— Flora and Fauna of the Seelie Lands
Ifound twigs in my curls.Bloody twigs!How long have I been going around looking like there was a bird’s nest on my head? Why didn’t Maddox say anything?
He’d probably tell me I was the most beautiful bird’s nest.
The thought makes me chuckle. Then I remember what happened to him, and my heart sinks.
How could anyone abandon that sweet, beautiful man?
Because he cried too much.Poppycock. When I was an infant, I was stricken with colic. My mother never once stuffed fabric into her ears so she didn’t have to listen to me.
We may not always get along, and I’ll never agree with her preoccupation with my wardrobe, but she hasn’t abandoned me yet, and I know she never will.
A scream echoes through the canyon, deep and guttural. Rife with pain.
Maddox.
I launch myself toward the shore and stumble along the uneven ground to grab his dagger from the stones. My feet slip and slide as I sprint toward the dreadful sound.
I don’t know how I’ll save him, but I run anyway, finding him standing alone near the river, his face and hands dripping with water, the front of the dark pants he wears under his trousers soaked as well.
There’s no sign of a wolf or any other predator. Maybe it’s a snake.
Oh, heavens. Please don’t be a snake.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I scan the ground. If there was a snake, it’s long gone.
“I am on fire,” he whimpers, blinking through tears streaming from his eyes, glistening on his cheeks.
“Did you eat something you shouldn’t have?” I didn’t come across any berry bushes, but I was in such a rush to reach him, I could’ve missed them.
“No,” he pants, using his forearm to swipe at his eyes.
Then what in the world is?—
On the ground behind him is a ball of roots attached to a thin stalk lined with fuzzy blue leaves.
Shit.
Dread twists in my stomach when I realize this isn’t the only plant. The entire shore is lined with them. “Did you go down there?” I gesture farther down river with the blade.
“Yes?”
I was afraid he would say that. “It’s the thorny nettles.”
“What is thorny nettles?” he whimpers, his hands flexing and shaking.
I take him by the elbow, examining them more closely.
Shit.
They’re covered in welts.
“The plants all along the bank. They’re like normal nettles only much, much worse. They have tiny spines that sting you.”
He tries to open his eyes, but his poor face is beginning to swell. How in the hell did he get thorny nettles in his bloody eyes?
“How do you make it stop?” he gasps.
