Page 27 of Flameborne: Fury
“Feg thinks he heard something. No idea how he supposes he heard anything over the wind in the trees. I think he’s paranoid. The only thing out in this godforsaken place is wildlife. He probably heard a deer scraping bark from a tree.”
A second voice answered. “Feg just wants to make himself a hero. You go left, I’ll go right, we’ll meet back here in twenty minutes. The guards will see us pass and tell him we searched.”
The first man grumbled and my heart was in my throat. I could hear them so clearly, but they were hidden from me by the wide trees. I crouched beneath nearby scrub, uncertain I would be hidden from them if they came deeper into the forest.
Who the hell was Feg? I hadn’t heard of a Furyknight with that name, but maybe he was a servant. They’d set up a whole camp out here. They must be sending all the Flameborne out here for their trials. I was shocked by the lengths they had gone to. My brothers told me the final trial was intense, but I hadn’t imagined anything like this.
I needed to get this right. I couldn’t believe I’d almost stumbled right into them.
After a minute or two and no more voices, I slowly rose from my crouch, listening past my pulse thumping in my ears. But there was nothing. Whoever was out there had either walked away from me, or was very skilled in traversing a forest in the dark.
Or maybe my pounding heartbeat covered every sound?
I stayed hunched behind those bushes, peering through the deepening shadows for long minutes, certain I’d be discovered any second.
Eventually, I had no choice but to creep out. The men had said they were returning in twenty minutes. I needed to be somewhere they couldn’t stumble on me.
It took much longer than I wanted to creep to another tree, a little closer to that fire, but still obscured from view. The wind would rise in the trees in great waves of rustling that covered every sound, but the gusts died so abruptly, I could be caught out if I was moving too fast.
Still, I reached the tree I’d decided had cover to hide me, and low enough branches to make it easily climbable. I was suddenly very grateful for my leather-soled boots, though I slipped on the second branch and scraped the trunk, and ended up frozen for another minute until I was sure thisFegperson wasn’t sending more men out to find me.
But finally, I climbed high among the branches, where the trunk forked and there was enough room to crouch. The treeswayed in the wind gusts, but I could brace on the branches and keep myself secure.
Uncertain if light from the camp would reach me out here, when I was in the right position I lowered myself to my belly on one of the wide boughs and squirmed my way out until I could press the leaves back and see the ground below.
I swallowed hard.
With the forest mostly behind me, and the leaves no longer obscuring my view, suddenly it wasn’t only one campfire beneath me. Or two. I counted at least a dozen in the clearing, and caught little flickers of light now and again that suggested there were more among the trees off to my right.
But the fires in the clearing had been laid under strange, wide, conelike covers with small, open chimneys at their peaks. The contraptions were odd, like nothing I’d seen before. They were wide enough to block the sight of the flames from above, though they did nothing to shield them from a close, side-view. Which had to mean they were built specifically to shield flames from the eyes of dragon riders overhead.
I was stunned at the lengths to which Donavyn and the officers had gone to set up this ruse. But I supposed that testing a Flameborne for actual raising had to be taken seriously. Still, I hadn’t expected them to send so many people out here. Especially with the King’s ball.
Then I smiled because it became clear.That’swhy the stable had been so quiet! They’d said they were taking servants to the Palace and sending extra Furyknight patrols, but they’d been moving people here!
‘Akhane?’
‘I’m here.’Her voice sounded tight.
‘I think I’m gathering more intelligence than they intended.’
‘That’s a good thing, Little Flame.’
‘Can you help me remember? I’ve counted fourteen fires so far. But I think there are more I can’t see unless I get closer. I’ll wait until those men return and decide all is clear, then follow them so I can see the route they take in and out of the camp.’
‘Is that wise?’
‘I won’t follow them all the way in. But as long as they don’t detect me, following them will make anyone who hears anything think it was them moving—and it will show me where the guards patrol.’
‘Please, be careful, Bren.’
I didn’t like how tense she sounded, but it was a mark of how much she cared that she’d be so worried about me not making a mistake here. I sent her a rush of reassurance, then settled down, staring into the camp, but I was too far away to pick out small details. I needed to get closer.
Luckily, myfriendsreturned soon. My heart thudded so loudly when they passed right under my tree that I stopped breathing, afraid they’d hear it.
When they continued towards the camp, still talking quietly about the frustration of Feg’s paranoia, I eased out of the tree and dropped to the ground, then followed, slipping under trees and ducking behind bushes when the rough trail they followed wound to the side.
Soon the quieter sounds of the camp reached my ears between wind gusts, and more of the smells as well. It was something my brothers had taught me—never ignore your nose. It would alert you of things you couldn’t see or hear.
