Page 74 of The Ascended
You have to be careful, Thatcher.
I have been.
Good.I let out a long exhale, because I wasn’t done.There's more.
He looked at me like I'd already stabbed him and was now twisting the knife.
Xül knows about us. About Olinthar.
"What?" The word burst from him aloud, too loud in the quiet forest.
I grabbed his arm, squeezing hard enough to bruise.Quiet. He figured it out. But he's keeping the secret. For now.
Why?Suspicion and hope warred in his mental voice.
I think he's going to use us to humiliate Olinthar in some petty power play.I rolled my eyes.Little does he know, we have other plans.
You didn't tell him about?—
Of course not.I squeezed his arm again, gentler this time.I'm not an idiot.
A sharp snap?—
My snare triggered, something thrashing in its grip. I was up and moving before thought caught up, starlight already gathering in my palm in case?—
A giant moon-hare struggled in my trap, its fur silver-white and its eyes... gods, its eyes were wrong. They reflected not just my face butotherthings. Other versions of this moment. In onereflection I was dead, throat torn out. In another I was crowned with light. In another I was weeping over Thatcher's body.
I looked away before those visions could root too deeply in my mind, snapping its neck as I winced.
One down,I sent to Thatcher, trying for lightness.
He was already pulling his own catch from his pack—another moon-hare, its dead eyes mercifully reflecting nothing. "Got mine on the way here. Lucky catch."
Lucky. Right. But nothing about this felt like luck.
"This is too easy," I said aloud, unable to keep the words trapped anymore. "Think about it, Thatcher. This is supposed to be deadly."
I saw my own unease reflected in his eyes. "The weapons were just... lying there."
"Exactly."
"So what are we missing?"
"I don’t know."
We need to be ready,I sent through our bond.For anything.
Always am,he replied, but I felt his tension ratchet higher.
We started moving again, keeping an eye out for signs of another game trail. I fell into the rhythm Aelix had beaten into me—silent steps, reading wind direction from the subtle turn of leaves, avoiding the patches where twigs lay like traps for the unwary.
The forest grew denser as we traveled, ancient trees so massive that six people holding hands couldn't wrap around their trunks. The canopy wove together so thickly that we moved through dimmed sunlight, green-tinted and dreamlike.
Then I slipped.
My foot found a patch that looked like ordinary moss but felt like oil-slicked glass. I went down hard, tailbone meeting earth with enough force to send stars across my vision—the painful kind.
"Graceful," Thatcher commented, offering a hand up.
