Page 133 of Golden Queen
I gagged as I struggled to arrest the sword's fall, to keep the sharp edge from striking against Veles' side.
Then Io was reaching up for me, lifting me down as I gulped in lungfuls of air. "Could you have waited any longer?" I asked after I'd managed a few desperate breaths of fresh air.
He smiled, "I was a little busy," he said, amusement dancing in his eyes as he darted a glance around us to where the ground was littered with pieces of those pale, horrible lizards. He handed me a handkerchief from his pocket, adding, "Besides, you looked like you had it in hand.”
I gave him a tight-lipped smile, wiping at the filth covering my face. His, of course, was pristine. Not a speck of gore had touched him anywhere. “If you hadn't come, I think it might have taken my head off," I admitted.
He looked like he would argue, but then Aben stepped up. He took the handkerchief I offered, using it to swipe at the huge clots of black on his face and neck. "What the fuck were those beasts?" he asked.
"Falciferum," Britaxia said, striding up with her bow in one hand and sword in the other.
"I thought as much," Io told her, his jaw tight as he surveyed the long, pale body at his feet.
"Fucking nasty things," Aben said, moving to hand the handkerchief to Britaxia. She looked at the dirty cloth, frowning in distaste.
"What are falciferum?" I asked.
"Demons," Io said simply.
My blood ran cold in my veins. "Demons...from…from under the godsgrass?" I stammered, my voice rising.
Io smiled ruefully, cocking his head to the side meaningfully. "Sometimes old stories get to be old stories for a reason."
My heart stuttered as I considered the implications of his words—all the old Presarion stories racing through my mind. "So thereisa false king of the gods trapped under the godsgrass and now he's what...going to rise with his demon army and destroy the world?"
Io gave me a look as though I was being slightly ridiculous, and I didn't blame him. The words sounded ludicrous.
"I wouldn't go that far," he said. "I doubt there are any god kings involved in it. More likely, these creatures rise every few years from some hibernation, and that gave rise to the legends. There are other falciferum in the world, you know. There's a massive dog-like creature called a farnook that lives in the dark forests in Maldur that would give you nightmares for a month."
"And selkies," Britaxia said with another look of distaste, nodding in my direction. "Those nasty bitches are falciferum."
Selkies were horrid sea creatures who wore the skin of dead seals like a suit and made me glad I had never set foot near the sea.
"Regardless," I said, looking at the blackened godsgrass. "There has never been anything like falciferum in Windemere. I don't think it's a coincidence that the godsgrass is dead here where they’ve risen, or that they've risennow,when shadow mages and necromancers are on the continent for the first time in ages."
"It does seem unlikely that it's not connected to Penjan," Io agreed. "Especially when they seem to have cut down the grass to allow their revenant army to pass. The godsgrass obviously provides some protection against dark magic, but it has no effect on a shadow mage, and it didn't stop those demons from running through the field either."
"So, does the godsgrass lock them under the ground, then, as the priests claim?" I asked. "Did someone kill it here on purpose so that they could rise?"
Io shook his head, his hands fisted at his sides, knuckles cracking. "I'm not sure."
"How do you know the creatures did not kill it themselves with just their stinking black filth?" Britaxia said, eyeing the gore splattered across her leather tunic and down her arms.
"We don't," Aben admitted. "But let's talk about it later. Let's get back in the air and see if we can manage to find Cosdam before night fall—or a fucking stream to get this shit off."
As Io and I walked back to Veles, I held his sword in front of me, my wrists straining with the weight of it.
"I would have been fine with that demon lizard if this thing didn't weigh as much as me," I said, handing him back his sword.
He took it, swinging it lightly as though to test my assertion for himself. "Well then, we'll have to work on that," he said, sliding the sword through the straps of his leather tunic so that it lay across his back. "We'll have to get you stronger. But in the meantime, we'll get you a more appropriate sword in Cosdam."
The words were a balm to some raw part of me that expected him to tell me that I shouldn't worry. He would protect me—there would always be someone to protect me.
And hehadprotected me. I might’ve had the creature if he hadn’t interfered, but I might not have. I needed his help. And his answer to that was not that I should not have been there, or that he would make sure to protect me better next time. His answer was that I should get stronger.
I took the information and tucked it away in some sheltered place in my heart, even though I knew it would lurk in the background, only to wrench itself out into the open as soon as I tried to fall asleep. "Will you look for Castille in Cosdam?" I asked, changing the subject to safer topics. Aben’s mention of Cosdam had reminded me that Castille was supposed to be in the city.
"I doubt we'll have time. We can't linger long. My brother will be expecting us to come straight there, and I don't want to give him any reason to change his plans."
