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‘What was the line again?’ I said, wrapping my fingers around the bunched-up wool. ‘I don’t need a coat …’
‘And even if you did, you’d rather freeze to death than wear mine,’ he finished without missing a beat, laugh lines deepening around his eyes.
I chuckled and draped the piece of clothing around my shoulders – uncomfortably hot in the sunlight, yet I knew I’d be grateful for the warmth as soon as we’d ascended. ‘I’m glad my witty conversation left an impression.’
‘You started leaving an impression the moment I first laid eyes on you,’ he muttered, lifting me into his arms and taking off into the sky.
I wasn’t sure how to reply to that, so I didn’t speak at all – just quickly bunched my hair beneath the collar of the coat as the wind began whipping the unhelpful strands into his face. He gave a low noise of gratefulness, shoulders straining as his wings rapidly carried us higher and the White City shrunk to the size of a painting below us, the earth a patchwork of farmland and battlefields around it.
It looked not nearly as ruined, somehow, with every trampled meadow and blood-soaked field reduced to the equivalent of a brushstroke.
The people of the city would fix it over time, I told myself. Of course they would. And even if they didn’t …
Well, someone else would surely be more qualified to handle that.
We left the island and its people behind within minutes, the rugged hills and the forests sinking away until they were little more than a grey-green line on the horizon. Below us, the azure sea gleamed golden in the light of the sinking sun; now and then, other landmasses slid past, like a life-sized geography test. Alyra soared along, flapping frantically to keep up but showing no signs of exhaustion yet.
None of us made a sound. The world up here, so high and serene, was too blissfully silent to disturb the peace for even a moment. I rested my head against Creon’s shoulder and soaked up the rhythmic, rolling movements of his muscles, watching the archipelago stretch out below us … the same world I’d risked my life for over and over again, and it seemed both more real and strangely dreamlike as we flew across it, all those islands looking as if they might fit in the palm of my hand.
The sun sank to the horizon on our right, its light glinting off the waves below like scattered gold. Creon’s strong arms around me never wavered as the sky transitioned from a vibrant orange to a softer pink and then a deep, brilliant violet; the first stars appeared bright and silvery in the twilight, slowly giving shape to the constellations I knew. And still we flew southward, small and solitary, as the night wrapped itself around us and the moon began its silent ascent into that vast indigo dome.
It was then that the first fire flickered to life beneath us – blazing from the heart of a small coastal town, the surrounding houses visible only by the shine of torches and illuminated windows in the dark.
I gasped.
Far, far away, shreds of howling voices drifted into the night air, the eerie sound breaking hours of silence.
For one moment, I didn’t see, just remembered. The orange glow of fire, burning beneath the uncaring starry sky. The coldnight air biting my face. The stench of burning wood lingering in my nostrils … Not again, nottonight—
‘It’s a bonfire, cactus,’ Creon murmured, arms tightening around me in a moment of wordless comfort. ‘Nothing else is burning.’
The memories stuttered.
And at once, I could see clearly again.
Abonfire– not a blaze of death and destruction. Just that single pyre, built on what must be the town square. Those voices crying out …
Not panic.Celebration.
‘Do they know?’ I whispered breathlessly. ‘Do they know she’s dead?’
‘I’m guessing some alves went around and spread the happy tidings.’ He sounded amused, but there was a layer of emotion beneath – neither sorrow nor joy, but something that lay closer to bittersweet melancholy. ‘Itisthe news of the century, after all.’
A century during which he’d hated every passing hour, surviving by the barest thread of his will – and yethewasn’t there, dancing around the town square, kissing village lasses in shadowy alleys and drinking his way through half a vat of home-brewed beer.
I squeezed his hand.
He squeezed back, no more words needed.
The next bonfire lit up minutes later, a few miles away on the same island. Then a third one, on the horizon to our left, and a fourth and a fifth … More and more of them as darkness fell, until I could tell the outlines of the islands by the dozens,hundredsof flames flickering below, even the smallest hamlets coming together to toast the fall of the empire and the birth of a brand new world. I recognised Ildhelm by its shape, and thesmaller islands around it, the little corner of the archipelago I could have drawn with my eyes shut …
Only Cathra was dark, entirely invisible to the east of Ildhelm’s larger presence. The only island thatwasn’tburning tonight – the bitter irony.
And yet, imagining all those hundreds of thousands of people below, filled with hope and incredulous elation for what may be the first time in their short lives …
It didn’t leave much room for grief.
We flew on. Alyra, whose rapid wingbeats had grown more and more agitated as night fell, finally gave in and curled up on my shoulder, where she promptly fell asleep. Creon still never faltered as we crossed into the southwest segment of the archipelago, leaving the human isles behind, finally, and soaring into the territory of the fae.
