CHAPTER FOUR（Untitled）Wranth

CHAPTER FOUR

Wranth

Zephyr races through the forest, living up to her name. We pass through a stand of blue birch, the leaves dancing in the wind, their bright color competing with the occasional patch of open sky. Dawn stirs the world to life around us, golden larks taking to the air in trills of song.

“Left,” I say. The summons the goddess placed in my heart combines with my tracking magic to give me an innate sense of where we should aim. “Go left.”

“Certainly,” Zephyr says, her tone dry. She tips her head so her silver horn points at the blue birch in the way. “I’ll plow us straight into that tree. That’ll definitely get us there faster.”

A growl rumbles deep in my chest.

“You’ve told me three times.” She tosses her head, flipping her long white mane. “Leave the running to the expert.”

“We’re getting close.” I bend lower over her withers, silently urging her to greater speed. “The directions grow ever more precise.”

“A few inches either way won’t matter,” she says. “If we’re heading for a standing stone, we’ll find it. Those things aren’t exactly hard to miss.”

I grunt. She speaks true. As long as we’re anywhere close, we’ll find the twenty-foot tall pillar of granite.

With my bride waiting on top.

I duck a low branch, the leaves a soft slap against my forehead, and we leave the birch trees behind as the pines reinstate their claim on the forest. Zephyr’s hooves race across the moss-covered ground, leaping clumps of ferns and sending tiny chipmunks scurrying in flashes of black-striped orange.

As soon as there’s a break in the trees, she pivots left, and the building pressure inside my chest eases slightly.

“Thank you, my friend,” I murmur, knowing her keen fae hearing will pick up the words.

She huffs in answer, a sound anyone else might interpret as disdain. Yet after all our years together, I know it for pleased amusement.

Back when first training to be a guard, I went to the Umbrialll Plains with a group of other young hopefuls. New recruits had to be accepted by a unicorn mount to be considered for the king’s guard. Various unicorn herds sent their young warriors to meet us, interested in forming closer alliances with the orc king. We camped there for a week, and only two of the five of us found mounts, me not being one of them. The wily old drill sergeant claimed it as par for the course, saying not everyone was meant to be a king’s guard.

Yet I, the foundling of Elmswood Keep, had no other place in this world. What else could I be if not a member of the king’s guard? Frustration rode me, and I stalked off into the grass plains, finding an empty spot where the land formed a shallow bowl just deep enough to hide me from easy view. There, I took out my anger by fighting off imaginary foes. I worked through the moves again and again, my sword a silver blur whistling through the air.

Then a female voice spoke from behind me, “Well, it’s no horn, but you’re not completely hopeless with that thing. I suppose you’ll do.”

I whirled to find Zephyr watching me with sharp blue eyes and an even sharper horn. She stood tall, her white coat gleaming in the sunshine that sparkled on her silver mane and tail. It turned out she was almost as much of an outcast as me, unable to get along with the matriarch of her herd.

It was the first time anyone had chosen me.

We’ve been together ever since. Besides Sturrm, she’s my truest friend, and she’s run herself to the bone these past few days in order to carry me to my bride.

My tracking magic has shaved some time off the trip, keeping us pointed along the straightest path, but the summons pulses in my chest, a constant demand that only grows more insistent the closer we get.

Like now. It pulls me onward, feeling so strong it’s as if it would rip my heart free and send it flying forward to get to her first.

My bride! I’ll have a moon bound bride!

I’ll finally have someone who truly belongs to me for the first time in my life.

The way lightens ahead, hinting at a break in the trees, and right as the sight makes me hope we’re close, the horrible high caws of an attacking sluagh fill the air.

A small group of them dart from the branches of a pine, arrowing straight for us.

Zephyr glides to a halt, her head whipping forward to spear one of the black birds on her spiraled horn. Its blood-red beak opens on one last screamed protest before the entire bird fades from view, the soul sucker’s victim finally freed to find peace.

My sword slides from the scabbard with the ring of pure metal, and I slice another bird in two in midair.

More raucous cries come from the clearing ahead. These are not all of the flock—the rest already attack my bride!

“Go!” Zephyr calls out. “I’ve got this.”

I do not doubt her. The unicorn is a fierce warrior.

As soon as I leave her back, she rears up, front hooves striking two birds from the air, creating an opening I charge through to reach the clearing holding the standing stone.

The tall pillar of gray granite dominates the open space, but I only have eyes for my bride.

Brown hair frames her head in a riot of curls my hands long to touch, and her lovely face has round cheeks that look ready to lift in a smile, plump lips, and the most beautiful brown eyes I’ve ever seen. She’s short and plump, with the most delicious buttocks and lovely breasts, all encased by a bright-pink dress that leaves the smooth light-brown skin of her shoulders and arms bare.

And vile sluagh are attacking all of that vulnerable skin.

“Get away from her!” The roar tears from me as I leap forward and strike a bird from the air, spinning immediately to take out another. I place myself between my moon bound and the rest of the birds. Over and over, I fight to keep the soul stealer from her.

If she’s like the other human women, she’s a witch brimming with magic, and the sluagh wants her desperately. I cannot allow it. Will not.

I touch her arm, ready to push her away from another of the sluagh’s attacks, and a pressure anchors in my chest, stronger even than the summons.

She says something I don’t understand, her voice a husky alto. There’s no time to hand her the crystal imbued with the power of the speaking stone, so whatever it is will have to wait.

The world wrenches sideways in a dizzying rush. Between one heartbeat and the next, I’m standing in the middle of a campsite, familiar leather tents pitched in the middle of a blue birch grove.

I’d been in front of her back at the standing stone, but now I stand behind her.

King Aldronn and the rest of his guard abandon their breakfasts to leap to their feet. “Wranth! What is this? How? Is this your bride?”

“She is,” I say.

She whirls to face me, her eyes going wide.

Quickly, I sheath my sword and pull out the speaking crystal, reaching toward her.

The flash of fear in her beautiful eyes pains me. She cries out.

The world spins again.

We stand in the village green of Moon Blade Village, in front of the pub. Even though we faced each other back at the campsite, my bride now stands with her back to me, as if our positions have reset. It’s odd—but is it any odder than her magic? For surely, that’s what this must be, a new power unlike anything seen in Alarria.

Orcs swarm out of the pub, the weaver’s, the potter’s, all of them calling out. “Wranth! You’re back!” “Look, it’s a new human!” “Someone should get Ashley so she can talk to her.”

“I can get her,” a unicorn says.

“Thank you,” I call out. “I think seeing another human will be a great help.”

My bride spins to face me, her pretty face going slack as her eyes raise above my head to take in the mechanical contraption that stands in the middle of the village green like some strange metallic willow tree dripping chains for branches. As ludicrous as the thing looks, when it spins the chains up into the air, it makes a fine defense against the sluagh.

She laughs, the sound holding little true joy, and mutters something.

“Please,” I say, pulled forward by her distress. “Let me help you.”

She backs away, halting when she runs into Reta, the weaver.

Another gut-churning wrench, and we’ve returned to the standing stone, me again guarding my bride’s back. She darts forward to press her hands to the granite pillar, and the crystals embedded within begin to glow.

The sluagh shriek in triumph, and I pull my sword free, leaping to protect her.

My moon bound gasps, sucking in gulps of air as if she’s expending great effort, then blinks out of existence.

A giant hand picks me up and hurtles me through nothingness.

I land on my feet on a strange gray surface. Buildings built one against the other line the way ahead, strange and square in design. But I pay them little attention, because my bride falls to the ground.

It takes but a split second to put away my sword, the movement done with the smooth familiarity of long practice. I wrap my hands around her shoulders, the shock of touching her skin racing through me, and pull her to her feet.

She turns, and the smile falls from her full lips as soon as she spots me.

People—humans—surround us on all sides, and a strange mechanical carriage roars as it heads straight toward us. Wherever this is, it isn’t Alarria. As much as I’ve always felt an outsider there, Alarria is still my home. Standing in this strange place, I finally realize that for the first time in my life.

Because what I don’t feel here is even more shocking.

Alarria exudes magic. It’s in the air you breathe, it pulses upward from the ground, and it radiates from the trees. Magic weaves through the fabric of the realm, bringing it fully to life. You become so used to it you take it for granted.

But here in this strange place, I can’t feel any magic.

“By the goddess, what did you do?”