About time.
I dig into my pocket, pulling out two perfectly round rocks I found down in the Ditch. I set them near the books and begin shifting uncorked tinctures aside in case she moves in her sleep. Slipping the etching stick from her loose grip, I’m about to set it down when my gaze homes in on the glossy red tip …
Blood.
I frown, noticing the bandage around her left hand.
“Fuck, Essi.”
Teeth gritted, I lean forward and look through her scope, shaking my head at the minuscule blood-soaked runes she’s etched in the stone.
Whatever she’s up to, I don’t like it.
“Sqwarrrrk!”
I step back, crouching to see Gruffin nesting at Essi’s feet amongst a coiled throw, one ruddy eye slit open.
Watching me.
I scratch the crest of thick feathers rising above his eyes. “I should’ve known she’d smuggle you up here while I was out.”
He tilts his head, requesting a neck scratch. Fluffs himself as I abide—his feathers darker at the base than I was expecting them to be. Such contrast to the powdery ends, iridescent in certain lights.
In truth, he reminds me of a velvet trogg: blue and really fucking hungry.
I dig my fingers deeper, and he shivers all over, fluffs his wings, then tosses them wide, showcasing their vast and floppy span, now half as wide as my own stretched arms.
Impressive for such a young buck.
While he’s distracted, I take the opportunity to crack some of the remaining pin feathers beneath his beak. “Just remember, you eat her, you’re out.” I flick a bit of calcified sheath away. “You’ll be taking your first flight through the vomit hole so fuckin’ fast.”
He makes the same scratchy sound Maell makes when she’s spotted something she wants to prey on. Except I fed the little fucker before I left. And based on the pile of stripped carcasses beside his makeshift nest, Essi’s also fed him since.
He tucks his wings, arches his head back over himself, and starts pecking at the bones, flicking them about when he finds them stripped. One hurtling carcass away from waking Essi from her first nap in daes.
With a deep sigh, I drag the laden sack over, sit on a low stool, and get to work skinning the furry rodents, stripping meat as I go and dropping it straight down Gruffin’s ever-ready gullet, saving the organs for him to pick at later.
We fall into the swift rhythm we’ve perfected over the past few daes—one where I don’t fuck around and he marginally avoids amputating my fingers.
Once his sternum is bulging so much I’m worried it’ll burst, he coils against Essi’s foot, tucks his head beneath a wing, and goes back to sleep.
Another sigh as I wipe my bloody hands, looking in my sack at the meager three remaining rodents that took me half the dae to catch.
“Shit.”
Perhaps they’ll last longer if I stop stripping the meat and just hack them into chunks?
I scratch the back of my head, looking at Gruffin. Decide his throat’s too small to stuff my arm down if a bone gets stuck. Which leaves me only one option:
Hunt the plains for something bigger and meatier than the common vermin.
“Forgot how tiring this is,” I mutter, wishing the others were back already. Not for the first time, I wonder what’s taking so long, agitated by the knots in my gut that’ve made my appetite dwindle as fast as Gruffin’s has grown.
I pad around for my looted flask, then remember I haven’t been able to find anything to fill it with. Because the world is ending, everything’s gone to shit, and Raeve and Kaan are probably dumped in a snowy ditch somewhere. And I was the stupid one who offered to stay behind but didn’t ask which direction they were headed.
Idiot.
Scrubbing my face with my hands, I glance at Essi. Consider relocating her onto the seater before I leave so she can have a more comfortable sleep. Except she might take it the wrong way.
