Maps were a brilliant idea. Even if someone were illiterate, they could follow a map. Provided someone circled the destination in thick red ink like Vadim had done. But still Melusine struggled with some parts of cartographic navigation.
"Follow the road due south-west—no, east—damn it. Damn the king, damn that elf."
Melusine had made the two day journey with little sleep or rest. She'd had no appetite, but was forcing herself to scarf down some jerky and cheese as she studied the map spread out over Wolf's shoulders.
"Which squiggle is east, and which is west?" She poked at the compass in the corner with a claw, and cursed when it pierced right through the parchment. "If that dragon doesn't give me some answers next new moon, I'll lose my mind."
"She's already lost her mind by riding through here," a voice that was not Melusine's whispered from the treetops. Her and Wolf's ears pricked from the twang of bowstrings being drawn. Melusine counted six, grabbed the reins, and turned Wolf sharply across the road. The map fluttered to the ground of the overgrown trail, where it was trampled on under her horse's hooves. Wolf lifted his front hooves a few inches off the ground, startled by the two arrows that plunged into the ground nearby.
"Hold on—shit!" Another arrow was loosed, caught in Melusine's grasp. She stared in shock at the arrowhead centimeters from her eye socket. "Okay, I'm in the right forest. Yah!"
Melusine snapped the arrow in half and tossed it. She flicked the reins and clicked her heels, breaking into a gallop down the road. Arrows whizzing past her, she weaved Wolf side-to-side. Sadly, her evasive maneuvers proved to be inadequate. One arrow managed to hit its target, imbedding into her shoulder, and another nicked Wolf's hindquarters. The combination of Melusine leaning forward with a cry of pain and Wolf bucking sent her tumbling over her horse's head. She rolled into some bushes while Wolf galloped away down the road.
Melusine scrambled further into the brush, crawling on her hands and knees. When the arrow stuck in her shoulder caught on a branch, Melusine winced and grunted. She pressed half her back against the trunk of a tree, hidden away behind a thorny raspberry bush. Melusine reached behind herself, fingers squelching with blood when she pressed them around the wound. Fire coursed up and down her arm, her nerves firing off warning signals that she couldn't ignore.
"If you think we can't find you in our own forest, you're dead wrong, human." It was that same voice Melusine had heard in the treetops, now a loud, mocking sneer. Female, malicious, archer, danger, kill—Melusine breathed out and glanced down at the ring on her middle finger. Again, the bit of dragon in her was rearing its savage head. It ignored all reason and diplomacy, which was what she really needed, damn it.
"Listen," Mel called out, leaning her head back against the tree trunk. "You really don't want to make me desperate. I'm just a visitor. I need help!"
"You came to the wrong place then. There's no help for you here, and we don't take visitors."
All six of Melusine's attackers notched arrows. Two left, two right, two front—she was surrounded. Her blood coated fingers twitched towards her malachite ring.
"You probably hear this a lot, but I don't want to fight you."
"You're right, we do. It's been a lie often enough that we don't take chances anymore. Haven't for a long time—and hoped people would get the message."
One of the bows in the center loosed its arrow first, quickly followed by the others. Melusine ducked and rolled through the raspberry bush, the thorns leaving behind angry red scratches and sanguine seeping cuts.
She reached for Spider, but her grasp closed around air. Cursing under her breath, Melusine slammed her hand against the soft, mulchy soil. Her sword was still strapped to Wolf's saddle. Again, she glanced down at the release of her only other weapon.
Melusine lifted her head, getting her first good look at her attackers. Four females, two males, all clearly elves with pointed ears, green tinted skin, and angular features. They wore their hair up in multiple thin braids decorated with beads and tied back in long ponytails. Their clothing and armor were lightweight, dyed greens or left a natural brown.
The apparent leader was the oldest, a female elf with a strong, muscled body and plenty of scars. Her features were stern and pointed, a ruthless glint in her coco brown eyes. Her hair was shorter than the others, and the color of hazelnut paste.
At least the retrieval of one weapon would no longer run the risk of knocking her clean off her feet. She tugged her ring from her finger.
Agony tore through her tendons like a red hot knife, putting into focus how the ease of the transformation would only occur on the full moon. Her fingers tensed and twitched by her sides, dropping the ring onto the ground. Melusine lowered her head and bit down on her inner cheek, letting the blood pooling in her mouth dribble down her elongating tongue.
"You're cursed to turn into a monster, are you?" The leader of the elven guard lowered her weapon and approached Melusine. The quiet crunching of her sandaled feet were accompanied by the grinding of a blade being drawn.
Melusine was hoisted up into the air by her neck while she was still weak from pain. The sharp point of a dagger was pressed to her stomach. "I'll make it quick then."
The red-eyed girl stared into the elf's eyes, and let out a labored laugh.
"Spider, come," she ordered, placing her hand over that scarred elven face. Her longsword came flying right for her hand, only for the butt of the blade to ram into the back of her opponent's head and get smacked away as she was dropped to the ground. Melusine was a little jealous that the older female was able to withstand the impact, merely lowering her head with wide-eyed shock.
Melusine hissed, tongue dripping with blood and flicking about. Fear, anger, sweet nectar of a broken pride. Further, further, taste more. Scaling up a tree like a gravity defying lizard, Melusine the Dragon's Proxy tasted the air, picking up scents of salty sweat and floral elven breath to the east, bearing south.
Melusine tilted her head, dodging an arrow that whizzed past, nicking the shell of her ear. She let out a piercing shriek, and leapt from the treetops. She descended down on top of the equally enraged squad leader, who blocked Melusine's sharp swipe with the flat of her dagger. Melusine's feet pressed on top of the leader's stomach, squatting on top of her as she clawed at her face and hands, leaving behind deep gashes that would add to the elf's scars.
The arrow still lodged in her shoulder tore at the flesh inside the more she moved her arm, pain shooting up and down from her fingertips. Melusine only grew even more incensed, which fueled the vigor with which she hacked upon the elven leader. She was pushed and headbutted, but she remained as immovable as stone. The leader shouted something, but Melusine couldn't hear her over the sound of her own blood rushing through her veins.
Her back and sides were pelted with more arrows, a stinging in her wounds and an inferno under her skin, but she was too focused on the kill now. Arrows stuck in her arms, sides, and back. She flipped up into the air and landed behind one of the male elves.
Melusine's teeth sunk into the elf's neck, his sanguine fluids tasting sweet to her forked tongue as it gushed out around her fangs. It was like the poisonous nectar of fire lilies, Melusine knowing what the taste was despite never in her life having sucked on plucked flower blooms. She bit down harder and dragged the male elf up into a tree.
In one last ditch effort, the squadron leader fired another arrow at Melusine's leg. With a spittle flinging roar, Melusine dropped her prey to the soft ground and crawled along the lowest tree branch. She paced on all fours, her glowing red eyes never leaving the older elf. In return, the leader kept her focus on Melusine while her squad members dragged Melusine's released prey to safety.
Melusine tilted her head to the left like it was on a swivel, her throat clicking. Just before she spit out fire, her muscles seized, and she fell out of the tree and to the ground.
"Finally," one of the elven females muttered, wiping sweat from her forehead. "I thought the paralysis would never set in."
"I guess we have no choice but to take this one to the Prince's camp," Melusine heard the leader say before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she lost consciousness.
Melusine woke in a hound cage made from solid steel. She poked her short snout between the bars, cheek pressed up against the cage. She was trapped in the middle of an otherwise empty circular room. No, it was a tent—the walls were gently fluttering in the breeze outside, waves and dents in the tarp ebbing and flowing. The air smelled stronger of elves, honey and herbs mixed with sugar water.
Just when Melusine had leaned back and gripped onto the bars to rip them out, someone entered the tent, pushing the flap aside and letting it fall behind them. Her tongue flickered out like a candle flame buoyed by the breeze. Male, healthy, the breeze of the sea—familiar. It was the charmer, the prince of elves—caution, danger—safe.
Already his strange magic was at work on her perception of reality. Melusine needed to shake it off. Her first attempt was to literally shake it off like a dog shivering water out of its soaked through fur.
"Glad to see that you're awake," Arn greeted. He knelt down next to the cage and placed a basket full of bandages and ointments on the floor. "A female doctor patched your wounds up, but since you were due to wake soon, no one was willing to take a chance. Not after the number you did on Vashi." His voice was gentle and quiet, spreading a calm through to her bones like a tepid fever. He pulled a key from around his neck and unlocked her cage. Arn slowly opened the door and slipped his hand in, knuckles curled and palm towards the ground. An invitation to get more of his scent.
The Dragon's Proxy accepted the offer even while what little of Melusine remained aware reviled the idea. She crawled closer, her long tongue flickering against his pale, green-tinted skin. The sea was his strongest scent, the salt of high tide. But underneath was the sweetness of elven honey, the dust of nightshade, and the incense of clover and white sage. It was intoxicating, lulling the Dragon's Proxy further into a calm haze and luring her closer to him.
She crawled out of the cage and into his lap, tasting lavender oils and sugar water on his skin. The elven prince hummed a slow and low tune as she licked his neck. His spindly fingers combed through her wild and knotted hair until she was completely relaxed against his body.
"You're the girl who was with Baugulf Bélanger, aren't you? The way Eas and Vashi described you were nearly identical." Arn held Melusine's scaly face in both hands and tilted her head back so his lilac pigmented eyes could study her snake-like transformation. "Vashi was right, you know. You won't find any help. Not just because you're human underneath all those pretty green scales, but because the antidote you're looking for isn't in the council's possession anymore."
Melusine's fingers twitched in her lap, but she couldn't otherwise move or speak. Not just because she didn't know how to form the sounds with an elongated tongue and a maw full of fangs, but because she couldn't get her body to do more than twitch.
"I'm sorry about this, but you shook off my magic last time, so even I had to take precautions." The nightshade—he'd rubbed sugar water on his skin to get her to ingest it. "Don't be too upset with me. This method causes skin irritation, and it's only a small dose. You won't die."
Melusine cursed at him in her head and hissed. He ignored her and unwrapped the bandages from around her upper torso. Startled and offended, Melusine watched his hands move. The only saving grace was that her mammalian breasts were reduced to pectoral muscles in her transformed state, but it was embarrassing and an afront nonetheless.
"It'll only take a minute. These need to be changed—and look, I need to redo a few stitches. You must've torn them out by moving too fast." Melusine hissed at him again. She managed to yank herself out of his grip and fall backwards, but he caught her around the shoulders and cradled the back of her head in his hand. "Gods above, it's wearing off already? You're something else."
Melusine tried to cuss him out, but it came out as a garbled, hissing mess. Arn hoisted her back into his lap and wrapped an arm around her waist.
"I know, I know... but someone needs to nurse you back to health. My friends wanted to kill you and be done with it. Now hold still, and sit upright, since your jelly legs are gone."
Still feeling the sting of the gashes left behind by the barrage of arrows, Melusine begrudgingly obeyed. Arn kept glancing at her malformed, serpentine face while he changed the bandages wrapped around her shoulders and back.
"We'll release you after Sir Bélanger is dead," he informed her, noticing how her muscles tensed but ignoring it. "Until then, you'll be held here, and I'll be the one treating your wounds."
Melusine wrapped her hands around the elven prince's neck, and pushed him down with a thud. The bandage roll tumbled out of his hand, palm and wrist relaxed on the floor when he caught himself. For the first time, Melusine could see her transformed face, reflected in Arn's calm lilac eyes.
A stout snout, covered entirely in green scales, serpentine red eyes with pitch black sclera, and snarling fangs that were bared down at the fearless prince. A long forked tongue flickered from her lips without her conscious command. The sight was enough to make Melusine recoil back, sitting on the prince's stomach. She covered her face with her trembling claws, a frightened whimper rumbling in her throat.
"First time you're getting a proper glimpse at your true form, or are you scared of turning violent?" Arn asked, staying on his back as he watched her. The elven prince reached up and held the scared proxy's face in his hands. "It's alright, little one," he soothed, his voice sweet and echoing in Melusine's head, "all will be well, I promise."
Melusine tried again to respond, to tell him off, or to demand that he stop touching her, but her slurred, garbled words died on her tongue. Her hands fell limp from her face to her lap.
"None of this is your fault. I'll help you. Truly help you, not just chain you like a battle hound."
The worst part was that when Melusine peered into Arn's eyes, she believed him. But even the beast, tamed parasite that it was, warned her that he too had his own motives. Just like everyone else in this cursed world.
