Something moves between the ferns, too fast for shape, low to the ground, eyes catching the last light in pairs.
Predators. More than one.
I step sideways instead of back, already deciding that if he wants certainty from me, he can keep wanting it. I will remain what he cannot solve cleanly.
The first creature lunges from the dark, and Vaedros meets it with a blade drawn in one fluid line of silver fire.
6
VAEDROS
The creature dies badly, which is the only mercy I extend it.
It comes low through the undergrowth with the speed of something built to kill before being seen, all tendon and hooked bone beneath slick hide the color of wet bark, jaws opening wider than anatomy should permit as it launches for my throat, and instinct takes over before thought can become language.
Steel clears leather in one smooth motion. I pivot rather than retreat, letting its momentum carry it past the line of my body while my blade enters beneath the forelimb and rips upward through softer tissue hidden behind the plated ribs. Heat spills across my hand.
The smell arrives a heartbeat later—rot, stagnant water, and a sweetness so spoiled it turns the stomach. It thrashes, claws gouging bark from the nearest tree, hind limbs striking wild arcs through fern and leaf mold, and one hooked talon catches my side hard enough to slice through cloak and skin before I drive the dagger from my left hand into the hinge of its jaw and wrench until something vital gives way.
Then there is only the forest breathing around us. The corpse twitches twice, settles, and begins to look like it belongs to the ground more than it ever belonged to life.
Pain burns along my ribs where the claw opened me. Blood warms the fabric at my side in a slow spreading line. I wipe the longer blade clean on the creature’s hide and sheath it before turning.
Aeryn stands several paces back, pale in the green gloom, eyes fixed not on the dead thing, but on me.
“You knew something was here,” I say.
“I knew many things were possible.”
“Convenient.”
“True.”
That is the difficulty with her. She avoids falsehood by building homes inside ambiguity and inviting me to chase her there.
I kneel beside the packs and retrieve a bandage roll, salve, needle, thread. The wound does not merit stitching unless I intend to scar dramatically for effect, and while I appreciate theatre, I dislike wasting supplies on it.
She steps closer. “Let me see.”
“I wasn’t aware permission had been granted.”
“You can continue bleeding while being clever, if you prefer.”
I hand her the salve. I don’t need help, but proximity under pressure reveals more than interrogation in comfort ever will.
She crouches beside me. The forest floor is damp beneath our knees, fragrant with crushed pine needles and dark soil. Somewhere above, unseen wings disturb leaves in short nervous bursts. The dying light turns her hair almost luminous where it slips forward over one shoulder.
She parts the torn fabric at my side with careful fingers, and even that measured touch sends a bright thread of sensation through muscle already tightened from combat.
“This is shallow,” she says.
“You sound disappointed.”
“I’m evaluating whether the forest is losing standards.”
She cleans the blood first with water from the skin, slow and precise despite the tremor she tries to hide in her hand. Vision strain still lingers in her; I can recognize it in the faint shadows beneath her eyes, in the extra beat she takes before each breath settles fully. She smells of cedar bark, cold air, and the metallic trace of earlier blood she failed to wash entirely from her sleeve.
“You watched instead of warning me,” I say.