She gives me a grin and pats me on the shoulder. “Relax, Gildy. Look up at the sky and relax.”
My eyes lift. “Clouds are covering most of it, and this mountain’s shelf is doing the rest.”
“You know what I mean.”
“So…what now?” I ask.
“Now, I show you around,” she says, turning to face the other way, toward the larger mountain. “Back that way is the Perch—the timberwings’ roost. You see how that path winds a bit? You just follow that. You passed it when Rip took you to train the other day.”
“Are there a lot of timberwings here?” I ask, avoiding the training topic. The creatures are pretty rare and don’t live in the wild anymore. Monarchs are the only people in Orea that I’ve known to own them, using them for personal transport and war.
“We always have three here,” Lu explains. “But right now, we have more since our own are roosting.”
My brows lift. “You have your very own timberwing?”
“All the Wrath do. Why, you jealous?” she asks with a grin.
I suppress a shudder, remembering the way Queen Kaila’s beast snapped at me, its drooling, sharp fangs grinning at me from a stretched maw and wet feathers. “Nope. Definitely not.”
“Hey, they’re not so bad. Lots of people are afraid of them, but if you train them right, they’re big softies.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
She laughs and then points up further. “Past the Perch is the Mole. It’s one of our hidden lookouts where the guards keep watch.”
“Why is it called the Mole?”
“Because it looks like a growth on the side of the mountain. It’s a damn pain to get up there, too. Takes about a hundred rickety, slippery stairs, and then you’re stuck in a cramped post with only a tiny heat lantern and a lookout glass to keep you company.”
“Sounds cozy.”
Lu turns. “Come on. Down this way is where the villagers live. Their homes are all stacked together one after the other, beneath the mountain’s awning. Everything was built beneath it so that timberwings couldn’t spot anything from above,” she explains.
Just then, the houses come into view, each one only slightly different from the one beside it. They all look like they were carved right into the mountain, rock roofs slanted over them and wooden doors lathered in frost. Each door is just a few feet away from the other, most of which are grappling with vines that have crawled up the stone, some heavy with hardy-looking berries.
“These houses seem small.”
“It’s deceiving.”
We pass by the first few homes, tiny stone chimneys jutting up from the roofs and fanning out smoke. After a few more moments, the path that parallels the homes slopes down a bit, and I can see a large open space ahead where the base of the mountain is pushed in.
“That’s the pavilion,” Lu explains. “It’s where everyone hangs about when they’re sick of being in their houses, which right now, everyone is, since that blizzard lasted so long.”
The pavilion is half exposed, while the other half is tucked into the mountain’s belly. The rock overhang juts out quite a bit here, but there’s an orange glow of a large fire burning half beneath it. I can smell the meat cooking before I see it, but my eyes are locked onto all the villagers gathered around. Some of them are standing by the fire, some joined at tables beneath the overhang in the cave, most of them with a cup in their hands or food in their mouths. It reminds me a little of seeing Fourth’s army camp for the first time.
“It’s not much, but that’s basically the entirety of Drollard,” Lu tells me as we come to a stop beneath a trio of trees just outside the circular stone ground that’s laid out for the pavilion.
“Okay, let’s go get some food.”
I grimace. “Do I have to?”
“Yes. All you’re going to do is go over there, grab some meat, drink some wine, and meet some people.”
I shift on my feet, my stomach churning. “Meeting new people is rarely rewarding.”
She snorts. “Spoken like a true Wrath. Except for maybe Judd. He’s annoyingly friendly.” The ruby gem piercing above her lip glints as she turns toward me, her eyes taking me in. She can probably see the fear on my face, because she says, “What did I say, Gildy?”
I let out a breath. “I got this.”
“Damn right you do. Now let’s go.”
CHAPTER 33
AUREN
It’s been an hour.