My choice was not lightly made. None of them were. And yet, how had I gotten to this? I had name-gifted a zmeu, but told it to leave. What high ideals I had back then. I have taken another spirit and callously bound it to me. Yes, for survival, and for what I may soon face. Was that immoral, wrong, evil? I ask these questions, but can I face the answer?

  From the journal of Drago? Buh?scu

  The shivering would be the death of Dragos. His trembling hands failed on a patch of slick rock. A moment hung upon unsteady footing.

  The wizard found himself in freefall. Cold fire burst and trilled through his flesh as he watched the cliff face he’d been scaling fall away.

  It felt like flying.

  The rush and thrill were the same. The sudden terror wasn’t. His heart skipped. It beat too fast, so loudly it drowned the rush of the wind in his ears. Terror suspended the moment. Life became a second of held breath, the flap of cloak and snap of hair unbound.

  His eyes went wide. Dragos stared at the receding cliff face, the sickness of what just happened twisting in his gut.

  Black mist appeared and surged down the mountain toward him. Dragos strained to grasp at it, but the shadowed cloud billowed around him, untouchable. At that moment, his stomach growled.

  He would die with hunger cramping his belly. Smashed on rocks. A zmeu laughing over his corpse.

  The cloud whirled around him. His organs shot downwards as something solid wrapped around him. The zmeu’s mighty paws cradled him, and the downward plummet spun. Gravity tore at him, tugging his organs at the sharp bank.

  Dragos sucked in a breath. He grabbed one of Zgavra’s digits and looked up.

  The outline of its jaw jutted forward, its mane rippling in the stinging air—had it always been that big? Dangling from its paws, the mountain swooped closer and then veered away, upwards.

  The broken path below sped past. The zmeu lifted Dragos to the green ledge where a single wooden cabin perched, surrounded by forest. Hardy evergreens enclosed the mountain haven. The little house, nestled safely hidden in the mountainside grove, grew rapidly at their approach.

  Wind bit at his limbs. He’d lost most of the feeling in his feet a while ago. His legs hung like deadweight, swaying as the zmeu closed in on the sloping ledge high on the Spineback.

  A dull warmth grew as he recognized it. The Nursery.

  “Thanks,” Dragos murmured, glancing up at the monster’s chin.

  It didn’t reply. Probably embarrassed that it saved him. He was ashamed that it had to. The relief of not being shattered on the mountainside warred with the rolling disgust from having slipped. But…

  A few hours’ climb had been cut into mere moments from the accident. Considering it that way, Dragos let go of shame and smirked.

  He drew his legs up as the monster swept in to hover just above the ground. Once his feet touched the pine-littered soil, the claws released and the beast unthreaded. Ribbons of blackness spun into its humanoid figure.

  The beast’s chin dipped, hands on its narrow hips as it stared at him with angry orange eyes. “What are you, stupid?”

  “Cold,” Dragos grunted. On unsteady feet, he wobbled past it, toward the cabin. His gaze swept over the well-known house, the warmth of memory surging. It didn’t look the same. Branches littered the wooden shingles, looking the worse for having been left uncared for in the time he’d been gone.

  The picket fence leaned at an angle. The gate latch was undone, just as he’d carelessly left it. There was nothing Unspoken about this place, and yet he felt like he was stepping into a world of restless ghosts.

  He had left the cabin door shut. The top and bottom latched together, sealed as it had been the last time he saw it. Dragos grasped the door handle and lifted the bar that kept it shut, and paused there. Despite the desire to get inside and start a fire, he had slowed to the pace of the mountain itself. The scent of pine edged with mold bloom tingled his nose.

  Memories swelled. Not single ones, but all of them, clamoring for attention and becoming a wash that blended into emotion. The childhood that slipped away from him, the loss.

  The zmeu nudged his shoulder. His box rattled in protest as he glanced back at its impatient face.

  “Go, dullard. What are you waiting for?”

  Right.

  Dragos flipped the latch up and pulled the door open. The dimness within smelled of mildew and settled dust. He slipped in and shut the door after the zmeu crossed the threshold. Darkness enveloped them.

  Zgavra moved toward the fireplace. It coughed and spat—fire burst to life in the hearth. Its stones glowed, and in the dim light, Dragos could see again.

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  The cluster of sleeping boxes where his cohort had slept long ago. A table with long benches and a tall-backed chair at one end waited for a family that would never again appear. The shelves were still stacked with utensils and tools. The box of toys.

  He found himself moving for it, his stride numb until his boots hit the sturdy wooden box. Slowly, as if the lid would fall apart, he slid ragged fingers under it and lifted. He identified the old friends from his childhood. A sling. A ball made of reeds bent into a round shape. Animal skins stuffed and sewn into a parody of their previous lives, glittering quartz eyes peering back at him.

  Dragos lifted a stuffed rabbit out of the box.

  “You know this place?”

  Zgavra’s voice shook him from his daze. He glanced up. The monster’s scales gleamed where it stood by the hearth. Its orange gaze followed him with curiosity.

  “Before we went into the mountain, we lived here. My cohort,” Dragos murmured, running a thumb over one of the rabbit’s gleaming eyes. A smear of blood dirtied it.

  He rubbed the rabbit’s face on his damp robes and looked up. A shiver wracked him, so he drifted over to the fire to sit on the hearthstone, the toy nestled in his lap.

  A nostalgic smile tugged at his lips as he said, “We used to fight over this one.”

  “Who was ‘we’?” The zmeu asked. It wandered to the shelves and plucked at the contents. A heavy pair of shears glinted in the firelight. The beast twirled them, then set them back down and moved on to a stack of unused journals.

  Maybe it was because Zgavra didn’t look his way. Maybe it was that weariness loosened his tongue and let him confide in the only constant friend he'd had in the past years. Maybe it was because they were finally there, and he knew the zmeu wouldn’t disappear with his knowledge.

  “My cohort. All the cohorts. For seven years raised here, then we went into the mountain and studied for seven more. The Solomonari have done this for as long as ?oloman?? existed.”

  “Hm,” it murmured thoughtfully, toying with a stick of charcoal.

  “Mhm,” Dragos murmured. The fire breathed life into his chilled bones. Bit by bit, it eased the ache from the chill wind and wet clothes. He turned his palms to the fire, but kept the rabbit well away from it.

  “You should rest and warm your fragile body. I’ll explore,” Zgavra said, abruptly plunking down a wooden bowl back on the shelf. The monster strode across the creaky floorboards and paused at the door, then turned to look at him.

  Dragos caught the look in its eyes. He couldn’t tell what the gleam in them meant. It dispersed into threads and slithered out through the crack in the door.

  Alone again.

  Except, as he stared at the fire, he realized he wasn’t. The weight of a glass vial rested heavily against his chest. Flicking a look at the door, he considered things.

  He could wait until the zmeu came back.

  Instantly, he disliked the idea. Dragos pulled it out and looked at the fluid within. A desire to see the iele again teased at him. He tugged the cork out.

  A stream of water spewed out, much less violently than before. The iele collected itself much like Zgavra did, congealing into form a few steps from the fireplace.

  Her lips were turned down, hands clasped before her.

  “I would like something to replenish myself,” she said primly, her eyes on the fire like a woman seeing a particularly hated enemy across the room.

  Dragos glanced around and found his water skin. He offered it to her. Just like anyone might, she unstoppered it and took a few sips, then sighed with pleasure.

  “Lovely. Speaking of love…” she said, screwing the cap back in, her lips curving upwards, “I’ve been trying to understand what happened. None of this makes any sense.”

  “What do you mean?” Dragos let his face fall into a visage of innocent ignorance. He was neither, obviously.

  “You are a mortal,” she explained, as if he was stupid as he was pretending, “And I am iele. I shouldn’t feel so fondly toward you, especially not after what you did.”

  “What I did?” Dragos asked, feeling the offense slip through his lips before he could catch it.

  “You forced me into a vial, and then into that horrid box!”

  Dragos stood up. His jaw clenched as he weighed his chances on the truth, or placation. After a moment, he decided he was too sore and too tired to try to soothe her, dangerous or not.

  “You would have killed me.”

  She snorted. Water pooled around her bare feet and cycled back into her figure as her eyes narrowed at him. “So?”

  “That’s what I thought. I’m nothing to you,” he spat. “Just a human. Just a living being. Not worth the breath I use to speak these words.”

  She raised a finger, a hand on her hip, as if she had something to say. But after a pause, she frowned. Instead of wagging her digit his way, she touched her chest. “Why did this part of me hurt when you said that?”

  “That’s where feelings come from.” Dragos frowned at her. Did they not have feelings? She certainly had anger, or at least could feel offense.

  His body wracked with another shiver, and he sat back down again. He leaned against the hearthstone and peered at her from the corner of his eye. The str?luciele was lost in her own self-exploration, patting her chest, where a human heart would be. If she had one.

  Dragos left her to it, and considered how things had gone. Had he had another choice? A deep remorse surged up, and he did what he could to drown it.

  She would have killed him.

  “I should go,” she said hesitantly.

  “Alright,” he said. Maybe it would be that easy. He shifted against the stone and mortar and wished for the ache in his bones to go away.

  Odd, how he felt a little pang, as if her leaving would be some kind of unwanted abandonment. How ridiculous that was.

  The str?luciele took a few steps toward the door and stopped. She looked over her shoulder at him. Translucent teeth bit into her lower lip as she turned and took another step.

  And paused again. From the corner of his eye, Dragos caught how her waters rippled.

  With a sudden violence that sent droplets flying, she faced him and screamed, “What did you do to me?!”

  (zmyeh-oo): shapeshifter dragon

  (YE-leh): nature spirit

  Str?luciele (Struh-loo-che-eleh): Spirit of spring water