the balance of nature in the different realms. Still, he understood the sentiment behind the correlation. Mountain trolls were unpleasant to tangle with and generally would be inclined to eat anyone they encountered if they could, but they were doing as they were designed to do. He didn’t wish to harm them if he could avoid it.
“An apt enough comparison, although a mountain troll would eat a bear without hesitation if they felt they could overwhelm one,” he observed with a humorous twist of his lips. He immediately sobered, his ears twisting to catch the slightest sounds around them. Things were worse in the mountains than he imagined even after their visit earlier that day. “If something is causing such huge disruptions in the ecosystem, enough to send Aquilo from his great house to scour his mountains, and oreads hunting, we do not want to be caught up here where we are at a disadvantage. I am not without defenses, but my strength lies mostly in the forest,” he admitted as he reached down to assist her up the steep incline.
As they climbed higher, the weather steadily grew grayer and more oppressive with the electric weight of magic stirring in the air around them. As the hours passed and the sun began to drop in the sky, a strong gust picked up, drawing in black clouds around the peak. Silvas pulled the length of his hair back and quickly bound it with a cord. The stench of the strix’s nest was getting stronger, and even Diana wore an expression of disgust as she made a noticeable effort to breathe solely through her mouth.
He could feel the pulse of power through the atmosphere like a crack of lightning. The strix was beginning to awaken. He gritted his teeth as he bowed his head against the wind. It dragged uncomfortably against his antlers, but he hoped that it cut the wind enough to provide some minimal relief for Diana who now, at his insistence, clung with one hand to his belt as she climbed.
As the wind increased in strength, he worried about his uxorem losing her grip on him and falling from the mountain. He was tempted to pull her up into his arms again and carry her the remaining short distance to the cave entrance, though it meant subjecting her to the full force of the wind. Silvas reached behind him, one hand clamping around her wrist to hold her securely to him as they increased their rate of climb. Just behind him Diana gagged and moaned.
“Fuck… That smell! I’m going to puke.”
He turned slightly, releasing his grip on her wrist to frown with concern at his mate, his shoulder’s hunched to continue shielding her as much as possible. Her face did look unnaturally pale. His concern raised another notch as he reached forward and rubbed his palm against her cold cheek.
“I know,” he murmured. “If you need to get sick, there is no shame in it. Tell me and we will stop.”
She gagged again and took a deep shuddering breath. “No. I think I’m alright. It’s just awful. You weren’t kidding about how bad it is.”
He nodded his head in understanding as he faced forward. Firmly wrapping his hand once more around her wrist, he continued their upward progression as he squinted against the rapidly increasing gloom.
Up ahead he could see the dark crevice from which the terrible smell emitted. Even from their short distance away he could make out sun-bleached bones scattered outside. Mingled with them were those that were black with rotting flesh belonging to various species. Some were animals, but most were noticeably children. He couldn’t tell offhand what the species was since outside of coloring patterns, most children of the different species looked similar structurally until adolescence. This was a sight he hated for his mate to see.
He considered waiting to full nightfall to spare her. But to keep their advantage, they needed to make it the rest of the distance before the strix fully awakened and was alerted to their presence. He was unable to shield the one person that he wanted nothing more than to protect. Gods above forgive him.
The daylight had waned considerably from the sky as he finally pulled himself level to the crevice. He had to break Diana’s hold and transfer her grip to a secure handhold so that he could leap up to the flat rock that jutted out from the side of the cliff, no doubt worn down from