I do regret giving him a reason to look at me like that though. I’m tired of that being the way everyone looks at me.
From the crevice of the nearby boulders, I watch silently as the firefur and a handful of others hop from their hiding spot and approach one of the other fallen wolves with satisfied and celebratory sniffs. They don’t realize it yet, but I’ve just killed their primary source of food. Without the wolves to prowl, the firefurs will have to find another predator to do their hunting for them, or rely on the luck of coming across freshly dead animals on their own.
At least they’ll have the corpses of the wolves to survive off, for now.
“We…” I start, unsure of what I’m about to say but needing to fill the silence. “I think we need to get you some help.”
Acari nods through a grimace as he pushes his hand down against the bleeding of his chest. “I should’ve known…what the firefur was doing.”
“What do you mean?”
The small rodents radiate, surrounding us in a firelike glow as they devour the remains of the four beasts. I catch Acari trying desperately not to watch them, but it’s difficult to ignore their voracious slurping and gnawing as the critters chomp their way through fur, flesh, tendons, and bone.
“It was stupid…to chase after it. I know what firefurs eat…”
“Yeah, but, you didn’t know it was luring you to your death. I didn’t even know they did that.”
Not that that means much, considering I don’t know a lot about things in the realm of the living, but Acari seems to get whatever reassurance he needs from it because he drops the topic.
Caw.
Coming from seemingly nowhere, Crow swoops in from the sky and lands in between two of the wolves’ corpses, illuminated in orange on either side like it was the evil mastermind behind the entire ambush. It squawks a few more times, and I fight the urge to throw a rock at it. I’m not sure why it’s mad at me when it’s the one that led us into the path of a firefur and then left us to die. I know it saw the wolves. It could’ve warned me.
Acari tries pushing himself up but slips. As his back thuds against the ground, he winces and groans.
I glance to the woods around us, not really sure what I was hoping to find. He needs a healer, someone who knows the herbs that will prevent infection and death. But there is no such person around. We’d have to walk back to Ngal, but I’m not even sure where that is from here. We’ve raced too far from our original path.
“Thank you,” Acari croaks, drawing my attention from the trees. “For saving my life.”
The words are bittersweet, and I am not sure whether to accept them, but because he’s staring at me expectantly, I say, “It needed to be done.”
“Maybe,” someone mocks from the darkness.
I am on my feet before I can exhale my next breath. Dark power pulses at my fingertips, rippling around my hands while I scan the surrounding foliage.
“Lower your hands so I can help the boy,” the voice—a man—says again.
My hearing is usually hyper attuned, but I struggle to locate his precise location. It’s maddening. Instead I swivel and spin around Acari’s injured body, trying to locate the stranger.
“He’s in pain,” the man says again when Acari grimaces through another particularly agonizing reminder of his wounds. “And he will die without help. I can save him. You cannot.”
His words sting, but I know he’s not wrong. As much as I wish I had the power to heal him right now, all I have is the power to kill him.
I waver only a second longer, before finally letting my arms fall to my side.
The man that steps out from the shadows would blend in entirely with the night if not for his amber eyes. They are the eyes of a watchful hawk, and even when he averts his attention to Acari on the ground, I still feel myself under their scrutiny. I bend over Acari with him, not wanting him to get too close without me being right there with him; within arm’s reach of this stranger, if need be.
Through clenched teeth, Acari asks, “Is it affected?”
“He means infected,” I say to the stranger, biting back the smile tugging at my lips before addressing Acari. “And no, it’s not. Wounds don’t infect that quickly. Don’t they teach princes anything?”
His laugh blends in with his next wince.
While the man assesses the damage, I scrutinize every detail I can about him. The purple runes on his forehead are nearly camouflaged against his dark skin, but when the wind blows the branches just right, they shine in the moon’s glow. I almost gasp when I see the jagged rune from his eye down his cheek, the one bestowed upon mortals when they are terminally ill.
Instead I avert my eyes to his working hands as they assess the damage done, only to find more runes, ones I’ve never seen before.
Each of his fingers’ nails are inked with beads and swirls. The middle finger alone has a line of them, leading to the back of his hand where a swarm of feathers loop in intricate designs of purple loops.
I can’t keep my eyes off his runes as he pulls a jar from a pouch in his belt and applies the gel inside to Acari’s puncture holes.
Before I can ask him what he’s giving Acari or what the runes on his hands represent, the prince’s eyes droop open and he stares straight up at the stranger.
“You,” Acari accuses wearily. “What did you do with my sister?”
17
Trick of the Bandits
Acari
Whatever the bandit lathered onto my chest is helping diminish the pain a little,
