My Wild Beast

"The path to Tayun’s favour is not walked without pain," Yoa added with a chuckle. "If it were, Tayun or the Kairan, wouldn’t bother setting the trials at all."

Nova’s lips remained parted in quiet shock. She had hung on every word, gasping when he made her believe his parents had left him, proof enough of the storyteller he was. She’d smacked his chest lightly when he told her his parents embraced him after his return.

"But you thought you’d been abandoned! Surely, they could have told you. You’d still be left in the jungle to survived..." She trailed off, grimacing at how bad that still sounded. She couldn’t imagine the pain he must have gone through, wondering if he’d been abandoned or if something happened to his parents.

Yoa shrugged, carefree, like he held no resentment about it.

"What about the other... candidates?" Nova asked, her brows furrowed. "Did they go through the same trial?"

Yoa nodded. "One failed."

Nova stared up at him, waiting for more. The longer he stayed silent, the more she realised how deadly these trials were. She needed to hear him say it. "What do you mean by failed?"

Yoa touched her jaw, his thumb brushing gently along her cheek. He could see Nova already knew the answer but fought against what her intuition told her, unwilling to accept the truth. She was so wonderfully innocent in that way.

"The capuchin didn’t survive. She wandered too close to Soluma and was taken by an anaconda."

Nova gasped. It shouldn’t have surprised her. This was the wild, after all, but her heart clenched. That poor little monkey had probably thought she was abandoned right before being eaten.

"Were all the trials that cruel?" She whispered. "That poor baby thought she’d been left behind."