around to face me, but the fangs were closer to my hand than I’d anticipated.
I managed not to flinch back, but only barely.
She would not hurt me. I knew that instinctively. In the same way that I’d known the frost that spread from my fingertips after my resurrection belonged to me, so did Isanara. And it was unnerving as fuck, both times.
Garrick moved in silence at my side, lethal with every step. I waited for him to reach for the arrows and bow strapped across his back. He’d worn them ever since that first night in the tavernin Canmar, but I’d never seen him wield them. But if there was ever a moment for a weapon of distance, this was it.
Instead, he drew the shortest blade from his bandolier. It was smaller than one of Isanara’s adolescent fangs.
We were too close for me to challenge him aloud. He was the trained killer.
And what am I?
A killer. A dangerous disappointment. A?—
“Witch,”Isanara interrupted the spiral.“A male and a female,”she added, her attention still firmly focused on the threat ahead.
As mine should be. The heightened senses bestowed upon me by the Dark God felt more curse than gift, but now was the moment to use them. The sound of shuffling footsteps grew louder with each of our own silent steps. We were moving, but the pair we approached did not. Humans, I reminded myself. They could not have outpaced us if they tried; at least, not Garrick. Though I was getting faster, after weeks of him driving me through these blasted mountains.
There were very few reasons for humans to venture into the mountains of Velora. It was too cold for them to survive long, with so little meat upon their bones. Desperation and stupidity. Desperate enough to think they might find game in these untouched peaks, stupid enough to believe that they would not become the game themselves.
But the smell that flooded my senses when the wind shifted was not the stench of unwashed bodies nor the tangy odor of desperation. It was ashes and frankincense and palmarosa. A smell that had become as familiar as my own over the past weeks.
Garrick’s entire stance changed as he, too, recognized the scent. A moment later, we were close enough to hear the distinct voices.
“Place the altars at even intervals.”
Isanara wove between my legs again, her tail curling around my leg as she did. This time, she missed snapping a leather strap. But most shocking was how easily she matched her movements with my steps. I did not stumble over her, nor did a single part of her get underfoot.“I will take the female. She looks meatier.”
“We do not eat our…”I paused.
Friends was the wrong word. So was allies. And there were certainly some acquaintances that I would not stop Isanara from taking a bite out of. Nash’s face flashed in my mind, hateful and malicious. I banished it as quickly as it came.
“Dragons do not eat humans.”A deep, disgusted growl rumbled from Isanara’s chest.
“Good,”was all I had time to say. We no longer needed the path of ice. Although I could not call the two humans friends, I knew they would not harm us.
Even so, Garrick stepped forward when my feet paused, positioning himself just ahead of me. Isanara held her place between my legs, a low growl hissing out from between her bared fangs.
I rolled my eyes and pushed past them both.
