Page 81 of The Princesses of Ruin
“Not sweet enough to escape the repercussions of such a truth,” I say.
“So sweet you’re going to rot my teeth right out.” She leans down for a kiss and then smiles broadly, showing me all her teeth. “Have any of them started to go yet, or is that just my morning breath?”
I can’t stop the laugh from bubbling up. “They’re all very beautiful and in want of a good brushing with my special chammomint paste.”
“It’ll have to wait.” She pecks the tip of my nose and then sets about getting dressed. “We’ve got pups to collect from.”
The pups…
“I’ve been thinking,” I say, dressing too.
“What’s that big brain been thinking about?”
“What if we could bring them with us?”
She stops what she’s doing, looking at me curiously. “Why?”
I shrug a shoulder. “Well, if I mess up the concoction, we’ll have them to take more from. The pups’ hair will grow and regenerate.”
She squints again. “You’re not telling the whole story.”
Gods damn her magus ability.
“It, or they, will die without their mother.”
“And that will be sad, but it is the way of life.” She resumes her morning routine. “Given that a recently pregnant mother was hunting, I doubt her pups would’ve made it long anyway.”
I huff and roll up our mattress.
“What is it?” she says in a knowing tone.
“I’ve always wanted a dog,” I admit with another shrug.
We’re quiet as we finish packing up our camp. When everything is rolled and put away, she asks, “How would you keep them from incinerating in the warmth?”
She had drifted off easily last night, leaving me alone with all my thoughts. I had time to plan everything.
“I would make a collar from one of our belts and inscribe it with Vosi and Mu. Like Alastair’s warmth ring, this would allow me to create a shield of temperature around them I could moderate. WithKazimir’s help, I could create more elegant solutions when we get back to Fynren.”
She smiles, the corners of her scarf turning up over her mouth. “You’re adorable. Let’s see if there are any living pups left to rescue.”
Giddiness surges through me and I beam at her.
We retrace our steps to the dead mother and Emillia takes a moment to says a Wolish prayer over her body. Then we follow her footprints. Emillia stops every so often to listen to something on the wind and then change direction slightly.
She tells me when we’re getting close, and anticipation blossoms in my chest like a flower in the sun.
At the foot of a towering, white-capped mountain is a den opening just large enough for a massive dire wolf. We push aside the brush and make our way in. It’s warmer here, but still cold enough that the puppies wouldn’t be in danger.
Even through my scarf I can smell the stale scent of a recently expired corpse. My heart plummets through my gut, and Emillia grabs my hand.
“Have a light?” she asks.
I dredge a magus crystal from my bag, and she infuses it with her pinkish magic, lighting up the space. There before us is a huge, scrawny male.
“Starved,” Emillia says as she circles him. “I can hear heartbeats.”
She crouches at the male’s belly and begins ruffling through his fur. I step to the creature and begin my duty, snipping several different samples that I line up in sterile tubes.
