{-Rennyn-}

He couldn’t explain why he trusted Vaeri. Dhymos had been in similar positions of power, yet not once did Rennyn think that he was an ally; in fact, sometimes, he thought it would be better to distrust all nobility from the start. They were often driven by money or power, both of which Dhymos could give them the illusion of having, after all. But… something felt different about Vaeri.

He had every reason to be suspicious of her—she knew of Dhymos and seemed to have met him somewhere before. But he trusted that she didn’t want to deceive them. Maybe… there was a fragment of familiarity there. A sense that he’d been involved in similar events before, knowing that most of it went well. A piece of a memory, perhaps, showing that Vaeri was not someone to fear or mistrust.

The five of them were kept from silence as Lyrei rattled off the names, locations, and appearances of all of the things they needed to find. Every now and again, one of them would interrupt her to point out something that looked similar to her descriptions. Sometimes, she’d nod and mark the item as gathered while Kaylin actually gathered a bit of it; others, she’d shake her head, and ramble a little more about why that wasn’t what they were supposed to find.

A peaceful conversation might’ve emerged, eventually. But Rennyn sensed something far too wrong not to bring attention to before then.

The forest had gone quiet far too quickly.

“I don’t think we’re alone anymore,” he warned as he drew his sword. Seldir copied his movement, while the other three took more to watching each other’s backs.

“Did you see something?” Seldir prompted. He’d gone from comfortable to tense at the idea of a conflict; Rennyn almost admired the ability to even have been comfortable before at all.

“No, but there’s definitely something out there,” Rennyn responded. He quickly scanned his surroundings but, still, didn’t see the faintest bit of a disruption. “This doesn’t feel right. Something’s scared off everything that was here just a few minutes ago.”

Just then, he heard a rustle in the bushes behind him. He barely needed to look back to step out of the way and stab whatever had tried to lunge at him.

But it didn’t seem to be a call for something, because, once again, the forest fell completely silent.

All the better time to observe, really, the dying creature his sword was now pressed against.

At a glance, it might’ve resembled a regular wolf. But it was larger, with a kind of gold oozing out of its wound and its claws seemingly made out of the shadows themselves. The moment it made an attempt to move again, Rennyn didn’t hesitate to put it out of its misery.

“I have no idea what that thing is but I think it’s so cool,” Lyrei said quickly, practically bouncing. She pulled out a smaller notebook from her bag and made one step towards it—before Seldir took her shoulder and pulled her closer.

“You are not going anywhere near that thing,” Seldir remarked.

“But—but—science! And it’s cool! And I’ve never seen anything like it before! Please? Pretty please? It’s already dead, it’s not like it’s got a second life, right? I mean, it would be cool if it did, but for the sake of the argument, it doesn’t. Please?”

“I don’t care what you think. It’s not worth whatever trouble you’re going to get into.”

“Then why does Kaylin get to get closer to it?”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Kaylin, sometime during the short argument, had cautiously walked up to it. She didn’t touch anything herself; instead, she pulled out a cloth and dabbed it around the wolf’s wound. Casually, she answered Lyrei’s question by stating, “Because I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you know what it is, too..?” Noa asked.

“It’s a beast Dhymos was able to construct,” she explained. She held the cloth up to the light, the supposed blood of the wolf glittering, almost, as it dried. “Everything he creates has this kind of ‘blood.’ It makes them more resilient—deadlier.”

“Does this mean that what we tried to stop in the forest still worked?” Rennyn asked, a hint of urgency unable to be hidden. “Are there more of them somewhere? Aren’t there towns around here? And Zaitha—it still isn’t that far away. Is there any chance more of the pack had gone there?”

Kaylin shook her head. The calm way she addressed the issue didn’t make him feel any better. “I don’t think we can say for certain for now, but it might’ve been. The ritual, if it had been started, wasn’t completed, though. If many more than this one was brought here, they couldn’t have been as ‘developed’ as this one. If there was any threat, the guards would’ve been able to handle it on their own.”

“But what if it wasn’t?”

“Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I don’t think this is worth worrying over. At least, not right now. We’ll need a little bit more evidence before we can know for sure—and, if there’s any evidence to find, we’re probably going to come across it while we’re out.”

He wasn’t satisfied—they all knew he wasn’t—but he settled with that answer anyway. “Then I guess the only thing we can do is keep going.” He glanced at Seldir. “Be on your guard, and make sure Noa and Lyrei stay close to you.”

Seldir nodded. “Trust me, nothing’s going to happen to them.”

“I’ve probably gotten into enough trouble it’s almost undeniably true,” Lyrei remarked much more casually. “Come on, I think some of the other stuff we wanted was over there. I think we’re about halfway through the list now, so we’ll probably be able to get back to Queen Vaeri before the end of the day.”

They were in silence for all of two minutes before she said something else, though. “So, about that blood—”

“I’m not giving it to you,” Kaylin interrupted firmly. “It’s dangerous to handle if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m not risking you getting hurt.”

“I mean, that was one of my questions, but it wasn’t actually the one I was gonna ask. Why’s it gold? Or does it just look like gold? And why does it look like gold if it’s not gold?”

“It’s Dhymos,” Rennyn sighed. “I think that’s the best answer any of us are going to be able to come up with. I definitely don’t want to get any closer to understanding it or him.”

Kaylin, after a moment, nodded. “If it’s meant to do anything, it’s to show the creature’s power—to make sure that no one can mistake it for something normal. Other than that, I don’t know why it looks as it does. There’s plenty of things I’ve learned about them over our lives, but… that was one of the things that were never brought up. I wouldn’t be surprised if even Dhymos didn’t understand it.”

“Do you think it still has all the other properties of gold?” Lyrei asked. “I mean, I can’t tell a lot from here, because you won’t let me get closer, but it definitely looks like gold…”

“I don’t think they can answer that, either,” Seldir remarked. “I’m pretty sure that’s not the kind of information worth keeping note of. You’re the only person I know of that would even think about that kind of stuff.”

Lyrei let out a hmph. “Well, that’s what the rest of you get for seeing an amazing discovery and just deciding to not pay attention to it.”

“Don’t worry,” Rennyn remarked with a cynical edge to his tone. “We’re probably going to be encountering plenty more of them. Just be careful so you’re not the one who learns the hard way how strong their bite is.”

“I… almost feel a little bad,” Noa admitted after a moment. “We’re probably going to be running into all sorts of stuff and only you and Seldir are capable of doing anything…”

Rennyn stopped, but not because he hadn’t considered it a possibility, or even that the suggestion surprised him. It was because he’d heard others say those words—ask what they could do, learn to fight in order to stand beside him. Of course he’d shown them, because he thought they were right; that Dhymos couldn’t trick them as easily, that he’d have someone to help him fight off what Dhymos had in store. But it only ever ended in one way.

And Rennyn looked between the four of them, and with a rising sense of fear, said, “No.” They all looked back at him, though. He needed a better explanation than that. Not like what he gave really explained anything at all. “I’m capable of taking care of things myself. No one else needs to get involved.”

He walked up in front of the rest of them so he had the lead, turned to Lyrei, and changed the subject completely. “Come on, show us where those other herbs are. The sooner we get them all, the better.”