Page 29 of Bound to the Orc Hunter

Is that their explanation?

I pinch the top of my nose, right between my eyes.

All of this is getting hella old. I long for the familiarity of the Ferris wheel, of working on its motor until it hums just as sweet as you please. There weren’t any hot, naked actors painted green, making me feel lots of really confusing things. There was just the motor and my trusty wrench and a job well done.

My crystal warms on my chest, and a zing of electricity shoots through me like I just touched a live wire.

Calliope music plays a cover of a Beatles song. It’s the familiar sound of a single amusement-park ride made strange because it’s all alone instead of mixed with the million other sounds of a carnival.

“By the goddess!” Branikk’s body goes rock hard behind me, his arm tightening around me in alarm. “What isthat?”

We break through the trees onto the bank of a river.

A river with a big honking Ferris wheel sitting right in the middle of it!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Branikk

Huge slabs of flat granite line the wide riverbank, dotting its surface so it looks as if you could get across by jumping from rock to rock.

On the largest one right in the middle, stands an artifact such as I have never seen. Baskets hang from the rim of a huge circle of a thing, taller than the tallest trees of the surrounding forest. Every surface glows with a riotous mix of the colors of the brightest of flowers, and as it spins, the baskets rise up out of the shade of tree cover to burn even brighter in the evening sunlight. Strange pipe music plays, louder than the sound of rushing water, even though no musicians are in sight. Perhaps they’re crammed into the base.

“You got your magic to work!” Excitement wars with pride in my chest. My bride is truly powerful!

“I what?” Grace says, her voice sounding faint.

“By the goddess, whatisthat infernal thing?” Aurora asks. “And when will it stop making that horrible racket?”

“It’s a recording of a calliope,” my bride says. “It’s supposed to be a happy song.”

“I don’t care what it’ssupposedto be.” The unicorn’s hoof strikes a rock with a resounding crack. “It’s an assault on my ears, and I will skewer the person making it if they do not cease.”

I slide from her back and lift Grace down, her body pliant as she continues to stare at the contraption with a dazed look on her face.

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s a Ferris wheel, and not just any Ferris wheel. It’s the exact model as the one I maintain at the carnival.” She turns puzzled eyes to me. “How did they get it here? There aren’t any roads. There’s no sign of the trailers used to haul it.”

I’m a magical being. Magic has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, a connection to wood I felt even as a toddler when I made my first decorations on the walls of my family’s heart tree cottage.

I can’t fathom what it must be like to grow up in a world without magic, how hard it must be to believe in something you’ve always been told is impossible. Clearly, my bride still struggles with it. I didn’t even realize at first that she didn’t believe.

“You know what I’m going to say.” I offer a small smile as I tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “Magic.Yourmagic.”

She spins back to face the Ferris wheel. “I need to see it close up.”

“We can do that.” I want to see this thing too, this machine. If my moon bound spent her time working on such as this, I would know it so that I might know her better.

“I’m not getting any closer until you make it stop that racket,” Aurora tosses her head. “Besides, there are water nymphs in that river.”

The music of my bride’s creation drowns out their burbling voices, but now that I pay more attention, I notice their water-foam hands lifting from the frothy rapids to beckon to Aurora. Water nymphs love unicorns, even though the equine fae despise them, perhapsbecauseunicorns despise them. Like many fae, nymphs have a strong mischievous streak.

“Come.” I gesture toward one of the wide, flat rocks that extend from the bank. “We can use the rocks to make our way across.”

Water pounds into the upstream side of the rock, sending a constant splash of wetness across the top. I stay close by Grace’s side, ready to catch her if she slips. Yet I needn’t have worried. My bride is strong and good with her body, and her practical human boots give her traction.

The first rock ends several feet short of the next slab of granite. Water boils through the narrow canyon they make, several yards of river condensed to only a few feet of width. Water wets the surface of the other rock, turning it a dark gray that promises slickness.

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