Read Online Aerenden: The Child Returns (Ærenden) by Kristen Taber - Free Book Online Page B

anger.
    “That’s
not a monkey, is it?” she whispered, refusing to take her eyes from the animal.
It spotted the jay moving through the tree and swung after it, an unnatural
silence masking its movement.
    “It’s
a type of monkey called a dranx,” Nick answered and put an arm around her
shoulder. “Are you okay?”
    “Yes,”
she assured him, though her voice shook. “Could it have hurt me?”
    “Its
teeth are laced with poison. It wouldn’t have killed you, but it would have
made you ill for a few days.”
    Meaghan
trailed her eyes to a limb further up the tree where the bird had found a new
perch. The dranx landed in front of it.
    “You’ll
want to look away,” Nick told her, though the warning came too late. The dranx
pounced on the bird, sinking its teeth into the feathered body of its prize
before disappearing with it into the canopy of the tree.
    Meaghan
gasped, and then turned, burying her head in Nick’s chest. “That was terrible,”
she said, her voice muffled against his sweater. He wrapped his arms around
her.
    “I’m
sorry. I needed you to understand the danger here, but I didn’t mean for you to
see that.”
    “Not
everything’s the same,” she repeated his previous warning and stepped out of
his embrace. She glanced toward the tree once more to ensure the dranx had gone
and then returned her attention to Nick. “Why didn’t the bird fly away? It had
time.”
    “It
couldn’t. The dranx monkey has the power to paralyze its victims when they look
into its eyes.”
    “But
you looked at it and you’re fine.”
    “Its
power is in proportion with its size. It only works on birds and other small
animals. Its poison is deadly to those animals as well.”
    “Oh.”
Meaghan crossed her arms over her stomach, controlling the shudder that crept
up her back. “So it’s poisonous and it has the ability to paralyze its victims.
Can it do anything else?”
    “It
can move without making any sound, which is why you didn’t notice it at first.
This particular dranx has been trailing us for a few miles. We heard it only
when it wanted us to hear. Let’s start moving again,” he said. “We have a long
walk ahead of us today.”
    Meaghan
nodded and he turned, leading the way again. She stayed close behind him,
scanning the forest with more vigilance and wariness than she had when they had
started out in the morning. Although she could no longer see the monkey, and
she had no doubt it had fled the area, it refused to leave her mind.
    “How
did you know it was there?” she asked after a minute. “If you couldn’t hear it,
how did you know?”
    “My
ability to sense things isn’t limited to people,” he answered. “And it isn’t
random. I can tune into magic when I want to, like the pulse stone I left at
the portal, and danger triggers that sense automatically.” He glanced at her
over his shoulder. “Even the smallest forms of malicious magic can trigger my
power.”
    Worry
lines creased Meaghan’s forehead, and Nick stopped again. “What’s wrong?”
    “I’m
confused,” she said. “Is your village magical?”
    “Not
to the point where I can sense it from here.”
    He
reached a wall of vines. Tapping them with the stick, he waited a moment before
parting them with his arms. He let her through and then followed.
    “But
you know where you’re going,” she said when he took the lead again. “You told
me last night you weren’t sure where we were, but it was dark. You seemed more
certain this morning, so I assumed you were following the trail again, like you
followed the pulse stone at home.” She hesitated. “You do know the way, right?”
    “Not
exactly.”
    They
stopped at a tree lying across their path. Its trunk rose higher than Nick’s
shoulders. Its length disappeared in both directions through the thickening forest,
its ends nowhere in sight.
    “You
need to boost me over,” Nick decided. “I’ll pull you up from the top.”
    “All
right.” Meaghan crouched on