Page 40 of The Oracle's Journey

The breath caught in my throat when I glanced down. It was hard to look at what lay there at my feet, even in the periphery of my vision when I turned away. My mind kept trying to transpose the image of tomato innards over the crushed remains of the elf—to no avail. Gore covered the ground, myself, and my friends. Numbly, I turned back and lowered my chin to look directly at the wet unidentifiable mound of meat and crushed bones at my feet. My stomach tried to heave. It smelled like shit.

Lobikno and Lhoris dispatched the trio of attackers almost as quickly as I had the fourth. They gravely approached the bloody scene. Ozanna sat on the ground, drenched in blood while Judith and Eve had only been splattered from the neck down.

Lobikno poked the remains of my kill with the toe of his boot.

“Good job,” he said solemnly. “I don’t think you need any more lessons.”

So, that’s how easy it was to take a life. Easier than creating one and keeping it going, I realized.

It shouldn’t be that easy.

“This was my last dress,” I grumbled and started wriggling out of the blood-drenched clothing. Judith and Eve tried to stop me, but I snarled at them.

“Don’t touch me!” I shouted, and they blanched. They weren’t stupid. “I’m covered in fur anyway. It’s not like I need clothes.” And I stomped off toward the tall grass.

Lobikno

Judith turned on me, her brown eyes hot with anger. “This is your fault. Teaching her to be violent!” She tried to shove me, but I easily withstood her outburst.

“I didn’t teach her to do that,” I grumbled as she stormed off to the cart. “I can’t even do that.”

Ozanna told Eve that they could have her last skirt and waved the younger girl off. Eve trailed after her mother.

“I’ll move the … identifiable bodies off the road,” Lhoris said, but he didn’t really move to do it.

I looked at Emma’s broken path in the grassy field. “Are we just letting her wander off now?”

Lhoris shrugged, frozen in place. His mate sat on the ground, covered in guts. Not her guts at least, but we had to get moving again. The elves that attacked us were more dangerous than the ones in the old crew; they were part of Dulanzo’s personal group of scouts. One of the assholes we’d run through had delivered our older brother’s message before we ended him; “Dulanzo says the deal is off. There’s a price on your heads.” They’d figured out we were alive, and they’d figured out which direction we were headed.

This was no time for any of us to wander off.

I looked at my brother and grumbled, in elvish, “Tell Ozanna everything, Lhoris. The whole story. She’s deserves to know.” Then I stalked off after the princess.

Emma didn’t go far, at least. Her highness was crouched in the tall grass maybe fifteen yards from the road, playing with some kind of ground squirrel. I didn’t know what they were called, just that they didn’t have much meat on them that wasn’t stringy. It saw me and scuttled away. Smart.

“Thinking about giving up on your duke for that little turd?” I asked. “I think he likes you.”

“Ha fucking ha,” Emma said over her shoulder.

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head. “Don’t let Judith hear you talk like that, or she’ll blame me for it, too.”

She glared at me over her shoulder. “Did they send you to bring me back?”

“Nah,” I replied, crouching down outside of arm’s reach.

She shook her head and picked at the grass. “They’re scared of me.”

“I’m scared of you too, girl.”

“Then why are you here?”

I shrugged. “Because I’m an idiot.”

Other than that, I had no idea what to say to her. If she’d have been one of my crew, I’d have just dragged her back, but that wouldn’t end well for me this time.

“I don’t know why you’d follow after me,” she said, braiding strands of the grass together and not looking at me.

“Being dumb isn’t enough?” I asked.

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