EIGHTEEN
Do you like this recent addition to my collection?” Soren asked Barclay. He petted the mountain lion behind one of its four ears, the keys to the chains swinging from his belt. “A Nitney, a Prime class Beast. They’re blind, but they can trick your sight Lore. With the Nitney, I can make you miss things that are really there. It pairs well with my Ischray’s sound Lore, don’t you think?”
Soren gave a fond look to the haunting Ischray, which now pinned Barclay’s arms behind his back. Barclay squirmed in its grip and opened his mouth to yell at Soren, but it was no use. Until Soren snapped his fingers and Barclay regained his voice.
“If something happens to me, if I don’t come back—” Barclay started.
“Everyone will assume you died. You’re just an Elsie, after all. One very much in over his head.”
Soren nodded at the Ischray, which unfastened Barclay’s heavy coat. It fell into the snow, leaving him shivering in only his sweater. Soren placed the scalpel against Barclay’s shoulder, prepared to cut through the wool.
“Viola will tell her father. He’s the—”
“Grand Keeper, yes,” Soren said dismissively. “Something tells me the Grand Keeper will be much more concerned about his only child wandering in the Woods alone without her Master. She’s not here to spectate the Exhibition. She’s here tohide.”
If that was true, maybe Viola couldn’t help him at all.
“Why are you doing this?” Barclay asked him. “Is it for Tadg?”
Soren’s eyebrows raised. “Tadg hardly needs my help. Do you know how hard Mythic Beasts are to find? No? Well, I’ll tell you—they are far easier totake.” Soren grinned maliciously. “My real interest lies in the Legendary Beasts, and once I have my apprentices… Well, the opportunity to claim a Mythic Beast was still too good to pass up.”
“They can’t be that hard to find! I mean, I didn’t evenmeanto bond with—”
“Do you think it’s easy?” Soren spat. “A powerful summoning trap or not, a Mythic Beast will nearly always attack the Keeper who summoned it. It’s a wonder you even survived.”
His words reminded Barclay of what Conley Murdock had written in his book. How a Mythic Beast sometimes chose its Keeper.
“How lucky I am to have found someone like you,” Soren continued, licking his lips. “You have no one watching out for you. No home. Noideawhat you could be capable of.”
The scalpel was ice against Barclay’s skin.
Come out! Come out!Barclay desperately called into his mind.
Soren paid little concern to the wind that swept across the forest, to the figure of the Lufthund as Root appeared behind him.
“Its class might be powerful,” said Soren, unlocking the chains that bound Barclay to the mountain lion, “but even my Nitney can handle one so young.”
Soren was right. When Root pounced, the Nitney quickly pinned him to the snow. He writhed and barked as the Nitney raked its claws at his side.
“You’re hurting him!” Barclay growled.
Soren smirked. “Beasts heal faster than humans. You should be more concerned about yourself.”
And with that, he sliced through Barclay’s skin.
A week ago Barclay might have been happy to give Soren his Beast.Take it,he’d have told him, without a fight. But Barclay did care about Root. It wasn’t just that they’d run together, that Barclay understood him better—it was that Root had chosen him when no one else ever had, even if Barclay didn’t know why.
And so Barclay writhed the best he could beneath theIschray’s grasp—for Root’s sake as well as his own. Nevertheless, Soren cut with a steady hand, like he’d done this before. It scared Barclay to think that if he was left in the snow, he might never be found.
Unfortunately, the only two abilities Barclay could manage—running fast and summoning wind—were impossible without the use of his legs or arms. Which meant he’d have to think of something else to do, and quickly.
It was Soren himself who’d told Barclay what Lufthunds were capable of, when they’d first met at the Bog’s Inn.
Apart from flying Beasts, they are the fastest species in the world. They’ve been known to dissolve completely into wind. Their howls can conjure storms.
As Root moaned louder from beneath the Nitney, Barclay looked up into the sky, into its endless stretch of gray and white, and he howled. The sound of it seemed to come from his very core. From the place inside of him that loved unearthing a mushroom from fresh, damp soil. That kept his hair long to better feel the wind in it. That didn’t like anything as much as running—running and knowing no one could catch him.
His howl did nothing to change the storm, and Soren let out a strained laugh. “Did you think your own howls had power?”
