Daughter of the Drackan: Gyenona's Children, #1

By Kathrin Hutson

Bestselling Dark Fantasy like you've never seen before.

"The Jungle Book meets Kill Bill... with dragons!"

Born of humans but raised by beasts who despise the legacy of man, Keelin is the only one who can redeem, or destroy, the future of both races.

Keelin is the only human fledgling, weaned by the drackans of the High Hills and given their instincts, ferocious strength, and fierce hatred for humankind. But even the drackans closest to her cannot explain why she has violent blackouts from which she wakens covered in blood.

A desperate, reckless search for the source of this secret brings her face to face with the human world and memories from a locked-away past, long forgotten. Keelin becomes a terrifying legend among human assassins while she hunts for answers, and the human realm's High King is murdered.

While a sickly steward hides within crumbling walls, commanding her every move with a magic he should not possess, Keelin's journey to track him down threatens her loyalty to the drackans who raised her. The rogue who crosses her path hides familiar secrets, echoing her own terrifying bloodlust and forcing her to consider that there may be something human about her after all. 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Exquisite Darkness Press
• Release date: Dec 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732201682

Kathrin Hutson

International Bestselling Author Kathrin Hutson has been writing Dark Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and LGBTQ Speculative Fiction since 2000. With her wildly messed-up heroes, excruciating circumstances, impossible decisions, and Happily Never Afters, she’s a firm believer in piling on the intense action, showing a little character skin, and never skimping on violent means to bloody ends. Kathrin is an active member of SFWA and HWA and lives in Vermont with her husband, daughter, and two dogs. For updates on new releases, exclusive deals, and dark surprises you won’t find anywhere else, sign up to Kathrin’s newsletter at kathrinhutsonfiction.com/subscribe.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

A nd the Great Drackan resumed its place upon the stone. The child’s eyes sparkled with delight. Honai rolled the parchment again and set it back on the shelf. The child jumped on the bed, her dark curls bouncing between her shoulders as she pulled the skirt of her nightgown as far out as it would go. Honai laughed. What are you doing? 

The smile the girl gave her wet nurse was fierce and wild. I want to be a drackan. 

Honai smiled and walked to the bedside. The girl jumped high, landing blindly on her knees as the nightgown whipped over her head. Honai giggled with her, tickling the child’s body, then straightened her out on the mattress. But I’m sure the mighty drackans are not so careless as to let their wings cover their heads? The girl grinned, wiggling under the quilts. Honai situated her in bed and knelt. Why do you wish so much to be a drackan? 

They’re the greatest things that ever lived. 

Honai smoothed a lock of dark hair from the child’s face, frowning in mock consternation. These are the same drackans I know, yes? The terrifying, ruthless brutes, who destroyed villages, ate livestock, and burned forests with their firebreath? 

The girl patiently shook her head. They only killed people who scared them. They only ever wanted to fly and protect their babies. And they saved the one boy who would not run from them. He believed in them, and I believe in them. She held up her hands, casting shadows upon the bed, and pulled a face at them. I wish I could hear their stories. 

Honai stood and straightened her skirts. There was no point in arguing with a child’s vibrant imagination, especially before bed. Especially this child. Well, I’m sure they have their stories, my dear, but they are not for tonight. Sleep well, and perhaps you may dream of your drackans.

Yes, the girl sighed, squirming in tired excitement. And they will tell me everything.

Honai kissed the child’s forehead but paused at the doorway to the chamber. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and the wrongness she sensed quickly became a sound. It mocked the flapping of Lord Kartney’s banner in the wind, posted high above the watchtower. Many nights, it was the only sound outside the castle. But this noise was no banner. It was louder, thicker, splitting through the air with intent. In a matter of seconds, a calm night of normalcy shredded into terror. It had finally come.

She turned toward the window, knowing the truth and fearing it all the more. There hovered a great red drackan from the High Hills, head stretched out tight on its neck, body hovering with the rhythmic beat of its wings. The drackan’s armored scales shone in the firelight—brown with a tinge of fiery, metallic red. The broad wings almost scraped against the cold outer stone of the tower as it pushed a dignified head through the opening almost too small for it. The length of its neck crossed the room toward the child’s bed. 

The girl had pushed herself up, wide-eyed and glowing with excitement.

The seconds stretched long and thin before Honai’s wits scattered, and she screamed. A voice, much louder than it should have been, echoed through the room. It came from the beast itself, though the bone-crushing jaw never moved, the eyes never left the child’s face. A bodiless, sexless voice, dark and ancient. 

‘You do believe in us, fledgling. I think it high time you had your wish.’

Honai stared in mute horror as the beast’s ridged snout hovered above the child’s legs. The girl reach out a tiny hand, steady and calm. Glassy, intelligent eyes passed between the hand and the small face. Judging. Waiting.

I am not afraid, the child stated boldly and lightly touched the creature.

When finally Honai could move again, her terror rushed her out of the chamber and through the castle. She ran down the stone halls, bumping against the corners as she turned through the corridors. 

She finally reached the dining hall where Lord Kartney sat drinking with his men. Milord, she gasped. 

The dark-haired lord turned from the table to look at her with a half-smile still playing across his lips. He noted her concern and stood abruptly, the smile fading into a worried frown. What is it, Honai?

The woman stumbled and fell to her knees at his feet. Milord, a... a drackan... in the child’s room...

He whispered his daughter’s name and brusquely turned to his men. Wordlessly, they followed him through the castle halls. The drackan’s diminishing tail vanished through the open window just as they burst through the door. Kartney unsheathed his sword and rushed to the window, wildly slashing out, but the bare steel caught only the frigid night air. 

A scream of fear and misery echoed from the tower of Brijer Turret, lasting almost as long as it took for the child’s bed to grow cold.

CHAPTER 1

E’Kahlyn looked out upon the valley from the mouth of her cave at a plane of solid white far below. The huge lake spread from the bank, frozen with the winter chill—a drackan’s chill that would alone crush a man’s bones and freeze his blood. They would meet here when they awoke. And then what would they think of this? More importantly, what would they do if she failed?

She might have spoken to the rest of the Council before attempting this, but they were all in the last and deepest stages of their torpors. Why now was she fully awake, far before her time? That thin voice had done it, the fragments of weak thought that had been strong enough to pull her mind from an unbreakable sleep. She could not help but follow the call and was only marginally disappointed when it led to the dwellings of man. It had been centuries since she last had need for the human tongue, but the tiny thing had understood.

The fledgling human needed a fire, especially in this cold far too bitter for humans. E’Kahlyn exhaled on a pile of discarded bones, and a fire illuminated the darkness of the cave. She neither felt the warmth nor needed the light, but she still was not blind to the needs of such a fragile, short-lived race.

The tiny thing’s lips had turned a light blue, exposed skin having lost its natural pinkness. E’Kahlyn nudged the tiny thing closer to the flames. She couldn’t risk the thing dying of cold before she’d even attempted the change.

She thought it marvelous how very small the creature was, not even half the size of her forepaw. Her own hatchlings were each many times its size, though younger when she weaned them and more suited to life in these mountains. But now that she had brought the human here, she could not turn back. The creature’s survival hinged on her success. She had very little time in this harsh cold. It had to be done now.

E’Kahlyn wondered if the human contained enough strength to withstand the trials of the weaning. A human’s brittle body did not compare to a fledgling drackan’s, but the most dangerous change was not physical at all. She gently probed the fledgling’s skin with her large tongue. The poison in her mouth did its work, hissing as it ate into the flesh of the tiny ears and eyelids. Countless centuries of weaning her own broods did not prepare her for the sight of the same process on such a frail thing. If this did not work, the creature would not heal and would be left deaf and blind and useless. But ample time remained for the rest. 

She brought her jaws to the fledgling’s arm. It had to be a small bite or she would kill it. Just a tiny piece of skin above the blue veins, and she swallowed it, licking away the blood. That wound, too, crackled with the poison from her tongue, bordering on a nasty, open sore. The creature looked terrible, like a half-eaten meal, but E’Kahlyn knew the value of patience.

Its eyes fluttered, threatening to open, and then the oozing wounds smoothed and flattened into a film of new, healthy skin. A soft yellow glow barely contained itself beneath those lids, a new light that had not been there before. Normal color returned to the lips and skin, shimmering with inhuman energy. The tiny thing’s features hardened and quivered with strength, and the open flesh on its arm healed itself.

She had to check and nudged softly at the thing’s mind with her own. A white, static whirring seeped out, weak but undeniably there. It remained unconscious, but the human’s mind had substance now and sound. It seemed E’Kahlyn had done the impossible, but she dared not let her excitement thrive. Not yet. A long road still awaited them if the fledgling lived.

She was not the first to do this. Igetheyr had taken this chance himself, so long ago, though the mistakes made after that had paved a long road to hatred and fear. And silence. E’Kahlyn felt the winds of change in these mountains, knew that something lay on the horizon for her kind. The others still licked the wounds from their past and remained so blind to the future, but E’Kahlyn could no longer live in complacency. The time for action had come again, and if she effectively weaned this human, the silence would end. They would all be forced to see the truth, and they would find the knowledge that had so tragically been lost.

Distracted by her own thoughts, she had not noticed the noises of the fledgling’s mind had changed. The whiteness swirled faster, a static shushing growing louder and stronger. E’Kahlyn raised her head and waited, prepared for failure. As suddenly as the new sounds had started, they stopped with a loud crack. The fledgling sat bolt upright and screamed.

E’Kahlyn closed her external hearing to concentrate on the tiny new mind; she noted the apparent transformation but could not bear the obnoxious screaming.

A foreign sense of pride welled within her. If all went well, the fledgling would mature in these mountains, part of a larger, greater life unknown to the rest of its kind. This sacred exchange made the drackan responsible for the fledgling now, for the gift of instinct, knowledge, and faults of drackankind that she had given. What once was a tiny human might now be something much greater, more powerful and awful than it might ever understand. This fledgling was a tool, and E’Kahlyn held all its secrets. 

The screaming stopped, and the fledgling opened its eyes. It scanned its new environment without a hint of fear.

‘Now, my fledgling,’ the drackan thought to it. ‘Who are you?’ The human stared at her but gave no answer. E’Kahlyn pushed her way into its young, weak mind as easily as ripping into flesh. It was a silver mind, fresh and blank. She searched gently for wrongness, any trace that she had made a mistake, but found nothing.

A faint, purple-gray color came meekly to her, followed by a small voice that shattered E’Kahlyn’s doubts.

‘I—I don’t know.’

The drackan had known disappointment and knew to expect a possible loss of memory. Surprise, however, was an infrequent and foreign experience. The fledgling’s mind and colors were strong ... and it was female.

‘You did what?’ N’Talia fumed, her mind-colors bursting in thunderous shades of red.

E’Kahlyn stood her ground and held her head high. She was old, but still had enough presence to stare the leader in the eyes. She felt the others watching her but only opened her mind to the one who addressed her. ‘I have weaned a human fledgling. Successfully.’

N’Talia snorted and dragged her powerful tail in circles around E’Kahlyn without attempting to hide her suspicion. The drackans of the High Hills had gathered around the Great Lake. There were so many at the first gathering after they had risen, packed around the lake and towering in the rock ledges and cliffs above. The snow had melted, all the drackans had returned to the waking world, and the new sun lingered high in the sky. They had not waited long to address her actions, but E’Kahlyn was always ready to confront the Council boldly. She did not possess the weakness required to cower behind a lie, though most of the drackans would have preferred a lie.

When she felt N’Talia’s sharp breath on her snout, she matched the force of the leader’s gaze. ‘And what, precisely, compelled you to commit this act?’

The others heard their conversation, as custom warranted opening the gathering to all minds. E’Kahlyn closed her external hearing, avoiding undue distractions, and focused on the blue drackan’s mind. ‘I took the fledgling from its dwelling. The creature understood my speech... the very same creature that woke me from my torpor.’

Around them, anxious bodies shuffled, wings beat and fluttered against one another. Drackans did not simply awake from that sleep. She did not need to open her mind to the others to know what they thought, none of it good. Her actions pleased no one. 

The blue drackan’s gaze remained firm and strong as ever, but despite her strength, N’Talia could not completely mask her surprise. Her fury amused E’Kahlyn. The blue drackan had always opposed her calls to action, and now E’Kahlyn could no longer be ignored. She drew herself to her full height, finally commanding the attention she deserved on the subject.

N’Talia’s yellow eyes, surrounded by ridges of sapphire-blue scales, narrowed. ‘How did you obtain the creature?’ The flamboyant reds of her anger receded with the question.

E’Kahlyn watched the drackan-covered valley as she responded, summarizing the capture of the fledgling. She sent, but her secret mind drifted elsewhere. In the great circle of cliffs and rocky ledges above the lake, the drackans stirred on a mountain peak. Something very slowly made its way downwards to the open ring of ground by the lake. The drackans nervously opened paths for it, rustling their wings and jostling each other in agitation.  A few snarls carried on the thin winter air. 

E’Kahlyn would not be caught distracted, and she reluctantly returned her attention to her own words. ‘And so I have weaned a human. Judge as you will, but I know what I have done. And why.’ Her patience for all these questions drew thin, and she could not keep her attention away from the thing moving in the valley. 

‘Do you know its lineage? Was it important?’ 

‘I only know that it is more important to our race than to theirs.’

N’Talia could have searched her mind if that was what she wanted. E’Kahlyn knew, though, that her interrogator did not desire any more information than could be given by answering questions. Making this information public had made E’Kahlyn dangerous, unpredictable, and completely untouchable by the Council. How could they possibly know what to do with her now? She had broken the rules, done something far beyond the acceptable realm, and this gave her the immunity of fear and respect. For now.

‘You know responsibility is to be accepted?’

‘I do, and I am prepared. But I stand before you all to say that our century of dissent is at an end. This I have done for you.’ She snorted, triumphant, willing N’Talia to take action. 

The blue drackan’s gaze flickered to something behind E’Kahlyn, and solid features instantly softened in a mixture of reverence and fear. E’Kahlyn froze. N’Talia respectfully stepped aside, and a short gust of breath blew against E’Kahlyn’s scales, alerting her. She turned, face to dark, glistening face with Igetheyr himself.

‘Igetheyr,’ her mind-voice whispered, and she was aware of its colors—pale and grey with shock and wonder. A single thought floated through her surprise. Had he, too, come to judge her, to destroy everything for which she so desperately fought? Then her mind went blank.

Green-golden eyes hovered inches from her own, staring down at her in amusement. His power emanated like steam, and she had to take her frozen eyes off him. She had felt this only once in the past, long before she had grown old. His presence alone was overwhelming, and it had always been that way. He had descended from the mountain peaks to be here, to speak to her, and she wished then that she had something more to say.

A rich, golden-colored laugh filled her mind, resonating as if made to bounce around against the walls of her insides before sinking in endlessly. ‘E’Kahlyn,’ he responded courteously. ‘It’s been almost five hundred years. My interest in you was not for nothing, after all.’

‘It would seem so.’ All her triumphant pride and willfulness had vanished. All she wanted now was to gaze upon the black drackan forever. Consequences would be considered and dealt with later. Lowering her head, she humbled herself and hoped for more. She wanted to say so many things to him but could not pin her thoughts. The others still watched them closely, and she knew it was best to stay silent. 

The black beast sniffed the air, and his eyes narrowed. ‘You have the child with you now, I presume?’

E’Kahlyn met his eyes again, hope biting at her resolve. ‘I do.’

Igetheyr stood unmoving, and E’Kahlyn gently unfurled her red-brown wings. The child sat atop the drackan’s scaly back, legs huddled up to her chest. She too stared at Igetheyr, eyes glowing from beneath the shock of tangled hair.

The others snorted and growled at the human, their hatred and bloodlust already thick in the air. The drackans’ centuries-old feud with the scale-less race ran deep within their blood. Seeing one now in their home stirred timeless memories of the war, so long ago, that had started their hatred in the first place, and memories of the last human fledgling who had turned astray.

Igetheyr shifted his eyes toward the child, expressionless until he chose to speak. E’Kahlyn shot her mind-voice in a direct, shielded stream to the child, hoping to reach it before Igetheyr did. ‘Have you heard our discussion?’

A light, purple-gray blotch found its way slowly to her mind with the feeble words, ‘I did.’

‘Then go to him, young one.’

The child slid to the ground, gazing at the drackan with pleading eyes. E’Kahlyn nudged her forward with her snout. The child stumbled toward Igetheyr’s great figure and placed her hands behind her back. Her narrow chest stuck out vulnerably, head held high, and she met eyes with the black drackan. Fear did not exist in the child, as if it never had. She was part of the new world around her now and still so disconnected. 

Igetheyr snorted, seemingly entrapped by her boldness. E’Kahlyn opened her mind to just the two of them, eagerly awaiting the important exchange, the final word.

‘Who are you?’  

The child paused. ‘I don’t know.’

Igetheyr tilted his head with a brief flash of amusement. Then his eyes flicked towards E’Kahlyn, gleaming beneath the glistening black ridges. 

From a distance, the drackan might have been mistaken for a hulk of the black volcanic cliffs, his scales shimmering just so in the sun. His tail ended in the rare arrow-shaped point, and he moved this powerful weapon from side to side. Then he shot a stream of barrier-blocked thought directly for E’Kahlyn. 

‘A female, E’Kahlyn? This shall be interesting.’

The red drackan couldn’t tell if he meant it as reproach or jest, and she kept her silence. In some small part of her, she had hoped Igetheyr would not notice the fledgling’s sex, though he couldn’t possibly have overlooked it. He might have thought she had chosen a female on purpose, but she would not correct him. 

‘Do you know any of this, of where you are?’

The child’s answer showed strange courage, so sure in its lack of knowledge. ‘Not exactly, except that this is where I belong, and you are something very powerful.’

Igetheyr rumbled warmly in his throat. ‘Neither are you one to be trifled with, I think. While I do not see you fully, I give you my approval.’ The drackan bowed his head, leaving the child standing alone—a glowing, softened presence among cold stone and hardened scales. When he straightened, their gazes locked sharply, and the fledgling swayed.

E’Kahlyn tried to listen to the ensuing conversation, but Igetheyr had unexpectedly put up an unbreakable wall. She could only wait for the private discussion to end. As powerful as she was, she could do nothing. 

The fledgling opened her eyes wide, and Igetheyr blinked a hard, shocked blink that completely tore at his composure. His mind sent a cracking boom echoing out through every drackan’s mind, ringing inside E’Kahlyn’s own until she thought her head would burst. She heard howls of pain and startled growls from those weaker drackans, and she reeled back herself, trying to right her mind. The blast was the internal equivalent of roaring in surprise—of calling out. But vocal shock could be suppressed. A mental burst could not. What had the child said to him?

The spasm of emotion took only a few seconds to subside, and then Igetheyr walked toward E’Kahlyn, leaving the child standing alone and naked in the cold wind. 

E’Kahlyn pulled her head together as he drew nearer, standing as tall as she could. Not quite ready but not quite broken. The black drackan’s gait slowed, suddenly tired-seeming. His mind had torn a rift in their kind surrounding the lake. He rarely showed himself among them, and today he had extended his power. He had appeared here for a reason, and none of them could ignore that fact.

‘Well done, E’Kahlyn. You have surprised me. Have you a name for this child?’

E’Kahlyn’s pride helped her to find her mind again.

‘Yes. I have. She is called Keelin.’

CHAPTER 2

The breeze blowing across the water called for Keelin to come back. It swirled around her dark head, pulling it toward the lake, and her eyes fluttered open from the resting blackness. Crouching on her heels, she lifted her head and gazed at the Great Lake mirroring the dazzle of the stars. The world remained dark to her, but no longer as the dead, helpless dark from which she awoke. A single tear slipped down her cheek—a tear of anger from the depths of her curse, the secret of her life.

Darkened by night, the lake had always been a silent, secret comfort. The wind died down as though it sensed she were herself again, and the world was calmer, sweeter now that she was no longer a weapon hidden from itself.

Keelin remembered nothing from her stolen hours. Every time, she woke at the Great Lake with the wind calling her back to life and the smell of blood always too real. She barely noticed now when she habitually dipped her hands into the icy water of the bank, rubbing them in mud until they were clean. The moon shone so brightly in its fullness; she gazed up at it with longing. In the light of the moon, she could see everything. She was so tired of the dark.

Her hands were clean now, but that metallic smell lingered. The strange deerskin tunic she’d been given still clung to her body, and she clawed at it in frustration. Dark rings and damp streaks of blood splattered across it, every moment soaking further through to her skin. The terribly unpleasant thought paraded into her mind; there had been more than one this time. What had she done? Her heart beat faster in confused panic, and she splashed her face with the icy water, gasping. She had no control over having killed again or that the memories were hidden from her. The first few times, she had been sick. Now, she only carried a morose, twisted guilt.

It had started so many years ago, when she took an interest in the history of her life. Something had changed in her, and she had given up trying to count. The blackouts never came regularly. It could be three days or three months before it happened again, always catching her off guard. She had been through this enough times to know the smell of blood, to know the number of those who had gone under her unknowing hand. She had been through this enough times to finally keep her insides where they belonged. It no longer brought frightened, silent tears, but the anger never went away. She still felt cheated, robbed of something that should never have been taken.

The silent, almost inaudible flap of wings broke her out of her miserable thoughts. Branches bent and creaked in a rough pine behind her, and she tensed in alarm. Someone was watching her. If she were caught here, now, and wearing these human things...

‘It’s me.’ A soothing blue color filled her mind, etched in a familiar male pattern, and she shook her head.

‘D’ruk, you have to stop surprising me.’ She turned to look into a pair of glowing yellow eyes, catching the moonlight amidst the trees. A shot of bright yellow splashed into her mind. His laughter only fueled her anger. 

‘It keeps you alert. Just be thankful it’s only me tonight.’ 

She turned back toward the Great Lake. ‘I don’t know if I can keep hiding. Someone is bound to find me here, and what am I supposed to say then?’ Another yellow splash filled her mind. ‘Why are you laughing at me?’

‘You underestimate yourself.’

‘But if the others knew what was happening... They’ve always waited for an excuse, anything to prove I don’t belong here. If anyone ever saw this...’ She paused, searching desperately for words. ‘I’m a smear in the mountains. I’m the weakness here and I can’t be discovered. It would only prove them right.’ There was a shifting in the trees, the crunch of hardened earth, and the drackan came to stand by her side.

D’ruk was a small drackan, barely larger than a stallion though he had already reached adulthood. A male hatchling of Igetheyr’s brood should have warranted more respect, but as the runt of Igetheyr’s last clutch with a commonplace female, those customs no longer applied. D’ruk’s uncommonly disappointing size and lack of coloring denied him his birth rites. As the only white drackan in memory, D’ruk had become another shunned soul among the ruling majority. But he was drackan through-and-through, and Keelin was not.

In daylight, D’ruk’s scales reflected the color of dirty limestone, but in the moonlight he shone a pale silver. His eyes caught the light and sparkled, and he sent her firm reds and oranges. 

‘You know you’re not weak.’

She looked him over and swallowed hard, wishing the comfort of her friend could, in fact, override her fears. ‘You know what I mean. If it were up to them, I’d be gone. I can’t change that.’

‘You have every right to be here,’ the white drackan sent.

She forced her mind to remain silent, and D’ruk’s eyes shifted to the deerskin tunic and trousers she wore.

‘Are you going to take those off?’

She touched the fabric in disdain, once more reminded of the darkness. ‘Yes.’ She quickly stripped and sat back, naked against the night. The clothing lay in a pile at her feet, and she took a deep breath.

‘That’s better.’ The drackan sat on his haunches. ‘I don’t know why you wear those things. You should have never touched them. You should have left the human when you could.’

‘Well I can’t wear them now,’ Keelin sent. Another wave of nausea crept upwards, and she steeled herself.

D’ruk sent her understanding and comfort. ‘Are you all right?’

She looked up at him with hardened eyes, not wanting to materialize the truth with open thought.

D’ruk moved closer, bending his large face down to hers. ‘Was it any different than the others?’

‘No. After all this time, I still don’t know what it is. I don’t think I know how to deal with that anymore, either.’ 

The drackan sniffed the air carefully and eyed the pile of clothes. ‘You’ve had these human things for three days and you can’t stand the blood?’ His colors carried bitter tones. 

‘D’ruk, I killed again tonight. I don’t know who, or what, or even where I went. I never know what’s left behind when I’m gone.’

‘They’re just humans, Keelin. Our world would be a better place if they were all removed. I’m glad you’re adding to that effect.’ He grunted.

‘I know,’ she replied, wishing he could give her new information. The growing fear made her pause. ‘I can’t stop thinking about the human we found, and I’m afraid someone here will find those memories. The others would hunt me down amongst the humans, or if they find out about the blackouts...’ D’ruk snorted at her. ‘I should hate being in the human world. I know I should. But I don’t.’ She paused, swallowing hard.

D’ruk growled from deep inside his belly. ‘There is no wrong you could do. The humans never matter. They are a plague, superior only in their numbers. They have nothing in this world against us.’ His anger pushed out in waves. ‘If you feel like more human discovery will help you, then do what you must. But I tell you now, you will find an empty cause and lose interest all too quickly.’

‘If the humans find out about my blackouts, there will be no discovery. They would rather hunt me, too.’

‘If they could find you,’ the drackan interrupted. ‘You haven’t been caught, not even by the drackans who think they see all. Humans would never find you. Your instincts are there for a reason.’

‘Have you felt anyone watching me?’

‘No.’ 

That was all she needed to hear. The other drackans disregarded her, yes. They shunned her, pushed her away, did not care about the trouble Keelin found. But if they had not accepted her in some small way already, she would have been killed years ago. Somehow, she had been given the chance to grow, to know the forests and the hills like her own thoughts. She would live out her life here, among her own kind, and that knowledge alone made her stay.

D’ruk shared her displacement, knew the pains of being terribly different. Neither one of them had control of their fate in the High Hills, and that had been their bond. They had been friends for such a very long time.

‘Why did you wear those human things for so long?’ D’ruk asked. He snarled at her when she took too long to answer.

‘I wanted to know why they did it,’ she snarled back.

‘Was it worth it, then?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Then you’ll never have to wear them again,’ he sent in satisfaction, resting his head between his forepaws.

‘Well, no. But when I go back to the human place...’

‘I’m not going back there with you. There’s nothing about it I’d care to see a second time. And I don’t like how difficult it is to send to you by the East Cliffs.’

She thought she saw a bright, quick flash of orange concern from his mind, but he covered it up quickly. ‘It couldn’t hurt for me to go back...’

‘I thought you didn’t want to go back.’