Page 153 of Flame and Sparrow

The one I’d battled staggered upright and followed, whimpering and leaving a trail of dark blood in its wake.

After they had fled far into the distance, Mairu arched her long body upright and began to shift, golden energy rippling around her, obscuring her in a curtain of light. Seconds later, the curtain fell away to reveal her human form. As her face emerged from the brightness, she wasted no time fixing me with a furious glare.

I met her fury with my own, clutching my bleeding arm, still on the defensive after my latest near-death experience. “Why are you here?” I demanded.

“Certainly not because I felt like going for a leisurely stroll,” she snapped, adjusting one of her dangling, dagger-shaped earrings. “And I could ask you the same question, couldn’t I?”

I didn’t reply, busy watching Zell as he cantered back to me. The selakir immediately shoved his face underneath my arm, as if trying to use my body to shield its vision so it didn’t have to see the bloody ground or other reminders of our battle. The poor thing was shaking all over.

“Well?” Mairu pressed.

“I actuallywasout for a leisurely stroll,” I deadpanned. “Or a ride, rather. Obviously, the leisurelypart didn’t work out.”

“As though I believe that for a moment,” she hissed.

I kept my focus on Zell, trying to calm him—and myself—with slow, repetitive rubs of his sweaty, trembling neck.

Mairu’s voice softened the tiniest bit as she said, “Just tell me the truth.”

I glanced her direction, acknowledging the words, but I couldn’t hold her disappointed gaze. I wanted to tell her the truth. My argument had been with Dravyn, not her, after all. But my hackles were still raised from my argument with the Fire God, and, even all these days later, I couldn’t seem to lower them. “Did he send you after me?”

“He didn’t send me anywhere. He’s still in the mortal realm.” She clicked her tongue in annoyance before begrudgingly adding, “Though yes, he did ask me to stay as close as possible to you until he returned.”

“Spying on me again?”

“Watching over you,” she corrected.

I scoffed.

She narrowed her golden eyes on my bleeding arm. “He wants to keep you safe. Wealldo.”

“I would have been fine. I managed to deal with all except the very last of the hounds before you arrived, didn’t I?”

Frowning, she pointed toward something in the distance. “There are more just over the hills there. A dozen, at least. I imagine they would have answered the calls of their fellow hounds eventually…do you think you would have been fine if they did?”

Chill bumps swept over my skin. Instead of answering her question, I asked one of my own. “Why did the Death Marr’s beasts attack me?”

“I’d like to know that myself.” Concern clouded her eyes, dulling their gold, as she added, “Dravyn will be furious when he finds out. We have enough problems with the courts outside our own, and now let’s add intra-court feuding to the mix…”

I didn’t want to think about court politics and posturing on top of everything else just then, so I focused on studying my latest wound, wincing a bit as I stepped away from Zell and twisted my arm around to get a better look.

The teeth marks didn’t appear deep, but an alarmingly cold numbness was starting to overtake the area around them, as if the creature’s bite had injected something similar to the fog summoned by its howls.

“I don’t have to tell Dravyn everything you tell me,” Mairu said. “I only wish you would explain yourself.”

Zell gave a sudden snort, his nose no longer shoving against me but instead trying to reach the bag attached to his saddle. I moved to the bag—which thankfully had made it through the attack without any damage—in search of the treat container.

My hand brushed against the waterskin containing Melithra’s water, and I tensed as if readying myself for an explosion, or some sign that the goddess before me realized what I was carrying…

Nothing happened.

Such power, in such an unassuming package, I mused.

I found the treat container next, but it was empty. Guilt gnawed at my insides. Not only for being out of them, but for putting Zell through what I had so soon after gaining his trust. And once the guilt started, I couldn’t seem to stop it from spreading all the way through me; I felt it when I looked at the goddess, too—because we’d started to trust one another as well, hadn’t we?

Sighing, I said, “I went to the Tower of Ascension.”

Her eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t interrupt.

---