Page 41 of Taking Jenny (Planet Orhon #4)

Jenny

M y body held still, taut with fear. A bead of sweat slid down my spine, but I didn’t dare move. Not with those eyes on me.

I’d heard footsteps in the forest. Casual at first, unhurried. Then they stopped. A few heartbeats later they resumed, quieter. Trying to sneak up on me.

I crouched down, pretending to tie my boot. My staff was on the ground in front of me. Every muscle in my body was ready to strike. I had to let them get close since I’d only get one shot at this.

My right ear perked as they began to circle me in that direction. Two heartbeats and I would grab my staff and smash it into their face. One, two —

I grabbed my staff and thrust it blindly at my enemy. Not a Ladrian. A bird. The gray creature startled and darted off in a flash, faster than I could swing.

My legs wobbled as adrenaline leaked out of me.

Relief hit me so hard I nearly dropped the staff.

Thank the stars I’d missed. I would have hated myself for killing a forest creature.

Even a bird as large and strange looking as that one.

It looked as though it didn’t have eyes, but I had seen it for less than a few seconds, so I wasn’t sure.

I exhaled, letting the tension seep from my muscles.

“There you are.”

I jumped at the sound of another voice. My staff swung reflexively and struck another stick— his . The force of the hit jolted up my arms, and there he was, that asshole from the ball. Pleon, grinning like a cartoon villain.

“I bet you wish Craven would have let me hit you last night,” he sneered. “I’ll have to thank him for stopping me so I could have this opportunity to kill you.”

He lunged, swinging his staff at me. I ducked his first blow and slammed the end of my staff into his jaw, then smacked it across his throat. He coughed and shook his head as though it rang.

I moved to strike again, but he recovered fast. His staff struck the side of my knee, buckling it. I fell to the ground and tried to scramble backwards away from him.

He laughed, kicking my staff out of my reach. “It’s going to be so satisfying to watch your sister’s face when I tell her what I did to you. Do you know what kind of power it is, to kill a queen’s sister?”

Just like last night, I feigned ignorance. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, eyeing my leather bag, which lay on the ground nearby.

He stalked me, which gave me the opportunity to shift closer to my bag.

“I’m getting hard just thinking about it,” he said, his eyes nearly black with his glee.

“I will strangle you, slowly, like I promised. And for my trophy, I’ll take your tongue.

I may have it gilded. It will go with my collection of the other two avatar tongues I’ve won. ”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Oh my god, are you going to strangle me or bore me to death?”

He arched a brow. “No attempt to talk me out of it?”

I jutted my chin out mutinously. “Why? You’re pathetic and you will die pathetically, Pleon. No matter how many women you strangle between now and—”

He leapt onto me, straddling my waist. His knees crushed into my sides as his hands closed around my throat with terrifying precision, leaving no doubt in my mind that he’d done this before.

He snarled, mouth twisted, eyes glittering with bloodlust.

My airway started to collapse, so I took the only shot I had.

My left hand reached around his leg and into my bag, scooping up the liquid in there.

Still struggling to breathe, I threw a handful of the poison water into his eyes, then squeezed my own shut as tight as I could so it didn’t harm me, too.

He screamed, a sound of raw agony as the poison scorched his eyes.

He recoiled, his hands leaving my neck to press against his face.

I shoved him off me and climbed to my feet, heart racing as I stood over his yowling, writhing body.

Panic surged through me. All that shrieking is going to attract the rest of the hunters and then I’ll be dead for sure.

Stomach roiling, I did what I had to do to survive. I picked up a heavy, jagged rock and bashed him in the side of his head. Again. And again. And again. Until he finally stopped screaming. Until he stopped moving.

Until his blood clung to my hand, my arm, my clothes. I dropped the rock, panting. My entire body shook.

I checked his pulse and found nothing. But I also didn’t know where a Ladrian pulse was the most accurate. Tentatively, I put my ear to his chest. I had to know that he wasn’t coming after me again.

No heartbeat. No breath sounds. Nothing.

I waited for the guilt to crush me. It didn’t come. I only felt relief, because Pleon was the worst sort of man. Had I not killed him, he would have killed me.

I gathered my things and kept climbing up the trail, on and on. I prayed some beast would find his corpse, instead of following the scent of his blood on my clothes.

As the distance passed by, the adrenaline rush and fight left me weak with hunger.

No supply drops in sight. No water to drink.

I had eaten the fruit I had found a while ago.

Strange that there had been a supply drop with both poison and safe fruit at it, but Ladrians clearly had a twisted sense of challenge.

I was just grateful that Discord had shown me the lip trick to figure out poison and allergies.

An hour or more later, I was shaking from lack of food. When I saw movement ahead, I cursed my luck. Another fucking hunter. Has to be .

I hunkered down and hid behind a tree to let them pass me by. But as the person came closer, I realized that I could see through them.

Fuck me, it’s a ghost .

I wasn’t sure if ghosts were friendly on Orhon or not. The ones I had met on Halla were a mixed bag.

She was a Ladrian girl, younger than most I had met. Pretty, too. Tan skin, black hair, brown eyes. She wore a strange dress, not like any I had seen before. Her hair was styled into thin braids down her back. She wandered through the forest, smiling at the occasional flower she came across.

I was tempted to try to speak to her, but I didn’t know if she would rat me out to the hunters somehow.

She strolled past me, and I relaxed. But suddenly, she was in my face.

“You poor thing,” she muttered, a pained look in her eyes.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

She gasped, her eyes widening. “You can—can you see me?”

I swallowed hard and nodded.

Her hands flew to her mouth in shock. “You’re a human conduit?”

“Maybe,” I said warily. “I don’t know.”

“Moons above!” She clasped her hands together in excitement. I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. “You’re my avatar this year, aren’t you?”

“ Your avatar?” Shock rippled through me. “You’re…Illiamor?”

She nodded. “Yes, I am.”

Goosebumps spread down my arms. “You’re a legend.”

She rolled her eyes. “And they honor my legend by forcing another woman to go through what I went through. It’s despicable. Tell me you did not volunteer to—”

I shook my head. “Definitely didn’t.”

“I watch them every year. All the avatars.” She frowned, compassion in her eyes. “I worry about their sanity.”

Staring at Illiamor’s ghost, I was so confused. “Why are you here and not on Halla so you can be reborn?”

Sadness flickered across her face. “Because my body never left Orhon.”

My hand went to my heart as realization struck. “All the avatars…they’re trapped here on Orhon, aren’t they?”

She gave a slow, tragic nod. “Never to go to Halla. Never to be reborn. Trapped here for eternity.”

I took a breath for all the women who could not. “Okay. One tragedy at a time. Do you have any tips or—?”

“Come with me.”

Illiamor did not have to worry about bushes or logs in her path. She could flow right through them so following her was complicated. But she led me to a clearing that had a jug of water and a platter of four different foods on it that I didn’t recognize.

“Eat your fill,” she told me. “I will keep watch.”

I eyed the items skeptically. “You’re sure it’s safe?”

“I watched the man and woman in uniforms put this together for you. They did not add anything. I believe it is as safe as it can be.”

I did the lip test Discord had shown me, and after a minute, there was no tingling or burning.

No reaction at all. I couldn’t hold back any longer and tried a bite.

Whatever it was, I loved it. I ate half the platter and drank most of the water.

I was tempted to dump the rest of the poison water and fill my bag with fresh but didn’t want to worry that I hadn’t rinsed the poison out enough.

I could not believe my luck in finding Illiamor.

Sure, she couldn’t fight, but at least she could be a lookout.

When I had finished, I found her again. “Thank you for this.”

Illiamor gave a slow, graceful nod. “My pleasure. Ahead on the trail, the path diverges left and right. If you go left, you’ll find a river where you can wash off all that blood, so you don’t attract the drecks. I will keep watch for you while you do.”

“What can I do for you?” I asked, wanting to repay her kindness.

“Win.” A smile touched her lips. “And perhaps a visit now and then.”

My throat grew tight. “If I win, you’re definitely getting visits.”

We took the left fork and sure enough, the river was there.

After washing my hands, and what I could from my clothes, of Pleon’s blood in the cool water, I needed more.

I felt gross, and since I had a lookout, I stripped down, tucking my clothes and other items beneath a log, and went into the water.

It was almost too cold, but at the moment, that was exactly what I needed to feel clean again.

Like a chilly baptism to wash my dirt and grime away.

Under the water, small fish swam by with the current. The river walls were smoothed rock. I popped back up for a breath, then back down into a world of quiet and calm, where I wished I could stay. When I went up for another breath, a hand pushed me down.