Aquila lets out a laugh so riddled with grief, a pang hits my own heart. “This is what I deserve, isn’t it?” She tears at the strands of hair left on her head. “I first got ruined when I forsook home. Now, I got this”—she drags a finger across the scarred flesh on her face—“because I helped ruin someone else’s. That boy didn’t want to become one of us. Who can blame him? We chose this. He was forced.”
The boy?Oh. She’s talking about Kairyn.
Aquila looks up at the strange sky above us, nothing but wavering mist, and in that moment, it leaps out at me.
Even with her horns, I recognize her now. The fae from the crystal, the one I saw sitting on white pillars staring up at the stars.
Maybe I know more about her than I think.
“Sira changed you,” I whisper. “The underfae are her creation, like the goblins and harpies.”
“Another one of her monsters,” Aquila whispers in a singsong voice. Her gaze is still faraway, as if she could pierce the mist. “We followed her down from home. Traded our wings for a new world. Why did we do it? See, I don’t remember. Don’t remember home.” She squeezes her eyes shut, tears creeping out as she gives a heart-wrenching laugh. “Isn’t that just the worst thing you’ve ever heard?”
That memory of her birthplace, trapped within Sira’s crystal… Sira doesn’t stop at stealing from her citizens. Even those she’s in an alliance with are collateral.
I shouldn’t feel pity for Aquila. She and Faustrius tied themselves to Sira’s cause. But still… I wish I could reach into the crystal and give her back that memory. It belongs to her, as Heidigog’s bloomies and my wedding belong to us. If there were more joy, maybe everyone wouldn’t be so content to hide away in the dark.
“Why am I bothering to talk to you? If it’s not about Caspian, you don’t even comprehend it,” Aquila mumbles.
Right. I’m supposed to be a thrall, and though Aquila doesn’t know me well enough to understand the effects of the spell, she knows I’m bound to Caspian. But I can’t stop staring at my left arm, the smooth skin there.
“Look, Aquila,” I say lowly, “I understand better than anyone that when we’re frightened or hurt or sad, we aren’t the peoplewe wish we were. And I’ve seen how powerful a fresh start is.” I reach into my bag and pull out the healing balm. “May I?”
Aquila stares at me intently, then sits cross-legged and shrugs.
I brush the few stray hairs away from her burned skull and cheek, then open the jar. I bring it to my nose, inhaling the strong smell of honeysuckle and echinacea. It’s a safe smell, one that reminds me of nights draped in Ezryn’s arms. In those moments, it felt like nothing from the past or future could ever hurt us.
Having used the balm on Kel, I know it’s not powerful enough to heal Aquila’s burn scars. But I held Spring’s blessing inside me. I remember the paths of the flesh—how to knit, how to reform, and most importantly…how to renew.
It is Spring’s calling after all.
With a gentle touch, I dab it over her hot skin. Magic whispers from my fingertips into the ointment, Ezryn’s powerful mixture a conduit. I remember how it felt as the letters carved into my arm faded, giving me my own fresh start.
“A fae of Spring once told me that rebirth is all around us,” I tell her as I work. “A seed becomes a flower, which lives its season, then breaks down to feed the soil in which a new seed will grow. An egg becomes a bird, which dies and turns into dirt, which houses the worm that feeds the bird. Nothing is ever stagnant. We change, we die, and we are reborn.”
Aquila shivers beneath my touch. Her voice is a raspy breath. “Even now? We can be reborn?”
“Of course. And you don’t need anyone’s permission to do it.” I pull my hand away, magic twinkling from my fingers like pixie dust.
Aquila blinks and hesitantly touches her face. Where once the skin was red and raw, it is now a pale green, smooth andbrand-new as a meadow after the rain. She whirls, staring at her reflection in the glassy stream. “You healed me. Why?”
“Someone gave me a fresh start once. And I’ve seen a lot of wonderful things happen from a second chance.” I shrug. “By the way, Sira doesn’t, uh, exactly know I can do that.”
“Our little secret. Besides, Sira won’t notice I look any different. To her, we’re all just one big failure.” Aquila turns to me, her eyes going so big, she reminds me of an adorable frog. “Can you…can you do more? Change me back to how I once was?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Oh.” Aquila runs an absent hand over her horn. “That’s okay. There’s probably nothing good on the surface anyway.”
A pang of guilt hits me. How would things have been different if Thrainn, first High Prince of Winter, had accepted the Elderblood instead of casting them aside, then freezing them for centuries? I wish I could tell her how wrong he was. That none of the current rulers would send them away.
But we’re on two sides of a war. Soldiers hiding in their opposite trenches, guns pointed at the other.
Though right now…
Right now, she’s just a girl, and so am I.
I rummage in my bag and find Dayton’s gift to me. Aeneas, the stuffed winged lion. He told me it would come in handy, and it has, providing me with so much comfort during my lonely nights here.
