Forsaken by the one person who was supposed to love her unconditionally, Red must brave the magic and monsters of the Wylds to find her true place in the world.
*****
Plague...
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A wet snout pressed into my cheek. I jerked awake, startled by the cold touch after the smothering heat of my dreams. Fire and blood - and lightning. It had felt like the whole world was ending around me.
Now my whole world was encapsulated in the horizontally slitted pupil of a Kirin's golden eye, the moment trapped there, as if preserved in amber. Eventually, I summoned enough courage to reach out with trembling fingers, brushing ash from the bridge of the foal's nose. Its scintillating scales were cool beneath my fingertips, and the foal even arched into my touch, nuzzling at my hand. Tears welled in my eyes as I realised it had come to no harm.
The same couldn't be said for the woods around us. The fire had razed the trees to blackened husks and charred stumps, and not even bones of the fallen had survived the flames. I looked down at my own body, concerned that my lack of feeling was symptomatic of a grave injury. But my arms and legs moved fluidly, without a whisper of pain, and my hands -
I blinked stupidly at my hands. My makeshift bandages had torn free at some point, leaving pale stripes on my grimy palms. But where there should have been raw and exposed flesh, decorated with little frills of rolled skin, there was nothing. Not even a sliver of a scar, to testify to the injury that had plagued me over the last day and night.
Indeed, I felt stronger and surer in myself than usual. Despite the lingering smoke, the air was cool in my throat, and I was surprised to realise that for the first time in years, I no longer had that dull, persistent ache in my chest. It made no sense, given that the clothes on my back had barely survived the ordeal. My red cloak, which must have shielded me from the worst of the heat, was nothing but scraps on the forest floor. I might have panicked at the loss of those life-saving herbs, if it wasn't for the reassuring weight of the canteen at my side. Somehow, miraculously, liquid still sloshed inside. I screwed open the lid, peering inside to judge what was left, only to thrust it away as I gagged. The residual heat from the fire must have boiled the herbs inside, resulting in an even more potent version of that awful concoction.
Later, I decided; I would take a sip later, when I started to feel worse again. This feeling, like waking up for the first time in years, was too invigorating to sully with that bitter taste.
"Was this you?" I asked the Kirin, gesturing at the hint of muscle rippling beneath my smooth skin. Thankfully, all traces of fear and lightning were gone from its features.
But it only looked back mutely, with a decidedly boyish frankness, and I felt foolish all of a sudden for expecting a coherent answer. Not every creature of the Wylds had a human lurking beneath its skin.
Still, I thought, chewing on my bottom lip as I surveyed the charred wasteland around us, he could use a name. There was no sign of his mother, only ashes blowing in the wind. But the destruction made it easier to scout the terrain, and I was surprised to realise how close the Grey Fist Mountains were. In Brollo's stories, that vaulting landscape had always seemed so far away, as mythical and elusive as the Kirin and wyverns reported to prowl those rocky peaks. Now it looked only a few days travel away, though I was hesitant to trust my judgement of such things. Certainly, I would have to find a way to retain my bearings once I entered the woods again, but if I cut a straight path through...
