Page 104 of The Shadowed Oracle
“Have you heard of these island critters, Veston?” Tyla asked.
“I’ve done more than hear about them, my lady.”
Tyla hummed. “Really?”
“Indeed. The Lina bats, in particular. We have quite a sordid history.” He held up his hand and closed it in a fist. “Mouthsthis size. Wings like a serpent’s skin, all green and scaly. And the noise they make… horrid.”
“Lina bats?” Tyla’s voice went up an octave. “Ingrid, do you mean to tell me this was all to see some bloody bats?”
Ingrid barely registered the question, but grunted, “No.”
Tyla waited a moment, surmised that was all she’d be getting in response, then turned back to Veston. “Sordid history, you said?”
“Very scandalous. On my first trip out to Iberium, some of the crew wanted to land on the island. Something about an ancient treasure supposedly buried there. Utter nonsense, in the end. Three hours on that blasted little rock, and do you know what we found? Nothing. Nothing but a pack of hungry Lina bats mistaking us for dinner.”
Tyla gasped, genuine and girlish. It was so jarring and so out of character that Ingrid snapped her head to see if she’d slipped and nearly gone overboard.
She hadn’t.
She was perfectly fine—better than fine, by the looks of her.
“Was anyone hurt?’ Tyla asked.
“No, no. They may be big, but in the end, they’re all recreant vermin. More suited to hiding than hunting. Teeth barely the size of a misma coin. Blessed, the worst anyone got was a bloody lip.”
“It bit someone on themouth?”
“Not just anyone. It bit me.”
Tyla made a cooing show of empathy.
“I told you. Veryscandalous. For weeks, the crew called me names I can’t repeat. Said I’d been asking for it.”
Tyla laughed softly. “Maybe you were.”
“I can assure you, my lady, I was not.”
Even with how occupied Ingrid was, she could discern flirting from friendly conversation. It seemed in the time they’dspent on deck together, Tyla and Veston had developed more of a rapport than she’d thought. She had noticed the way Tyla looked at the general when she first met him, but she never thought she would be the kind to mix business with pleasure.
It made Ingrid’s situation seem all the more tangled.
“Anything?” Tyla asked sweetly. “Ingrid?”
She’d been stuck staring at the same spot for a minute. A small hill that grew larger and larger as they neared. She quickly adjusted the length of the spyglass and landed on a peculiar rustling in a large grove of trees.
“Maybe,” Ingrid said finally. “Let me…” She trailed off as three figures came into view, demanding her attention. They were about the right size, leaping from branch to branch just like their Earth-born cousins.
“Symia,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone else.
“You mean monkeys?” Tyla asked. “Are there monkeys here?” Her tone made it obvious she wasn’t fond of the creatures.
“They’re monkey-like,” Ingrid corrected. “But in the book, it said they can speak to each other. An actual language.”
“I don’t remember any symia,” Veston chimed in. “And I certainly don’t know of any… what was it?”
“Monkeys,” Tyla said sharply, shivering a little. “They’re like little hairy humans. Except they are impossibly strong and unpredictable. Some can rip your arm right off.”
Veston instinctively gripped his elbow. “And these monkeys, they hunt humans?”
