Season of Sacrifice (Blood of Azure Book 1) Jonathan Michael (red novels .txt) 📖

me a furious shove. “What gives you the right to talk about my parents? You know nothing about them!” Her voice is loud enough to draw attention from the crowd.

I look around, and no eyes have concentrated on her yet.

“What? Are you an orphan? Is that where your bratty nature comes from?” I respond with an immature retaliation of my own. It’s comical how easy it is to let your own behavior mimic those around you. You interact with a young child, and you’re likely to throw a tantrum; you interact with the elderly, and somehow, their wisdom contagiously spreads into your own thoughts; you interact with an idiot, and you find yourself laughing hysterically at the most mundane pranks as if you’ve lowered your expectations. “You haven’t had an easy life, so you take it out on all those around you? I’m right. Am I not?”

Her expression morphs into something demon-like, and I fear she’ll strike at me with an intent to murder. Instead, that anger dematerializes, and her eyes pool with tears that refuse to break over the rim. The dam cracks. Then, she vanishes through the crowd into the low-lit treetops.

The guilt I feel is overwhelming, so I chase after her. “Wait!” I yell with a feeble hope she might turn around and talk to me. She continues running. Helios, alerted by my raised voice, rises as fast as the labored cat can and tails me while I pace after the girl.

I suppose now any onlookers are going to have an offset opinion about me too, if they didn’t already. A drifter whom they barely know is chasing after a young girl in tears with a dangerous wildcat in tow. Someone is likely to chase me down and cut my throat. I press on anyways.

The girl is surefooted and experienced at careening through the maze of organic bridges. She prances from bridge to bridge flawlessly, knowing exactly where to place her feet, whereas I feel like a gorilla chasing after a fawn. It’s a good thing all the villagers are at the celebration and aren’t crowding the catwalks.

She leaps off one of the bridges about a hundred paces ahead of me and floats through the air on a device hanging from above. She glides through the air twice as fast and lands on a platform nearly two hundred paces away. She looks back, and I expect to see anger and tears, but she smiles as if this is a game. She then turns and keeps going.

Just then, distracted by her boldness, I stumble on the tiniest of sprouts and nearly spill over the edge, which undoubtedly would leave me broken and stuck here for some time. I can’t have that. I need to stay focused and remember why I’m here. Chasing after this girl isn’t worth it.

Helios trots up to me and nudges me with one of his roaring purrs. He thinks this a game too. I shove him away and get back to my feet, but she is nowhere to be seen. Helios nudges my hand to get some attention, so I give him a generous scratch behind the ears.

After roaming the web of bridges for a brief time, I decide to head back to the gathering. This is a waste of my time. I don’t know why I am so keen on apologizing to the girl anyways. She is the one who was rude to me from the beginning.

Without warning, an arrow flies over my shoulder and sticks the tree in front of me. I crouch low and scan for the source but see nothing. The dimly lit bridges don’t provide enough light, and the archer is likely higher up in the shadows, judging by the angle of the arrow. There’s a piece of parchment pinned to it. My head tells me I’m in harm’s way and should flee, but my instincts know she’s taunting. I rip the parchment from the tree. It simply reads, Slow poke. Am I girly enough for you now? First, she accuses me of being a perverted predator. Then shames me by falsely crying and running off. And now she taunts me. A very bold girl indeed.

“Alright, game’s over,” I yell toward the treetops. She drops down from some type of automated ladder.

“What’s the matter? You can’t keep up with a little girl?” she taunts.

“I have a hunch you don’t see yourself as a little girl. With a shot like that, you’re more of a predator than Helios is.” I gesture to the tiger and rough up his mane a bit.

“Nice tiger. I’m good with a bow. I’ll admit it.”

“And what else will you admit? Why did you run off like you were crying? Your actions could get me killed by one of your overseers.”

“Overseers? Nah. Whatever an overseer is, they knew you were only a victim of my mischief.”

The audacity of this young girl makes me want to backhand her, but at the same time, it’s too familiar. It is exactly how Jaymes would have treated me. I find it strangely comforting.

“Even your parents? What if they saw me chasing after you? They wouldn’t come to defend you?”

“No.” Her shoulders shrug, and her spunk fades.

So, there is a story with her parents, and she’s using this game as a defense mechanism to hide her insecurities.

“I’m sorry,” I reply. “Both of them?” I don’t fully insinuate I’m referring to her parents being deceased, but I know she’ll understand. It’s hard to hear it sometimes, even if it happened ages ago, and I don’t want to cause her any more pain than she already has.

“Yes. It was an accident. That’s what the elders tell me, but I know there was something more. There was no reason for them to both be on that cliff and to have both ‘accidentally’ died while they were up there. I don’t want