Mist & Whispers (18 page)

I
MMORTAL
. THE WORD
stuck with Anya for several sleeps until Lorcan returned to his cell, healed enough to no longer need Grinling’s twenty-four-hour care.

When the Princess cursed him all those years ago, she told him that he didn’t deserve the love of another being, woman or beast, and in turning him into a human-dragon-hybrid she’d made sure that he felt every bit the monster she’d decided he was.  For eternity.

Many times, Anya had wondered why he still looked and sounded seventeen, despite the amount of years he must have lived, but now... now she knew.

Not only does immortality deny death, it inhibits the aging process: in the nineteen years since Lorcan had been cursed, he had not aged a single day.

He tried to explain to her what it was like, to live what felt like the same day over and over again, whilst everything and everyone around him changed, but it was a hard concept for a mortal to grasp.

‘Imagine not being able to die,’ Steph said when Anya finally revealed the Dragon-Boy’s secret to her, Michael and Tim, one sleep after dinner. 

‘Yes, what a lucky fellow!’ Michael bitched from behind his note book. ‘Able to do anything he wants without having to suffer the consequences.’ His cold, chipped shoulder was right back in Anya’s face from the moment she’d rushed to Lorcan’s aid during the training match. They’d barely spoken a civil word since. He’d said he was certain Lorcan was taking advantage of her and didn’t trust him at all.

‘Can we just stop talking about him, please?’ She was trying to focus on the riddle but Michael’s nasty comments were distracting.

‘Oh, touchy! God, you’re not falling for that freak, are you?’

‘ARRGHHH! Just because I care about freeing someone who was wrongly accused does not mean I want to marry him! And for the record, he’s less of a freak than you, especially with that nasty shade of green you’ve turned recently.’

‘You think I’m jealous of that... that
thing
?’

‘Yes, actually, I do.’

‘Well, you’re wrong. You think I still have any feelings for you? You’re so vain, Anya!’

‘Can you two please SHUT UP!’ This was Steph, looking even more agitated than the ex-couple. ‘How many times are we going to have to break up your fights? Can’t we just get this stupid riddle solved so we can go home already? You know, Tim has to sit here every day listening to you two bicker, constantly going on about finding books or fighting this impossible battle, and he didn’t ask for any of it! He didn’t even work at Scott’s! If we don’t get home by the time the summer is over, his uni will kick him off his course and that will be that! His future
–
our future
–
ruined! But do you hear him bitching about it? No. Stop making this harder on everyone else by fighting all the time because seriously, I’m this close to leaving!’ She held her fingers up, barely a millimetre apart.

‘Sorry,’ Anya said, feeling so ashamed the only place she could look was at her feet. It was a horrible truth but Steph was right. She hadn’t considered what this meant to Tim. This whole awful mess was her fault and she’d dragged them into it without so much as a thank you. She needed to figure out a way of juggling it all, as things, important things, were getting lost in the dark and mysterious maze her life had become. ‘I’m trying. Everything here is just... mental. It’s a lot to have on my shoulders.’

‘Well, there are four of us here. If you stop fighting and start working together, then that’s...’ her eyes counted shoulders around the room, ‘...eight shoulders we have for balancing our problems on!’

Anya smiled. Steph could really talk sense when she wanted to, and it reminded her that once, not so long ago, the girl in front of her was her boss.  As scatty as she was, and as dysfunctional as Anya and Michael’s relationship had become, they were a team.

Michael removed the offended look from his face,  offering nothing more than a wan smile in response.

‘Oh come on, Mikey Muffin!’ Steph launched herself at him, tackled him onto the bed and tickling him into submission.

His hands flailed around, trying to fight her off but between his swats and her tickles, the cracks of a smile began to form. ‘I’ll agree to never fight with Anya again if you promise
never
to call me that again!’

‘Aw, I think it suits you, Michael,’ Tim joked.

‘I’m sure you do,
Timmy Button
!’ And pretty soon, the Four were laughing together again.

THE MOOD LIGHTER
, they pulled focus back to solving the riddle. Michael shared the notes he’d been making each sleep (before actually sleeping) and together they went through his ideas.

‘I thought perhaps that “
The first of one”
might be the first letter, or first word of the first page, which is
“R”
or
“Resting”.
The next part,
“the start of many”
– this is where my notes become complicated. I’ve gone through the beginning of every page, working out which letter or word appears the most but that doesn’t really give me any real sort of answers. Both the letters and the words, as you see here,’ he said, pointing at the relevant lists in his notes, ‘don’t really repeat often enough for one to stand out against the others.

‘I wondered if
“the start of many”
could literally mean the first letter in the word
“many”
–
so,
M
– but then, when you put it next to an
R
, it doesn’t mean anything. No words begin with R-M.’

‘It’s not a bad thought, Michael,’ Tim said, scanning the notes. ‘It still could mean something; someone’s initials, perhaps. We have to solve the rest really before we can discard it.’

ANOTHER WEEK PASSED
with little progress on the riddle. Training however, had improved tenfold.
Straggler Style
was proving so effective that Theone agreed to let Gavriel and his men take the Four into Thule, meaning they would finally get the chance to find out who the Weaver was, (‘or
is
, pertaining to his current life status,’ Tim had said, to which Steph responded with ‘But they don’t have internet here, how can we look up his Facebook status?’

‘Sweetie, I meant if he is still alive. We are all assuming he is dead.’

‘Oh, right. Silly me!’ she giggled).

It was the sleep before the mission into the Big City, and in the Stragglers’ barracks Basra and Bear were introducing the Four to the wonders of Moonshine, a harsh, white liquor, flecked with silver that left the throat scorched. After one sip, Anya pushed the glass back in Bear’s direction and decided that anything reminiscent of paint thinner and petrol couldn’t possibly do the body any favours.

It was tradition for the Stragglers to hold a Moonshine gathering the sleep before a mission.

‘The dangers in Thule are so great,’ Gavriel told them, ‘it could be the last sleep for any one of us.’

‘Gavriel? Steph said, after staring at him for quite some time. ‘What’s with all the feathers?’

Gavriel looked down at his artisan arms, both of which were covered in tattoos, depicting scenes of battle with powerful, winged Royals standing victorious. Each scene was surrounded by feathers, some floating, some fallen, some in clusters and some all on their own. Anya had seen his tattoos before but hadn’t thought much about them. They were incredible, and she couldn’t work out how they’d been done without the sort of tattooing technology of her world, but she hadn’t considered they’d meant anything important.

‘The feathers represent those of our flock that have fallen. One of us that gave their life so we could go on and fight the greater fight. The last man we lost was just a year ago. Reed.’ He pointed to one of the feathers on his left bicep. ‘This one is his. We’d had a good run, found a ton of medical supplies and clothes – we’d been running short. Anyway, just as we came to the city wall the ground began to shake open and Macken there, something grabbed him. A few of us tried to save him whilst the others got the horses to safety. Reed had hold of him and lifted him out but these hands
–
these rotten, decaying hands
–
grabbed him too, and there was nothing we could do.’ A solemn silence fell over the barracks as the Stragglers took a moment to remember their fallen friend.

‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Reed,’ Macken said, his face doleful. He held his flagon up, smiled a thankful smile to the skies and cleared the sadness from his throat. ‘To Reed!’

‘To Reed!’ They clanked their flagons, knocked the moonshine back, and soon after their carefree dispositions returned.

WHILST BASRA AND
Bear hosted a series of bets and dares for what the night, and the journey, might have in store for them, Anya excused herself from the mayhem to check in on Lorcan. The thought that one of them, even herself, may not return from Thule had her worried for the fate of the Dragon-Boy. If the only person who believed him innocent was to die, who was left to find evidence that could free him?

‘Do you know how long you’ll be gone for?’ Lorcan asked, taking the bottle of home-made liquor she’d snuck him from the barracks.

‘Not sure. Cael said it takes the best part of a day to get there, and we may have to camp for a few sleeps until we find something good to bring back. And, I’m not sure how long it will take me and my friends to find what we are looking for in the library.’

Lorcan took a big swig of the moonshine, unsuspecting its harshness. He began coughing so hard, flames and black smoke shot out of his mouth and nose. ‘Urgh, that’s wretched!’

Anya stifled a laugh. ‘Did the same thing to me. Spat out fire and everything.’

As he smiled back at her, his scales glistened in the firelight and she noticed one of his wounds had turned angry again, above his left eye.

‘Hey, come here, let me have a look at that.’

‘It’s fine, it will heal eventually
–
’ he began.

‘I’m not asking you, Lorcan.’

The Dragon-Boy frowned, but didn’t argue further.

‘I’m going to Grinling, it looks bad...’ Her words trailed off as she met his eyes, suddenly aware she was holding his face millimetres from her own. She’d never realised how pronounced her breathing was until that moment.

Something lingered between them, something she could not put into words.

‘You don’t have to,’ he said, a decibel above silent.

‘I know,’ she whispered back. A chorus from a Virtfirthian drinking song rang out over the camp, the moonshine fully integrated into their blood streams. Anya’s hands fell to her sides as she glanced back towards the barracks. ‘I won’t be long.’

‘
GRINLING?’ ANYA CALLED
out after she knocked on the medic’s door. ‘Are you still here?’ The door fell open and, entering the room, she found Grinling with his hand in the jar of Vampyre Leeches. ‘What are you doing?’

She stepped closer and her stomach did a sickly flip. A swell of Grinling’s blood loomed precariously at his fingertip, and with a gentle squeeze from two other of the medics gnarled fingers, it dripped straight into the mouth of a leech. Again and again, the little creatures’ necks arched right back and their teeth stretched out ahead of them as Grinling dropped globules of blood into their tiny, monstrous mouths. They were like some kind of ungodly cross between a walrus and a slug, and the way their glutinous, black bodies undulated as they reached up for their next mouthful made Anya shudder.

‘I’m feeding them,’ Grinling replied before replacing the lid of the jar. ‘I’ve discovered how to extract the venom from their fangs. Apart from a few nasty marks, these three are completely harmless now, and I can start to work on a cure for their bites. Exciting times,’ he smiled, and hobbled across to the shelves. He placed the jar back into the line-up and took a small bottle of pinkish liquid from his desk. ‘All this from just the three of them!’ he said, shaking the bottle in delight.

‘That’s great,’ she said slowly, impressed but thoroughly grossed out.

‘So, Miss Anya, what can I help you with?’