Page 33 of The Dragon's Stone Hearted Mate
Shouldering his pack, Cutter followed on my heels as I found myself back on the treelined path from before. He hummed an unfamiliar song under his breath but then again, I’d never been to his world of origin. For all I knew, it was the most famous song there.
“This isn’t the way to Earthside,” Cutter said an hour or so into our walk.
“I know. I’m looking for a house,” I said and explained Morvan’s worry about having our kids back at the camp.
“Don’t you have to make kids before you have them?” he arched a brow. “That’s how it works with lions at least.”
“How do you know we haven’t?” I narrowed my eyes back on him.
“Because you wouldn’t be in such a bad mood if you had,” he smirked.
I rolled my eyes and walked a little quicker. The trees grew closer together and the path shrank. Cutter followed right on my heels as the trees forced us close together. Soon, I had to turn sideways and inch along between their fat, round trunks.
“Maybe this isn’t the direction the magic wants us to go,” Cutter said. “I’m about to start climbing.”
“Go for it,” I said and kept inching along through the gaps between tress until the path opened to a crossroads. I rolled my eyes. Could the magic be anymore spot on with its symbolism? A crossroads. Seriously, a damned crossroads?
In the distance the sound of flapping wings filled the air. Cutter scurried out of the trees and hid behind me as the sound grew closer.
“Are you afraid of birds?” I asked and felt him shake his head.
“Are those birds?” I asked and felt him shrug.
“I need to be small. They’ll carry me off,” he said, crouching down and lifting his pack over his head as if it were a turtle shell he could hide under.
A second later, a big black crow the size of a medium dog landed in the X the crossroad made and let out a full-bellied caw-caw. A carrier of souls. Of course, such a bird would send my lion friend into hiding.
“Greetings!” I raised a friendly hand for being a stone put me beyond his reach. My soul belonged to something different altogether.
“You have a visitor,” the bird cawed out.
“Don’t fall for that trick!” Cutter whispered from underneath his pack.
“I’m not here for you, cat!” The bird said, his tone growing annoyed as he turned his head to look at Cutter with one big black eye. “I’m not here for you. I bring a visitor.” The big black bird eye turned back on me. “A visitor who might’ve been your friend if life had worked out differently needs your help. Do you accept?”
“Accept what?” I asked the bird.
“Say no! Say no! Say no!” Cutter hissed behind me. “SAY NO!”
“Uh…. What am I accepting?” I asked, prying Cutter’s claws out of my ankle as he tried to pull me underneath his pack with him.
“A visitor. The mate of your brother-in-law. Mate of your ex-brother-in-law. Mate of your banished brother-in-law. Thebrother of your mate’s mate. The mate of the brother of your mate.” The bird repeated himself over and over, finding new ways to arrange the words until what he said meant nothing. The syllables all ran together sounding more and more like nonsense until Cutter popped up and shoved his fingers in my ears, giving me a few moments of peace to think.
“Is he alive?” Cutter asked. “Is the visitor amongst the living?”
“Caw-caw! Caw-Caw! No-caw! No!” The bird sang out, projecting its mighty baritone voice so that I heard it through the pads of Cutter’s fingers.
“Then why does he want to see my friend?” Cutter shouted over the sounds of millions of wings flapping. I glanced around but couldn’t see the birds that caused the racket.
“To save the brothers! The brothers he must save! Save them! Save them! Brothers must be saved! Caw! Save! Caw! Save!”
“Are spirit carriers always this annoying?” I asked Cutter, shouting because I could barely hear my own voice with his fingers shoved into my ears.
“He’s mild compared to some of them. I think you have to see this guy, though,” Cutter whispered, his hot breath pressed right up against my ear. “Dead people don’t usually seek out the living. They don’t usually convince soul crows to help them either.”
“Bring him, crow,” I said to the bird.
He turned its head and looked into me with his big black bird eye before stirring up the dust at the center of the crossroads before flapping its huge black, green wings and taking to the sky.
