I stumble around the corner of Fay’s Pass to find Evonalé wide-eyed and wild. “Lallie!” She flings herself at me and trips over Geddis’s foot when the girl don’t get out of the way fast enough.
Little Evonalé’s weight is almost enough to topple me over. I’m not sure how I keep from falling. Her skin is like ice despite the summer heat. “Pickle—”
“You’re hurt! Are you all right? So much blood! You’ll need sugar. I should have some dried apples left—”
“Cats don’t eat fruit, Evonalé.” Prince Aidan’s flat tone counterbalances Pickle’s refreshingly normal anxiety.
“Oh. Um.” She stumbles back over to her pack. “I think I have some jerky…”
Liathen hands some to her. She blinks at him. “Thanks.”
I accept the jerky she passes over. I’m hungry enough to eat a sheep. Mayhaps I’ll go hunting.
My magic makes me double over in pain at the thought of changing again.
Later, then; after my magic’s gotten over its petulant urge to punish me. I’ll hunt later.
Geddis is frowning at Dakadza.
“Here.” I shove him her way so she has to catch him. She’s part giant; she can take the weight. “Before I kill him, too.” Husband, baby, father… Are there any family members I’m not going to murder?
Prince Aidan scowls, while Evonalé and Geddis look confused. Evonalé hesitantly offers me my green underdress, neatly rinsed and folded, which makes me realize that I’m still naked. Liathen smiles to himself, politely averting his eyes from my body. “The lulna?”
“Dead.” I take my dress from Pickle and pull it on. My body aches. I clarify things before Liathen can call upon his weird yets and do it for me: “Yes, that means I just killed my father. I need a nap.”
Before anyone can comment, I jump and climb atop one of the boulders in the pass, to lie down on top. High ground isn’t exactly a myrecat thing; I think I picked it up from domestic cats.
I curl up on the rock and close my eyes.
“She should have her throat slit,” Whimsy mutters.
“Aidan!” Pickle protests.
Great. Now I’m causing spats between my queen and her husband. As if I weren’t the source of enough problems.
“Three people. She’s killed three people—if not more—in the past three days, Evonalé.”
Geddis draws a quick breath but keeps her mouth shut. From what little I know of Liathen, I suspect he be smiling.
Evonalé don’t seem to mind my homicidal tendencies—but then, they wouldn’t be all that strange to her. Not with her family. “That ondine assassin was trying to kill the lot of us!”
“Fine.” Aidan’s tone is clipped. “Two people.”
“A pervert and some montai hunter person who tried to kill that montai boy. It’s been a bad few days—”
“And I can’t help but wonder just how many ‘bad weeks’ happen around her.”
I hear Evonalé swallowing as she struggles for an answer.
Liathen, though, speaks quietly: “She can hear you.”
“Good!” Aidan snaps.
Good hearing isn’t always a blessing. “Don’t fight over me,” I whisper, not that they can hear me. Tears burn my eyes. Those two are good for each other.
YOU ARE READING
A Fistful of Earth: Chronicles of Marsdenfel #2
FantasyShe has the magic to save her friends-but it'll cost their trust to use it... Lallie Nonsire Cobbleson is no stranger to prejudice. Between her heritage and her childhood spent in an orphanage, she knows full well how most folks like people they fin...
