Page 21 of Tempt

But no, he’s too agile to abuse so much as an offshoot. She’d concluded that while appraising his pace in the library.

A shadow swims in her periphery. Wonder whips behind a trunk, wedging her back against it. Craning her neck, she glances around the bend.

However precarious, peace still reigns in the Peaks, cleansed of misfits and rebels such as herself. The quandary is, even if she comes across a stroller—perhaps a Guide or an archer-in-training—and even if that wanderer fails to recognize her or the quartz archery within this shrouded atmosphere, they might recognize Wonder’s voice. They might step close to her face, far too close for comfort.

Or they might have been following her all along.

Wonder drags her tongue across her teeth, her pulse resuming its pound. Someone malicious will obligate her into a messy conflict. Someone harmless will consider her stance oddly paranoid, which will alert them to a problem. And she doesn’t want to harm anyone.

A map of her heart appears in her psyche, with veins and arteries threading through like rivulets in marble, each one representing a moment, an unforgotten pain or desire. A new channel breaches this map, thin as a splinter piercing through sinew, making her wince.

So this is how it feels to become an outsider, banned from one’s home.

The footfalls get louder, nearer, louder, nearer. Grass sinks beneath the person’s weight as he or she approaches. If innocent, they shall call out or stride forward with trustworthy purpose. If suspicious, they shall do neither.

Wonder staunches her breath. The stranger’s pace slows.

Snatching a pebble off the ground, Wonder aims and lobs it as far as she can, targeting the pillar of a trunk. The rock thwacks against the surface, inciting an avalanche of debris, a safe distance from where she stands.

The footfalls halt. After a moment’s deliberation, the presence shifts, attending to the disturbance. It backtracks toward the tree, seeking out the noise.

Time slows, prolonging every second. Wonder’s heart drums inside her chest until the figure’s gait retreats, the sound tapering off and receding farther into the forest. A whoosh spills from Wonder’s lungs, her body slumping.

Just in case, she waits an additional pocket of time and then bolts. Light on her feet, she springs into the woodland, electing to stay off the main path. Veering around columns and bushes, the miles extend before her.

Who had it been? Someone she knows? Someone who knows her?

Someone who—

She staggers backward, the pouch of her hood yanked by a hand.

—who had been faking it?

Wonder yelps. She stumbles into a body, and that body clamps onto her, seizing her shoulders. The assailant begins to pivot Wonder, about to get a full, starlit view of renowned, outlawed features, about to make an inconvenient discovery.

It’s a female, one advanced in years, by the shape and strength of her.

Wonder’s forearm snaps upward. Her elbow connects with the female’s face, cranking her head sideways. Grunting in shock, the stranger flails, lashing a hand toward Wonder, who ducks and switches arms, driving the opposite elbow into the attacker.

A shout of offense leaps from the figure. Sadly, it’s the prelude to a match.

They fight. This goddess is assuredly older, which accounts for her speed; she’s fast, whereas Wonder is nimble. Each time a limb or set of knuckles launches in Wonder’s direction, she dodges with a pirouette.

There’s something…transparent about the way this adversary maneuvers, as if they’ve done this before, with Wonder able to predict the female’s moves and countermoves.

Perhaps the goddess senses the same thing, because confusion and hesitation impede her actions. But this doesn’t stop her altogether, so neither does it stop Wonder. She spins from the goddess’s fists and rams the flat of her palm against the goddess’s lower back, shoving her into the barrel of a tree.

The figure recovers, steering around with her arrow nocked, the material of which Wonder cannot identify. Plausibly, that means the wild shadows Wonder’s own archery.

The sound of a hiss skates into her ears. A javelin of movement cuts into the forest.

From a spot behind Wonder, an arrow strikes past her cheek and toward the stranger.

The arrow stabs its mark, impaling the trunk between the attacker’s thighs. Even in the dappled light, Wonder can tell the shot has unhinged the female’s jaw.

Wonder squints to make out the new arrow’s component. But it’s too far, too narrow, and again, too dark. On the other hand, she has a hunch.

The stranger unleashes a gruff sound, as though her dignity and honor have been called into question. The linen texture of it causes Wonder’s flesh to prickle with renewed familiarity.

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