by Amanda Sun
It makes me sad that this is what she thinks of my world, that we would come after the survivors in fear instead of friendship. But she believes it completely, and to argue would only be awkward and offensive. So instead I tell her, “I promise I won’t tell anyone you’re down here.” At least, I think, not until and unless I’m in a position to control Ashra’s reaction. And that won’t be hard, because the Monarch is my father, and he and the people will listen to their heir.
“Thank you,” Aliyah says, her eyes gleaming. She steps forward to embrace me, her arms pressing the karu fur tight against my back, the tip of the behemoth spear cool against my cheek.
And then it’s time for us to leave. Aliyah and Sayra walk to the waterfall with us, the sky turning a lighter purple as the sleepy birds twitter their morning chorus. Thunder rolls in the distance, and the air feels prickly. When we reach the waterfall, the mist of droplets is cold on my arms. The sun lifts, and the world floods with orange and pink.
“Let the two moons light your path,” Aliyah says, while Sayra clings to her, looking from Griffin to the ground and back again.
Griffin waves a hand. “I’ll bring back some basilisk scales for you, Sayra. Promise.” And I remember what Aliyah said, that Griffin wants to save everyone.
We climb the stepped green slope beside the waterfall and follow the foaming stream through the woods, turning to wave until Aliyah and Sayra are out of sight. Griffin wears his karu fur cloak but no jerkin, his skin covered with leather straps and weapons and pouches. His shell necklace clinks against his neck as he walks, and on his right forearm he wears his crisscrossing beaded lacing from wrist to his elbow. He’s painted fresh lines of yellow and purple under his eyes, too.
“Is it to help you see better?” I ask. “The paint.”
He lifts a hand up to his cheek. “The purple helps,” he says. “Mainly it puts me in the right frame of mind to hunt monsters. If I feel stronger than human, like I’m infused with power, then I know I can take them down.”
“Like a good-luck charm, then,” I say. The thunder still rolls in the distance, but here the air is clear and cloudless, the breeze warming on the rays of sun as they brighten our path. “I used to keep a red plume with me for luck. The Elders gave it to me when I was born.” Every newborn on the floating continents is presented with one at birth, to symbolize the Phoenix’s promise to us that one day she will rise anew.
“What happened to it?”
“It blew out of my hand and off the side of the continent,” I say. Griffin chuckles, and I laugh, too. “I guess it wasn’t a good choice of charm for the sky.”
“Tell me more about Ashra,” he says, and the request surprises me. I thought he wanted nothing to do with it. The surprise must show in my expression, because he smiles. “All I know is that you fell off the edge,” he says. “You know all about me, now. My parents, my sister, my career of choice.”
“Career.” I laugh. “I never thought of monster hunter as a career.” Our boots land softly in the grass near the stream. “Did you ever say to yourself, ‘When I grow up, I want to hunt monsters’?”
He grins, but the thought of it twists my heart. He hunts them because they killed his family. He shouldn’t have to hunt them, but he does, to save whoever’s left.
“I didn’t have a choice of what to be,” I say. “I’ve always been told what I need to be.”
“Ah,” he says. “A life of service, like me.”
I want to tell him. I want to tell him everything—that I’m the heir to the floating continents, that I’m the descendant of the brutes who ordered the massacre. That I’m engaged to a man I don’t love, that I’m the wick and the wax and that I can’t burn for myself. My father once told me a light that burns only for itself is like a candle under a glass—quickly extinguished, useless to everyone. But to tell Griffin all this would be for this dream to vanish, and I only have a week left of it anyway. So I keep it to myself, as horribly selfish as it feels. Instead, I answer his first question.
“Ashra is very beautiful,” I say. “There’s a farming village called Ulan. The people raise chickens and pygmy goats, and they sow fields of wheat and oats and barley. In the summertime, you can see the long tufts of it swaying in the winds, like they’re dancing.”
“We used to grow wheat and corn in our village in the lava lands,” Griffin says. “My mother—my real mother—baked the most delicious bread. I was so little when she was killed by a behemoth, but I still remember the bread.” He closes his eyes as he walks, remembering. “It always smelled so good in the oven. I used to burn my fingers all the time because I couldn’t wait for it to cool. She’d warn me, but I never listened.” He laughs, and as we step forward we startle some iridescent insects that scatter around us. I think of what Aliyah said, how they found Griffin crying and wandering the fields. “Of course, now we can only gather wheat if we’re lucky enough to find it wild. Sayra sometimes bakes acorn bread.”
“Acorn bread?”
He makes a face, sticking out his tongue. “It’s nutty and grainy and dense, but better than nothing. We can’t harvest fields anymore. It’s too dangerous to be in the fields for hours at a time plowing and reaping. And the cows and horses are long gone, so we can’t break the tough soil open.”
“I saw drawings of horses in the annals,” I say. “I think they looked like deer, but larger.”
“I’ve seen them on the plains,” Griffin says, and the jealousy I feel is immediately surpassed by curiosity. “In small herds. I’d like to ride one someday.”
The beauty in the forest around us dims under the sadness. “So much is lost,” I say.
“But there’s so much we still have,” Griffin answers.
I shake my head. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Stay so positive.”
He shrugs, his bow clinking against his quiver under the karu fur. “Sometimes all we have left is hope. If I give up, the monsters win. And I won’t let them win.”
The forest thins around us, leaving hilly fields of green that bump along the stream’s path. I walk forward, the thunder rumbling in the distance and the sky so bright my eyes water. I glance at the mountains in the distance, rising up strongly, never failing, like Griffin’s sense of hope.
FIFTEEN
WE’VE WALKED FOR a couple hours now, following the stream as it winds around the bending curves of the lush valley. We each have a flask of water in our pouch, but there’s no point drinking from it when there’s a gurgling stream rushing along beside us.
“Just a minute,” I tell Griffin as I walk to the water’s edge. He follows me, his eyes always scanning the perimeter of the clearing.
I pass a nearby apple tree on the way to the water, most of its petals gathered in crumpled piles on the ground. I dip my hands into the water, the cool bubbles foaming against my fingers as the current rushes toward the waterfall downstream. The water is sweet and fresh, and I splash some on my face when I’m done drinking.
Then I hear Griffin’s voice, sharp and hushed. “Kali!”
I look up, and he’s kneeling on the ground near the apple tree, waving his hand wildly at me to come over. Something isn’t right. I hurry, half hunched in the grass. As soon as I’m kneeling beside Griffin, he reaches over and pulls the karu hood over my head.
“Stay down,” he hisses, and we lie flat on the ground, trying our best to look like two karus napping under an apple tree. A cloud of butterflies and red bees lift into the air, disturbed from their pollen gathering on the dying apple blossoms.
A shadow drifts over us, and I can hear the flapping of wings. A deep purple dragon coils his limbs and tail, landing neatly beside the stream. The mustard-yellow insides of his leathery wings wrinkle and fold, while long, translucent crystals hang from his nose like a moustache, clinking as they sway back and fo
rth. He leans down and snuffles the top of the water with his large nostrils.
“Storm dragon,” Griffin whispers. “Maybe five years old. Just a dragonling.”
It’s only a fraction of the size of the dragon that grabbed the giant cat on my first day down here. It’s the size of the chimera more so than a full-grown dragon. I can’t believe Griffin spotted it from so far away.
The dragonling swirls its nostrils across the surface of the water, blowing little gasps of breath that send up sprays of white mist. And suddenly the long, buttery crystals on its muzzle gleam with bright electric light. Little bolts of shining lightning spark from the crystals as they hum with power. I want to ask Griffin what’s happening, but I’m frightened to give us away.
The dragonling dips the crystals into the stream and the air fills with static energy. I can hear the zap of the current running from one crystal to the other, and then a large fish goes belly-up in the water.
“He’s hunting,” I whisper. The dragonling opens his slender jaw and crunches the fish, tilting his head backward to swallow it down.
“He’s not the only one,” Griffin whispers back. At first I think he means us, but then I hear the snap and creak of ancient limbs unfurling. I can’t see another monster, but I can hear it. And then I see the tree branches, long and tangled and draped in moss, reaching across the stream toward the unsuspecting dragonling.
I put my hand to my mouth as the branches ensnare him in a wooden cage. The dragonling gurgles on his fish, scratching at the tree limbs as they unfurl around him.
It’s not a tree at all, but another dragon, camouflaged as an old oak tree. He opens each ancient wing with a crack like a branch breaking in two. His mouth is carved from bark, his tongue mossy and green and forked, hanging out of his mouth around his polished, gray teeth.
The dragonling lights up his crystals and zaps the branches curling around him. He flings himself at their sides, snapping one after another in his jaws. But the long limbs of the oak dragon grow and lift him into the air, closing tighter around him.
I know they’re both monsters, but my heart breaks for the tiny storm dragon. I stand up and then feel Griffin’s fingers tighten around my arm.
“No!” he whispers, but it’s too late. They’ve seen me. The storm dragon stops fighting the oak dragon, and throws his whole body against the wooden cage, snapping his teeth in my direction. I feel utter betrayal. I wanted to help him, but I see now that Griffin’s right—if I save the storm dragonling, he’ll only come after me.
The dragonling throws himself against the branches with newfound strength, but the oak dragon is still more interested in his catch—either that or he’s rooted to the ground. I wonder how long he’s been lying in wait to catch his unsuspecting victim.
Griffin rises to his feet, his hand still around my arm. “Come on,” he says sharply, and we run past the dragons as they screech behind us. The storm dragonling’s call is like thunder, and as we race past them, I wonder if that was the rolling thunder I heard earlier. The oak dragon reaches a barb-tipped wing toward us, but his movements are slow and ancient, and we easily escape the trap.
We run until I feel the familiar sting of my bruised ribs, until I’m coughing so hard I collapse to the ground.
“Kali,” Griffin says, and I notice he’s barely panting. He must be used to running for his life all the time. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” I gasp. “Just...just one minute.”
He nods, surveying the landscape carefully. The oak dragon won’t come after us, and the dragonling can’t. The bubbling stream carries on peacefully, as if we’d never witnessed the fight. After a moment I catch my breath. “I just wanted to help the baby dragon,” I say.
Griffin smiles sadly. “You’re thinking like a human. They’re monsters. They only want to destroy.”
I’ve seen kindness in animals many times, but Griffin’s right—the monsters lack the compassion other living creatures have. “You know a lot about them.”
“It’s my life to know,” he says. “The minute you let down your guard is the minute they win. There’s nothing more dangerous than a cornered monster that has nothing to lose. So I have to be the same.”
The sun is hot in the afternoon, the wafting breeze too muggy against our faces. It brings with it swarms of mosquitos and flicker wasps, which fly so quickly they seem to vanish, until they flicker right beside our ears. They buzz and waggle their menacing stingers the size of my fist, but Griffin tells me to walk straight ahead calmly and I do, and neither of us is stung.
When it’s safe, we talk quietly about Ashra and the earth below, about the generators the Benu built to keep the continents aloft in the sky, and whether they’ll last forever. “It’s not like we have any scholars left to study them,” Griffin says. “But I’ve gone down to the shadowlands before to look at them. They glow with a pale blue light, the generators, and they seem to recharge by themselves, but I can’t figure out how. There’s definitely no sunlight getting in down there.”
“Maybe the Phoenix’s sacrifice provided enough residual heat to keep them going,” I say, and he looks at me, pained, but unwilling to contradict me. “Look, I’m not saying I don’t believe you about the massacre. It’s hard to accept and believe, but...I have my doubts about some of the annals.” Like that secret first volume, and what Elder Aban and the lieutenant are keeping from me. “But the Benu built the statue of the Phoenix at the citadel. She was clearly important to them. And maybe it’s true that she sent the continents into the sky. It was just a lot earlier than we thought.”
Griffin thinks for a minute, and then nods. “Anything could have happened three thousand years ago.”
“Will Aliyah and Sayra be okay?” I ask. I can’t stop thinking about them, left behind in the dugout haven.
“They’re survivors,” he says. “They’ll keep going, until they can’t. That’s what survival is.”
I know this. And Aliyah is strong. Not just her weapon skill and her survival knowledge, but her heart and her attitude. But Sayra...it seemed to crush her, Griffin leaving. “Sayra seems so heartbroken,” I say finally.
“She’s lost everything. Aliyah and I still have each other, but she lost her whole family when the griffins attacked. She had two older brothers and a younger sister, and her parents. All gone.”
“It’s horrible,” I say. “It’s not fair.”
It’s too warm, and Griffin slips the karu fur off his shoulders. It slides back on its strings, folding in against his spine like a curtain. When he steps forward, I can see the large crescent scars on his back. “Of course it isn’t fair,” he says. “Everyone has lost something. And everyone deals with that loss in their own way. Together, Aliyah and Sayra will survive.”
We carry on in silence a little longer, and then Griffin looks at me, his hazel eyes gleaming in the sunlight. “You’re looking at my scars.”
My cheeks blaze red, and I swat at a mosquito that buzzes in my face.
“You’re wondering how I got them.” Griffin looks away. The mountains are out of view at the moment, the terrain jagged and blocked by trees. If I was on my own, I’d be afraid we’d gotten turned around.
“I... I was wondering.”
His lip curves in a smile. “We have a long way to walk. If you ask me anything, I’ll answer. And you do the same.”
I wonder if he’s figured out that I’ve held back about who I really am, if this is his bargain. But the more we go through together, the more I feel tied to him. When he looks at me with those hazel eyes that have seen so much, I know I can trust him. I want to know him, and I want him to find me, too. The real me, the one hiding timidly in my own shadow. “Okay.”
He grins. “Except this time, I can’t answer. I’d tell you if I knew, but I don’t. I’ve had these scars since my adoptive mother found me. She found me c
rying in a field near the village, after being separated from my blood parents.”
“Aliyah told me.”
“They figured the scars were from the behemoth pack that likely killed the rest of my family. I was only two or three. I don’t remember. In fact, I don’t even know my real age, my birthday...whether I was an only child or not.” He laughs, but there’s little humor in it. “Sometimes I remember my mother singing to me, and of course the bread she used to bake. But it’s only vague glimpses in distant dreams. I couldn’t sing a verse or bake a loaf to save my life.”
“I’m sorry that happened, Griffin. I really am.”
He slaps at a mosquito on his arm, the motion jangling the bow and arrows hanging from his shoulder. “The thing is, I had a wonderful childhood with my family. And until the griffins came to the village, they raised me with love. So there’s nothing sad about it.” He doesn’t look at me, only keeps walking. But I’m moved by his courage and his heart, and I feel the ember Aliyah warned me about sparking, glowing from red to blue with its own life, ready to burn down everything I believe in and rise anew from the ashes.
“I had a happy childhood, too,” I say, and I rest my hand on the inside of his elbow, my fingertips wrapping over beaded lacing and hot skin. “My mother died in childbirth, but my father worked so hard to be both parents to me. Even though he was always being called away for work, he never made me feel like I wasn’t the first priority. I knew—I know—that he loves me. And that’s one of the reasons I need to go back so badly. To tell him I’m all right. To show him he doesn’t need to worry.”
“We’re lucky, then,” Griffin says. “In a world of so much sorrow, we’ve both known so much happiness.”
And I’m so glad that I’ve told him a little more about me. I’m glad that I’m letting him in.
* * *
We walk for five more days, dodging monsters and catching fish from the widening stream. When it’s safe, we laugh and share stories by the campfire at night. When it isn’t, we hide in trees from the pouring rains and shiver in our karu furs while the monsters lurk nearby. Sometimes I have to wait while he hunts a monster that’s stalked us for miles. Other times I help alert him to their approach. He teaches me how to read the signs, footprints and scrapes on the trees, birds chirping to each other and strange shifts in the wind. I catch on quickly. I use my garnet-adorned dagger for the first time to help him carve up a catoblepas—like a wild, scaly, murderous cow, he jokes—and I help gather branches for campfires. He holds my hands gently in his and shows me how to strike a spark on the kindling. He brings out the precious vial of black salt from the lava lands and sprinkles it on my dinner when he thinks I’m not looking.
