Page 80 of Wings of Starlight

Of course,she thought. Even when he was suffering, he’d thought to coordinate with Elvina on how to get them home. “How are they?”

“Artemis will have a long road to recovery, but she’s in stable condition. Petra is asleep, like the others.”

Clarion’s throat constricted. “And Milori?”

Elvina hesitated. “He did not look well.”

“I see.”

Clarion squeezed her eyes shut. As much as she wanted to believe he had returned unharmed, she could not be so naively optimistic. No winter fairy could remain in the warm seasons without consequence. If she thought about it any longer, she did not know that she could hold it together.

Elvina watched her rein in her emotions. When she had composed herself, Elvina said, “You were right, Clarion.”

Clarion gathered up the corner of her blanket and dabbed at her eyes. A humorless laugh escaped her. “About what?”

“About the warden.” Her mouth twisted into a little moue of displeasure, as though it wounded her to admit that she was wrong. After a moment, she sighed. “About everything. My plan was shortsighted at best—and incredibly dangerous at worst. Our realms should be working together.”

Clarion had wanted to hear those words for so long. And yet, she could hardly believe them. “Where is this coming from?”

“He saved your life,” Elvina replied matter-of-factly. She folded her hands in her lap. “For that, I owe him a debt.”

Then there was still a chance to make this right.

Perhaps her magic had not been powerful enough to bind the Nightmares as the dream-talents’ once had. But the Keeper’s book had also spoken of a Nightmare dwelling in the depths of its prison like a queen bee in her hive. One powerful enough to command its drones—to hold all of their power.

Clarion’s starlight had obliterated every Nightmare outside the Hall of Winter. If she defeated the Queen Nightmare, surely its slumbering spell would break. But she was still recovering. And besides, every attempt she had made to help had only worsened things in the end.

“You can help me. Together, with our governing magic, we can destroy the Nightmares,” Clarion said.

“I can’t.” Elvina smiled ruefully. “My power is waning.”

“Waning?” Her voice sounded terribly small to her own ears, almost childlike.

Elvina opened her hand. Starlight bloomed like a rose in her palm, unfurling slowly. It burned steadily—but certainly not as bright as Clarion was accustomed to. Elvina closed her fingers, extinguishing it. “I can’t manage much more than this anymore.”

She had never heard of a fairy’s talentlesseningover time. “Why?”

“It is the way of things,” said Elvina. “Soon after your coronation, I will return to the stars, just as all the queens before us have.”

“I don’t…” Clarion shook her head. She could not process it; she refused to. Elvina’s words blurred into meaninglessness.

If that were true, then surely she would have seen the signs.

Elvina looked no different, did she? But then, Clarion could hardly remember what she’d looked like when she first arrived in Pixie Hollow. Was there new gray in her hair? Had she always looked frail, her bones birdlike and delicate beneath her pale skin? Fairies lived long lives, queens even more so than most. But they were not supposed to simply die of something as mundane asage.

“I don’t understand,” Clarion said at last.

“I’m sorry, Clarion.” Elvina’s voice wavered, just barely. Her brow furrowed with the pain she tried and failed to master. “There are so many things I should have told you. I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t know how.”

Clarion did not want to hear this. For so long, she had wanted Elvina to trust her with the truth. Now, it felt like too much to bear. Tears burned in Clarion’s throat as Elvina reached out and brushed a strand of hair behind Clarion’s ear.

“I have never been to the Mainland myself, but I have heard extensive reports about it. Humans love their children from the moment they are born. They raise them in the hopes that they will be better than their parents ever were.” Elvina’s fingers lingered on Clarion’s chin. “When I saw you rise from that star, I think I understood something of what mothers must feel. I know how difficult and confusing it is to be told from the moment you draw your first breath that the world depends on you. And how you know it in your heart to be true.

“I saw so many ways that you were like me, but I saw many more ways that you were not. Experience had taught me many lessons, most of them hard-won and painful. I wanted to protect you from it. I did not want you to get hurt. You are precious to me.” Elvina let her hand fall away. “The weight of a queendom is heavy, and our lives are long. And all the fairies you love will eventually fade away while you remain unchanged. I kept myself apart so that I might not grieve more than I could bear. I encouraged you to do the same, although I could see how much it pained you. And you tried so hard for me.”

Clarion’s heart ached for her, more than she ever thought possible. She saw Elvina as the girl she’d been and the woman she was now—one with an existence long and lonely and shaped by loss. Elvina had tried to shield her from harm. In the end, her best efforts had only left a new kind of scar—a distorted mirror of Elvina’s own wounds. But at last, Elvina had set them both free. Clarion could choose for herself what kind of queen she wanted to become.

I wished that there could be a different future for me in Pixie Hollow,Milori had told her.