Page 133 of Starside

Interesting. It seems like a loose code, one with more than enough room to allow for an innocent creature to be hunted and sold in parts. Not that I can be too upset at the hunter, given he just saved my life.

I have a thousand more questions … but I look up at the trees. Those curls of buttery sunlight filtering through the forest are weakening. It won’t be long before the light is gone completely.

It’s not just shelter from the demons I’m after. No, I want a way to travel quickly, to make up some lost time.

I pull the fangs from my pockets and show them to the hunter.

He raises a brow. “Saberwolf?”

I nod.

“Where did you find one?”

“The mists.”

At that, the hunter looks us over again. Me, then Raker, who I can feel has shifted closer to my side but still hasn’t said a single word.

“You’re here on the quest, aren’t you?” I nod. He frowns down at the fangs. “I suppose you want me to offer you passage?”

I nod again. That’s exactly what I want.

He seems to consider that. “I don’t trust either of you on my dragon,” he finally says. “Not with swords like those.” I frown and am about to open my mouth again when he continues. “But for those fangs … I will procure a creature that will get you out of these woods. Save you three days’ journeying, at least.”

“Safely,” I say.

His lips purse. “Fine. Safely.”

Maybe I shouldn’t trust the immortal … but it doesn’t seem like we have many options. If Raker opposes my plan, he doesn’t say so.

“You have a deal,” I say. I toss the fangs up, and the immortal catches them with breathtaking speed. He hangs them on his baldric. Then he turns back to the spines.

I wait just a few moments before saying, “Well?”

The immortal smiles at my impatience. “It will take a few hours to lure such a creature out.”

A few hours? My eyes slowly rise to the sky. Back to him. I try to keep my voice as steady as possible, even as my hands turn to fists. “We don’t have a few hours. The demons—”

The immortal looks amused. “You’re safe here from them.”

I stare at him, bewildered, and he just laughs. “You’ll see. Night is not a dark place in these woods.”

“But water—”

“Is not the only element those creatures fear,” he says. I open my mouth, and he gives me a look, as if asking me if I really think I know these beings better than he does.

Fine. He doesn’t make a move to mount his dragon as darkness descends, so I suppose it wouldn’t be in his best interest either to be wrong about a thing like that.

I wait as the hunter continues snapping off the last of the spines. Raker is leaned against a tree, looking unimpressed with the both of us.

The dragon looks over at me. Its eyes are glimmering green, darker than those of the dragon I saw in the Prism Pass. A smattering of spikes adorns its back. Its scales are tough as armor. It looks rock-hewn. Strong. I take a step forward, pulled by a yearning for my own dragon. Do they know each other? Does she know where mine went?

The dragon sniffs at me. I wonder if she can sense my dragon. If any trace of her remains on me.

I reach out my hand to touch her scales, just as she opens her mouth—

And unleashes a torrent of water in a stream that hits me right in the chest and has me falling onto my ass. I slide along the ground until I hit Raker’s legs. I sputter, spitting out water, soaked from head to toe.

I look up at the immortal through the water clinging to my eyelashes, and he just shrugs. “She’s sensitive to smell. And you … well, you smelled human, what with the saliva and all.”