The Barbarian's Owned(11)

For the first time since her arrival on Ythir she felt alone, and it was terrifying.

Gulping, she scanned the canopy. “Please, Lyr. If a domé can rewire my brain to speak the native language, if a domé can control local weather enough to billow Vaya’s dust in the direction she wants, I know you can understand me. Just show me the way to a portal. They took me from my world! Send me home.”

The curtain of vines surrounding her rose all together as though a play had begun.

At the sight of what lay beyond, Rae crumbled to her knees. There were forty of those cabbages, already flared open with their knives glinting and bent her direction.

“I mean,” Rae said, mouth dry, “the phrase ‘send me home’ might not have gotten across how alive I’d like to be when I get there. S—sorry if I’ve offended you, Miss Lyr, ma’am.”

Except they weren’t pointed quite at her. The cabbages puffed and a glittering wave of sharp steel launched into the air. Rae had time to hit the soft, earthen ground only because they’d been pointed over her head.

The blades sank into a dark shadow high in the forest behind her. Tucked onto her side, Rae stared at the dark patch and wondered what had happened…

…when the shadow moved. It peeled from the background of the forest, snarled, and she wasn’t certain what she was seeing at first. It was as though a patch of forest uprooted itself and glided silently from one crown of branches to another, retreating. It left a trail of indigo-hued blood in its wake.

She’d seen something like it before. The way it had peeled from the forest and escaped made her think of the mimic octopus she’d found while scuba diving in Australia.

Its malleable body could transform into limitless shapes, textures, and colors, so that one moment it would look like a normal part of some coral reef, and the next it would scurry, as though a piece of the reef itself had broken off and slithered away on tentacles.

That arboreal version of the mimic octopus had also pulled itself along on tentacles. The major difference had been size: she couldn’t be certain, but it was at least as big as a Buick.

Terror sank its icy claws into her heart at the realization some predator had nearly ambushed her. It was only Lyr’s amazing cabbages that had saved her. All those pods behind her closed tight and stood straight. Whatever else was going on, Lyr didn’t want her dead.

Glancing at one of the knife-cabbages, Rae whispered, “Okay, I’m still mad at Garr and Vaya. But you and I? We’re cool.” She gave the plant a thumbs up.

The plant shivered once. Rae couldn’t translate that. She hoped it meant, “Got your back, honey,” but she couldn’t help notice that no portals were forthcoming. Instead, the vines draped back down, disguising the knife-cabbages from view.

Vaya and Garr broke through the brush line together, glancing wildly down at her. Vaya’s forearms were scratched and Garr bled freely down his right arm, purple blood dripping from his fingertips.

The prime collapsed in front of her and used his clean hand to feel along her torso for injuries.

Rae wormed from his touch and shouted, “I’m fine!”

Garr’s darkening, enraged expression suggested she might not stay that way long.





Chapter Four





Rae kept the treetop octopus to herself, since it also gave away that Lyr had saved her—which in turn might have prompted Garr to tighten his guard. She was holding out hope Lyr would still come through for her.

They scaled the ravine wall, with help from Garr’s otoya coat, which he stripped off and transformed into a liquid, coiling it gradually into a long rope. Anchoring one end into a far-up tree trunk, the line helped Rae make her ascent.

This meant Garr climbed shirtless, though, and Rae could see the two knives buried in him. Apparently no one else had noticed, because the brute paid his wounds no mind.

At one point, she nearly apologized, but couldn’t bring herself to. She hadn’t done a single thing wrong. All this sprang from the fact of her kidnapping.

Why, then, did the sight of Garr’s mangled shoulder fill her with remorse? His stone-cold expression betrayed no hint of what he felt. He’d been upset after finding her, and then shut down entirely.

During their climb, Garr paused to pluck roots, flowers, or in one case a wrinkled fruit that looked like a dried fig. He was probably collecting herbs for a poultice.

Once on the trail, they hiked a quarter mile before stopping at a waterfall that emptied into a pool. It was ringed with tablets where the squama grew fuzzy blue moss.

Vaya slunk away to scout and commune with Lyr, while Garr pried loose a squama plate that was concave on the inside. He used it as a bowl to mix his poultice.