Immortal

by Nicole Conway

  My stomach did a backflip. I wondered if Enyo had been caught on the castle grounds.

  “What is it?” Kiran demanded.

  There was a rattling commotion and the sound of the door shutting. Whoever it was, Kiran had let them inside.

  “News from the border. Maldobar is under siege. Northwatch burns and a company of human soldiers has retreated into the jungle. They are headed this way, but they travel with many wounded and no supplies. It is doubtful they will survive to reach the city,” the young man reported. “Her Majesty would like you to lead a rescue mission to intercept them with supplies and guide them safely here. Your knowledge of the human language and customs would be essential.”

  “Leaving when? I have responsibilities to my patients here,” Kiran spoke sharply.

  “Immediately. The errand is most urgent. It’s believed that one of these men is a member of Maldobar’s royal family.”

  There was a tense silence. I waited, holding my breath, until at last I heard Kiran let out a growling, frustrated sigh.

  “Very well. I’ll need some time to make arrangements for my boy to stay with someone. Bring shrikes. We leave at dawn,” he answered.

  There were a few mutterings of gratitude and the retreating sound of footsteps. The front door snapped shut and I heard Kiran coming back up the stairs. Quickly, I slipped away into my bedroom. I left the door cracked and flopped down onto my bed, jerking the blankets up to my chin.

  I pretended to be asleep when I heard Kiran push the door open in a bit further. He sighed again, whispering something under his breath that I couldn’t make out. Then pulled the door closed and I heard his footsteps fading away down the hallway toward his bedroom.

  Minutes passed and I waited until the house was quiet. Kiran hadn’t come back out of his room. I figured he was either busy packing or stealing a few hours of sleep before he had to leave.

  I got up and opened my closet, digging through my stuff until I unearthed a backpack made out of soft, tanned leather. It was stocked with a few basic supplies, two days’ worth of rations, and something else—something Kiran didn’t know I had.

  I pulled the long, curved blades out of the bag and held them firmly in my hands. The soft leather grips felt at home there, as though they’d been made especially for me. They hadn’t, of course. These blades were a lot older than I was. Each pommel was plated with silver and set with chips of mica to make the shape of a snarling snagwolf’s head.

  The gray elves called these weapons “kafki,” and only the finest fighters for the royal family had wielded them. Each blade was twelve inches long and curved, like a pair of small shovels. But that wasn’t what made them unique.

  The twin blades weren’t made of metal. They were made of wood that was as white as bone and harder than stone—wood from the most dangerous predators in all of Luntharda. Greevwood trees were legendary, even among the gray elves. They were subtle monsters, not something you’d think twice about until one had its roots around your neck and was slowly digesting you.

  Gruesome? Definitely. But their wood was as prized as it was hard to gather. Once you cut away the bark and exposed the white meat of the tree beneath, you only had a short time to be able to cut and mold it. After that, it became harder than iron. The elves liked making knives, swords, and scimitars from it because they couldn’t be broken and they never went dull. The perfect material for making pointy, sharp, deadly things.

  And I hadn’t come by these by chance. They were a gift, and Kiran didn’t know anything about them. I was afraid that if he ever saw them, he’d take them from me.

  It wasn’t that weapons were forbidden to me. After all, Kiran had given me my first bow and taught me everything I knew about how to handle a blade. He’d trained me to wield a spear, a scimitar, fire a bow, how to throw daggers with lethal proficiency, and even how to fight with a human-styled sword. But I doubted if even he had any experience with kafki. They were considered an ancient weapon, used more for decoration now than anything else, and being made of greevwood meant they’d probably belonged to someone royal a long, long time ago. So if Kiran caught me with them, he would probably insist on giving them back to their rightful owner.

  Only, she was definitely dead. So giving them back wasn’t really an option.

  I dug through my wardrobe for my scouting clothes—the best thing for traveling in Luntharda when you didn’t want to be spotted. I’d never worn them before, so they were still new and creased, fresh from the tailor. They’d been waiting for me at the bottom of the drawer for a year.

  I took off my casual clothes and put on the black undergarments. I tucked the sleeveless black silk shirt into the matching long black pants. I bound each of my legs from my ankle to my knee with a strip of thick, black canvas, making sure to tuck my pants down into it snuggly. It was padding for running, skidding, rolling, leaping, and climbing through the trees. I did the same with my arms, binding from my wrists to my elbows with several layers of the wrapping.

  The outer tunic was made of something thicker, and it was midnight blue with a silver border stitched into the elbow-length sleeves and around the base. It came down to my knees and was split up the sides so I could move easily. Over it, I buckled a light, black leather jerkin and a belt with sheaths for the two greevwood kafki. I laced up my nicest pair of sandals—the ones with soles made especially for gripping even the slickest of tree limbs—and threw my pack over my shoulders.

  The night air rushed in when I opened my bedroom window. I climbed out onto the ledge, looking back behind me at my childhood bedroom.

  There, I hesitated.

  Basically, I had two choices.

  Kiran was going to leave at dawn. He was going to strike out into the jungle, leading a group of warriors to help those human soldiers. And once again, I was going to get left behind. So either I could stay here, hiding in the clinic like a coward and trying to keep Noh at bay and pretend there wasn’t something wrong with me.

  Or I could do what Kiran didn’t have the guts to do:

  I could kick myself out.

  He was probably hoping this would all blow over, that I’d regain control of Noh, or that he might even leave altogether and I’d get to finish out my life as a normal person. But deep down, the truth wasn’t something either of us could change. Noh had killed once. He would do it again, and whether I liked it or not—whether it was fair or not—I would be the one to blame.

  No one here would be safe from Noh unless I was gone.

  Clenching my teeth, I looked out across the sleeping city of Mau Kakuri and knew I couldn’t stay here anymore. Whatever was happening to me—whatever connection there was between Noh and I—I couldn’t risk him hurting anyone else. This city couldn’t hold me. Kiran couldn’t protect me. That left only one option.

  It was time to break free.

  ***

  This was my only chance. I had a few hours to get a head start before Kiran figured out I was gone. He wouldn’t be able to look for me, not right away. He’d gotten orders from the Queen, so he was obligated. I had to be long gone by the time he wrestled with his better sense and decided to ignore it and come looking for me anyway.

  I acted casual so I didn’t draw any attention, strolling down the stone paved streets to the edge of the city. There, the jungle rose up before me like a swelling tidal wave, ready to drag me under. Dense, dark, deep, and dangerous, you had to be a special kind of stupid to go out there alone at night.

  No one had ever accused me of being all that smart, anyway.

  I got a thrill of panic and excitement as I crossed the border, leaving the city behind me and stepping into the wild. Wherever I wanted to go, whatever I wanted to do—no one could stop me now. I was my own man. No crusty old gray elf could tell me what to do anymore.

  I ran for the trees and struck out toward Maldobar. It would take days to get to the boundary line, and that was if I didn’t stop or get eaten by something first. But I mad
e up my mind right away; that’s where I had to go. I wanted to see it for myself, the land where I was born. A kingdom filled with people with round ears like mine, and where dragons ruled the wide, open skies.

  It sounded good at the time.

  I kept up a fierce pace, sprinting along the tree-paths until my lungs burned and there were miles between Mau Kakuri and me. The sun was rising, and Kiran would just be figuring out that I was gone. I pushed those thoughts from my mind and listened to the jungle. I couldn’t hear the rumble of the falls or smell their moisture in the air anymore. Instead, I heard the birds calling to another as they fluttered through the trees. I spooked a shrike that was napping in a sunny spot, warming his wings. He hissed at me as I darted by.

  Finally, I stopped to catch my breath and to check my bearings. The jungle was a tangled mess of dense greenery and entwined tree branches. Getting lost would have been easy for anyone. But the first thing Kiran had ever taught me was how to navigate. It’s the first thing all gray elves learned because if you couldn’t find your way back home, you were basically guaranteed to get eaten by something.

  The elves had their own system of roadways along the broad limbs of the trees, far above the jungle floor. They marked them with symbols engraved into certain places on the trees. A circle meant a road leading north. A circle with a horizontal line through it meant east, one with a vertical line meant west, and one with a single dot in the center meant south. Easy, right?

  But those were just the main pathways that led between major cities. There were plenty of other destinations in the jungle like temples, mineral springs, hunting grounds, burial sites, and things like that. There were also warnings of things to avoid—like a grove of greevwood trees that had sprung up too close to a city or village.

  Of course, young novice warriors and scouts weren’t supposed to leave those marked paths. But if you ever found yourself lost in an unknown part of the jungle, far from a city where someone might hear you calling for help, there was always the tree.

  Kiran told me that the humans navigated using the stars. Because of the dense jungle canopy, we didn’t get to see the stars often. Or the moon, either, for that matter. However, if you climbed high enough to peek out of the canopy, you could see the tree from almost anywhere. Day or night, winter or summer, the tree was there. It never changed—never dropped its leaves in fall or grew an inch in springtime.

  Paligno had planted that tree when the last lapiloque had died—or at least, that’s what everyone else believed. They said it had just sprung up, willed to being by the ancient god of life to cover the lapiloque’s burial place. Regardless of how it had gotten there, that tree had grown to a size that towered even over all the other giant trees in Luntharda. It loomed over the canopy, and it could be seen for miles and miles. It was a fixed point, which is all you needed to navigate.

  I’d only seen the tree once. When I was ten, Kiran had taught me how to climb up to the very top of the canopy and hoist myself through the barrier of leaves and brambles. Up there, the air blew freely, the sky was endless, and the sun was like a warm caress on my skin. I could see the tree from Mau Kakuri. It wasn’t all that far away. It was closer to the boundary line with Maldobar than the city, though, and Kiran said few people went to see it now. It was out of great respect for lapiloque that they let him sleep in peace, leaving the temple grounds untouched and the area around it free of civilization. They all believed so sincerely that one day he would rise again.

  A load of crap, really. If there was one thing I knew for certain, it’s that dead people stayed dead.

  OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES

  FLEDGLING

  AVIAN

  TRAITOR

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  Table of Contents

  PART ONE: FELIX

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  PART TWO: JAEVID

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  PART THREE: FELIX

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Map

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Introducing: SAVAGE

  Other Titles in the Series