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That was another thing that surprised me—in a good way—about Robby. Not only his ironclad resilience through all of this, but the ease at which he seemed to be fitting in with the rest of my family, even during one of the hardest times of his life. He could have been shutting everyone out while he dealt with all his trauma, and I wouldn’t have blamed him for a second. But he was doing the opposite. He was finding light where there should have only been darkness, and that was the quality that attracted me to him the most.
Well, that and his perfect bubble butt. Couldn’t forget about that. Nor would I, not when I devoured him later tonight after celebrating us finding the cure to the dragon fall.
“The statue of the Huntress should be right up this path,” Claire said, the satchel held tight against her hip, her sky-blue nails shining bright against the dark leather of the strap.
“And you’re sure this will work?” Maddox asked.
“Of course not,” Claire answered, not even looking over her shoulder at my brother. “But it’s way more than you’ve brought to the table.”
He stayed quiet at that. There weren’t many people who could get Madds to shut up, but Claire was definitely one of them. “Is there anything besides the moon rose that we need to consider for this?” I asked, trying to bring us back into focus.
Claire shook her head, looking back at me and slowing down so she walked next to me. “From the scholars I spoke to, the statue only requires an offering of the moon rose, harvested five days after a waxing moon, after it’s been grown by only watering it with water you’ve let sit out for at least ten full moons. Obviously, not many gardeners and plant enthusiasts are into all that hard work, but for the Huntress, people would do anything. With how hard it was to get, I think we just drop the rose on the offering plate, and she’ll speak.”
“How’d you get the rose in your possession?” I asked.
“By paying for it, obviously.”
“How much was it? We’ll gladly cover any costs.”
Claire waved a hand in the air. “Don’t worry about it, Damien.”
“Well, thank you.”
“For saving the entirety of dragon kind? Sure, no problem.” She winked and gave me a playful hip bump. The path curved and trailed through a tunnel of bamboo. “I just hope it works.” There was an honest sincerity in her voice.
“It will,” I assured her, without any real evidence to prove it. We were all running on fumes here, all hoping for the same thing.
The tunnel of bamboo opened up into a small clearing, surrounded by tall evergreen trees that had been here for thousands of years, creating a kind of permanent green fortress around the beautiful statue.
And beautiful it was.
A huge piece, sculpted by a master artist back when Gryphon Park didn’t even have a name yet. He’d made it for a particular Marvel that was said to be similar to a goddess in not only her powers but also her being. She impacted thousands of lives through her blessings, while she saved countless lives by single-handedly hunting enough food to keep them all fed through cruel and bitter winters.
Well, maybe not single-handedly. The Huntress wore a flowing marble dress to match her long flowing hair, an elaborately sculpted bow in her hands, resting at her side but ready to shoot an arrow in a split second. She sat atop her familiar, Rhox the stag leopard, a rare and deadly beast that worked with her as though he were a phantom limb. In person, he would have been a slick midnight oil in color, with white rosettes that dotted his hind legs and down his tail, his head crowned in antlers that reached at least five feet in length, framing the Huntress on top of him.
“It’s stunning,” Robby said, walking up to the statue. It was sculpted to be the same size as the subjects it was based off, but the pedestal they were on gave them an even more impressive height. At the base of the pedestal was a silver bowl. Dried flowers and old heirlooms had been left to collect dust there until park maintenance came by to clean it up.
Claire moved it all to the side with a swish of her hand, ruby-red threads of mana gently carrying the collection of offerings down to the ground in a neat pile. She then unclipped her satchel and reached inside.
Out came the moon rose. It held us all in a hypnotized breath. It was beautiful. The stem was a soft blue in color, the rosebud opened and full, the petals each looking like the surface of the cratered moon. Even more spectacular was the way the petals glowed, matching the same light that was put off by a full moon. The trees around us provided more than enough shade for it to appear as if Claire had plucked it out right from the sky and placed it into the palm of her hand.
