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“You sound as though you speak from experience.”
“I guess I am. When I was younger my mom caught my dad cheating on her. It all broke apart then. They couldn’t save their marriage. I was caught in the middle and I was the one who lost even though I wasn’t a part of it.” She shrugged.
“I’m sorry that happened to you. But you strike me as a remarkable person Emilia. You are far braver than I would have expected. Perhaps there is a little bit of a lion inside you,” I said with a smirk. She chuckled in response, and then we reached the cave.
I walked inside, sniffing the air, but I could not catch my brother’s scent. It was as though it had been wiped clean, and I found this unnerving. The absence of any scent was startling and it was clear that someone had gone to the trouble of cleansing the air.
“This place looks cozy,” Emilia said as she went to examine the undisturbed blanket and a few of the other trinkets that had been placed here over the years. I had always been a little jealous of my brother for having this secret place he could visit with Char. He spoke a great deal about the intimacy they shared, intimacy that now seemed as though it was a lie. However, I had always longed for something similar and yet had never experienced it. Seeing Emilia standing near the bed inspired me with thoughts about how natural it seemed for her to be here, how easy it would be to fall into this world where she and I could share this place instead of Divad and Char.
I had to shake the thoughts from my mind though because there were more pressing matters. My brother had been taken, and before anything else was decided I needed to find him. I sniffed the air, trying to catch the scent of either Char or this mystery man that Emilia had seen with her, but there was nothing. I scanned the ground and the walls, hoping to find some errant clue that would lead me to a breakthrough. I feared that he was gone and there was no hope of finding him. Enough time had passed already that he might well have been dead, and if that happened…
I lashed out in anger, beating my fist upon the ground.
Emilia turned around sharply to look at me.
“What was that for?” she asked.
“We are wasting too much time. He has to be somewhere, but how are we supposed to find him? They could be doing anything to him. He could be dead,” I choked on those words as they left my mouth, almost not daring to face the possibility of it happening. As annoying as Divad could be he was always a constant in my life, and I had no idea what I would ever do without him.
I tried blinking away my sorrow and tossed my gaze around the cave again, and this time I did see something. It was small and fluttering, but it caught my eye. I walked over to it and stamped my foot upon it before it had a chance to blow away. I bent down and picked up the dark brown feather.
“What is it? What have you found?” Emilia asked.
“I know where they’ve taken him,” I said, clenching my fist around the feather.
Chapter Ten
Emilia
“Where?” I asked Naaro as he strode out of the cave. His anger had gotten the better of him inside, but now he had regained control.
“Up there,” he said, and pointed to a vast mountain in the distance. It towered so high that the peak of it was lost in the mist, and it almost looked like an illusion. My mouth dropped open.
“How are we supposed to get up there? It’s going to take us days to get there, if not weeks,” I said.
He tilted his head to give me a withering stare. “It may take weeks for you,” he said. “But that is not the most pressing concern.”
“No, there’s also the fact that we have to climb it. I don’t know about you, but I was never that big on climbing things.”
“I’m not talking about climbing either. We need to take Ganang into account.”
“Ganang?” I asked, feeling lost.
Naaro exhaled softly as he spoke, and his gaze was fixed towards the mountain. “The wild lands of Orestes are split into different terrains and each of them has a beast that lurks within. During our great hunts we prove ourselves by hunting these beasts.”
“How can you hunt them more than once?”
“Because they are as much a part of nature as anything else. It takes time, but after they are hunted, they come to be again, allowing other warriors to earn glory in the hunt. The mountains are home to Ganang, a great bird who spreads her wings and casts shadows across the world.”
“Great,” I gulped. “Have you ever hunted her before?”
“It is not time for the Great Hunt yet. She will be sleeping. But if she wakes…, why would they hide there?” he asked.
“I guess the best place to hide is near a monster that people don’t want to come near,” I suggested.
“We must make haste. They have already had too much of an advantage.”
“I hate to break it to you, but have you forgotten that I can’t run as fast as you can?” I asked.
