I froze, my hand hovering near her mane. Ain’t no way she could know that I was in love with him. Did manticores even know what love was? I doubted it.
“I ain’t his true love,” I said gruffly, shoving my fingers back into her fur.
“Aye, but he’s yours,” she said. “I can feel it when you’re close to him, like a lightning storm.”
My face turned hot. “That’s the island talking,” I muttered. “Don’t mean nothing.”
“Go on,” she said. “While he’s sleeping. Don’t you want to help him? Your friend?” She smiled, teeth sparkling in the firelight. “Your true love?”
“Course I want to help… my friend.” I pushed away from her and crossed my arms over my chest. “But you’re just telling me to do it so as you can eat him.”
“In time,” she said. “All tasks must still be completed.” Her eyes glimmered. “Just one little kiss. He won’t even know it was you.”
I looked at her and then I looked at Naji, handsome and disfigured all at once. Maybe she was right. If I kissed him softly enough, maybe he wouldn’t even know it was me: it had never, in the past month, occurred to me to kiss him while he was asleep. In the soft, velvety haze of the open air, this seemed like the most perfect idea I’d ever heard.
One kiss, just enough to help him on his way. To give him hope again.
“Go on,” she said, speaking into my ear, close enough I could smell the carrion on her breath.
I pushed away from her. Naji kept on sleeping. He lay on his side, one arm slung across the pallet of moss. His hair curled around his neck. The lines of his scar looked like the paths a lover’s hand would take as she ran her fingers down his face. They were beautiful.
I knelt down beside him. His breath was slow and even. I could feel the manticore staring at us, waiting.
I leaned forward, holding my breath. He didn’t move.
I closed my eyes.
I pressed my mouth against his, and his face against mine was rough and soft like falling leaves.
My whole body swelled with light. I felt a crack, like lightning cleaving a tree in two, like a wine glass shattering on a stone floor.
Something breaking
And then I was flat on my back, and Naji’s knife was at my throat, his knee digging into my stomach.
“Ananna?”
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shrieked. My face was hot and I could feel this weight behind my eyes and I told myself I wasn’t going to cry, not over this. The memory of the kiss was sweet as spun sugar on my tongue, but the rest of me burned with humiliation.
He slid back, dropping the knife away. “What did you do? I felt someone attack me–”
The manticore started to laugh.
“I was just walking by!” I shouted. “And you jumped out at me.”
“Jadorr’a,” the manticore said. “The girl-human kissed you.”
Apparently manticores knew as much about keeping a secret as they did about humans –not a damn thing.
Naji’s face didn’t change. I wanted to throw up.
“You can feel it, can’t you? I know you can. I can smell it, the change in the curse–” whispered the manticore.
“Shut up!” I scrambled away from Naji. He was still staring at me, but now something had changed in his expression. I couldn’t read it, didn’t want to read it.
He didn’t move except to let his knife drop to the floor. The weight in my eyes built and built, and I jumped to my feet and turned and ran out of the entrance of the cave, into the dark rattling woods. It was cold as the ice-islands, but I was so hot with humiliation – I gave him a kiss and he thought it was an attack – that I didn’t feel it except in my lungs, burning ’em like fire as I ran into the chiming forest.
I tripped on a fallen tree trunk and went sprawling into the ground, wet from the recent rain. The gossamer dust of the leaves coated my palms, and when I sat back and pushed my hair out of my eyes I could feel it sticking to my skin.
The forest was chiming like crazy, as though a storm was on its way, and I let out this scream cause it was the only thing I could do. I screamed and slammed my fists into the ground. The dampness crept in through my clothes and I didn’t care. I just screamed.
“Ananna?”
Naji’s voice was soft and hesitant, blending in with the forest’s chiming.
“Go away.”
He materialized beside me.
“Go. The. Hell. Away.”
“No.”
I wiped at my face, smearing mud across my cheeks. The powder from the leaves came off on the back of my hand. “Fine,” I said, and tried to stand up. He grabbed my arm.
“Look at me,” he said.
“Let go.”
He didn’t, and his grip was stronger than I expected. I tried to wriggle away from him but he held me tight.
“Will you stop it?” he said. “I’m trying to thank you.”
That stilled me, the kindness in his voice. I slumped against the ground, and he dropped his hand to his side. My arm burned from where he touched me, and not cause it hurt, neither.
“It worked,” Naji said. “Your ki… what you did. It worked.”
I didn’t say nothing, just drew my legs into my body and curled up tight like I could disappear into the shadow.
“It wasn’t impossible,” Naji said.
“Course it wasn’t,” I snapped. “What’s impossible is somebody loving me.”
He didn’t answer. Part of me had been hoping he’d tell me I was wrong, that he’d at least try and comfort me, but when he didn’t my chest got tight and painful. I turned away from him and my skin prickled the way it did when the air was full of magic. But there was no magic here Just another reminder that Naji didn’t love me back.
“Thank you,” he said after a few moments had passed.
“Whatever.” I stood up. He didn’t stop me this time. I couldn’t stand the closeness to him. I kept thinking about the way his mouth had felt. “I have to go.”
“Thank you,” he said again, like those were the only words he knew.
I walked away from him, away from the forest and the cave, toward the sea.
I woke up the next morning covered in sand, my head pounding like I’d spent the night tossing back rum in some Bone Island drinkhouse. The sunlight, weak as it was, hurt my eyes, and I rolled over onto my stomach and pressed my face against the cold beach.
I thought about Naji. Jackass.
I thought about myself. Idiot.
It took me awhile to work up the willpower to sit up, and longer still to get myself to standing. I didn’t know where I was. I couldn’t see the smoke from the bonfire, which was a bad sign, but one I chose not to dwell on for the time being.
Somebody said my name.
At first I thought it was Naji, that he’d been lurking in the shadows waiting for me to wake up so he could humiliate me again with his thank yous, but then whoever it was said my name again, and I recognized the ice in the voice.
The Mists lady. Echo.
“Hello again,” she said, curling into existence beside me. “I heard you experienced a bit of a disappointment last night.”
I couldn’t speak. I was too blindsided by her sudden appearance. She slid closer to me, the edges of her body blurred and translucent, as if she wasn’t completely in our world, and I skittered backwards a little, not daring to take my eyes off of her. She was after Naji at the behest of her lord, who Naji’d stopped from taking over our world a few years ago. The lord wanted revenge for it, wanted to see Naji dead or enslaved or worse. Naji had hidden himself from the Mists, though, so she always came to me instead.
Except Naji had cast new magic when we came here, magic that was supposed to keep me blocked from the Mists, too. It was supposed to keep me safe–
Unless he’d dismantled it while I slept last night. Like the thought of me loving him was enough to leave me soft and vulnerable out there on the beach. Like it was worth the pain it caused him.
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“What do you want?” I asked, pushing myself up to standing. My legs wobbled and the world spun around me like I was drunk. I didn’t want to let on that I was supposed to be hidden from her sight.
“My lord would be willing to extend his offer to you a second time. Power. Wealth. Magic.” She leered. “All you have to do is hand over the Jadorr’a. It’s an excellent arrangement, if you’re so inclined.”
“I ain’t.”
I took a few steps backwards across the beach, hoping I was headed in the right direction, hoping that my running away would discourage her somehow. But of course it didn’t. Echo followed, sliding up close enough that I could feel the cold dampness from her body. I stopped, paralyzed by fear. Echo curled around me, one hand tracing the outline of my profile. But she didn’t touch me. I was still wearing the charm around my neck. I wasn’t hidden, but I was protected.
“I know what it’s like,” she whispered in my ear. “To be hurt by a man. It must be hard for you. It’s not the kind of hurt you can heal with violence.”
A starburst of anger exploded in my chest, and for a moment my thoughts were filled with an irrational white-hot blaze.
And then I whirled around and punched her square in the face, right at that point where her eyes met her nose.
Pain erupted through my hand like I’d punched bone, but then my fist slid straight on through her head, and she dissolved into smoke, disappearing completely
For a long moment I stood there, my anger consumed by astonishment, and waited for her to return. But there was just the waves crashing up against the bottom part of the island, the wind rattling the pine trees. Nothing.
After a while, I set off down the beach, although I did pull out my knife. Just in case.
I walked for a good hour, working off the soreness in my legs and the ache in my head. I’d split open my hand when I punched Echo, but after a while the sting of that disappeared too.
“Girl-human!”
I stopped. The blaze of anger made a sudden, violent appearance. The damn manticore. She’d started this all, hadn’t she? All for a meal.
“Leave me alone!” I shouted.
The manticore trotted out of the woods, flicking up little sprays of sand with her paws.
“The Jadorr’a sent me,” she said. “He said you were in danger.”
“Not anymore.” If I needed any more evidence that I repulsed him enough to undo the protective magic, it was right there: he hadn’t come for me himself.
“This is all your fault,” I said.
The manticore fell into step beside me.
“I know.”
I glanced at her. Her face looked strange. It took me a moment to realize that it was cause she looked guilty.
“He hurt you,” she said. “Soul-hurt.”
I kicked at the sand.
“As opposed to body-hurt.”
“Yeah, I got it. I ain’t stupid.”
The manticore stopped and nuzzled my shoulder like she was an overgrown cat. “I thought he returned your affection. Humans seem to care about happiness. I wished to gift some to you. In exchange for combing my mane.”
I scowled. “You had me do it so you could eat him.”
“Well, yes, that too.”
I didn’t say nothing.
“One does not negate the other,” she added.
“Well, you just made things worse.” Not exactly the wounding insult I’d hoped for, but I was too tired from everything to be clever.
“I know,” she said.
And then she knelt down in the sand. “If you would like, I’ll allow you to ride me.”
I stared at her. “Is this a trick?”
She peered up at me through the frame of her fur. “No trick, girl-human. It is a great honor to ride a manticore.”
“Are you gonna stab me with your tail once I get up there?”
“If I wished to poison you, I would shoot the spine into your heart from here.”
That was probably true.
“Come along, girl-human. We are far from your rock-nest, and I will not kneel like this all day.”
I looked at her, considering. My body ached and I was sick of walking. And it would be something to say I got to ride a manticore.
Besides, she still looked kinda guilty, and I realized I actually believed her: that she thought she had been helping – at least up until we cured the rest of the curse and she got to snack on him.
“Alright,” I said.
I swung my leg over her shoulder and settled myself between her leathery wings. She straightened up, tall as a pony. I wrapped my arms around her neck, leaning into her soft mane-fur, which smelled clean, like the woods after a rainfall.
“Do not fall off,” she said.
“Ain’t planning on it.”
And then she took off in a gallop, moving like liquid over the sand. A cold wind blew off the sea and pushed my hair back from my face. She let out this great trumpeting laugh that echoed through the woods, stirring up the birds, and after a minute I started laughing with her. The anger washed out of me, and the sadness and the fear and the humiliation. The wind coursed around us like we were flying, and it stripped Naji right out of my mind.
The manticore got me that gift of happiness after all.
Course, it didn’t last. We had to arrive back at the cave eventually, and as the manticore slowed to a trot, I could see Naji pacing back and forth across the beach. He was wrapped up in his black Jadorr’a robe and he looked like a smear of ink against the impossibly wide sky.
“You must disembark,” the manticore said, kneeling. I climbed off her and gave her a pat on the shoulder.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said.
“It was my gift to you.”
Naji had stopped pacing and he stared at me, his hair and cloak blowing off to the side. I trudged across the beach toward him, sand stinging me in the eyes.
“Why did you undo the protective spell?” The wind caught my voice and my question rose and fell like it belonged to a ghost. “The one that’s supposed to keep me safe from the Mists?”
“Have you gone mad?” Naji stared at me. “Why would you think I’d do that?”
“Because Echo showed up. That’s why I was in danger.”
Naji’s face went pale beneath his scars.
“I didn’t hand you over,” I said. “Obviously. But it was a pretty crap thing for you to just – expose me like that.”
“I told you, I didn’t undo the spell.”
“Then why did Echo find me?” I shouted, the wind ripping my question to shreds.
A peculiar expression crossed over Naji’s face. It almost looked like pain, like guilt or sorrow or even worry, but I knew better. “I would never do something to put you in danger.”
“Yeah, just to save your own skin. I imagine you were willing to put up with a headache if it meant getting back at me.”
“I had more than a headache.” Naji’s voice was low. “I would have come myself, but I didn’t think you wanted my help. I would gladly offer–”
“You’re right,” I snapped. “I didn’t want your help. I can take care of myself. You’re the one with the problem here.”
“I don’t want you to think I put you in danger,” Naji said. “It was… The magic must have weakened more than I thought– “
His words wounded me. “So you did weaken it, then.”
“No.” He shook his head. There was that peculiar expression again. “No, absolutely not. It was an… ah, emotional weakening.” He took a deep breath. “Intense emotional reactions can sometimes interfere with magic. It will sort itself out, I swear to you. But to have you so upset with me, my magic wasn’t as powerful…” His voice trailed off.
I focused my gaze on him, sharpening it. Anger built up in my chest again. “Upset with you?”
“Yes, when I, um, didn’t reciprocate–”
“Kaol, stop talking!” My hands curled into fists and I thought about pulling my knife out and stabb
ing him in the thigh, the way I had the night I met him. “Guess I just ruin everything, don’t I? Not like I fulfilled one of the tasks for you or anything.”
“I told you I was grateful for that,” Naji said quietly, but he didn’t look at me.
I whirled away from him. I couldn’t look at him another damn second. My whole body was shaking. This was why I hadn’t kissed him for so long. Because I knew this would happen. My kiss was so repellant that it shut down all his damn spells.
“Maybe I’ll just leave,” I said, speaking to the sea, my back still turned to him. “Maybe that’ll make things easier.”
“Ananna–”
I didn’t let him finish. I walked away from him, past the manticore and into the woods. He didn’t follow.
I slept outside that night, in a nest of pine needles and fallen tree branches that the manticore had stacked up deep in a clearing in the woods, not far from the shack. I could smell the smoke from the hearth. Naji’d been tending the fire the last few days, making sure it smoked proper and didn’t go out. I didn’t know if he tended it tonight. I didn’t care, neither.
I fell asleep early, after eating some berries and caribou, and curled up along the manticore’s massive shaggy side. Her heart beat against the walls of her chest, slower and heavier than a human’s heart. There was something comforting about it, like a drum beat setting time to a story.
I woke up in the middle of the night.
The manticore was still sleeping and the forest was quiet as death, which set my nerves on end. Forests ain’t never quiet, not even in the middle of the night.
I peeled myself away from the manticore and scanned the darkness. I was still wearing Naji’s charm even though I’d wanted to take it off – but the thing had kept Echo from touching me enough times that I figured that was the kind of stupid Mama would’ve slapped me for. And as I crouched there in the shadows, I was more grateful for it than I cared to admit.
“It really doesn’t seem fair, don’t you think?”
Echo.
My blood froze in my veins, and I leapt to my feet, all the muscles in my back and my arms tensing up. Her voice was coming from all over the place, like she’d melted in with the forest.
“It doesn’t seem fair,” she said, “that you can strike me in the face, and I can’t even touch you.”