“S-surely it’s not true? I mean, this is quite a small loch for a water dragon…right? And the little scholarship I’ve read suggests they primarily reside in the ocean.”
Honey unpacked the selection of apples, nuts, and auldfruit from her pack; Ainsworth took the hard cheese from his own. “Why don’t you take a look for yourself?”
He was reassured by her casualness, but he became acutely aware of his surroundings nevertheless. “I think I’m fine, thanks. Should we— Should we call for Ashe?” he asked.
Honey shook her head. “She will most likely hunt small game for her lunch.”
Ainsworth balked inwardly but, considering their last conversation, tried desperately not to let judgment lace his voice. “How…unusual.”
“It’s definitely frowned upon,” Honey said with a laugh. “But why should I care if she likes her meat raw? Anyway, shouldn’t you be focusing on your notes?”
Ainsworth frowned. Since when did Honey become his academic supervisor? “I feel like the pages of my pocket-bound book will be difficult to manage in this wind. And I do detest writing with charcoal. But needs must.” He balanced the small packet of bound parchment on his lap and began to write:
What might surprise those who have heard of the legendary Mount Vengeance is the somewhat placid nature of the mountain’s beginnings. One must take a rather mundane walk over one of the lesser hills to reach it. A stark, lifeless, and chilling landscape awaits, but it is nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing one might consider deserving of a mountain that travels the land in myths and whispers. The cold, harsh—
“Ainsworth! I thought you were a scholar, not some sort of gossip-sheet scribbler!”
Once again, Honey had somehow maneuvered herself to peer over his shoulder undetected.
“Excuse me, this is private! It is a first draft,” he exclaimed, holding the pages tight to his chest. Too late, he realized that the charcoal had smudged all over him.
“Ainsworth, is that how you truly see this place?” There was no hurt in her voice, but rather disbelief, as if he had somehow failed to meet an expectation she had placed on him.
“Well— Yes!” he said, and although he did not lie, he did not exactly tell the truth, either. Once again, the feeling that he was not quite grasping what was in front of him stirred within, and he let out a sigh. “Well, maybe. I don’t know, Honey! I mean, what do you want me to say about this place? So far, it is a hill! It is not the myth, the legend, I expected it to be.”
“Of course it isn’t. We are not even close to that part of the mountain. But this— This is something magnificent in itself. Take a second, Ainsworth. Take a second to really think about what you’re experiencing here. Then evaluate. And only then do I want you to tell me what you see.”
He scoffed, but her face was deadly serious.
She looked different, somehow. Her hair whipped around her face as she stood in defiance against the bright-blue sky, the wild terrain of her surroundings framing the ferocity he suspected she worked hard to repress within the confines of the hospitable inn. And she was beautiful out here, he thought. Yes—back at the inn, too, but she seemed to transform with every step they had taken. She was alight out here, and he wondered if he had been granted a rare privilege in seeing herso.
Some part of him, fading now, wanted to tease her for how ridiculous this was. But instead he gave a small nod and tried to really open his eyes to what was around him.
In the first few moments, he wondered if it was possible to simply…look at something wrong. For his impression did not change. The deep brown of the earth that seeped through the rocks and slate-like surface of most of the range was dull. The wind, as ever, irked him as it snatched at his hair, pained his ears, and eagerly sought to push him from where he perched. The mundane, small loch, the water rippling in the gusts and lapping slightly at soggy, reed-strewn edges, was the epitome of…well, boring to him.
He gave Honey an apologetic glance. “I am sorry. I cannot see anything special about this place. However, I can sense it is special to you—and for that, I acknowledge there is something about this place I am merely incapable of seeing. For that, I know it is—” He wanted to saymagnificent,but the intensity of the word alarmed him. Since when did Honey’s thoughts about something matter so much to him? Instead, he settled for: “Charming.”
In the moment of silence that followed, he watched an amusing conflict battle its way across Honey’s face. Finally, she said: “It’s all right, Ainsworth. Come, then. Let us continue. The standing stones will be something of interest to you, at least.”
It was slightly past noon when they arrived, the sun high above them yet its warmth still not quite able to pierce through the chill of the wind. From an almost sheer cliff face, a tumble of rocks and cracks slipped down, as if a small leak had sprung and, instead oftrickling water, the mountain had sent a rush of itself out into the clearing below. The stones split across the ground, creating a semicircle around a scattering of huge, slate-like slabs that stood alarmingly upright. Some were three times as tall as Ainsworth, and it seemed impossible they had landed naturally from the spill of earth in such a way. He walked, transfixed, up to the closest one. He held a hand tentatively in front of it, barely noting his panting breath, the uncomfortable soak of his sweat-laden shirt, as he felt a gentle warmth radiate from the stone. The sun, or power within? He closed his eyes, and he swore he felt a spark, a jolt of excitement thrumming through him as he made contact with the stone.
“You’d probably feel more if magic flowed easier through you,” Honey called from another stone, palm pressed againstit.
“Dark magic?” inquired Ainsworth.
“Magic is just magic,” she repeated.
Ainsworth ignored her. Finally, something he could study, something he could report! And— He was on Mount Vengeance itself! Yes, days and days away from any of the adventures or dangers he wished to fully chart in his book, but…still, he was here. This was a start; this was a chapter. Maybe even two!
“Honey, I need to sit for a bit and take some notes and sketches. Can you tell me more about this place, please?” he asked, placing his heavy bag on the ground and rummaging for his equipment. His shoulders ached from the leather straps, and he thought it would be a miracle if they did not end up bruised.
“These boring old things? I can’t imagine there’s much to say, really. An adventurer came to the inn once to specifically look for such a structure—apparently dragons do things like this to mark the beginnings of their territory. But repeating such anecdotal accounts could be considered lazy scholarship, could it not?”
Ainsworth whipped his head around to face her. That was it? All she had was the assumptions of a random guest? “Of course this is worth including, even such speculation. But still, I won’t get more than a page or two out of this.” He could not help the petulant note in his voice, and he hated that she grinned wickedly in response.“You implied that what you were going to show me would be of more significance—”
“I did,” she replied. “But what I was talking about isbehindthis one,” she said, kicking the largest, crooked standing stone in the middle of the cluster. There were thirteen in total, and the one Honey stood in front of towered over them all. She skipped behind it, calling him to follow. Ainsworth snapped his notebook shut and hurried after her.
At first, he halted in fright. The figure waiting for them had her arms held out as if offering them something, and the suddenness of her appearance startled him. Then, as the tumble of hair, the swirl of horns among the tresses, and the eyes he knew all too well stood out to him, he thought Ashe was playing a trick, shifting into Honey’s form as a joke. But after a second, he realized she was not moving.
