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Something sticky and moist coated my leg. I must be in trouble. Either that, or I was dreaming.
Where was Father’s ghost? Was he here, forever roaming this place?
Where was Mother? I wanted her. I wanted to go home.
Solid arms encased me in their grip. Male heat radiated from the source and seeped into my pores.
My eyelids fluttered. Alarmed orbs shone down on me, the irises a startling color amid the bleakness. Their hue cut through the woodland murk like gems.
“Poet,” I mumbled.
“Shh,” he intoned.
Yes, it was Poet. That rakish jester and my prevailing enemy.
And there had been a predator—a leenix. It had attacked the jester, and the jester had executed some type of flip to get out of harm’s way, but the maneuver hadn’t helped. So I wounded the animal, but not before it had swiped at me.
Dizzy. Tired. Shaky.
The grass swam several feet beneath me. I was hovering, my body suspended above the ground. Poet was carrying me.
The jester kept one arm linked under my knees, the other harnessed across my back. His heartbeat hammered into my cheek, the wild tempo reminding me of when he danced in the great hall. I mused whether his pulse had sounded this erratic back then, and I wondered what it sounded like whenever he looked at me.
Words bubbled from my lips. I mumbled something about him being a talented prat, and how much I hated him, and that I was sorry.
I should have apologized to the leenix, too. The poor creature was only hungry.
Had I harmed it fatally? Would the animal live?
My savior rested a finger on my mouth to shush me. He murmured how the wildcat would survive and that I should conserve my energy. His pace accelerated, his weight thudding against the ground as he stalked through the forest.
Suddenly, I cried out. The pain in my thigh stunned me into full consciousness, scorching my flesh where claws had torn through me. My tears soaked Poet’s shirt as he panted a rhyme into my temple, his voice a languid caress.
I listened while weeping. And after he finished the recitation, the jester promised we werealmost there, almost there.
Almost where?
An oval of dim light appeared from nowhere, its golden sheen drizzling through the netting of foliage. As we approached, more details came into view.
A window. A thatched roof.
A cottage.
Poet rapped on the wooden door. It flew open, revealing a face with skin made of burlap and a nest of silver hair. The old woman wore an apron and a turbulent expression that slackened with relief when she saw Poet.
“You bastard,” she lectured. “Where have you been? I’m bloody well not getting any younger to be worrying.”
“Come now,” Poet remarked dryly. “You know how I enjoy being fashionably late.”
“Oh, just get the hell in here.”
In a series of hectic gestures, she waved him inside. The jester hastened into the womb of the house.
I craned my head and blinked through the haze. The aromas of herbs and crisp woodsmoke infused my senses. Colorful bands of material were tied into knots, forming cords that hung from the ceiling.
To my bemusement, Poet tried and failed to interrupt the old woman’s ranting. I caught fragments of her tirade while she fussed with the door’s bolt.
“Nicu was in hysterics …”
