It was unnaturally quiet that dae, the Loff a sheet of tempered glass that offered only the sharpest reflection. Not a breath of wind ruffled the grass or squealed past honed corners, the volcanoes that blistered Gondragh quelling their grumbled ruckus for the first time in many phases. Not a single rock rolled out of place unless ordered to, the action swift and without strain. Even the clouds refused to weep, like a crumbled face holding breath before the anguished sob.
It was as though Ignos, Bulder, Clode, and Rayne had pooled their consciousnesses … elsewhere. As though they’d been watching.
Listening.
Folk mulled over the strange occurrence, and those who could hear the Creators’ songs would later speak of it as a bad omen, given what was to unfold that dae. That the large silver Moonplume moon perched in the sky above The Shade was about to wobble from its lofty perch.
First came a scream from the mouth of someone buckled with too much pain and loneliness. Like bursting a seam that had been sewn too tight. Then came the words—tilled from a thirsty heart, without much thought beyond hope of easing the ache in the female’s chest.
What happened next had the Creators screaming with equal might, their voices hitched with foreboding.
Then …
Slátra pitched from the sky like a luminous egg, plummeting with such velocity that fire plumed in her bouldered wake. Those who witnessed the event and lived to tell the tale would later say the ground around them seemed to heave a sigh of acceptance, right before the moon struck with such force the entire world rattled for a beat, like a shudder. Fitting, given the event would later bring about a reckoning that was well overdue.
The Creators watched as a female hatched from that moon, stumbled free of the beautiful, luminous wreckage with eyes a crush of glitter and ink, blood leaking from a bone-deep gash in her head. As she tore toward Arithia with vicious intent … before she was captured. Subdued. Tossed in a cell beneath a mountain that housed a male who frothed with bloodlust.
Watched as she was tortured. Hardened.
Sharpened.
They knew the end began here, amidst this echo of something that took place so many phases ago. That the male this moon-fallen fae once loved roamed the plains with a heart full of ache and a mouth full of words that could crumble the world to dust. That he could end things faster and with more ferocity than any moonfall.
That fate was working against them to make things right, herding them into a corner too small and suffocating.
They didn’t fight, for they knew they were in the wrong. Knew that if they did, they would lose. For the dae they laid their little trap and tore Caelis to shreds, packing him into a cage that crushed him into a screaming mulch, there was but one thing they hadn’t counted on. Something bearing a potent strength that would forever go unmatched.
Love.
Ifeel around the cold, calcified ridges of a jagged hole in Slátra’s side, a particularly sharp edge nicking the tip of my finger. Pain barely registers, the sensation akin to the song of a lost friend. Treasured almost; many of the scars on my hands attributed to this beautiful silver moon.
Toher.
With slow steps, I move farther around the bundled Moonplume to another hole, this one so deep I can fit my entire arm in and only just feel the back. Something I check for the thousandth time, making sure the shape is clear before I move on to the next. Imagining I have the missing pieces in my hands, setting them back in place.
Not a want.
Not a simple desire to finish the job, like completing a complex puzzle.
But a soul-deep urge that’s propelled me since she pitched from the sky, pervading my dreams and every waking breath evenafterI found Raeve—beaten and bloody in that cell.
I press my palm flat between Slátra’s closed eyes. “You will be whole again,” I rasp, throat so tight I have to clear it. I put my head against hers despite the bitter cold that bites my skin. “I swear on my existence, I will not rest until I’ve found every last piece and brought them back to you.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t open her eyes and reveal her secrets. Certainly doesn’t fill this jagged hole in my own chest, like something’s out of place. A feeling I’ve grown too familiar with over the many phases since Elluin left.
I look down into the smooth hollow that cradled her before she hatched as Raeve, and a different sort of hurt flares in my too-soft heart …impossibleto ignore.
My thoughts drift to her whereabouts. To how Líri howled and howled once she seemed to realize Raeve was gone. That Raeve had left her here in The Burn, had chosen to chase revenge on her own.
To step away from love.
I felt every high-pitched bay through the fibers of my being. Still do whenever I step foot in that cavern or let Rygun’s thoughts filter through me from where he’s nesting at the mouth of it … Though the small Moonplume seems to be howling less now. Like she’s giving up.
Somehow, that’s worse.
I press a kiss between Slátra’s eyes and make for the stairs, brushing the frost from my beard as I step from the frigid ebb of her silver light, up toward reality. Pushing past leafy vines, I exit into the balmy air grown heavy from the storm now rumbling in the distance, past sodden blooms dripping into puddles.
As I reach the door to my suite, the sound of flapping parchment wings draws my attention skyward.
