“Get back!” Fel grabbed Teyla and Syla to pull them farther from the bank.
Wreylith wouldn’t have struck them, but when she poured a gout of fire into a thick tree growing near the edge, the flamesdidflow inland alarmingly far beyond her target. Even from thirty feet away, Syla could feel the heat against her cheeks.
Branches caught fire, leaves incinerating, and Wreylith banked, her red belly gleaming in the orange light before her wings carried her upriver and out of view.
“Thank you!” Syla called after her.
The tree didn’t burn as spectacularly as one bathed in dragon fire in a drier climate would have, and Syla could already tell the flames wouldn’t spread, but they did provide some light. She picked her way back to the moss bulb, peering up at it, then all around. Instead of the signs of a past civilization that she sought, she spotted a knee-high red-capped mushroom at the base of a nearby tree.
“Oh, is that a tendric toadstool? A tea made of dried powder from the cap treats digestive ailments and intestinal parasites.”
“Delightful,” Fel rumbled, eyeing the burning tree.
Insects were indeed being drawn by the flames, but fewer of them were molesting Syla, so she considered that a boon.
“Does anyone see—” she started to ask but glimpsed vibrant moss dangling from another tree. “Oh, a blue bryophyte. They’re known to lower inflammation when added to a poultice.” Had the ground been less uneven, she would have skipped happily to the branch to pluck off a few clumps. Maybe she would add it to a poultice for her fresh bug bite later. Shecouldrepair such wounds, but if many were acquired, it was more taxing to treat each one with magic than simply let them heal on their own. “This place is wondrous.”
Teyla whirled, swinging her sword at something that flew past, hissing as it went.
Another roar floated out of the rainforest.
Fel slapped at the back of his neck. “Wondrous.Right.”
“I see a Frandle fern.” Syla clambered over a log, picking her way to huge gray-green fronds. “They’re named for the herbalist who penned a book on edible and medicinal ferns before the Gods War. I think his people lived on the coast not far from here and traveled inland up the rivers to collect and study plants. I can’t wait to see what we can find in the morning when there’s more light.”
The roar sounded again, closer.
“We may not be here in the morning.” Fel still held his mace, and he eyed the darkness in the direction of whatever great cat was prowling closer. “Is she always so easily distracted?”
The question was for Teyla, but Syla answered, barely noticing another bug brushing her, though she reflexively swatted at it.
“You’ve seen me in the antiques shop, Sergeant. You should know that items related to certain passions of mine can capture my attention.”
“At least there aren’t artificial-leech contraptions out here,” Fel grumbled.
“No, but I bet there arerealleeches. Numerous varieties.”
“You shouldn’t say that with such excitement, Syla,” Teyla said. “Not when we have to sleep out here tonight.”
“Well, stay out of the water.” Though Syla would happily have hunted every square inch within the influence of the firelight, she reluctantly admitted that foraging for medicinal plants wasn’t her mission. Maybe one day, if she could talk Wreylith into giving her another ride, she could return with an expedition to seek useful plants, fungi, and mosses. Weren’t razorcoons, known for their hollow quills full of the protein-repairing asaka liquid, native to this area? Maybe she could even findnewuseful substances that humans hadn’t yet learned had value. In the meantime… “Does anyone see any ruins?”
“The likelihood,” Teyla said, “of us stumbling upon the remains of an ancient civilization within fifty feet of the place we happened to come ashore is slim.”
“We wouldn’t bestumbling.” Syla stepped onto the log, moss and soggy bark squishing under her feet, and gazed into the depths of the rainforest. “We chose this spot because it was a rare section of high ground that appears to escape the floods. Local people would have valued such a locale. And there’s a richness of medicinal plants here. Oh, and the fiddleheads of the Frandle ferns are edible. And, I’ve read, tasty. People would have naturally been drawn to a place like this. They may even have cultivated some of these plants if they lived in the area.” She brightened at the thought. “In fact, I’ll wager someone definitely did that at some point. Otherwise, to discover so many useful plants in one area would be surprising.”
She reached out with a loving hand to touch one of the fiddleheads.
“Should we ignore her while she prattles and fondles fern fronds?” Teyla asked. “And set up a camp?”
“I’ve been informed in the past,” Fel said, “that princesses don’t prattle. They rhapsodize on their passions.”
“That sounds like something Nyvia would have said.” Syla smiled sadly as memories of her sister came to mind.
“I was her bodyguard for many years.” Fel sounded sad too.
He was always so stoic and unflappable—other than complaints about his age, joints, and old injuries—that Syla hadn’t considered that he probably missed her family too. After all, he’d served as a bodyguard, first for her parents and then for her sister for almost twenty years after his twenty years of service in the military.
“And she never prattled?” Teyla asked.
