The Queen of Grass and Tree (Southwind Knights #2)

Chapter Six, Part 4

As night fell, Asher and Galen returned to the Trees’ Wood. A wind accompanied them into the highlands, and the thick branches swayed with the sudden gusts. Asher shook off the discomfort, choosing to accept the eerie setting. This would be his home from now on.

“My skin,” Asher explained. “I feel like it’s getting harder. Tougher.”

“Can’t say how far it’ll progress,” Galen said. “You’re the only man I know with dragon blood.”

“Why did you hide it from them?”

Galen hummed in his throat. “Best to hide that sort of thing, at least until we understand it. Don’t want you thrown in the bestiary.”

“Ha,” Asher said humorlessly. “The Princess saw it, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

Then she had already kept his secret. Asher trusted that she would continue to do so, and the thought warmed him.

As they neared the shack, tree sprites fluttered around them, hopping from limb to limb. It would take time to adjust to the feeling of being watched. He supposed it was called the Trees’ Wood for a reason.

“Where am I going to sleep? That little house can’t even fit the pillow I had in the castle.”

“You’re welcome to go back,” Galen said. “The house isn’t for slee—”

A fire crackled, and orange light radiated in the darkness ahead. Angling their way into the shack’s line of sight, they found that the fire pit was filled with flame. A lone figure sat there, charcoal hood pulled low over his face.

Galen stopped in his tracks. His hands remained at his sides.

The man’s thin, dry lips were visible in the firelight. His voice was hoarse and low. “I heard that you’d returned.”

The Healer shifted on his feet. A twig snapped. “What do you want?”

“Your master,” the stranger said, and he stood with great effort. “Where is he?”

“Out.”

“Shame.” The man tilted his face to Asher for a moment. “Or perhaps you are the master now?”

“We’re all our own masters,” Galen said.

“Very wise, Sir Galen.”

Asher waited for Galen to correct the title, but the correction did not come.

“I’m recruiting,” the man said. Asher yearned to see his eyes, but they were hidden. “I could use your wisdom. And your sword.”

Galen shook his head. “No.”

The man nodded and chuckled to himself. “Well!” he said, suddenly chipper. “Thought I’d try. We’re neighbors now, after all.” He waved a hand, as if to brush off the matter, and Asher thought the firelight must be playing a trick on him. The man’s arm, from elbow to fingers, was thick, rough, and dark like the hide of a tree. A green leaf even hung there for a moment, before jumping up around the stranger’s head and zipping into the branches above.

“You won’t be bothered,” he said, slipping away into the night. “Welcome back.”

Galen didn’t move. He stuck to the grass, the nearby fire illuminating the disfigured half of his face. The same wrinkled burns lumped and twisted through his skin, and the long wounds gaped as usual from forehead to chin, but for the first time since Asher had met him, there was fear in Galen’s eyes.