Page 134 of Starside

My cheeks burn with mortification. It doesn’t fade in the slightest when I look up to see Raker staring down at me, arms crossed over his chest.

I flip him off, and I must be imagining it—but I swear I hear him chuckle.

“Water … instead of fire?” I ask, trembling as I stand.

“Invira is a skyrend,” the hunter says simply. And I imagine there are entire classifications of dragons.

I take a shaking step. Wanting to get away from all of them, maybe go curl up and die of embarrassment.

Without missing a beat, the dragon sits back and beats its wings in my direction, sending me back onto my ass with the force. My braid blows in the sharp wind, and my eyes water.

She doesn’t stop until I’m mostly dry.

“Thank you, Invira,” I say through my teeth.

When the hunter is done collecting everything of value from the beast, we begin walking through the forest.

His massive bow is tucked to his side, almost as tall as he is. He keeps a single arrow clutched in his other arm.

“Still hoping to catch something else?” I ask.

His smile is pure charm. “There are plenty of things to ensnare in these woods,” he says. I roll my eyes.

I’m holding a frozen apple in my palms that the hunter tossed at me from his pack. It stings just the slightest bit and is smooth like glass. He said it would draw out the creature we’re looking for.

I just hope I’m not being used as bait for a deadly creature again.

As darkness finally settles over the forest like a blanket, and the stars come out, I look up to the sky and stop in my tracks.

This forest is not a dark place at night.

The hunter wasn’t kidding.

Fireflies make an entire constellation through the trees, orbs and galaxies. I inhale a shaking breath. My eyes burn, watching.

To my surprise, the hunter stops too.

I saw a single firefly once. It flew by my window, and I shook my sister awake. We both pressed our faces against the glass, marveling at it until it disappeared. We stayed up several nights after that, taking turns at our post by the window. But it never returned.

She would never believe this. Never believe there was a wood where thousands would gather.

“This world is a beautiful place,” I say.

He nods. “It is.” He sighs, and the sound is deep. Resonant. “That’s why I like what I do. I get to see the quiet places. The pockets of this world where the beauty has not been disturbed.”

For a moment, the blood, the fangs, the fear, it all falls away. It’s like staring at the night sky, seeing only the stars and not the darkness.

I stare so long that they become nothing more than blurs of light. A part of me, a wall inside, shifts.

I used to hate fire. I used to hate flames.

But I cannot hate this.

There is beauty even in monstrous places. Even in monsters themselves.

One of the fireflies dips low, close enough to touch. I reach up, and the hunter grabs my hand in a flash. His touch is gentle as he sets my arm back down.

“Careful,” he says. “They’re poisonous. Deadly to a human.”