Thirty
The haze cleared. I opened my eyes, still on the ground, the battle continuing beyond me. It looked no different than it had when I’d fallen. And what felt like days had taken only the span of a few heartbeats.
I rose to my feet.
The Aetheric practitioner stared at me with wide eyes still tinted with sickly Aether, his brow sweaty and damp. He’d been sweaty in the market, too, when he’d possessed Wren, as if working hard to use his power.
“I knew it,” he said, avarice in his eyes. “You have power, and it will make me even stronger.”
Luna said he was no Luminae, and while he could manipulate Aether, it had a strange color, like Aether spoiled in the process. That same color was in his eyes. And he’d asked if I was using Anima.
I looked at him, and this time I finally saw. He’d meant to ask: Was I using Anima,too?
He was a thief. And there was nothing righteous about what he’d done.
“You kidnapped them,” I said, moving a step closer.
He looked startled. “What?”
“You took Anima. Not just Aether, but Anima. The souls of the departed. You possessed them, used them up. That’s how you pretend to be an Aetheric practitioner.”
“I don’t pretend anything.” He beat a hand against his chest. “I have power.”
I just looked at him. “Not Aetheric power. Not really. You have only the power to take. The power to steal.”
He looked away, as if searching for answers. “The Aetheric owed it to me,” he decided. “I have power, but not enough. I’m owed more.”
“No one owes you anything, and certainly not Anima.” I took a step closer. “They want to go home. I can hear them in the Aether. Let them go, or I’ll take them from you.”
“No. I’ll have them and more. Get her,” he said, teeth bared, and the assassins stopped their fight with the prince and the others, and moved around him to face me.
Yue’s team emerged from the woods. “Let’s not do that,” she said.
“Not advisable,” Red agreed from behind me, swords in both hands.
“Let them go,” I said again.
He looked like he wanted to run, to dart through the woods like he’d done before. But he knew he was surrounded, that his ploy to capture me or the prince had backfired.
“So be it,” I said.
I opened the doorway, creating a corridor for what remained of the Anima he’d trapped, and who were too weak to return home. I could feel them now—not just the heat of Anima and Aetheric, but the rhythm of their lives, the roundness of theirlove. To the gasps of the soldiers, they flew from the practitioner’s body like stars, visible to all, and up toward the River of Souls. One soul at a time, on their way home again.
The practitioner had survived on Anima so long there was almost nothing left of him. What was left turned to ashes with the heat of an Aetheric fire, then fell to the ground, leaving only the golden mask, charred and tarnished, behind.
“Daughters of Tommen,” I said quietly, because I could feel them gathered again. “Your father is avenged.”
I waited until the Aether had dissipated and birds began to chirp again. Then I looked around. The prince and Galen stood nearby, their faces bearing a few more scrapes than before, but all parts attached. They both nodded at me. The other soldiers had formed a ring around us, some of them holding assassins at swordpoint.
And around us all, a pale blanket of white.
It had begun to snow, as if the water god had lifted her head from sleep in the Floating City and decided to put away what had happened here, cover it with a blessing, and allow us all to forget.
“You still look tired, Little Fox.”
“I still am tired.”
The prince stepped forward, unfastened his cloak, and swept it around us. For a moment, it blocked out my view of everything but the two of us, and he pressed his lips to mine. Then he settled the cloak on my shoulders.
