It tugs like her yearning to find an eternal nest amongst the stars …one dae.
But not this dae.
Not with her new meaning perched between her wings, clinging with clenched fists, singing even as her lips crack from the cold.
It’s there, so close to those who’ve lifted into their final resting place, that The Other yields for the first time in her very long existence—and to a youngling smaller than her claw. Leans into her welling desire to protect the little fae with the savage fierceness of one who suddenly haseverythingto lose.
The Other tames her thrashing heartbeat until it squeezes in rhythm with her Little One’s, hearing her gasp when their bond hatches with the ferocity of a bursting star.
She doesn’t offer her flame, knowing her Little One is not ready. That it would break her from the inside out.
But she does offer almost everything else.
Through the building threads connecting them, The Other feels the cold rush of her Little One’s shock. Her warm, blooming wonder. Feels the fierce strength of her spirit and the wild love she has for the ones who share her blood.
She feels the shape of her moral heart, so big and viciously bold. Feels the heavy sadness for her young’s crooked hatch, the knowledge of her small, afflicted wing not crippling The Other in the same way it has her Little One.
Fate works in magical ways, and even now those tendrils are plotting, tying knots that may not be understood or loosened until many rises come and go. But The Other does know one thing.
Her and her Precious Little One … they were always meant to be.
The memory rips away. Like something just plunged its fist into my soul, grabbed a handful of whatever it could wedge its claws into, andtugged.
My heart pounds, mind busting against the jagged bits of everything I consumed.
That was—
I was—
Fingers clenched around the saber, I kick off the pillar of ice, powering toward the surface through a mess of silver threads that tangle around my fingers and arms, throat tight, suddenlydesperatefor air. Racing for the surface yet drowning beneath that pile of egg-shaped stones.
Reaching the barrier, I slam the saberupwith such gusto the tip lodges deep into the ice. Hairline cracks web out from the divot as I stab, stab,stab—trying to scrub the stain of everything I just absorbed with each savage strike.
Something large and luminous shifts above, the vision of it smudged by the fissured ice.
I still, heart in my throat, time stretching. Every hair on my arms and legs lifts.
The shape swells, appearing to draw—
Closer.
Fuck.
The ice implodes with such force I’m caught in a churn of shards, silver threads, and sloshing water, my pulse a bellowing roar.
I scramble for the surface, primitively aware of the water’s rhythmic displacement. A steadythud-ump,thud-ump. Like my Other’s moving through the lake beneath me to the familiar pulse of beating wi—
I kick harder. Swim faster. Don’t dare look down as I bash past sharp bits of ice and charge for the bouldered shore, stumbling over jagged stones. Climbing so fast I get a head spin.
I don’t celebrate my freedom, part of me still caught in that cold, silent elsewhere. Still soaring through the endless black with my pulse tied to another:
A little girl with a big heart stuffed full ofwarmth.
A realization clambers up my ribs and perches between my shoulder blades, claws puncturing my skin and spine …
That silver Moonplume chose the blue-eyed, black-haired child because she sensed the goodness within her. Because she fiercely protected the ones she loved, rather than running.
Hiding.
