3. Sun

Chapter 3

Sun

“ W hat is all this?” I blurted out, astonished by the number of animals draped on Kiar’s tail and held under Bracken’s arm as they returned.

Foxes, rabbits, and large rodents I didn’t recognize, plus one mature deer. Scrawny stragglers not in hibernation, sure, but combined, it was enough meat to feed an army. And there were only four of us, Alhayda not included.

“Dinner!” Bracken drawled, looking unusually chipper as he sniffed the air.

He whistled, releasing a screeching sound that sounded like shattering glass. Then Bracken smirked at me, tossing his catch onto the ground with a hungry look in his twinkling purple gaze.

“By the smell of things, we’ll have dessert tonight, too. Isn’t that right, Clem? You should’ve waited for us.”

“Huh?” I asked as Clem let go of my hand and glided over, turning a dark shade of green, apologetic for reasons I couldn’t comprehend.

I turned my attention back to Kiar, who snarled, sour, and angry as he, too, shrugged off the massive pile of game on his scales.

I shook my head.

“Wasteful.” I muttered my disapproval even as my mouth watered at the prospect of eating meat, not the watered-down broth mixed with bone I’d been fed for months by the rats.

“I assure you,” Kiar grumbled, nearly knocking Clem over as he slithered beside me, shooting him a pointed look, “None of our catch will go to waste.”

“What have you two been up to?” he hissed, tone dripping in incrimination, changing the topic so fast I barely caught the shift.

“None of your business. Let us skin and cook the… game…” I drifted off, stomach-churning as Kiar unhinged his jaw and swallowed a raccoon whole.

I couldn’t watch him rip off another’s head, and opted to gather some twigs, sure my arrow and striking stone were good enough to act as flint.

Bracken squatted, hovering just above the ground, tracking my movements with a frown.

He motioned towards Kiar, unfurling a pouch of a skinned animal like one would a dainty handkerchief, “Don’t overdo it. Remember, keep control. You’re the master. Be firm yet gentle, you overindulgent idiot.”

Kiar, for his part, stopped shooting me a death glare and huffed, “It’s hard when he doesn’t keep his promises, you blowhard bastard.”

They spoke to each other like bickering brothers, feuding with one another. It caught me off guard since it seemed to me, they were talking about me like I wasn’t even there.

Blinking slowly, it dawned on me they were discussing me like I was a pet or a petulant child unable to understand again. Truly, it was unnerving. And while I was much stronger than I had been earlier, it wasn’t lost on me that I needed my naga to calm down.

I couldn’t take Kiar head on if his anger boiled over into a need to fight over whatever grievance he had with me. I needed to lighten the mood.

“What, were you giving him lessons on taming me Bracken?” I asked, joking. “Ignore Kiar. He’s just in a sour mood, don’t you think?”

There was a long, painful silence, as the air whistled through the leaves and both of them wouldn’t look directly at me.

“Umm… Guys?” I asked, astonished that I hit the mark.

Clasping his lower sets of hands together, and raising the higher set in the air, Clem shouted, “Let’s eat!” and we all pretended the awkward exchange never happened after that.

I closed my eyes as Bracken bit into the deer’s torso right away and, with a disgruntled noise, took my game to the pit I was building to light a fire.

A rabbit is all I can muster without vomiting, I thought, realizing I’d never watched nocs eat. Well, unless ripping humans to shreds for sport counted. Regardless, I didn’t think they were capable of being civilized.

In that moment of clarity, I didn’t know what was more disconcerting, the way they ate or, once again, how similar their mannerisms were to ours in the way they sat down for a shared meal.

Bracken wiped his mouth before lifting his animal skin pouch into the air. He turned it over halfway, dropping a mountain of shrubberies into Clem’s raised palms as he clicked excitedly.

“I didn’t forget you,” Bracken chimed as Clem happily stuffed all twenty of his sticky fingers into his mouth, it seemed, flapping, skin shimmering pink. “There’s not much in the way of nectar or fruit, which is why I never thought to unchain you during the winter. It was always better to let your roam the halls of the palace and libraries during the summer months. So, make do with this for now. We will save the rest for later.”

Cursing softly as finally I lit a flame; I stopped watching them eat so I could stomach my meal.

I had to remember that no matter how similar we may appear to be on the surface, they were, in fact, monstrous creatures. Sometimes, they were cute, often strangely handsome, and always crass. However, no matter how shocking the similarities were, we were not the same.

Cupping snow into my hand, I looked around for a way to heat it for drinking water until it melted down in the palms of my hands from hovering so close to the flame. I took sips, praying I wouldn’t catch a disease but knowing I had to take the risk seeing as we were too far from clean water.

It would be nice to clean up, to wash myself, brush my teeth and clean my clothes. I didn’t feel like myself.

I needed to shave. I never kept a beard, but now the beginnings of a mustache peppered my upper lip, and a few thin patches of hair sprouted from my chin. It was hair I rarely saw as an enlisted man who was ordered to stay clean shaven, and I found it hard to grow a beard in the first place.

I knew my eyes had bags under them, my skin rough and red from the cold. I probably looked like a monster, and I felt like one too. Shutting my eyes at my stark assessment, I groaned.

Once I opened my eyes again, I knew I had to face myself first if I had any hope of facing them. And there, in the shadows cast from the setting sun, I saw my form.

If they’re monsters, what does that make me? I mused as their dead king’s inky shadow stretched behind my head like I was growing spider legs.

Even though I couldn’t see Alhadya properly yet, I could feel his presence.

Omnipresent.

Ominous.

Oppressive.

I was a part of him, and he was part of me, and it was all so twisted and treacherous.

What was I to do with those warring emotions, of wanting to be free to serve my people, and the reckless desire to see Alhadya risen, just so I could cut their king down, as I’d fantasized about for nearly two decades?

Closing my eyes and ears against the gruesome sounds of their collective feasting, I nibbled on my rabbit skewer. Somehow, after fucking Clem, I didn’t feel as hungry. Sex was fueling us, seeing as I was full from our “exchange of mana.”

My hunger was gone; my strength had returned. I was never one to waste food, but the thought of finishing the meat was unappealing at best, nauseating at worst. Even with it cooked. There was no way I was finishing my first proper meal in ages, which filled me with regret.

“Kiar?” I called out to him, hoping to give him the meat. Bracken, after all, had taken the lion’s share from the hunt as the biggest of us.

However, I was stunned to see him arguing with Bracken in a hushed voice as Clem cowered by his master’s legs. How long had I been zoned out?

“Sun!” Clem cried out, wringing his hands together, “We’re a team, right? So, it shouldn’t matter if we act independently if it helps us all, right?”

What a loaded question, I thought, not following what the hell was going on.

“…We’re a team,” I agreed, slowly, waiting to hear more.

Despite everything in my rational mind trying to prevent me from going astray, I considered them comrades.

For now, I reminded myself, not forever.

“Enough!” my batbeast bellowed.

Stunned, I watched as Bracken and Kiar growled at each other, with Clem hiding behind Bracken’s raised wings now. First, they were gobbling down a deer and rabbits, and now they were at each other’s throats! What was going on?

“I won’t tolerate it. Don’t drag Clem into your pity party and assert your dominance,” Bracken grumbled. “Or ignore my good counsel, you fool.”

He released a gusty sigh, flapping his wings, instantly turning my smoking pile of embers into smoldering ashes even from a distance. It seemed I wouldn’t be eating much other than shrubberies tonight if I got hungry, since I didn’t feel like relighting the flame.

“Compose yourself, Kiar. Clem?” Bracken scooped him up and took him to only the Gods knew where inside the forest. “Come. Let them quarrel. I need your help with something.”

“What’s a quarrel?” Clem asked, his head falling in an unnatural angle as their bodies and voices were swallowed up by the woods.

This left me alone with Kiar, who was acting strangely. I knew he wanted to fight with me over something from Bracken’s dramatic exit; but what, I had no idea.

“Kiar?” my voice raised in question as he shot over to me.

The tip of his tail wrapped around my ankle, raising his body above me before gripping my arm a little too tightly.

But his eyes weren’t angry. They were stormy, confused, and hesitant. He was sending mixed signals.

Kiar clasped my shoulder, rising on his tail some more so that he towered over me. He was threatening me now, and I couldn’t fathom why.

“What were you two up to while we hunted? While we fought and protected you?” Kiar reiterated, and I did not miss the inflection in his voice, the accusation that they had fought for us as we lazed about.

“Why offer to hunt for us if you’re pissed off now? And if it wasn’t obvious, I was dying. Clem confirmed as much. He needed mana, and so did I, so we shared,” I said, not elaborating on the obvious, that we had “mated” to make more mana while we waited for them to return.

Kiar hissed, his pupils narrowing, and my mouth flapped. I was unable to reconcile why he was so mad.

He was like this the first time when he dragged me away from the hellish pit to have his way with me. And I liked it, thoroughly ravished yet equally confused by his fury back then, just as I was now. It was almost like Kiar was jealous, which was absurd.

And yet…

“I can be free with my body only with you? Is everyone else off limits now? Even Bracken and Clem?”

The series of questions seemed to throw him off as he backed down, resting on his curled tail, breathing hard.

I didn’t know if he wanted to hit me or kiss me. Maybe both.

But Kiar didn’t enjoy doling out pain like the batbeast in our posse.

No, he seemed to be more of a controlling lover, not one that liked to fight just to fight. And then, it dawned on me why he wanted to quarrel.

“What? Is this because I said no more sex? We have to adapt out here to survive and again, I was dying! You’re no better than Bracken, sometimes, trying to control me,” I grunted, turning away to attend to my weapons again now that my meal was ruined.

Kiar looked stricken, as if I’d slapped him. A look of betrayal washed over his regal features, and it pissed me off even more.

At least Bracken had his nature to blame for being such an insufferable oaf at times. But Kiar had no excuse for how he was acting right now.

Nagas were the strategists, cold, hard, logical. Why was he acting like an impassioned fool over some fucking when it was a matter of life or death for us?

“I’m not your possession. I’m not your damn pet! Clem was on the verge of collapsing and refused to hunt, and so was I, unable to provide. And you two took too long. It’s almost nighttime already and the sun was only beginning to set. Ugh! Why am I rambling on like this anyway? Why am I explaining myself to you in the first place?”

I wanted to yank my hair out. I shouldn’t need to explain any of this to Kiar. But I felt the need to anyway.

He was hissing, quietly seething.

We were still in a quiet stand off when Bracken and Clem returned, and we decided it was time to rest.

Kiar refused to talk or even elaborate on why he was so pissed. The naga prince kept himself away from the group, fuming until the moon was high in the sky all night.

It was only when Clem suggested he join us that I gave up trying to reconcile with Kiar that night. I slept on Bracken’s broad chest tucked against Clem, tired, and more than anything, dumbfounded by our heated exchange.

But then, I awoke when the moon and stars had already chased away the sun. When I opened my eyes again, Kiar had disappeared and was nowhere in sight.

Panic shot through my veins as I dislodged myself from my nocs to go after him, then hesitated, changing my mind once again.

“Mo… Kai…” I paused, turning back to see Clem twitching and muttering, folded into Bracken’s wing.

He was having odd vivid night terrors as of late. I bit my bottom lip, torn between helping him, and going after Kiar. I shouldn’t need to go after him at all.

The naga should learn to deal with his emotions on his own, I decided. Just as I wasn’t his pet, I wasn’t his keeper. We were tied together, in life and death. I had to draw the line somewhere.

Yet, I was aware of the hypocrisy of my actions as I crawled back in against Clem’s back, lacing my arms under his wings to comfort him.

“Where were you going?” Bracken asked. “Need to piss?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t consumed enough food or water to need anything like that in too long, I realized. Clem truly was the only thing keeping me alive. They all were with this twisted bond we shared.

Bracken petted my head and then fell back asleep, but my mind was racing.

I couldn’t let Kiar drift from us. If something happened to him…

No. Surely, he would come back. He probably only needed to clear his head.

That’s what I thought as I drifted back to bed, resting fitfully throughout the night. But in the early hours of the morning, when the stars were dimming above us, I finally could take it no more and extracted myself, carefully this time.

When I stood, exposed to the chilly air, I instinctively knew which direction he had gone.

I would make Kiar follow me and stay with us no matter what. There was no other way to make it out of the Celestial Forest alive otherwise.

Part of me, deep down inside, felt that there was more to my urge to hunt him down, but I refused to admit I just wanted him by my side.