A Curse of Blood and Sea by Jocelyn A. Fox

Author:Jocelyn A. Fox [Fox, Jocelyn A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Greatheart Creative
Published: 2020-05-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Luca

On the thirteenth day of travel, Luca awoke to a fresh skin of snow over the camp. Rain had dogged them for days after Maud’s injury, but then there was a stretch of cold, sunny days – good for making up lost time. Frost stiffened their blankets most mornings. Kianryk had taken to sleeping beside Luca, tail tucked over his nose, allowing Luca to share the warmth of his great furred body. It was a habit they had formed back in the winters of their youth. Now, Luca inhaled the freezing air, tasting the snow on the back of his tongue, the touch of winter bringing memories of Valbjarn and his own Trial. He felt alive in a wild and untamed way as he breathed in the biting cold and relished Kianryk’s steady breath beside him.

There had been one more injury and one Seelie candidate who had decided that this was not his path. The Valkyries had spirited both of them away. The candidates’ camp had been very quiet the night after the Seelie candidate quit, but Luca saw to it that the remaining candidates did not have the time or energy to brood.

“How do you think the mortal is keeping pace?” Chael had asked him speculatively a few days after Maud’s injury, out of earshot of the candidates. “Obviously he is battle tested, but I would think that such a demanding speed would ask more of him than he has to give.”

“He has a strong will,” Luca replied, thinking of Quinn’s steely resolve when he’d confronted Liam in the ruins of the Dark Keep, and his survival of the injury that might have been enough to kill a Sidhe, much less a mortal man. “But perhaps travelers from other worlds change more than they realize while they are here in our lands.”

Chael had looked thoughtful, and then his amethyst eye turned distant. He sighed. “The runt and the silver have gone off again…Rialla is nearly ready to leave those two behind to the mercy of the forest, let me tell you.”

The silver and black pup had remained the largest of the litter, her growth outpacing her brothers and sisters. The runt had gained some stature and would not be permanently stunted, but he would not be a large wolf. The two had become an odd pair, routinely creating their own deviations to the route of travel, cavorting about when they should have been resting, and generally driving Rialla to the edge of her patience, which grew shorter as the pups grew larger. The silver had even tested her play fighting skills on Beryk, who forbearingly indulged her until she clamped her jaws on one of his back legs. Kianryk, watching in amusement, thought that the silver would make a fine whitebear fighter with her grasp of such strategy, but all the silver and black pup got for her precocity was a swift, powerful kick from Beryk that knocked loose one of her last milk teeth. But even then

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