I stepped up beside him, staring down at my flaxen reflection. Fish darted beneath it, real fish. I had seen fish in drawings, but thought them only inventions of stories and dreams. The fish in our pictures were dark and small; here they flashed silver and black and orange, glinting like gems as they moved, their fins taking them on sinuous paths.
Despite everything, I was mesmerized. I had never thought to see a real fish.
“This is the grove,” Dorian said, voice low and almost reverent, as he knelt.
With a flattened hand he dipped his fingertips into the water. Black hair slipped forward, shrouding his face as he murmured words I didn’t recognize.
As he spoke, the air changed—moved over my skin like fine cloth, cooled, whisper-thin, but I didn’tseeanything. I only felt the shift across my cheeks and hands.
Dorian lifted his hand, droplets trailing from his fingers. He stood and backed to one of the shaded trees, where he dropped to a crouch against its trunk.
I remained where I stood, staring back at him. “What now?”
“Now”—he folded his arms over his knees—“we wait.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We waitedin the grove for an hour, then two. Cloud cover moved in and the sun’s rays became sporadic and spotted on the water. All the while I sat at the pond’s edge and watched the fish and wondered.
What else was real in this place, in Sylvanwild? What else had I thought fantastic would turn out to be real?
Strange, to feel a tendril of thrill. Of curiosity. Of wonder. I had not thought those things could coexist with my fear—definitely not with my rage. But this grove felt apart from the world, even from Sylvanwild.
It felt sacred. Maybe even safe.
At the end of the second hour, Dorian rose from his crouch. I glanced back at him and found his eyes fixed on something beyond me.
I rose, my movement slow, uncertain, eyes rapt on what had emerged from the trees.
First, the pair of horns—as long and winding as tree branches, grown over with hanging vines and lichen. Where the flora didn’t grow the horns gleamed ivory. And attached to them was a stag with constellations for eyes, its head rising higher than Dorian’s. The body was lithe and powerful, but the coat shimmered when theclouds parted long enough for the sun to shine on its fur, in iridescent hues of green, gold, silver.
Agod.
I had never fully believed in them, but it was the only word that felt right.
The stag gazed at Dorian, then blinked once, slowly.
I turned my head. Behind me, Dorian lowered his chin, stepped back into the trees without breaking eye contact, and disappeared amongst the foliage.
I was alone.
When I faced the stag again, it still stood across the pond from me. In the Kingdom of Storms, stags were rare and valuable; just the sight of one from atop the wall was considered a blessing from Caelara herself.
But this was no stag—not really—and I was not on the wall. The creature before me felt vast, eight feet and eight hundred feet tall all at once. Old instinct called out:Hold your knife, widen your stance, seek out the location of the thing’s heart?—
But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I couldn’t stop staring into those starry eyes.
“You are not one of them,” a voice echoed through the grove, the notes soft, dulcet, neither male nor female but pleasant. That voice was the stag’s; I knew it immediately, even though the creature hadn’t moved.
“No, I’m not.” Was I speaking? I couldn’t say if my lips and tongue moved or if I simply thought the words.The gods aren’t real. The gods aren’t…
The voice cut into my thoughts. “Dorian brought you to me because you turned toward his blade.”
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
“You showed courage, even though you are especially small and weak.”
