Wraithwood Botanist

B2 - Chapter 23 - Myths

Aiden smiled and shook his head, as if the "myths" about me were insane all along, and said, "Guess it depends on who you ask about the rumors..." He paused as if searching for words. "If you ask the families, they see you as a spy of sorts. An elite that was transported here from some... crazy secret society... like them."

I laughed at the absurdity. "What are you talking about? That’s exactly what I am."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What organization?"

"The Illuminati."

Aiden laughed. "That’s what I told ’em, but..."

"But what?"

"They didn’t even believe that shit."

I laughed and covered my mouth. He looked surprised by his own words and looked away.

"What didn’t they believe? Isn’t that kinda their thing?"

"Oh, it is, but that’s what’s unbelievable. This guy I know looked at me and said, Aiden... why the hell would they do things secretly?"

I covered my face to hide my expression.

"And this guy’s a mobster by the way," Aiden added.

I lost it, snorting with laughter. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. Dude runs a gambling ring and everything."

I shook my head. "So why do you know him? No offense, but you don’t look like... a mobster."

"I... didn’t ask for it."

I looked around. "Well, that makes two of us."

He nodded, a look of satisfaction on his face.

"What, you think I came here by choice?"

"No... but some do."

"That must be one hell of a myth."

"Oh, it is. To some people, you’re on the run. Others think you were a spy that infiltrated Earth and returned home."

I smiled. "And what do you think?"

He looked away and swallowed. "I... don’t know. Not like this, that’s for sure."

"Is it the shirt?"

"It’s the shirt."

I looked at my Darwin t-shirt and looked away. "Well, I got some clothes in. So you might get what you’re expectin’ tomorrow."

Aiden and I laughed a few more times before I set up the ward over our tents and we went to bed. I doubted he slept. I probably wouldn’t have, either, if I weren’t doing mental shielding training. Time moved on.

The next morning, Kline pawed me awake and I got up to get out but stopped when I remembered that I had a guest. I pulled out my pocket mirror and cringed. My hair was jutting out in random directions like a poorly bailed block of hay, and my lack of makeup was more pronounced than ever. But let me tell you—my skin was fucking great. I could sell out and make a Neutragena commercial at that point. Fresh.

I smiled sardonically and fixed my hair, hoping that Elana wasn’t watching because I knew my idea of fixing myself up was like a half-assed excuse wrapped in a death wish.

Aiden was sitting out at the edge of the barrier when I went out, eyes bloodshot from sleep deprivation, studying Halten with a grave expression.

I did the same.

Halten was healed—but he wasn’t healthy. He was gritting his teeth and shifting around, as if in a battle with an unseen force.

"What’s wrong with him?" Aiden whispered.

"He has soul corruption," I said.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that malevolent beings are trying to hijack his body."

I watched with bleary eyes until he was right next to me. Do you have to do this?

"Of course. If I don’t outdo myself, you might think that I’m a substitute for human interaction." He looked at Aiden.

I frowned. It’s not him. I like him, really. It’s just... We’re days from the alchemy station. I don’t have a clue how to help this dragon. And we’re about to get swarmed by beasts. I thought it was a miracle I got here without almost dying. How am I supposed to do this with him around? It’s just... bad timing.

Lithco pulled out a chair and patted down his legs and then smiled at me. "Mira. Just think about this for a second. The guy just rode a dragon into this forest from the heavens. And you really think this guy won’t be useful?"

My lips parted and I thought about it.

"Think about it. In the meantime..." Lithco rudely checked his silver pocket watch and tucked it back in his trouser pockets. "Let’s learn enchantments, shall we? Luckily, this’ll be easy."

I raised an eyebrow. "Easy?"

"Yes. It’s kinda like encryption. Once you open up the instructions again, it will give you a spell. Memorize the chant, then use a binding spell to overwrite it with different words. The combination of the two spells creates a key. It’ll be easy, so let’s get started."

It was not easy.

Learning how to make a key required me to activate a spell while chanting another spell, giving a different name for each word. So it sounded like, "Salka—Datura, estro—stramonium," on down the line until I finished the chant. If patting your head and rubbing your belly was difficult, this was like cracking your head in half with a hammer and then trying to solve a math problem.

"Hey."

Aiden’s voice suddenly broke my concentration mid-spell and I turned to him with a savage gaze. His face paled and he turned away. "Sorry!"

A pang of guilt overcame me and I sighed. "It’s okay. I was just about to take a break anyway."

He turned to me sheepishly. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out..." I shook the portable ward in my hand. "How to use this thing."

"Didn’t you use it last night?"

"For us." I turned to Halten. "We need it to protect him while we’re gone."

"While we’re gone? You mean we’re leaving him?"

I tapped the ward against the ground a few times, holding my breath. Then I addressed him. "Yeah. If we need an elixir to do this, we’ll need to travel about a week. We’ll need to protect him until then."

"A week?" Aiden cried.

I rubbed my eyes and constrained myself before looking him in the eyes. "So what? You’d rather him die here?"

He folded his arms nervously and looked at Halten and back at me and then back at Halten.

"Is it the only way?"

"I suppose that I can leave you with a week’s food and water under the ward. But something tells me that you won’t want that."

"I wouldn’t... I was just coming here to ask what I could do..." He looked into the forest with a wrenched expression. "I’m basically worthless."

I rolled my eyes. "You just rode a dragon into this forest. You’re hardly useless."

His eyes widened. "Then what can I do?"

I closed my eyes, realizing that I was just blindly repeating Lithco’s words like a parrot without the slightest clue why he would be useful. Then I thought about it for exactly five seconds and came to an answer.

"Can you... like... tame these beasts? It would be much faster to ride animals back to the alchemy station."

His face paled and he looked at the massive pile of gigantic beast corpses that Kline had systematically piled up after extracting their cores.

"So no..." I said.

"N-No. I can. I think."

"What do you mean, ’you think?’ This isn’t something to leave to chance."

"N-No! I can. But I just... do you know how beast taming works?"

I shook my head. "No."

"It’s uh... like... business contracts. As a beast tamer, I can make deals with beasts. If one was injured, I could trade them a ride for healing, and then it would have to do it. If it doesn’t, it’ll mess up their soul or even kill them."

"Woah..." I said.

"Uh... yeah. It works, but... um. I don’t know if these beasts would even talk to me. If they have too much pride, they’d rather die. And to be honest, these aren’t bunnies here. Simple things aren’t going to cut it."

I nodded and thought about it for a few seconds before looking into his eyes.

"I’ve got some ideas."