to anyone, had she and Aerax spoken of what they’d seen. So the hunters had meant to silence them and leave them for dead.
By the time Aerax had returned to her, his face and furs covered in the hunters’ blood, she’d been weeping uncontrollably while cutting the snow cat down from the tree where she’d been strung. Lizzan had flung herself into his arms, hugging him tight, and together they’d sought out the den. There they’d found Caeb, a small ball of fluff that didn’t even yet have fangs.
Later that same night, as she’d nursed Caeb from a small bladder of milk, his tiny paws kneading her neck and pricking her with needlelike claws, Aerax had confessed that he’d feared she would never again look at him without terror.
But he hadn’t frightened Lizzan. Instead she’d been afraid for him. No one pretended to see him in Koth . . . but they would see him if he ever again tore out a man’s throat. They would be fearful—and people hurt what they feared. Even at that young age, Lizzan had known it.
And after she’d casually asked her mother’s mother, a healer, what use someone might have for Hanani blood—and was told not to speak of such foul things—Lizzan feared for Caeb, too. But she had not known why to be afraid until Cernak told her of a rumor that corrupt monks and dark sorcerers would pay fortunes for the blood.
She had told Aerax, and he had agreed—never would they say what Caeb truly was. And after Caeb had grown old enough to explain the danger to him, he had made the same decision.
Lizzan had never known if there was truth in the rumor. And Shim, the Hanani stallion, seemed not afraid of people knowing what he was.
But neither she nor Aerax would take the risk with Caeb, and the cat did not seem to want to, either. Perhaps not even out of fear, but so that he would be more likely left alone, instead of people always trying to talk to him.
Now he paused ahead, nostrils fluttering as he sniffed the air, before turning in a new direction. Lizzan also caught a scent, the sweetly fetid stench of rot.
“We will see if that is something caught in the vine, or just something dead,” she said, taking the lead alongside the cat, until the smell led her to where a monkey the size of a rabbit was entangled in a green vine that wound around the base of a tree. Lizzan scratched her fingers through Caeb’s ruff. “You have found it for us. I thank you. Go and take your own supper now.”
She glanced back at Aerax, who silently asked with a lift of his brows whether she wanted him to stay. With a shake of her head, she bade him to go, and watched as he and Caeb swiftly disappeared into the shadows.
“I know that vine,” said Ardyl as they drew nearer. “It also grows in the southern jungle, where the river Lave meets the Boiling Sea—but there the vine is bigger. Much bigger. I have seen a young trap jaw caught in its coils while the rotting juices fed the roots. We call it a constrictor vine.”
“So the corpse vine does, too.” Lizzan touched the tip of her dagger to the vine’s hairy surface. Like a baby gripping a mother’s finger, the vine gently curled toward it. “But unless you are of that monkey’s size, you only need take care when one of these thorns pierces your skin. That much venom will put you into heavy sleep, though not immediately. You could still walk back to camp. The only danger is if you fall asleep near the vine and it grips a naked limb, so you do not awaken. Also the venom will make you say truths.”
“That is no danger,” said Seri. “Parsatheans only speak truth.”
“It’s a danger if there are truths you don’t intend to say. I once told a merchant who’d hired me to escort her wagon that every time she opened her mouth to offer her lump-weeded opinion, it was like watching someone burst a pimple, full well knowing what spilled out would turn a stomach but it was still impossible to look away.”
Ardyl laughed. “How long did that job last?”
“She put her boot in my ass that day.” With her blade, Lizzan sliced through a length of the corpse vine, and used her cloak to protect her bare hands as she rolled it up. So