sure if I’d know how to lance a bird.
I bend down and wrap my fingers around a bunch of the berries, pulling it toward me until it plucks free from the brown stem. Each berry is barely the size of a tiny bead. I lift the bunch toward my nose and smell them. They’re pungent, a sickly smell like rotting. I squish one of the berries and the dark red juice runs down my hand like a trickle of blood.
I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I don’t know how to tell if they’re poisonous or not. But I’ll starve if I don’t eat anything. Surely one cluster wouldn’t kill me. And if I’m sick, then I’ll know for later.
I reach the berries toward my mouth and bite down on one. The tough skin punctures and sprays my tongue with bitter juice. I cough and sputter, spitting out the taste. The cluster drops and bounces gently against the moss while I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Not edible, then. Not even close.
My stomach claws against my insides, and my throat is parched. There has to be water somewhere nearby. The trees and moss and birds couldn’t survive without it, could they?
I trudge forward for what feels like another hour, the remnants of the bitter juice sticking to the insides of my cheeks. My tongue feels like a slab of stone, thick and dry in my mouth.
At last the trees thin, and there’s a small clearing of bright green tall grasses. The tops of them splay out like the grains we grow in Ulan. I peel the chaff away and pop the seeds I find into my mouth, crunching them desperately before swallowing them. They catch in my dry throat and I cough while my fingers unravel another seed from the grass. If only I’d grown up in the village like Elisha. Then I’d know if this was a crop of wheat or oats or barley, or anything at all that I could eat. My education was all about the Phoenix and how to govern with authority and grace. It was history and language and etiquette, which fork to use when. It seems ridiculous now, standing in this wild landscape. Which fork to use? Why not teach me which wild plants to eat, how to find water, how to identify crops? How far from reality have I been living?
I scrape at the tops of the prickly grass until my fingers bleed, swallowing down every seed I unwrap. They scratch my throat as they go down, and still my stomach growls as if I’ve eaten nothing at all.
The wind dips the grass, and I notice a small mound in the distance that doesn’t move with them. It’s just a little curve, a tuft of grass that doesn’t match the others. It’s pale yellow, sticking up just above view. I narrow my eyes and try to see more clearly.
Two dark black eyes stare back at me.
Every nerve in my body pulses. A beast. And it’s watching me.
My mind races. Is it a monster? An animal? It’s immovable, like a stone. I raise myself onto the balls of my feet to see its head better. Its yellow tufted hair fades to purple stripes on either side of its eyes. Its nostrils drip with condensed breath as it stares back at me. But that’s all I can see.
I pull my hands slowly back from the grass tops. What now? If I run, it will chase. If I yell, maybe I’ll scare it. If I fall over dead, perhaps it will go away, but it may also devour me.
I reach into my pocket for the sharp piece of flint. It will have to do until I can get my hands on anything else. If I survive this, I’ll whittle a spear from a branch. Ashes and filthy soot, why did I spend all that time aimlessly walking in a world of monsters?
My foot lands on the leathery leaf of a yellow-and-blue fern, and it snaps in two with a loud crack. The beast lurches forward, a horrible growl echoing through the clearing. It looks like a giant barn cat from Ulan, but massive, the size of the giant Phoenix statue in the citadel courtyard. Its matted fur is striped bright yellow and vibrant purple, and its fangs look like horns curving out of its mouth. Its paws pound against the ground as it comes for me.
A monster. Not an animal, not harmless or friendly. It’s a monster, out for blood.
I dart into the trees, clutching the flint in my bleeding fingers. I hope the maze of trunks will slow him down, but I don’t dare to look. I run as fast as I can, my legs tangling in my long red skirts. I can hear his panting and the fall of his huge paws as they tear up the carpet of moss beneath us. I know I can’t outrun him, but instinct takes over. My chest burns as I try to take deeper breaths.
Then a force like a stone wall shoves me to the ground. The monster’s foul breath floods my nose and his sharp claws dig into my shoulder. I wrench myself to the left, reaching with my flint as his weight holds down my right side. I slice wildly at the air above me, hoping to hit him. The jagged rock scrapes across his moist nostrils and he cries out, shaking his head as dark plum-colored blood trickles down his nose and on to his curved fangs.
I twist onto my back as the hold of his paw loosens and I strike again, going for his eyes. He rears back and I scramble to my feet, taking off across the field. He’s behind me, and we’re running again.
A shadow falls over me like a dark cloud. The entire clearing becomes night in an instant. A screeching sound vibrates through my head and I cry out, falling to my knees in pain from the high-pitched noise. The giant cat screeches a horrific version of the wails I’ve heard from barn cats in Ulan, and then a blast of wind nearly knocks me over.
The shadow lifts from the clearing, the sunlight streaming back in, the tall grasses flattened to the ground from the gale.
I look up and swear under my breath. A dragon has snatched up the massive cat in its talons. A dragon. A real one. Its black-and-red wings stretch out across the clearing as it lifts into the air. Its snout is long and sharp like a beak, and tufts of spiky fur sprout from its head and its breast like a shield of bone needles. Another gust of its wings flings me against the ground. The giant cat squirms in the dragon’s sharp talons as it lifts him away. It shrieks once more, and I clasp my hands over my ears from the pain.
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