Page 35 of Enchantment of Silver and Sea
“Can they do other things, too?”
“Probably,” he snorted. “But being a half-human bastard doesn’t exactly earn you a spot as a student or acolyte or whatever the fuck they call their offspring who still need training. I know next to nothing about my own abilities, and I imagine they would prefer it stay that way. We have a nice unspoken agreement where they pretend I don’t exist, and I live out my life as a human.”
His situation was so different from mine. And in some ways, so eerily similar.
The tree trunks and foliage closest to us were shadowed, but beyond them, unidentifiable shapes twisted and collided into something foreboding. After considering, I asked, “Is it possiblethat we could run into”—I almost said “your father,” but decided against it—“others with those eyes while we’re out here?”
“Are you planning on burning down the forest?” he asked flatly.
I weighed his words. “So your father’s people are protectors of the forest? If I were to do something crazy and destructive, like set fire to the trees, they would intervene?”
“Something like that.”
I gathered from his tone that I still hadn’t quite hit the mark. A thought bubbled to the surface. “Matthew, the explorer who disappeared—whose whole team disappeared after seeing a hooded figure with silver eyes. Are you saying he was a threat?”
“I don’t know who this ‘Matthew’ is,” Kieran said, sounding bored. “But based on what you just said, it would seem that way, wouldn’t it?”
I whirled around again and let out a startled cry as I smacked into his chest.
“Everything okay back there?” Nya’s footfalls paused.
“Yeah, sorry.” I rubbed my nose.
The corner of Kieran’s mouth tugged upward. He inclined his head expectantly, as if to say, “Go on.”
“I was just wondering what sort of threat Matthew would have to have been. Would they have not liked the fact that he was exploring? I mean, this land used to belong to humans. And to animals. Regular ones, I mean. Explorers like Matthew were, and still are, just trying to understand how the world has changed.” As I said the words, angry heat flared in me. On behalf of this man I had never met. On behalf of the others on his team who were apparently killed along with him. “For fuck’ssake, the world has always been like this for our generation, and yet evenweare still trying to make sense of things. It’s not so bad to want to understand this world around us, is it? To brave the unknown, for the sake of knowledge?”
I wasn’t so sure I was talking about Matthew Hart anymore.
Kieran’s lips were still turned up in smirk, but something in his expression softened. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Maila. But you’re very naive.”
“Then tell me what I don’t understand,” I challenged.
He opened his mouth, and my chest tightened. “Keep walking. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover tonight.” With that, he grabbed my shoulders, spun me around, gave me a gentle nudge forward.
We walked the rest of the way in silence. At first, I didn’t speak because I was frustrated with Kieran, his insults, and his evasiveness. But after a while, I was too exhausted to have spoken if I’d wanted to. I may have had a naturally slim frame, but a sedentary life had left me with exactly zero endurance.
The terrain was unchanging for most of the journey. The only highlight was when we had to cross a narrow stream, which we did by leaping—did everything out here involve jumping?—from one side to the other. I refused to be carried by Kieran again, so I gave it a shot on my own and came up short, landing in several inches of water. Afterwards, my footsteps elicited two sounds—a wet squishing noise, closely followed by laughter from Kieran.
After what I estimated to be two hours of trudging through the underbrush, the forest began to feel less coastal. Towering palms became less frequent, and bristly pines began to make an appearance. We emerged onto a hill, looking down into a shallow valley.
I glanced between Nya and Kieran, eyes wide. “Is this your camp?”
“Yes,” Nya answered simply. “This is home.”
Sitting at the bottom of the valley was a neighborhood. Or rather, what was left of one. Rows of houses sat in various states of decay—ceilings caved in, gaping holes where walls once stood, and some lots reduced to nothing but rubble. Each row was separated from the next by crumbling remnants of road. Weeds, vines, and other greenery burst through the cracks in the pavement, with some sections of concrete entirely split in half.
This had once been a peaceful suburban neighborhood, like the few that were preserved within Cyllene. And now, like so much of the world, it was a graveyard.
Without another word, we descended the hill and entered the once-neighborhood.
Upon closer inspection, there were items of all kinds strewn across the remnants of yards and scattered across the broken chunks of pavement. A rusty skeleton of what I assumed was once a bicycle. A blackened shape that resembled a child’s toy. Even, I realized with awe, a crumbling mass that looked like it was once a car.
We walked straight for several blocks, then turned left.
It was immediately apparent that this street was different than the others. First, by the barbed wire fence that we passed through. Then, as we made our way down the road, I noticed spots that looked like they had once been giant holes were filled with carefully packed dirt. As if to prevent a stumble or fall. The houses that lined the street were still falling apart, but there were also signs of life in them. A front porch and walkway that, despite cracks, looked recently swept. A clothesline tied between sections of roof.
I started as my eyes landed on a bonfire up ahead, burning in the center of a cul-de-sac. Then I caught sight of the dark shapes gathered around it. People. Dozens of them.
