“Carefully. Carefully.”

“I’m not a piece of china. I won’t break that easily.”

“But you may fall, Anna, and then we would have to wait another five days before trying this.”

A groan vibrated up and down my throat. Arian and I were in my bedroom with her standing to one side watching me take one step after another.

“I’m just fine,” I assured her as I turned in a slow circle. “Fine enough to march through those gates and out into the world.”

Arian crossed her arms over her chest and bit her lower lip. “I am not so sure. You are not nearly as nimble as you once were. What if we were to be attacked?”

I froze and whipped my head about to face her. Bad idea. The quick movement made me lose my balance. Fortunately, I toppled onto the nearby bed and not the hard wooden floor.

“Attacked?” I repeated as my mind conjured up images of deadly plant monsters and vicious wild boars. “What could attack us?”

“Oh, there are many things along the way,” she mused as she took a seat beside me. She raised one hand with the fingers splayed out and ticked them off one by one with a finger on her other hand. “The flesh-eating roaches of the sunken marshes, the mangle birds of the spined woods, the giant spiders of the netted dens, the wolves of the grassy wilds, and the digging worms of the abandoned oasis.”

My mouth slowly fell open with each horrible ticked creature and my voice went up an octave. “All of that?” That’s when I noticed the corners of her lips twitch upward. My eyebrows slowly knitted together and I narrowed my eyes at my ‘friend.’ “Are you pulling my leg?”

Arian blinked at me before she dropped her gaze to my said appendage. “Pulling your leg?”

“Are you teasing me?” I reworded.

Arian couldn’t contain the laughter that had been building up during my suspicion period. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and doubled over. I looked on in both amusement and feigned insult.

“My sincerest apologies,” Arian spoke up after a minute of mirth. She used a finger to wipe the tears from her eyes. “I merely thought to amuse you with stories of the land realm.”

I let out a heavy breath of relief. “So none of that is true. Thank goodness.”

Arian stared ahead and wrinkled her nose. “Well, not exactly.”

There went my heart murmur again. “Which one isn’t true?”

“They are all true.”

My heart stopped the murmuring and went straight to dropping into the bottom of my gut. I could also feel the color drain from my face. “All of them?”

She twisted around to face me and threw up her hands. “But they are no problem for us. Many of the creatures are not in our path. Indeed, some are quite far from my homeland.”

One of the quantifiers made me suspicious. “Many but not all?”

She bit her lower lip and her eyes dropped to the bed. “The territory of the wolf clan abuts those of my clan.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Well, that eliminated four gruesome deaths. “So I’m guessing the bears and the wolves don’t get along?”

Arian sighed and her shoulders slumped. “Unfortunately, no. There have been territorial disputes since even when Lord Eastwei was emperor. The clashes finally culminated in a war some fifty thousand years ago where both clans tried to eliminate the other. It was stopped only through the intervention of Lord Eastwei and Prince Yushir.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “The prince can fight?”

Arian vigorously shook her head. “Oh no! Lord Eastwei parted the warriors with his magic and the prince drew the territory lines on behalf of the king of heaven. The rulers of the clans agreed to the redrawing of the boundaries and there has been a tense truce ever since.”

I looked her up and down. “So are you old enough to have watched those battles first hand?”

A faint smile appeared on her lips. “Oh no. I am only forty thousand years old and the battle occurred some fifty thousand years ago.”

“You don’t look a day over twenty thousand,” I teased before I thought back to her tale. “So I’m guessing we won’t be traveling through their territory to get to your clan?”

“No, but we will be skirting some of their borders,” she revealed as she stood and turned to face me. “The main road has followed the boundary since Prince Yushir created it because merchants are protected on both sides by the clans.”

I set my hands behind me on the bed and kicked my legs. “I think I’m ready for a nice long walk. How long will it take again?”

“If all goes well, only two days,” she reminded me as she looked about us. She clasped her hands together in front of her and sighed. “Though I will miss this wonderful place.”

I examined the room, as well, and nodded. “Yeah. We had a lot of good times here.”

“And we shall have some grand times in my homeland,” my friend assured me as she studied me. “Shall we try your walking again?”

One of my feet twitched and I winced. “I think that’s enough for one day. How about you just sit down and tell me about your homeland? A nice story might make my foot feel better about going there.”

Arian pressed a finger against her chin and the mischievous twinkle returned to her eyes. “I believe I will not tell you what wonders await. I would rather you see them and judge them for yourself.”

I snorted. “That’s a very evil reply keeping me in the dark like that.”

She clasped her hands behind herself and nodded. “Yes. I believe you are, what is the term you use, ‘rubbing off on me?’”

I really laughed at that one. “I didn’t know it would come back to bite me so soon.”

Arian’s eyes danced with glee as she bowed her head. “I aim to please. Now I will leave you to rest.” She slipped away, leaving me with a feeling that perhaps I’d created a monster.

A nice, friendly, devilishly evil monster.