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Naji was crouched in fighting stance with his knife drawn before I even saw him move.
“Ana
I picked the sword up from where it was propped up against the wall and tossed it at him, but I kept my eyes on the manticore. “You promised,” I said.
Naji whipped his head around at me.
“Yes, but you did not tell me you had a Jadorr’a in your stone-nest.”
She said “Jadorr’a” the way I might’ve said “sweet lime drink” or “sugar-roses”.
“Ana
The manticore let out a little grumbly noise and crouched low like a cat about to pounce.
“Kaol, couldn’t you just eat some fish like a normal cat?” I shouted.
But both of ’em acted like I hadn’t said nothing.
And then the manticore’s pretty human face twisted up in a grimace. “Jadorr’a!” she said. “You’ve been cursed.”
Neither me or Naji moved.
“You hide the smell well, but… there, there it is again.” She shook her head, mane flying out in a big golden puff.
“You can’t eat him if he’s cursed?” I said.
“Of course not! It taints the flavor of the meat and will pass onto me, and besides which, from the smell of it, this is not a curse I want to possess.” She sniffed the air again.
“So, you’re not going to eat him?” I said.
“Not until the curse is lifted.” She sniffed once more, her nose wrinkling up at the brow. “Three impossible tasks,” she said. She turned to Naji. “I shall help you.”
Naji looked at a loss for words, which might’ve been fu
The manticore sat back on her haunches. “It’s very warm in your stone-nest.”
“We have a fire going,” I told her.
Naji shot me a dirty look.
“You promise you ain’t go
The manticore shuddered. “I told you, I ca
Naji stayed in fighting stance.
“Girl-human, you were correct in assuming that I would find your stone-nest too similar to the walls of the wizard-human’s prison. I shall make a nest nearby. Is that acceptable?”
I didn’t dare look at Naji when I answered “yes”.
The manticore nodded and backed out the door, the snap and stomp of her footsteps drifting through the cracked stone walls.
Naji finally let down his knife and sword. He turned toward me. Kaol, I wanted to run out onto the beach and dive into the cold black sea. Anything to get away from the expression on his face.
“What–”
“She bullied me!” I said. “She asked if I knew a way off the island and I was trying to keep her from finding you and – and eating you and–”
Naji held up one hand.
“You don’t have a way off the island.”
“I will when Marjani shows up. Look, she doesn’t eat women, alright? And she won’t eat you cause of the curse, and we can’t break that till we leave. So Marjani takes us to the Island of the Sun and we drop off the manticore and then we fix your curse.”
Naji stared at me. “My curse is unbreakable,” he said.
“That ain’t true.” Sadness washed over me, and I wondered what would happen if I kissed him right then, and showed him at least one of the tasks wasn’t impossible.
“It is.” He sighed. “At least I know I won’t die in the jaws of a manticore. Although I can’t believe you brought that creature here.”
“I didn’t have no choice! What the hell was I supposed to do? She kept shooting spines at me.”
Naji looked at me sideways. “She wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“Yeah, but how I was supposed to know that?”
Outside, the manticore roared, and it sounded like a trumpet a
CHAPTER TWO
I was sick to hell of eating fish. Even onboard Papa’s ship we never ate this much fish. There’d be dried salted meats, and fresh seabird, if we were close to land. But here on the Isles of the Sky it was nothing but fish, flaking like paper and just as tasteless.
“Then go hunting,” Naji told me one evening when I complained. “I’m sure your pet manticore will be happy to accompany you.”
“She ain’t my pet.” I flung a piece of fish down to the strip of tree bark we used as plates. In truth I’d thought about hunting before, cause I’d seen flashes of these graceful horsy animals through the dappled light of the trees, but I didn’t know the first damn thing about hunting game. If I had a pistol, maybe I could do it.
I didn’t tell Naji none of that, though, cause I knew he’d make fun of me. He was still sore about me bringing the manticore around.
“Finish your meal,” he said, like I was some little kid.
I glared at him and shoved the food away, sending the fish splattering across the floor.
“Finish it for me,” I said, and stomped out of the shack.
I walked down to the shore edge to calm down. I made sure not to get too close to the signal fire, but I could see it glimmering off in the distance, golden swirls twisting up toward the sky. And the smell of it was strong, too, on account of either the breeze or the island shifting us downwind: it wasn’t so much like wood burning at all, but like blood.
“Girl-human, I am in need of your assistance.” The manticore came ambling down the beach, flicking her tail left and right. That tail still gave me the shivers.
“What do you want?”
“There’s a burr in my mane.” The manticore shook her head. “A great tangle. Would you remove it for me?”
I stared at her.
“The hell would you do if you were on the Island of the Sun?” I asked. “Take it out yourself.”
The manticore growled. Growls I didn’t mind, but you best believe I had my eyes fixed firmly on the poisoned tip of her tail.
“I would command one of my servant-humans to remove it for me,” she said. “And she would remove it without complaint, singing all the while.”
“Servant-humans.”
“Yes. We fill our palace with your kind and they do our bidding and offer themselves as food whenever we are hungry.”
I wasn’t sure I believed her. She had a lot of stories about the Island of the Sun, and its great red-sand desert and the great wealth of her family and what an honor I’d give them, one they would certainly thank with a boon, if only I delivered an uncursed Jadorr’a to their eating table.
She trotted over and sat down beside me, tucking her massive paws underneath her body, sticking her head close to my lap. There was a snarl in her mane, a big knot where something’d gotten stuck.
“Fine,” I said. “But I ain’t singing.”
She sniffed like she wasn’t too happy, but then she stuck her chin on my knee. The weight of her head was a lot more than I expected.
I combed my fingers through her mane, which was surprisingly soft, plucking out around the tangle. I moved slow and steady cause the last thing I wanted was to pull too hard and have those big white teeth of hers slice through my leg. Ain’t no way it was a burr in that huge mass of fur – a burr’s too small – but I felt around with my fingers and I realized she had a pine cone stuck in there.
“This may take a while,” I said.
The manticore didn’t answer save for that trumpeting sound she made whenever she was content. Everything about her voice sounded like a musical instrument. Even her full name – Ongraygeeomryn – kinda sounded like a bell chiming when she said it. I couldn’t say it, which was why I just called her the manticore and left it at that.
When I had the pine cone about halfway untangled from her mane, my stomach growled, and I thought about the fish I’d flung at Naji.
“Hey,” I said, plucking at her fur like it was a guitar string. “Would you go hunting with me?”