A glade of lilac florals and lavender toadstools spreads before her, the area encased in willow drapes and canopied by climbable offshoots. A brook carves through the soil, water bubbling over stones and feeding blackberry shrubs.
Whenever not perched on the hyacinth hill, she’d made bookish camps here, as an archeress-in-training. Life was simple then, though not nearly as rich.
Wonder sets her eyes on a knot in one of the tree trunks. It’s hardly a challenge, especially from so few paces away, but she’s not in the mood to be picky. Nocking her bow, she cranks her arm and lets a quartz arrow fly. The tip slams into the bark and vanishes in a splash of light, the weapon reappearing in her quiver.
After a few rounds, she feels secure and isolated enough to challenge herself. She spins and shoots, targeting the same spot while in motion. The dragonflies play along, offering themselves as kinetic hindrances, cavorting around her in an attempt to thwart her aim. Laughing, she whirls among them while striking her mark.
She looses a final arrow. It whistles, slicing the air.
The sound doubles just as another projectile shears past her, torqueing from behind. It punctures the willow, landing beside her arrow to the very second.
Wonder has enough time to register the turkey fletching as it vanishes. Whipping around, she aims her bow at the dark figure slouched against a willow’s column. A nebula of golden hair caps his murky silhouette as he taps the swan’s neck of a longbow against his hip.
Fates. If his relaxed posture after taking that shot is any indication, he moves with stealth.
She has often admired that choice of hickory for his weapons. The rustic appearance is modest, a deceptive contrast to its power.
The demon god watches her. There’s something compelling about the obscurity of his features, screened off despite the break of morning. Against her better judgment, this encounter reminds her of fairytale scenes between a heroine and a villain, that first inciting incident when they meet. The prospect sends a tingle through her navel.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“Staring at you,” he murmurs. “Call me a voyeur, but it’s becoming a hobby. I watched you party with the dragonflies on the night we got here.”
“You were following me?” She plants her fists on her hips. “You rascal. Why didn’t you announce yourself? What were you waiting for? A smoke signal? For all I knew, you’d landed in enemy hands, on the other side of the dale.”
“Having dropped into Joy’s bed, maybe?”
Wonder goes rigid. She’d had that exact thought upon their arrival. “Are you clairvoyant?”
“If I were, you’d know it. I’d give you so much shit for everything flitting through your perky skull.”
“You could have misdirected yourself.”
“Christ. We’d been in the Peaks for only a hot minute, and that’s all the credit you gave me? I enjoyed spying on your dragonfly disco, like I enjoyed you bathing in the courtyard, like I enjoyed you shooting a moment ago.”
“I thought you didn’t watch me in the pool.”
“I didn’t. And I did. Take your pick.”
“Hunting for my weaknesses?”
“Confirming your strengths—and the span of your hips.” He traces her curves with the tip of his bow, moving it like a drawing pencil. “I like your hips.”
She nocks her weapon. “Do you like your scalp right where it is?”
A smirk leaks from his voice. “Aim south. I dare you.”
“I’d rather aim for that husk you call a brain. It matters more to you.”
“More than my cock? Maybe true. Possibly true. Likewise, I’d say you value your own brain more than your target skills. On the other hand, both are equally impressive.”
“Was that a compliment?” Truly, the statement surprises Wonder, especially when it curls like a tease, on the precipice of a chuckle. She rectifies the situation by clearing her throat and gesturing to his weapon. “Why wood archery?”
Malice sets his longbow against the tree and stalks toward her, the hydrangea of dawn slashing across his countenance. “Because it burns,” he says. “Why quartz?”
“Because it doesn’t,” she replies.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he sings, halting an inch from her. “Heat resistant, it might be, but everything has its limits.”
“Because it heals.”
Her amendment crinkles his brow. He glances past her, reflectively. “That must be nice.”
Wonder dodges him, slipping around his body. Divesting herself of weaponry, she sets it beside his own and scales the nearest tree. Elevated a few yards above him, she hooks her limbs over a branch and hangs upside down, her hair unraveling like a banner.
She cannot say why she has always fancied this position. Perhaps viewing the world from an inverted angle makes addressing serious topics bearable.
Amusement springs across Malice’s face. It turns out, he’s a good climber, settling on the branch below her, where he reclines against the trunk. He sprawls one leg along the bark and bends the other.
They study one another, until Wonder says, “I can see up your nostrils, dearest.”
“So immature," he observes. “You should be more worried that I can see up your shirt.”
Her thighs stiffen over the offshoot, then go limp as she reminds herself the blouse is tucked into the pants. “You shall never get that lucky.”
“Let’s say your honesty this morning won me over. Ask me what you’re dying to know. You only get one question, so make it a good one. Choose your ‘What the fuck’ carefully.”
“Also, I have never had the misfortune to know someone this condescending.”
“Why, thank you.”
What are your nightmares about? Who do they feature? How much does this legend mean to you?
“Does it hurt?” Wonder asks. “Does it hurt when you scream?”
Malice startles. “Not what I expected.”
Neither had she. The tint of morning trickles through the foliage, freckling the grass.
His jaw flexes. “You shouldn’t have barged in.”
“Let me guess. Your malevolent ego doesn’t want anyone seeing you like that.”
“I don’t want a certain floral goddess seeing me like that.”
“Because you have a menacing reputation to uphold? Because witnessing your vulnerable side gives me the upper hand? I’m not interested in either, Demon.”
“Yep, it’s inconvenient for my reputation, but that’s not why I’m peeved. I have claws, and you have enough scars. Get my drift, Wildflower?”
Shock lances through her. Deities detect emotions in humans through sensory signals—taste, touch, sight, smell, and sound—but not in each other. Be that as it may, she feels the muslin texture of vulnerability, hears the brass clang of bafflement, and tastes the honeysuckle extract of caring. During his unconscious ravings the previous night, he could have inadvertently flayed her skin or crushed a bone. He could have taken her by surprise and made her bleed.
“My turn,” he says, inclining his chin toward her scarred wrists. “If we’re getting real, then let’s get real: Did those hurt?”
Wonder swallows. If she wants him to open up, she must as well. “Growing up in the Peaks, did you hear rumors about me?”