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Lord Everan frowns as he wipes the blood off of his rings with a cloth in his pocket, then mutters an incantation, a stray, small bit of magic moving from one of his rings to Altrius’s eye, cauterizing and cleaning the wound.
“I’ll have no more excuses, Altrius,” Lord Everan mutters. “You know that those guards are for show, and you know who really keeps things in line.”
I look around me. Everan’s guards are still interrupting the auction proceedings with their presence, Everan’s grip has loosened on my chains, and Altrius is barely holding his worg.
With all the deft dexterity of my upbringing, I nimbly move to free the worg from Altrius’s grasp. As expected, they swiftly turn against their master, biting and snapping at him.
When Lord Everan’s attention immediately focuses on me, and I can see all his magical power coalescing, carried forth by the power of his rings, I worry I’ve misjudged my predicament.
“You little bitch,” he growls as Altrius lies beside him on the ground, crying at the worg tearing into him. “I was going to take you to my highest, most luxurious tower, but now I’m locking you in the dungeon forever!”
But a stray bit of powerful magic hits him in the back of his head, knocking him forward. His head collides with the stone tiles with a brutal smack.
I look around, trying to determine the source of the magic but cannot identify it.
He is on the ground, out cold.
With as much speed as my chained legs will allow, I run out of the Dark Market square, past the gates. I wish I could free the other captives too, but there is no way I can manage it. Lord Everan’s guards will be on my tail very soon.
And they have means of finding and retrieving me beyond my comprehension.
My only hope is to flee into the woods of Rach. Here, not only are there no settlements to speak of, the dark and dense forests provide plenty of cover, making it easy to hide.
My movements are guided by fear and desperation. I remind myself of the stakes and the urgency of not getting caught. I know that they have means of finding me, and I don’t really have a plan, but I’m improvising as well as I can.
As I double over, trying to catch my breath, I find a mossy boulder. With these chains restraining my movement, my forward progression is seriously inhibited, and my discovery becomes all the more likely.
Sitting on the leaf and dirt-covered floor of the forest, I drive the boulder into my chains with a satisfying clink, targeting the vulnerable areas where the connections are weakest. It would be so much easier with magic, but thankfully, there are no signs of my pursuers yet.
Now picking myself up from the floor of the forest, my stomach rumbling with every step - perhaps I shouldn’t have refused the feed - I run with every bit of energy my body will allow, uncertain of what I’ll discover.
4
ZYRANTH
The air smells of dinner.
It’s not any of the usual victims, like worgs abandoned by their packs after they’ve been injured, dripirs caught amongst the vines and branches of needled bushes, or iypins and iypinnits bleeding out after some subpar hunter lets them escape.
None of those things - meals, hunts, treats - give off a scent so sweet and floral that sticks out amongst the wet earth and moss that surrounds me.
When the realization hits me, when my stomach growls in recognition, my black, scarred wings have already unfurled and my claws have left deep, desperate scars on the soil from my takeoff. My heart starts to beat fast in anticipation, and the growing excitement in my chest fills my veins with pure adrenaline.
I pay no attention to the gnarled branches and sharp leaves that scratch against my wings and feet because I don’t care.
None of that matters more than the hunt.
My nostrils flare, eager to get another whiff of food, of dinner, and my mouth salivates. Drool slips down my chin and out of the corners of my mouth and flies past me as I beat my wings to go faster.
I don’t register the tiphe tree in front of me until I nearly crash into it, drunk on the scent. My claws and feet grip onto the sturdy trunk. I take a moment to breathe and once again I’m hit with the intoxicating scent ofhuman.
I haven’t had a human in what feels like decades, and I barely remember the hunt leading up to it.
I remember the taste, though.
I remember how the warm, crimson blood spurted from the soft flesh and how it ran down my mouth and fingers. I would suck each of those fingers dry, eager to lick up every last drop. I remember cracking the weak little bones and slurping the marrow and how I nearly got drunk off the taste. I mourned when it was over, even crushing the now dry bones between my molars and licking the blood-stained ground. Humans are so small that the meal never lasts as long as my body wants it to.
The memory makes me refocus, and I kick off the trunk and down to the ground. The foliage is getting thicker, and I can’t afford to slow down because of another mistake. A low rumble starts in my chest and erupts forth as a loud call. The karasus and pavos that haven’t already been scared off by my approach flee from their branches, and I can only hope that anything else that has caught this sweet scent in the air has heard my commanding call.
