A Tale of Vines and Vengeance: A Wicked Darlings Short Read by Rebecca F. Kenney

Author:Rebecca F. Kenney [Kenney, Rebecca F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

4

The weakness I felt under the mountain follows me as I leave the cave and head toward our camp. I can only manage half my usual speed.

It’s the fault of those fucking trolls, disturbing the mountain. I didn’t expect so many enemies—usually there’s only one or two other scavengers at this early stage of siosal harvesting. I didn’t think we’d have to face an entire clan of those heavy-footed, brawl-loving idiots.

I wanted to travel light, do this quickly, and get out. Sometimes my luck sees me through, and sometimes the godstars frown. I only wish they wouldn’t frown quite so thunderously at me when I’m with Clara. I need to carry her out of those caves and get us both home safely.

I dash into our camp, startling the horses who were placidly nibbling the tender tips of the grass. Ignoring the tremors of weakness in my body and the pain in my wing, I fling open my pack and rummage through it. During these months of peaceful living with Clara, I’ve grown lazy, I suppose. Complacent. Fuck, I can’t find a healing spell for myself—I didn’t bother to pack any, since the acid burns from the vines can’t be healed with my magic.

The tear in my wing is beginning to mend on its own—I can feel it—but the process is slower than I’d like, hampered by the lingering influence of the mountain. I need an immediate boost that will give me the strength to get Clara out of that pit, and I’d rather not depend on something as prosaic as rope.

Amid the jumble of premade spells in my pack, I notice a small cube wrapped in translucent white paper. I did a merchandise swap with a fellow spell-crafter recently, and this was among the charms he gave me in trade for some of mine. “You might like this one. It’s for wing amplification,” he said, but he didn’t specify anything else. Of the two of us, I’m the better spell-crafter. I experiment until I can produce fairly precise, predictable results, and I prioritize taste for my edible charms. This fellow, however, tends to jumble ingredients together and see what happens. Not the ideal method for reliability, but he does come up with some fairly fascinating results.

Can’t hurt to try this. I have no time to hunt for anything else—I need to get back to Clara.

I hook the coil of rope over my shoulder in case the amplification charm doesn’t work, and I race back through the forest, down the moonlit slope toward the cave.

As I run, I unwrap the charm with my teeth and chew it quickly. It starts out overly sweet and leaves a nasty aftertaste in my mouth, as I suspected it would. Whatever amplification powers it provides should stay in effect as long as I stay in the pit and don’t venture into the tunnels again. The siosal pods in Clara’s bag won’t affect me, either; once the pods are clipped, they don’t have the same suppressive aura as the living vines.

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