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I had no reason to trust the man who led us here, other than my gut. Somehow, deep down, I knew he wasn’t a threat. Not to us, at least. Or maybe I was just blindly hoping for the best, again.
“Not much farther now,” I repeated to Edrich.
“Lina?” Edrich’s voice was hoarse.
“Yes? What is it?” Dread pooled in my stomach.
“How would you know how much further it is? Just… just stop talking.”
I was not sure whether to laugh or be offended. But if Edrich could summon the energy to be grouchy again, then maybe he would be okay, after all.
A moment later, we rounded a corner into a large, cavernous space. Pepper was perched high up on an opening in the cave wall, her head tilting toward us as we made our way in.
The elf was already making a fire; a pot of clean water, and what looked like fresh bandages, were nearby.
“See, I was right!” I squeaked, relieved that we could soon clean his wounds, and hoping that the mortar and pestle next to the stranger was something that might help Edrich.
“Yes, Lina. You’re always ri—” the ground raced up to meet us, cutting his words off entirely, as he hit the cave floor with a thud.
Two hands reached out to gently catch me and Maggie. I thought it was Edrich for a moment, before realizing that it was the stranger. He had somehow been fast enough to cross the six yards to get to us before we were thrown across the cavern or crushed under Edrich.
I didn’t have time to be relieved or grateful for his help. Not when my eyes landed on my oldest friend’s pale, unmoving form lying on the wet stone ground.
18
Edrich
“Edrich?”
I expected to awake to the same darkness and pain that had claimed me, but, instead, a familiar voice lulled me gently into consciousness. For a moment, I thought I was back on the farm, then I caught the earthy scent of damp rocks and another acrid odor I couldn’t place.
My eyes flew open, instantly on alert.
“Edrich?” Lina said my name again, her cool hand on my temple like she was trying to infuse me with some of the light and life she carried with her everywhere she went.
Or maybe my head is just fuzzy from passing out.
“I’m up,” I said gruffly, sitting up to survey our surroundings and get a good look at our unlikely savior.
And maybe to put some distance between Lina and me.
The flapping of wings pulled my attention away from her, and I caught sight of Pepper perched on a lip of the cave wall. She was contentedly grooming herself and didn’t seem to be too wary of the situation we had found ourselves in.
I tucked that away. She was usually very good at judging whether or not there was danger nearby.
My eyes darted toward the dark man sitting in the corner, his shadowy-winged unicorn looking no less intimidating, even though it was crunching on an apple, then down at my freshly bandaged shoulder wound. That’s where the pungent odor was coming from, but I would take a smell over the white-hot pain any day.
“Thank you,” I told him.
He only surveyed me a moment before nodding. Whatever the creatures we had fought were, this man didn’t appear to be exactly the same.
But he wasn’t entirely different, either.
Now that he had pushed back his hood, I could see his skin was pulled just a little too tight over his sharply angled bones, and there was a predatory grace in the way he moved that even those skilled enough to be in the Huntsmen hadn’t exhibited. He was an elf, probably, but unlike any I’d seen before.
“Ucafre says we can stay the night here,” Lina spoke up.
I could only assume Ucafre was the elf’s name.
