I look around for a skin of water that I know must be around here somewhere, and Zeph—accurately reading what I’m looking for—picks up one near him and chucks it at me. I pluck it from the air and guzzle almost half of it down before coming back up for oxygen. I sigh contentedly and then turn my attention back to my audience, studying them for a moment. Well, here goes nothing.
“You’re not going to like this, but I think I know somewhere we can go,” I announce and watch each of them focus even more on me. I swallow down the nerves that crawl up my chest and try to make me rethink what I’m about to say. “I suspect we may find some help there, but at a minimum, I’m pretty sure they could provide some information,” I add, already defending the words still sitting on my tongue, as if in some way it will make what I’m about to say less of a bitter pill to swallow. I wait while doubt, questions, and curiosity pool in each of their eyes.
“Where?” Ryn finally demands.
I take a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“To the Ouphe.”
4
“What the rut did you just say?” Zeph growls.
“Are you addled?” Ryn counters.
“Why would we do that?” Treno demands.
I sigh.
I point to each of them in turn, answering their questions. “I said the Ouphe. Who knows at this point, and we would go there because I think they may be able to help.”
“How do you know?” Ryn asks, getting his question out before the others can voice theirs.
“Because I ran into a little Ouphe spirit or something when I was with you guys, and she told me.”
“An Ouphe spirit?” he questions, clearly not buying it.
“Yep.”
Treno steps toward me, and my attention goes straight to him. “Where is there?”
“I would guess somewhere in the Quietus Mountains. I don’t know exactly, but there’s a place I was supposed to meet them, somewhere in that area. I had a map before you and your asshole soldiers shot me out of the sky, but I think I remember it well enough to get there.”
“You were going to meet with the Ouphe?” Zeph snarls, charging out of the shadows of his sulking corner, and I shoot to my feet to meet his impending rage-filled advance.
“You can shove all that righteous indignation up your tight ass. I get that there’s no love in you for the Ouphe, but you don’t get to take that shit out on me,” I warn. “I wasn’t going to meet them. I was asked to, but when you threw me out, I was just trying to get home. Regardless of all of that though,” I quickly add, cutting off Zeph when he opens his mouth to say something that will no doubt be dickish and rude, “Nadi—the Ouphe ghost chick—thought that they could help me possibly undo the Vow. If we could do that, then there’d be no more issue with Lazza and company, right? No Vow equals no war.”
“What do you mean help you undo the Vow?” Treno asks warily.
“Turns out my dad was full Ouphe and apparently one of the last Bond Makers left. My mother was half Ouphe, leaving me more Ouphe-tainted than usual. If I can find the language they used to create the Vow, then Nadi thinks I’d be able to break it.”
“Falon, you cannot trust the Ouphe. Whatever it is that they’ve told you, there’s a catch or something in it for them,” Ryn implores, his features hard and angry and his gray eyes beseeching.
“Maybe,” I agree. “But in the grand scheme of things, does that really matter? We can’t go to the Hidden. We can’t fight Lazza ourselves. This is our best chance at trying to find some secret weapon, some Hail Mary, that could stop all the fighting for good. Isn’t that what you were looking for in Kestrel City, some way to end all of this once and for all?”
Ryn shoots a look to Zeph and then locks his eyes back on the fire.
“What’s a Hail Mary?” he asks, confused.
“It’s a football thing—don’t worry about it,” I add when I see the what’s football question form on his lips.
Zeph runs his fingers through his wavy black hair and paces like a caged lion. I can see the fury in every tight coiled muscle in his body. As much as I don’t like him most of the time, I have to give him some credit, because I can tell that he’s considering what I’m saying. He has as much a right as any to hate the Ouphe, to refuse to never trust them or go near them again, and yet for the good of his people and everyone else, he’s at war inside about what to do.
The fire crackles ominously, hissing like it wants to argue with what I’m about to say, but I ignore it. “I get that this won’t be easy. I wouldn’t drop it at your feet if there were any other way, but if I’m right, if I can break the Vow, destroy it forever, wouldn’t it be worth it?”
“How can we be expected to trust them?” Zeph asks, but his question falls to the dirt of the cave floor unanswered.
I have no idea what to say or if we even can. But we’re not defenseless. From what I’ve heard, the Ouphe have been hunted and run down until they’re ragged and desperate. I’m supposedly one of the last with the kind of magic they need to finally dig themselves out of the hole they created, and I figure that will give us the upper hand as long as we’re careful.
“We don’t have to trust them to use them,” Treno states.
“Stay out of this. It has nothing to do with you,” Zeph barks, and Treno bristles.
I wonder for a moment how Treno is still on his feet. He had to be
