“Do you need any assistance getting home?” Corvin called after me.
I half turned, shaking my head. “Nix knows how to guide me through the Autumn Court.”
“Elvira, I—” he continued, taking a step toward me.
“Safe travels home,” I said, cutting him off.
He gave me an accepting look, though his voice sounded regretful. “You too.”
“Thank you all again for saving my life in the cavern,” I said as my parting farewell.
“Of course!” Tercel responded. “We’d happily save your life again.” He winked. “But only if we’re the ones to endanger it first.”
A laugh escaped me as I turned and followed Nix deeper into the forest.
A mess of emotions tumbled through me as we trekked home. Gratitude that I survived the manticore attack. Curiosity about where Corvin and his friends called home. Disappointment that he still didn’t trust me with that information. And perhaps most potent of all—longing. A burning desire to see him again soon, to understand if he wanted me like I wanted him, to kiss him like I did before, only this time, with no secrets between us.
I dangled my arm off the chaise lounge in defeat, dropping the book it held on to the growing stack littering the floor below me. The book’s pages fluttered closed in a mocking chorus.Nothing in that one.I’d been searching for the wordsternionandZrocanall afternoon with no luck. But that just meant I hadn’t pulled the right book yet. They had to be mentioned somewhere. Right? Curled up on the study armchair across from me, Nix let out a deep sigh.
I peered over at him. “I know whyI’mannoyed. But what’s going on with you? You haven’t stopped sighing since we returned home from Uvrakar last night.”
Nix’s voice was morose. “I failed to protect you in the cavern.”
I lifted my upper body, twisting around to face him better. “What do you mean? You were amazing! You jumped onto that manticore with the moonflower. That was very brave. Besides, I would never have reached the cavern in the first place if it weren’t for you. I mean it. And we made it back safely in the end, didn’t we?”
He perked up slightly at my praise. “How much longer are you going to keep reading?” he asked.
“Until I findsomethinguseful about the Zrocan,” I vowed.
Nix jumped down from the armchair and sauntered over to my pile of books. He placed his paw on the cover of a large burgundy-red tome. “Check this one,” he recommended. I was too distracted by the size of his paw pad to read the book’s title right away. I’d noticed he was getting bigger, gaining weight, but his proportions seemed to be changing too. Like his paw, which looked positively massive, splayed across the book cover just now. “Nix?” I asked curiously. “Are you turning into a dog?” He stared at me blankly, twitching his whiskers. He turned and flicked his tail, stalking lightly out of the room.
It was a distinctly feline gesture.
Shrugging it off, I picked up the burgundy tome, flipping through its chapters. It was a recorded history of the Dragon King Embenar. Notorious for his bloody reign and violent insistence the skies of Uvrakar belonged to the dragons alone. He chased out quite a number of winged creatures from his kingdom in an attempt to dominate the skies. The phoenixes fled to Sivell and eventually allied with the humans living there. Others weren’t so lucky, according to the book’s author. Like the Pegasi, which hadn’t been seen since.
I nearly dropped the book in excitement when I turned the page. There was a small reference to the Zrocan buried in the next section:The Zrocan, bird shifters renowned for their feather magic, were amongst the first to be targeted by KingEmbenar in his violent purge of Uvrakar’s skies.The Zrocan used to live in Uvrakar before King Embenar slaughtered them? I shuddered in horror, thinking of how many creatures the demented Dragon King had killed or displaced in his thirst for domination.
Only, Corvin was living proof that at least some of the Zrocan survived. Which begged the question: Where did they live now? And why couldn’t he tell me? I flipped to the next page in the book and continued to read, but there was no more mention of the Zrocan within its pages.
Maybe soon, Corvin would trust me enough to tell me himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The date of the dinner arrived. I’d spent the entire afternoon cooking and just finished setting the table with (almost) all the cutlery the kitchen possessed. With nothing left to do, I stood near the cottage doorway, anxiously awaiting my guests. Would they like the fish I prepared? Why hadn’t I thought to ask them what they liked to eat beforehand? Would they be uncomfortable cramped together in such a small space? I’d never hosted so many people in the cottage all at once. Perhaps inviting everyone had been a mistake.
The cottage chimes rang out, interrupting my spiraling thoughts.
As soon as I opened the door, the group’s smiling faces and friendly expressions put me at ease. Everyone was dressed more casually than our last meeting. Farryn’s multi-colored pixie wings dazzled in the light, tucked at her back. I got the impression that unlike Corvin and Tercel, she couldn’t vanish her wings.
Corvin stood at the front of the group, wearing a plain black tunic—still no feather cloak—and holding a large wicker basket. “We brought this for you,” he said earnestly. “I wanted to bring you something you could use. And you don’t have any hens on your island. So I thought you might enjoy cooking with—”
Zorana stepped out from behind Corvin, her shadow cloak briefly shimmering at her back, before vanishing from sight once again. She elbowed Corvin in his side. “Just give it to her already.”
“I am,” he snapped back, offering it to me.
Accepting the basket, I took a quick peek inside as Corvin intently watched my face.
It contained a plethora of eggs. Not just chicken eggs though—eggs of all kinds. Large and small. Plain and speckled. White and colorful. Round and oval. I stared at one of the eggs near the top, which was a rather interesting shade of purple. I smiled broadly and Corvin visibly relaxed. “Thank you all for the gift. And welcome to my island,” I said with a wide smile, conscious that it was a sentence I so rarely had the opportunity to utter, guests being so few and far between.
