“That’s the way we’re heading,” Koji said as they watched it fly off into the distance. “It must have been spying on us.”
“Are they that intelligent?” Florian asked dubiously.
“We should assume they are,” Kade interjected. “Plan for the worst, hope for the best.”
“They were spoken of very highly in the books I’ve read,” Koji offered. “They did have a sort of structure to their packs. Not quite a society, but a step above simple beasts, for sure.”
Florian looked back to where the lion-dog had flown away, but it was already out of their field of vision in the unrelenting light. They were headed in the same direction, so whether it was coincidence or the lion-dogs really were tracking them, he supposed they would find out soon enough.
Chapter Twelve
Thesensationofbeingwatched carried on through the rest of their travels, and they occasionally caught sight of the solitary lion-dog that seemed to be following them—always at a distance, never close enough to be a danger to them or for them to harm it. It always seemed aware of when they noticed it, staring back at them for long, tense seconds, before flying away the same as the first time. Each time it flew away, it kept heading in the direction they were going, closer to the mountain where the Arrow would be found. They never spotted any other lion-dogs, and Florian was sure that it was the same one keeping tabs on them, in a constant cycle of fleeing and circling back.
What was it trying to do? Had it seen them kill the others? Why was it only observing, then, as if it were leading them where they needed to go? For all that Florian thought over it—with little else to do as they trudged through the Blight—he could come up with no other reason than that the lion-dog was a spy, monitoring them as they traveled. He thought it might even be trying to bait them into following it, but for what purpose? They were already heading in the direction the lion-dog was leading them. And why would it want to lead them to its home, when it had likely seen them kill the lion-dogs that had attacked them?
But they would receive no answers until they reached the Arrow, so they pressed on.
On the third day since they had crossed the sea, Kade pointed out a slight shape on the horizon.
“I think that’s the mountain,” he said. Relief and anxiety flooded Florian all at once, knowing they would be at their destination soon if they could now see it in the bright light. The creature had led them here, though, so whatever it was planning would happen soon, too.
“Keep a close eye out,” he said nervously. “There are definitely going to be more lion-dogs here.”
“Agreed,” Koji said, finally putting away his map. “Let’s stay alert.”
Kade nodded, one hand on the hilt of his sword. “We’ll go slow and observe as much as we can. Hopefully, we can get a good view of everything before anything goes down.”
Florian nodded. “I’ll let you know as soon as I feel its magic.”
They continued toward the shape that was rising up on the horizon: what had started as a faint smudge in the distance was growing into a summit with a slow but steady incline, very much like the Mount Fuji they had seen on Earth. From this distance, Florian couldn’t make out any features on the mountain—he wondered if there were structures where the lion-dogs still lived, or if they maybe had a cave that they lived in, like where they had found so many other Blighted creatures.
“Florian,” Koji said abruptly, pulling him from his thoughts. “What does it feel like when you sense the Arrow?”
“Oh,” Florian said, surprised as he glanced back at the dragon shifter. “Hmm. It sort of feels like... The air becomes really thick, so I can feel it on my skin. It’s sort of like static. Or when we’re right up close, it kind of feels like the air is sort of sticky. Maybe like when there’s really high humidity. I don’t really know how else to describe it, but I literallyfeelit on my skin. Not just like sensing it in my head or something.”
“How strange that we can’t feel it,” Koji murmured, tapping a finger against his chin in thought. “I mean, I know only fae have magic the way they do, but why wouldn’t shifters be able to sense that sort of magic, too? Why only fae?”
Florian considered this for a long moment. He thought his father had been able to sense the Arrow, if not as strongly as him, but his memory of that day was hazy at best, and no other fae who had been around the Arrows had said anything about it. Two arrows were being stored in the castle of the Winter Court, and Tatiana had never commented about feeling their magic, nor had any of the winter fae who lived or worked in the castle.
Was it only him who could sense the magic this strongly? A cold sensation washed over him as he realized that he very well might be—that the magic of the Arrows might be tied to Thaddeus, and that was why only he could feel their pull so intensely.
Koji was looking at him curiously, he realized, so he let out a nervous laugh and shrugged.
“Yeah, thatisweird,” Florian said, shrugging. “I’m, uh, I’m not sure. I mean, they were made by the Summer Queen, so, you know, it’s probably all old magic, and who knows how that works.”
Koji still looked at him with an odd expression, like he could tell Florian was unnerved but was clueless as to why. Florian could feel Kade turning back to look at him, and he saw Koji’s eyes flickering between them, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn back around and face the wolf shifter.
He should tell Koji the truth, he could practically hear Kade telling him in his head. The dragon shifter deserved to know everything that he was getting tangled up in. But if Koji found it all too strange, too frightening, and decided not to help them any further... Having a third person had been so helpful, and Florian was loath to go back down to a two-person team.
When they got this Arrow, he would explain everything, but not yet. Not now. Not while they still so badly needed Koji’s help.
Florian turned back around with that resolve, but Kade had already looked away, watchful as ever. They continued on their way in silence.
In the distance, the mountain loomed, now close enough that they could see a faint path leading up toward the summit. There were several rock formations on the face of the mountain, though they didn’t look like structures Florian could recognize. The longer he looked though, the more he thought he could sometimes see signs of movement—whether it was more of the Blighted lion-dogs, other creatures, or something else entirely, though, he couldn’t say.
“Heads up,” Kade barked, pulling him from his concentration. The sound of his sword being drawn snapped him to attention; Kade’s eyes were more trained to their left, and Florian could make out the shape of more lion-dogs flying toward them from above. “We’ve got company.”
The creatures swooped down blazingly fast, and once the first group met them, they didn’t let up. They would fight through a group of three or four, walk for another five minutes, then a new group of lion-dogs would descend on them to attack. At first, they were mostly unscathed, but each group wore them down more and more until Florian was sure it was a war of attrition by design. The lion-dogs were smarter than they’d expected.
