Chapter 70. Puppeteered

CYRAN

The feel of an arrow between my thumb and index, the tight pull of the taut string on my fingers, the smell of the woods…I don’t think I’ve ever felt this tensed with arrow before. It’s an effort to keep it face down as father had said, lest some sound or sight would set me off and I’d end up shooting the wrong ‘prey’...and gods know I’m very on edge.

Morning light barely penetrates the canopy above, made of the very same trees I had been hunting under that fateful evening. The forest is dead silent though; the squinards are silent, the birds are solemn and every sound we make seems to echo through the trees, no matter how quiet it seems.

Quain leads us as quietly as a hare, peering all around him with his back bent. Fareedah doesn’t show the same caution, though, and neither does Saelyna. We four are quite soundless on foot; elves due to anatomy, Quain because of his genn and wolven due to years of caution; but it doesn’t feel like it. Or I’m just on edge.