Chapter eight part two - Enemy lists

Later that night, when Freya had decided she wanted to try out carving like me, I'd lent my tools and left her to work on sides of oak wood in our room while I'd cut up a piece from her old dresses. I punctured holes through it with my hunting knife before placing my cloak on and walking out into the gardens near the stables, where a pond laid bare surrounded by bushes and blue iris flowers.

It's not like I'd planned to leave my room at first, but boredom had crept up my spine, and I'd figured why not come out to trap frogs.

I wasn't going to keep them; Solaris forbid how Freya would react to me bringing back a frog, but... I'd long needed to have the feeling of something familiar.

As candlelight's from inside the Barracks shadow the grass and the night stars bloom iridescently, I bend down near the edges of the pond, picking up rocks and stones. Frogs preferred shelter, so that's why I'm building them a small cave.

I place the cut-up dress to one side, which I tied into a knot at the end as a form of net. Scavenging with my bare fingers, I gather some mud before finding a worm and also put that inside the towered cave.

Dusting my hands against the linen of my tunic, I slide off onto the grass and bring my knees up to my chin, waiting and waiting... and waiting.

Until the patter of wet feet sound inside the cave I'd built and a frogs singing croaks deepens from within.

Grabbing my net, I take off some of the rocks and set my eyes on the frog no larger than my fist. I scoop it up, making sure its weight won't fall through some of the small holes I'd made as I lift the net eye level and smile at my success. Everyone knows capturing any animal is hard enough. Yet, they seem to gravitate towards me, much to my dismay when it comes to other creatures too.

"There's always something new every time I encounter you."

Oh, shit.

Spinning and almost tripping on my cloak, I face Lorcan's curious gaze on me.

"Do you always happen to appear everywhere I am?" I raise a brow, aware I'm coming across as defensive.

"I'm on guard, and I just so happened to see you rummaging the grounds on your own." Hands behind him as he tips his head to the side. "I'd thought to check out if you hadn't gone mad."

I frown, but he doesn't give me time to quip back. "What's in there?" He points to my hand and the lavender silk net.

"A frog."

He didn't expect that answer. Still, he chuckles, reminding me of how Freya had said she'd never seen him smile before. "Do you hate those too?"

"No..." My frown deepens. "I—I was going to let it go." Feeling the need to set the frog free, I lower myself to the ground, shaking the net as it hops out. The glossy skin, like colors of the forest are visible even in the night as I watch it disappear and water ripples from the stagnant pond before I stand, facing Lorcan again.

A crease between his forehead as he looks toward the pond then towards me. "Might I ask why you trapped it in..." He nods at the net. "That?"

I glance at it in my hands. "I used to be a trapper." Or still is...

"And you miss it," he states, the same curiosity now dripping from his voice.

"I'd done it since I was thirteen. I'm not you and how you've been used to this since a young age."

His eyes drift down to his sabaton boots, letting out a soft disbelieving laugh. "You'd be surprised by what I've been used to before."

I angle my head slightly. Before arriving in the city, I'd not asked much, I felt that it was no place of mine to do so, yet now I wanted to know things. "And what is that may I ask?"

"Well, if you must know Miss Ambrose, I was homeless after my father's death. My mother had died after giving birth to me, and by the time I came to the city, the General found me on the streets barefooted and malnourished."

A whoosh of air seems to leave me as I try to hide the shock on my face. I didn't expect him to open up just like that... All at once. "I'm—I'm so sorry," my words stumble over each other.

"It was a long time ago." He dismisses it, but I could sense a curdle of anger just for one second before it vanishes. "You should head inside. I'd hate for an attack to occur and for it to have been my fault because I was... distracted," he muses, and I glower at how he's thrown back the word I'd said on the first day of training. He'd enjoyed showing me different fighting techniques during the week... Annoyingly.

Raising my chin, I ignore his request to head inside and instead say, "Freya tells me there's never been an intruder in the barracks before."

"Freya... Wasn't here for two years. There hadn't been attacks for years prior, but as of lately, shifters have become more unpredictable."

I just about jolt over the word unpredictable. "Even with steel powder?"

His head motions over me. "The walls all contain it, but that doesn't mean they can't infiltrate the fields, where there's less of it."

"Or maybe they're becoming immune," I say in a quiet murmur. If the Golden Thief is unaffected by it, who's to tell others of his kind aren't? Who's to say he hadn't breached past the castle walls before?

Lorcan regards me silently, intrigued by my response. After a while of not saying a word, he nods. "Maybe, Miss Ambrose." With that, he looks off past the barracks and to the castle towers, turning as if to walk away.

"Wait," I call out to him in a rush. He stops, broad shoulders and russet hair lightened by the moon, brush just below the neck of his armory. Once he turns to me, I say, "I know about the Golden Thief."

He studies me carefully, almost like he had put up a shield that not even the sun goddess Solaris could shine through it.

"I saw a poster in the city," I add, chewing my bottom lip. "Is he really that hard to catch?"

"Supposedly," he says, looking at me through lowered brows. "He's smart in his own ways, but there is one thing we've come to know."

"What's that?"

His lip twitches, and satisfaction rolls off of him. "He can't fly."

That only makes me question more. "Why not?"

"He's been doing what he does long enough for us to track how he's never once flown, not like other shifters we've come across."

I frown. There'd have to be a reason he can't fly. Dragons have always known how to on their own. It's an instinct to them since they're born. Even a mortal turned shifter—if they've survived the bite, that is—can fly with ease. Perhaps he'd sustained an injury at one point that didn't heal his wings. But that only opens up more questions for someone who is supposed to be powerful, holding all three dragon powers and immune to steel.

"Why does everyone say he has no weaknesses, then?" I ask. "Surely unable to do the one thing he was born to do could help us."

"Except what he lacks in flight makes up for all the power and agility he has."

A sharp sigh expels out of me, not meaning to do it so loudly, but the Golden Thief is already testing my patience.

"I once saw him..." Lorcan's gaze suddenly appears miles away. "A few years back in one of the districts. I'd used a spear on him, but his reflexes were stronger. He grabbed it mid-air, broke it in half, and threw it before it pierced my armor, my chest, and all through to the other side."

I don't say a word. I only stare at him blankly in shock. The Golden Thief is dangerous; yes, everyone thought of him that way, but what was his purpose in stealing if he is likely the one creating those new creatures?

Was it a distraction? If it's not rulers from different lands going against the treaty, then what was the Golden Thief's endgame in this?

"We'll catch him," I say, at last, a sudden determination in my voice. "I know we will." I just have to figure out the Ivarron part.

"I hope so, a threat like him—" He pauses, wincing and looking away like the whole ordeal is too frustrating. "Just be careful... shifters aren't the only dangers in Emberwell."

He means the new breed...

"I will be," I say, although I didn't sound the most convincing.

"Good." He nods before bowing his head. "Then I'll leave you to enjoy the rest of your night, Miss Ambrose."

"Nara," I correct, seeing how I'd rather no formalities. I wasn't used to it. "You can call me Nara."

He smiles a white and beautiful shine against the night. "Goodnight, Nara."