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I glanced over my shoulder, finding Creon first. He watched the forest with a cold smile around his lips, a hint of triumph in that expression.
Was he at least somewhat pleased with my approach? I couldn’t tell; he was avoiding my gaze again.
‘In that case,’ I repeated, forcing myself to look away, to focus on Naxi’s beaming grin and Edored’s scowl, ‘are you coming?’
Naxi practically skipped across the border, Beyla just behind her. The rest followed more slowly. Creon crossed the line with his hands in his pockets and his wings tucked in as if this was just another walk around the park – a look of harmless indifference that would have been more convincing if not for the knives gleaming at his belt and the inked scars silently reminding every onlooker of his violent past.
‘Looks like you were right,’ I whispered as he passed me by, and he gave me a nod that mostly said,Obviously, rather than,Well done, we figured it out.
For hell’s sake.
But Lyn interrupted before I could drag him aside and demand he tell me what game he was playing. ‘It’s even more impressive than what we read about, isn’t it, Em?’ Her voice was half an octave too high. ‘No wonder the humans loved it so much before the plague.’
At least someone understood the assignment. Ignoring the unanswered questions aching in my guts, I threw a look at Edored, who was still looking like someone had dropped a sharp pebble in his boot. Urgent matters first. ‘Very pretty, indeed. Don’t you agree, Edored?’
He huffed.
‘Thought so,’ I said, hoping his huff resembled agreement closely enough for the forest to accept it. ‘Much more helpful than anyone told us, too. Lyn, do you think it knows where to find highlights like … like Zera’s temple, for example? Because that would make it much easier to—'
Before I could finish my sentence, the winding path rearranged itself between the trees, shifting slightly northwards, like water changing its course.
‘I think that’s a yes,’ Lyn said, sounding dazed.
‘Of course it knows where to find the temple,’ Naxi said brightly, patting the nearest tree with a fond smile. ‘Very exciting place, this! Wish I’d come here sooner. Shall we go on our way, then?’
‘But …’ Edored threw a wild look around, from the newly formed path to me, and from me to Naxi, as if he hoped one of us would mercifully put an end to this ridiculous charade and invite him for beer and cards instead. ‘You really want us to walk wherever the hell it tells us to walk? With no questions asked? As if some stupid forest knows—’
‘Edored,’ Beyla hissed.
‘—what this is all about? I mean, it’s just—’
A deep rumble, more sensation than sound, rolled through the earth below our feet, drowning out the rest of his sentence. Edored froze in place, eyes wide enough to reveal the white around his irises.
The unearthly thunder died away, but the memory of the sound lingered, hovering ominous in the air. I didn’t dare to move. I barely dared to breathe.
‘I think it’s clear,’ Tared said with emphatic calm, ‘that this forest knows exactly what it’s doing, Edored. Apologise, will you?’
‘What?’ Edored snapped, voice soaring.
‘You insulted our host.’ A nod at the trees, which had stopped rustling. ‘Apologise.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ Edored’s laugh was too shrill. ‘I’mnot the one throwing a tantrum over some sensible questions, need I remind you? Why shouldn’t this fucking forest—’
Creon was moving before I could open my mouth.
He was faster than Tared’s jump forward. Faster than Lyn’s sharp warning and Naxi’s shriek of alarm. A slap of dark wings, a flash of black and bronze on the edge of my sight, and both he and Edored toppled over on the mossy forest floor, a tangle of limbs and wings and indignant shouts that couldn’t drown out the sickeningthwackof …
Of a head-sized acorn slamming down in the exact spot where Edored had stood a fraction of a moment before.
‘No!’ Naxi cried to the tree she’d been complimenting, hurried and breathless, her voice loud enough to cover up Tared’s curses. ‘No, there’s no need for that! He didn’t mean to offend you! It’s all a misunderstanding!’
Creon hauled himself and Edored upright in a single fluid motion, one scarred hand clasped over Edored’s mouth with enough force that the alf turned faintly purple. The look in the Silent Death’s eyes was a gathering thunderstorm, a warning that said he wouldn’t mind snapping this idiot’s neck and being done with him forever.
Staring at the monstrous acorn in the moss, a projectile large enough to break a skull, not even Tared appeared in the mood to object.
‘We apologisesodeeply,’ Lyn stammered, her cheeks pale below her freckles as she frantically looked up at the trees again. Not a leaf stirred in reply. ‘He … he’s a terrible judge of character, our cousin. He—’
‘He fell from a roof as a child,’ I interrupted in a flash of inspiration, throwing Edored my most imploring look as he wrestled against Creon’s hold. ‘Slammed his head against a stone, and he’s never been the same since. It’s a very sad situation, really.’
