Senna - Carsil, Cabin in the Woods

  Vence watched her with that unnerving stillness of his. Even in his human form, there was something unsettling about him.

  “I have something to show you before we leave,” he said.

  Her hand tightened around the wooden pole. “What?”

  “Come.”

  She hesitated only a moment before following him out the back of the cottage, setting the fish aside. She had already entrusted him with her life once. The scar along her temple throbbed faintly where his magic had knit her wound back together.

  The trees behind the cottage were thicker than those in front. Fog pooled between their trucks, turning the undergrowth into a pale, shifting sea. Vence stepped forward and pointed into a stretch of shadow.

  “There,” he said quietly.

  She squinted into the fog, eyes searching the shadows.

  “I don’t see anything,” she murmured.

  “Look again.”

  She narrowed her eyes. The fog shifted. A distortion rippled through it, like heat above a flame. Something dark gathered within the pale mist. A shape began to form, first a head, then a powerful neck, then the unmistakable silhouette of a horse stepping from between the trees.

  It was enormous.

  Black as night. Its mane fell in a glossy curtain over a thick neck. Each step was deliberate, hooves silent on the forest floor. It stopped several paces away, eyes like polished obsidian fixed on her.

  Her breath caught.

  “It’s a horse,” she whispered. She’d only seen a scarce few horses in her lifetime, nevermind one this big.

  The creature shifted its weight and then it spread its wings. The fog stirred from the force of it, swirling around their feet in waves as the feathered appendages snapped to their full, immense width across the clearing.

  Senna stumbled back a step. “Not a horse.”

  Vence’s voice was tight, “No.”

  Her heart pounded. “Pegasi are myths.”

  “Then explain him.”

  The creature took a step closer, tucking its enormous wings back along its side, satisfied with its show..

  “You can see him,” Vence said, almost to himself.

  She glanced at him. His expression had changed. Surprise shone in his eyes.

  “Should I not?” she asked.

  “Pegasi cloak themselves in magic. They reveal themselves only to those they deem worthy.”

  Worthy.

  The word struck her like a thrown stone.

  “I’m not worthy of anything,” she said, eyeing the majestic creature mere steps away.

  The pegasus’s ears flicked.

  Vence did not answer her. His gaze was fixed on the creature. “Zenith,” he said quietly. A whispered summons. The horse stepped forward.

  Zenith lowered his great head slightly, eyes still locked on Senna.

  Vence exhaled. “He belongs to the Dragonking’s daughter. To Kore.”

  Zenith huffed lightly at the sound of the name.

  “My mission,” Vence continued, “is to find her. I can fly in my other form, but my scales are white. They catch the sun and moonlight. I am easily seen. Zenith’s cloaking magic allows me to remain hidden.”

  “You ride him?” Senna asked faintly.

  “I asked for his aid only because it was to find Kore. He agreed. He has never permitted me on his back before.”

  Zenith moved again. This time, he approached Senna directly.

  Every instinct from Carsil told her to make herself small. To lower her gaze. To show submission to something stronger. But this was not a man.

  She held his gaze.

  He stopped within arm’s reach. His breath was warm across her face. He smelled of clean rain and greenery.

  “Careful,” Vence said softly.

  Senna lifted her hand.

  She had always been good with animals. On the farm, it had been Senna who subdued the skittish goats. Senna who could calm a panicked brock with a touch. Her mother used to say the creatures knew her heart.

  She pressed her palm to Zenith’s neck.

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  His hide was warm and impossibly smooth. Dense, powerful muscles thrummed beneath his skin. Not like a horse’s. Something more.

  Zenith did not pull away.

  Vence went very still.

  Zenith lowered his head further.

  Then, in a movement so graceful it stole the air from her lungs, the great pegasus bent one leg and bowed low.

  Senna’s hand fell from his neck. “What is he doing?”

  Vence stared as if the world had tilted. “He is offering you his back.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  Vence didn’t reply. Zenith remained bowed low.

  Slowly, heart hammering, Senna placed one hand on his shoulder and swung herself up. His body shifted to accommodate her weight with careful precision. She settled between his wings, fingers tangling in his mane.

  The moment she was settled, Zenith surged upward. The ground fell away in a rush of wind and fog.

  A startled cry tore from her throat, snatched away by the air. The forest canopy dropped beneath them, treetops blending into a dark green sea. The cottage became a speck swallowed by shadow.

  They rose higher and the world opened.

  The ocean stretched beyond the trees, vast and endless, reflecting the molten gold of the sinking sun. The sky burned orange and amber, clouds edged in fire.

  Zenith’s flight was smooth. Effortless. Nothing like being carried by Vence when he had flown her from the ravine. That had been powerful but jarring, each beat of his dragon wings a thunderclap. This was like gliding through silk.

  She laughed before she could stop herself.

  The sound shocked her. It felt like an eternity since laughter found her so easily.

  Zenith banked gently, circling once before descending back toward the clearing. He landed with barely a sound.

  When Senna slid down, her legs trembled. Vence was staring at her as if she had sprouted wings of her own.

  “He accepted you,” he said hoarsely.

  “I did nothing.”

  “He would not bow to a soul he did not judge pure of intent.”

  Pure.

  If Zenith knew the lie she’d clung to

  Zenith brushed his muzzle lightly against her shoulder.

  Vence let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh. Relief softened the hard lines of his face. “This makes things easier. If he had rejected you, I would have had to carry you myself and send him home alone. We would have been seen. Now we can travel cloaked.”

  Senna looked up at Zenith. “Why?” she whispered.

  The pegasus only regarded her with those fathomless eyes.

  “I have always had a way with beasts,” she said quietly. “My mother trusted me with all of ours.”

  Vence’s brow furrowed, but he did not comment.

  They packed quickly. There was little to gather. A waterskin. A bundle of dried herbs. The tattered cloak Vence had found for her.

  When Zenith crouched again, Senna mounted without being told how. Vence swung up behind her, his warmth a solid presence at her back. She stiffened for a heartbeat, then forced herself to breathe. He had not harmed her. Not once.

  Zenith leapt and, in a breath, the forest vanished beneath them.

  They flew west, out over the narrow sea that separated Carsil from the lands beyond. The sun sank slowly, dragging streaks of red and gold across the water. The wind tugged at Senna’s loose clothes, at the short bristles of her shaved head.

  Below them, waves caught the dying light like scattered coins.

  She found herself leaning slightly into the motion, adjusting instinctively to Zenith’s rhythm. The fear that had gripped her at first eased into something else. Wonder.

  After a time, when the shoreline of Carsil was a fading smudge behind them, she spoke.

  “You said Kore left to save someone.”

  Vence’s arms tightened fractionally around her as he held the reins woven into Zenith’s mane.

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “A friend,” he said. “Someone dear to her. We believe they were lost in Carsil.”

  “Lost how?”

  He was silent for several moments. Wind filled the space where his answer should have been.

  “There have been disappearances,” he said at last. “Dracocians who cross the sea and never arrive. No bodies. No trace of magic. Bonds severed as if death claimed them. Nothing”

  Senna shivered.

  “Bonds?”

  Another pause. He was reluctant. She felt it in the tension along his chest against her back.

  “A bond is… a joining of souls. Among my people, some are born destined to one another.”

  Her heart stuttered.

  “And Kore?” she asked carefully.

  His breath left him slowly.

  “She was my bonded mate. We were married one year before she vanished.”

  The words struck her harder than she expected.

  Married.

  Not merely a soldier sent to find a princess. A husband searching for his wife.

  “You were wed to the heir of Dracocia,” she said faintly.

  “Yes.”

  The grief in that single syllable hollowed her chest.

  “She’s been gone for nearly a year,” he continued. “Her bond to me was severed. The council believes her dead. My soldiers believe it. The Dragonking refuses to accept it without proof. We are the only ones who still believe, who have any hope at all. Though, even I must admit my hope is dying with every passing day.”

  The image of a fearsome ruler rose in her mind. Ancient with burning-eyed. Clinging to hope with claws like Vence’s.

  “What happens if she is gone?” Senna asked.

  “The Dragonking weakens,” Vence said, voice strained as he considered the question. “He is old. He spends what strength he has left searching. Kore’s siblings hunger for the throne though none are fit. His youngest wife now carries a child in hope it will be born the true heir.”

  He didn’t say what it meant for him, just the kingdom she noted. Though, decided not to push.

  “What makes one a true heir?” She asked instead.

  “The heir wields all four elements. Air, earth, water and fire. Most of us command air. Some are born to earth or water. The strongest of air and earth can shape fire. Only the Dragonking and his heir command all.”

  “And if no child is born with them?”

  “The council rules until the powers manifest in another.”

  The sea darkened beneath them as the last edge of the sun slipped below the horizon. Stars began pricking the deepening blue.

  Senna’s eyelids grew heavy as thoughts of distant lands and people she didn’t know filled her mind. The warmth at her back and the steady rhythm of Zenith’s wings lulled her.

  “You should sleep,” Vence murmured near her ear. “I can feel you fighting it. Don’t worry, I will keep you steady.”

  She wanted to protest. To remain alert in a world that had never been safe for her but exhaustion claimed her.

  As her eyes closed, thoughts tangled in her mind. A missing princess. A grieving general. An angry king. A kingdom teetering without its heir.

  Dracocia.

  A place she had never seen and a people she had been taught to fear. And yet she was flying toward it, cradled in the magic of a creature who had bowed to her as if she were something precious.

  The wind softened and darkness deepened.

  Senna slept, the state of a distant kingdom heavy in her dreams.