A Trickle of Soulfyre

Chapter 29: Massacre

With the naked eye, Lyrani had been able to see across the rolling green plains to the jagged peaks to the north of it, a crown marking the land as though it were royal. Despite that, it was a greater distance than she had expected. It had taken her and Meiyla the better part of a day to cross it on griffin back, and the mountains seemed only slightly nearer than they were at the beginning.

Night slinked in, crouching in wait at the edges of the sky, watching Lyrani as though she and her party were prey. Perhaps they would be if they didn't reach the cover of the mountains. Who knew what terrors awaited them, ready to erupt at their feet at the first glimpse of the moon?

Lyrani stifled the unease that constricted her chest. She looked up at the mountains from where she sat beside Meiyla and their griffins under a shadow she had summoned from their imposing destination. She brought her water bottle to her dried lips and took a small, careful sip, just enough to wet her throat but not to quench the thirst inside her. That wasn't a chance she could take.

She and her group had spent a day crossing the open grasslands, but they had yet to find a river. Gaileanor might've refreshed Lyrani and Meiyla's supplies had they not fled Ormolom as they had, but there was nothing else they could've done differently and no changing the past.

There would be a stream in the mountains. It was that thought that pushed Lyrani to her feet even though her insides felt as though they were cracked and peeling. Or perhaps it was because of that uncomfortable sense rather than despite it.

Meiyla followed her lead, getting to her feet. In perfect synchrony, they mounted their griffins with the newfound ease that had settled between them, which was slowly becoming more familiar to Lyrani than that palpable tension that had been between her and her partner at the beginning of their working relationship.

It was strange to think that was because Meiyla nearly ruined the mission by drawing the orcs to them. Lyrani was glad she had accepted it as a mistake on a junior agent's part instead of disciplining her about it. They wouldn't have this tentative camaraderie if she had done the latter, and that would've been worse for this assignment, for Elvenland, and, most importantly, for Nash.

It was him she was doing this for. Him she would give anything for, even herself, even as she hoped it would never come to that.

Lyrani took a deep breath as she released the shadow. It slid over the grass, returning to the foot of the mountain where it had come from, and Lyrani, Meiyla and their griffins followed it.

Where they sliced into the sky, the rocky peaks ahead felt almost like those mirages Lyrani had heard of afflicting people journeying in and around the fairy counties, tempting illusions that seemed to remain the same distance away no matter how long and how far one walked towards it.

Lyrani hoped that these mountains weren't like that. She was so far from home, so far north of any civilisation that they might be, and she wouldn't have any idea until she fell into a pit filled with snakes. They were scaly, slithering things, pretty but harmless and the fairies' idea of fun. Even their queen approved of their disruptive mischief, much to the dismay of every other clan in the realm.

The grass turned rocky beneath Revenus's paws. Lyrani clung to his neck as he ascended the sharp incline that rose in the path, but that unsettled sense inside her only deepened like a grave being dug for a funeral.

She tried to banish her awareness of it. It only slunk into the background of the noise in her mind, subtle but unmistakable.

Within a matter of steps, he had left the plains behind. The open grassland that had taunted them all day was replaced by rough rock surrounding them, lacklustre in the light of the sun that was now retiring for the day.