“I’m not.”
He moved ahead, sniffing once as he went, appearing more feral by the moment by the way he moved and his changing stance, like a wild man on the hunt. Fascinated, she trailed behind him.
“Are you truly not cold?”
“I am,” he said.
Exasperated, she huffed out a breath, but he continued speaking before she could chastise him. “I’d rather save the magic for when you need it. Your stone will wear out, and I’m able to tolerate the cold.”
“So can I, Muir. I was raised in this weather, and I’m an ice mage. The weather affects me, but differently since I have a natural affinity for the cold.”
“Then I suppose that makes both of us different.”
A hint of a smile surfaced on his handsome face before he guided her alongside him with a palm on the small of her back, through a doorway into a manmade tunnel, its walls polished stone, smooth, perfectly rectangular.
There was a ferocious noise rumbling through the maze of dark caverns, though it was impossible to distinguish which direction from whence it came. As it echoed throughout the passage and shook several icicles loose from the rocky ceiling. Rapunzel squeezed Muir’s hand tighter.
Muir’s nostrils flared. He breathed in a deep breath. “We aren’t alone here, but it’s no creature I’ve ever crossed. I don’t recognize this smell.”
“Troll maybe, or a yeti. They both live in caverns. Maybe we should look for another shelter.”
Muir grunted. “The temperature is dropping, and we haven’t seen any other caverns. I’ll scout ahead and assess the danger. You wait—”
“No, I’m coming with you. I don’t want to be alone in here.”
“Very well.”
Muir led the way through dim paths lit only by her ifrit stone, although it threw ominous shadows over the rock formations surrounding them. Suddenly, he stopped, and she bumped into his broad back.
“What is it?”
“Get back,” he said in a low voice. “Go back now.”
“Why?”
“Because, lass, we have company.”
Rapunzel peered around Muir’s broad shoulders and sucked in a sharp breath. An enormous white-furred creature lay on the ground, the yeti small for an adult, but too large to be a child. Juvenile, just old enough to travel without its mother. It had a sad, hairless face with beady, dark eyes and droopy cheeks framing a flat nose. The creature pulled at something embedded in the bottom of its tough foot. It clawed at it, gave up, and slumped again, its enormous ham-sized fists covered in blood from failed efforts.
“Look at it. I think it’s hurt. There’s something in his foot.”
“All the more reason for us to either attack now or make a hasty retreat.”
He tugged her back by the arm, but Rapunzel pulled away. The creature’s pain sounded too human to ignore, like a sobbing child begging for relief. She took a hesitant step toward the yeti, then another.
“Rapunzel,” Muir hissed at her. “That thing could crush you to pieces. It’s bigger than I am.”
“Then stand by and be prepared to help me if he tries. Listen to him, Muir. How can you ignore that?”
“Quite easily. We have a quest, lass, and the sooner we get to the top of this mountain, the better. We can’t do that if we’re dead because your snowman smashes us into paste.”
Yetis were killed frequently in her kingdom whenever they came down from the mountains seeking food, often taking goats and tucking other livestock beneath their brawny arms before loping away again. Years ago, her father had even put out a bounty for yeti pelts, the whiter the better, despite some objections.
Rapunzel shrugged her pack off and passed it to Muir, though he gave her a disgusted look. “He’s just a little one.”
“Little one?”
“A bull would be much larger. Twice your height.”
“I swear if it tries to harm you—”
“Do what you must then. For now, remain back and try not to frighten him.”
“Me frighten him?”
“You’re quite frightening when you scowl like that.” In a moment of impulsiveness, she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. Then she moved away and approached the wounded creature.
The yeti roared and swiped out with one massive paw. Rapunzel stopped and held up both hands, showing they were empty save for her softly glowing orb. The pale light had naturally dimmed to a ruddy hue when they entered the cave, giving enough light to see by without hurting their eyes. The yeti blinked and growled softly, but made no other movement.
“It’s all right. I won’t hurt you,” she said in a quiet voice as she took another step. The beast growled but didn’t swing again. Its small, dark eyes remained focused on her face.
Step by slow, careful step, she closed the distance between them. While she didn’t dare look away to see what Muir was doing, she sensed the weight of his gaze on her and knew he’d leap in at the slightest provocation.
“I’m going to look at your foot now.”
The yeti trembled, thick fur rustling, though she had no idea if it was pain or fear or perhaps both at the source. First, she set down the orb and waited. The yeti chuffed and stared at it. When it didn’t attack, she reached out and gently grasped the foot it had been favoring. Thick, shaggy fur covered the enormous appendage. His foot was easily as big as her head and the claws tipping each padded toe matched the length of her longest finger.
“It’s all right.” Even if he couldn’t understand her words, she hoped he could understand the sympathy in her voice.
Slippery blood covered the bottom of his foot, and while the sole was tough and leathery, an inch of jagged metal protruded. Rapunzel grasped the bit of bloody metal between her thumb and forefinger. The yeti bared his teeth and rumbled in his massive chest. Muir leaned forward, on the brink of transforming.
She shot him a warning look. “Don’t.”
“Rapunzel.”
“You’ll scare him, Muir. Please.”
“I don’t like this.”
He’d have to deal with it. The yeti’s growl faded into a soft whimper, and it made a pitiful yowl that tugged her heartstrings. Twice, her fingers slipped against blood-slickened metal before she used the edge of her cloak to grasp it and pull. It came free with a spurt of thick blood. Some of the tension eased from the creature’s body, and it quaked in relief.
“It looks like the tip of a sword.” Rapunzel set the shattered metal aside, where the yeti could see it. The beast swatted it away, sending the shard clattering across the cabin floor. Despite herself, Rapunzel giggled. “I can’t say I blame you for that.”
Behind her, Muir muttered something in his native tongue. She was pretty sure it wasn’t a pleasant something either, but she ignored him and returned her focus to the injury. So far, the yeti was content to let her help, and she didn’t want to waste time and risk it changing its mind.
Rapunzel smoothed her thumb over his bare foot. His toes moved, he squirmed—ticklish. She giggled again, and he made a small sound that sounded like pleasure. Maybe a purr.
Muir shifted, a dubious guardian lurking behind her.
“If you’re going to stand over me, at least bring your light closer, Muir. I need to see better.” Once he lowered his orb, Rapunzel wove her spell. Blue luminescence spilled from her fingers onto the bloody, raw wound in his foot pad, heat and sorcery, a scalding brand that sealed the wound on the surface with a flash of cauterizing heat. Healing magic wasn’t always pleasant, and the wound had been deep.
The yeti thrashed. He pounded one of his hamfists against the ground, showering them with fragments of fallen rock and debris but causing no harm. Her gaze darted up from her work to her patient’s face. There were tears streaming down his craggy cheeks. Until that moment, she hadn’t known abominable snowmen could cry at all.
“I wasn’t able to close it fully, but it shouldn’t bleed so much now. His natural healing will have to take over.” Rapunzel took Muir’s knife an
d sliced a strip of fabric from the edge of her cloak. She wrapped the yeti’s foot with it to cushion the newly healed, tender flesh. “There we go. I’m all done now.”
He got up slowly and tested his weight on the foot. Even with damage beneath the surface, she thought the relief must have been indescribable for him.
“Back away now, lass. Please. You’ve healed your beast, now let’s be on our way.”
“But—”
“Please.”
The pleading tone in his voice, a rarity for the man, spoke to her more than his words. With a final look up at the yeti, she scooped up her orb and stepped back. Muir’s hand smoothed down her back and came to a rest at her waist.
“Come on, we can go back to the previous chamber to rest for the night.”
“All right.”
The moment they turned to leave, the yeti roared. Quicker than she thought a creature of his size could move, the shaggy beast put itself between them and the way out. Muir tugged her behind him and took up a defensive stance, but the yeti only stood there and stomped its uninjured foot. It grunted and moved away to a narrow corridor on the other side of the cavern then waited, stomping its foot again.
“It seems your snowman wants us to follow him.”
Rapunzel glanced up at Muir. “Shall we?”
“Worse that can happen is he repays your effort by taking us home to his mum and da’ to eat us.”
They yeti led the way through dark, twisting passages, making Rapunzel further grateful for the orbs Joaidane had crafted. The deeper they went into the mountain, the warmer the air became. Eventually, her breaths no longer produced fog.
Pale shafts of moonlight speared in from up above. Rapunzel peered upward and marveled at the neatly chiseled tubes in the rock, angled perfectly to view the moon. Had the yeti’s fashioned them or were they natural occurrences in the mountain? Besides their orbs, the only other illumination came from lichen on the walls. The sparse growth glowed soft green.
“Close your eyes a moment, Rapunzel.”
“What? Why?” Too late, her gaze skirted past the luminescent moss and settled on a shadowed shape ahead. It took her mind a moment to make sense of it, but when she did, a sickening sensation twisted her insides.
The battered corpse of a royal guard hung on a rocky spike jutting from the ground, belly up and head back, the black eyes staring wide open toward the cavern ceiling. The yeti tugged on the body.
“Don’t do that,” Rapunzel chided him sharply.
The beast released his new toy and dropped his big furry mitt down to his side. For the first time, she noticed the red stains against the otherwise white and cream-hued fur. Then her gaze darted to the other corpses and the remnants of a shattered sword beside one of the deceased guards. Something had smashed him and left his broken body discarded in a corner, reduced to a greasy red smear against the rocks. Had it been this yeti or were there more haunting the forgotten cavern?
Muir crouched beside the body and touched the wet blood. He rubbed it between his fingers. “This corpse is fresh. The queen must have sent soldiers to the mountain.”
A sour taste flooded her mouth. She looked away. “Which means she predicted we would make this step and come to get the Northern Light.”
“Or is at least taking precautions. We’ll have to be wary. Some may have passed farther up the mountain and left these two behind. If she knew for sure we were here, I think she’d send more than a small group of men.”
“Yes, I think you’re right.”
Their guide stomped his foot again and warbled. Rapunzel tensed and waited, expecting an answering call, but none came. With only two options, follow or go back, they continued after their unconventional host. Stomp, as she decided to call him, led them through a crevice into a small chamber with no additional exits as far as she could see.
While the cavern had a musty smell, it wasn’t rank or inhospitable, the occasional gust of a cool wind snaking in from some corner of the chamber. It looked like it had once been a ritual room of some kind, decorated by altars holding numerous ceramic pots and glittering baubles.
Rapunzel passed a few scattered animal bones, thankful none appeared human.
Stomp crossed to what could only be described as a nest. Rapunzel made out leaves, dried grass, torn rags, and small animal pelts in the haphazard pile. The juvenile yeti sat and wiggled down into the construct, where he gnawed on a bone until he drifted to sleep.
Muir removed a travel blanket from his pack and spread it over the ground while she unloaded their rations. They had flaky bread, cured ham, and salted fish. Muir scraped the crust from the cheese while she opened a small bottle of wine.
“You Eislanders and your wine,” he grunted.
“What’s wrong with it? It keeps well, tastes good, and warms you up inside.”
“And clouds your mind.”
“Only if you overindulge.”
“Which your people seem to enjoy.” Muir’s faint smile softened the blow his words might have otherwise struck.
They ate their small meal without further talk, the silence broken by Stomp’s occasional snore. Muir settled in his griffin form and invited her under his wing, the feathers softer than silk beneath her cheek. She buried her face against the downy white fluff and sighed.
“Muir?”
“Hmm?”
“I….” Love you so much. She gathered the edge of the blanket around her and tightened her fist around a handful. “Nothing. Sleep well.”
“Goodnight, Rapunzel.”
Chapter
Rapunzel groaned as she raised her head from the hard ground, rocky cavern floor cushioned only by a layer of blanket. In the seconds it took for her eyes to adjust to the thin streams of golden light slanting in from above, she realized Muir had left her. The yeti was gone, his chew toys her only company.
“Muir?” she called, voice echoing throughout the stone chamber. “Muir?”
Only Stomp trundled inside, scratching his furry hind end with long, yellowing claws.
Groggily, she rubbed her eyes and rose. All of Muir’s belongings, including his sword, had been left behind. The latter alarmed her most of all. “Good morning, Stomp. Have you seen the red and surly one?”
Stomp rumbled.
Rapunzel frowned. It wasn’t like Muir to take off without warning, and she wondered if he’d gone to fetch a breakfast for them.
She waited. The yeti kept her company, and an unknown amount of time passed before Rapunzel realized Muir wasn’t coming back.
Had he abandoned her and fled down the mountain? There wasn’t a sign of a struggle in the room, no feathers, blood, or even a minor disturbance near the passage they’d taken.
Something was wrong. Muir wouldn’t leave. Wouldn’t abandon her. Wouldn’t strand her in a frozen mountain in the north when he’d been eager to put himself between her and an abominable snowman.
“Muir may be injured or unable to come to me, and if he’s hurt, I need to find him.”
Rapunzel rolled up the blanket and stuffed it in the satchel before slinging the strap over her shoulder. She ended up with both bags crossed on opposite hips and managed to encase his blade in an icy sheath before securing it against her back with the straps and a few cleverly tied linens.
It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. He’d want it back.
Too stubborn to acknowledge the uncomfortable weight digging into her skin, Rapunzel turned to face her new friend. “Do you know where he’s gone?”
He loped away to the distant side of the cavern. She followed him and discovered the wall wasn’t solid, an exit concealed by the jutting rocks that hadn’t been present before. A shifting in the mountain, or perhaps the fists of a larger, stronger yeti, had created an opening large enough for her and the juvenile to enter.
The new passage was enormous and cavernous, lined with torches that sparked to life by magic of unknown origin. Had her ancestors, the savage nomads who roamed the high mountains in the north,
built this marvel of mazes and sorcery? She’d never studied the ancient people of Eisland much during her youth, disinterested in learning about the past and eager to absorb whatever she could learn about Arthras from her brother. And when apart from Joren, her life had been etiquette lessons with noble ladies, attending court with her father, and stealing whatever time on her own to practice the art of elemental magic in secrecy under her parents’ noses.
“Muir!” she called, voice echoing through the long corridor. It sloped upward, but Stomp moved to the forefront ahead of her and turned right at the fork. She saw daylight ahead of them, felt the cold wind whistling down the tunnel. Running toward it, she emerged to discover a snow-dusted route carved against the icy peaks, but no Muir.
The serene path ahead of them was clear and blue, a cloudless and beautiful day above the mountain compared to the blizzard of the previous evening. Wherever Stomp had brought her, they had emerged higher in altitude than before. She ascended the widening trail and sought signs of Muir’s passage, hoping for even a stray paw print, but there was nothing.
“Muir!” she cried again, praying he answered with one of his bellows. A scream. A chirp. Anything at all.
Only silence, besides a low whine from Stomp.
“Where could that blasted man have gone?”
She paced on the path, torn between waiting for him to return from a potential hunt or seeking him on her own. What if he had gone hunting and the wind had blown him off course again? A vivid image played in Rapunzel’s mind of her husband trapped on the slopes, hindered by a broken wing and unable to return to her.
Worse thoughts plagued her. Older, vicious yetis would see him as a delicious, feathered snack if misfortune had left him defenseless. Tears sprang to her eyes.
Yet, despite her worst fears, there was a warmth in her chest that felt like Muir, and she knew if he had perished, she’d know it. She’d know the very moment of his death. Reassured by that, she shifted his heavy travel bag and continued.
Rapunzel and the Griffin Prince: An Adult Fairytale Romance Page 26
