“Sounds like this place deserves a closer look. How far from here?” Agathe queried.
Venna pursed her lips. “Probably a day if we camp outside again tonight. However, there is a town on the way. We should come across it midafternoon.”
“Since when do we stop in towns?” Hiix asked, and with good reason. They’d been eschewing people to avoid drawing attention. It meant dangerous nights spent in the open. However, they weren’t afraid. Between the three of them, they could counter most monster attacks by blade, hammer, and magic. Thus far, they’d prevailed. Eventually, they’d be overwhelmed.
“We should stop since we’re filthy and exhausted. Not to mention, we could use some supplies.” Venna liked to be prepared.
Hiix slashed the air with her hammer. “No stopping. Too dangerous.”
Venna’s expression fell, and before the fight could start, Agathe stepped in. “A night spent in a bed would be nice. Not to mention a bath so my skin stops crawling.”
“That means fixing your eyes, then,” Hiix huffed, jabbing a finger in the direction of Agathe’s noticeable purple orbs.
“I know. I’ll drain off enough magic to turn them brown.” Odd how the color shifted depending on how much power she held.
“It’s not just the eyes. The King probably sent out a bulletin to keep watch for three women travelling together, possibly posing as Soraers of the Shield.”
“Easy enough to fix. We make sure we don’t tell anyone we’re Soraers, and we enter the town separately,” Venna offered as a solution.
“Because three individual women travelling alone, no family at all to chaperone or protect, isn’t strange?” Hiix countered with a roll of her eyes.
She presented a valid point. “What if one of us weren’t a woman?” Agathe suggested.
Venna’s eyes widened. “Your magic can do that?” She glanced down at her groin.
Actually, Agathe didn’t have the slightest clue if she could and wasn’t keen on finding out in case she did something irreversible. “I meant a disguise.”
“Oh.” Venna’s lips turned down. “Who gets to be the man?”
As they argued over it, Agathe stepped closer to the edge and peered over. The mist hung low in the Abyss today, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t rise tonight. Not that it bothered her, but she’d noticed it trying to cling to her mothers. Like the pollen from a flower, it sought to take seed. She cleaned them each time it happened without them even knowing. What would happen if it was left untended? Would they, too, become mutated like the monsters that emerged from the mist? Like Captain Baree and his kernel of darkness?
Pursing her lips, Agathe eyed her hand and willed it to change, just to see if she could. It would make things easier if she could conjure a beard or a deeper voice.
Intent on trying to use magic to shape herself, she didn’t sense the threat until it dove at her from the sky.
Danger!
Agathe hit the ground and rolled.
What attacked?
With the suns shining, she knew it couldn’t be a monster, but the threat remained real. A very angry ostrawk wheeled from its near miss.
“Caw.” It yelled its annoyance. As it banked to make another run, Agathe took in the details: the small head on a long neck, a fat body, long wings, and talons to drag prey toward a beak full of teeth. They didn’t usually attack unless they felt threatened.
Like this one. It dove at their group.
Ducking kept Agathe’s head on her shoulders, but the breeze of the flying creature’s passing ruffled her hair. Rising, she saw Venna and Hiix standing back-to-back with their weapons out.
“Where did it go?” Hiix barked.
“I can’t wait to roast it,” was Venna’s gleeful addition, whereas Agathe shielded her eyes from the suns and squinted to locate the ostrawk.
A dark speck in the sky banked and headed back on a speedier run this time.
“Here it comes.” Hiix hefted her hammer and prepared to swing.
Why was it determined to attack? Could some of the mist taint be making it act erratically? Or could there be another reason? Their kind made nests in the mountain.
Ignoring her friends’ yells, Agathe peeked over the edge and saw a ledge holding a nest lined with branches and leaves. Inside, something squirmed.
“It’s protecting a baby!” No wonder it was going crazy.
“Get away from there,” Hiix yelled.
Agathe would have listened if she’d not felt it. A taint of wrongness that reminded her of the mist. Rather than join her friends, she slid over the cliff’s edge, legs dangling, conscious that if she missed, she’d plummet to her death. She landed on the ledge. The baby in the nest chirped, a discordant sound that pursed her lips. Momma bird screamed in rage and hovered overhead, feet pointed down, prepared to land.
A glimpse into the nest showed the remains of several eggs and bodies, all torn apart. Only one youngling appeared to have survived, and it squeaked at the sight of her, panicking.
It also happened to be the source of the taint.
“Don’t move,” she muttered as she climbed in and placed her hand against it. The feathers soft, the body warmer than expected.
The baby ostrawk trembled.
“Shh,” she soothed as the wrongness flared within the tiny body. Her ability responded with hunger, dragging the tainted essence, willing it to fill her. When the tastiness was all gone, she began eating at what remained—the cleaner, more wholesome power.
She needed to stop. Needed to—
“Ow!” Her concentration broke as the larger bird landed and pecked at her with its beak. The magic inside her healed the wound right away.
When the creature lunged again, she slapped her hand on its beak, and the contact shocked it into a motionless state. Once more, she tasted wrongness, even thicker than the baby’s. She absorbed it, taking it in and craving more. The bright light. Might have eaten all the yummy power if not for a whimper.
The baby still needed its mother.
Chagrin set in, and she returned some of the magic she’d taken. Cleansed of the darkness, she pushed it back into the ostrawk and healed. Old wounds, aches, and pains. She rejuvenated the creature, restoring its grimy gray plumage to gleaming white with a blue sheen. Only then did she withdraw her hand.
The creature, no longer interested in eating her, cawed in pleasure and flapped its wings. It then watched her, no longer with predatory instinct.
“Chirp,” the baby cried.
The mother eyed her chick and then Agathe. The ostrawk cooed.
Agathe frowned. “What do you want from me?”
The flying thing extended a wing to its baby, and Agathe’s brows lifted. “You want me to fix your child?”
She’d not perceived anything wrong with it. But then again, she’d been guzzling magic, not looking for problems. She placed her hand on the baby and realized it had a lame wing. It couldn’t fly, which meant it would never be able to hunt on its own. Without its mother, it would die.
She let her magic flow into it, giving it more than enough to straighten and strengthen its limb. At the end, it hopped and cawed with glee.
What she didn’t expect was for it to throw itself out of the nest and off the ledge!
Chapter Three