Page 82 of Wings of Starlight

Too giddy to remember her fear, Clarion all but skipped forward and trailed her fingers against Noctua’s beak. Her hand looked so fragile against the deadly point of it. How quickly, she thought wryly, she had lost her every instinct of self-preservation. Perhaps Milori had been a bad influence after all. Hopefully he would not mind terribly if she borrowed his pet.

“Sorry,” she said softly. “It’s just you and me today.”

Noctua blinked slowly. Clarion could not be certain, but it seemed like acceptance.

Clarion stared up at her as a terrible realization sank in: she would be riding alone. But she’d practiced enough, surely. And the risk of falling was far outweighed by that of hiking. Shedidhave to make it there before nightfall, after all.

“All right,” she reassured herself, “you can do this.”

Taking hold of the reins, Clarion climbed onto Noctua’s back. Once she’d found her balance, a grin stole across her face. That wasn’t so difficult. Now, what was it Milori did to make her go? Ah, that was right. Tentatively, she snapped the reins.

Noctua took off like an arrow. And because she was alone, Clarion did not bother to stifle her scream.

They burst from the canopy in a shower of snow and pine boughs. The sun reflected off Noctua’s wings, painting the edges of her feathers with an iridescent sheen. The owl barreled forward at full speed as the reins slipped uselessly through Clarion’s fingers.

She bent low over Noctua’s neck, her unbound hair whipping wildly behind her. After a frantic moment of scrabbling, she seized hold of the reins and choked up on them. Noctua tossed her head in protest.

“Whoa!” Her voice was thready, half terror and half delight.

With control wrested back, Clarion steadied herself. It took all the strength of her thighs and forearms to keep her seat, but she was doing it. With a flush of triumph, she urged Noctua onward to the Nightmares’ prison.

Now she understood why Milori loved to fly owlback so much.

They soared high over the pines and birches, diving only once Clarion spied the eye of the frozen lake. They landed on the shore, and Clarion dismounted. Her legs wobbled, and she steadied herself against Noctua. She lingered at the owl’s side, staring out over the glittering expanse of the lake. Even in the cold light of morning, that oily feeling of dread bore down on her more relentlessly than it ever had before. She fought to suppress her shudder.

“Wish me luck.”

Noctua pecked at her shoulder, which she decided to interpret as well-wishes.

Clarion walked toward the shore with slow, unsteady steps. The ice seemed thinner than it had the last time she was here; it shifted and popped beneath her weight. But it was only when she reached the center that Clarion saw the wreckage of the barrier she and Milori had created. Shards of ice glittered like a mess of broken glass, and the delicate strands of starlight had been snapped as though they were nothing more than spiderwebs. The prison had cracked open wide enough to release all but the largest Nightmares. Perhaps governing-talent magic truly was incompatible with dream magic, or perhaps the Nightmares had grown too powerful to be contained any longer. Whatever the reason, Clarion would ensure they never harmed another fairy again.

In the daylight, whatever remained beneath the ice was eerily still. But Clarion could feel their eyes boring into her as she stared down into the world beneath the lake. Would it be freezing inside? Would there be water after all, ready to drag her down to its darkest depths? The uncertainty clawed at her. She had made it this far, and there was really only one way to find out.

She jumped in.

Clarion anticipated a splash, a rush of cold. But as she slipped beneath the ice, there was nothing but open space and blackness enveloping her. Her fall slowed, then stopped entirely. Even with her wings bound beneath her coat, she floated somewhere above the bottomless abyss, suspended in total darkness. A crawling sensation spread over her skin, akin to the feeling of a predator’s eyes fixed on her from the underbrush.

Something was watching her.

Clarion suppressed a shudder and tipped her head back. From here, she could see the crack in the prison she had entered through—and just beyond, spears of gauzy light filtering down. The sun illuminated the ice from above, casting strangely beautiful patterns around her. The world above was blurred and tantalizingly out of reach. She could almost understand why the Nightmares wanted to escape so desperately. There was nothing at all down here: no light, no sound, no scents. It unsettled her terribly.

Then, there came a steadydrip, drip, drip.

Clarion’s breath caught in her throat. It sounded too much like…Shaking her head to dispel the thought, she demanded, “Who’s there?”

No reply butdrip, drip, drip.

The sound ricocheted through her mind, maddeningly loud. With every drop, guilt and horror climbed up her throat like bile. She whirled toward the sound and channeled her power. Starlight pooled in her palms, but the curtain of shadows did not lift. The sensation of unbearable pressure—of malice—intensified. But she saw a thin wisp of white against the dark.

Milori.

She caught only a glimpse of his hair streaming behind him as he retreated with slow, faltering steps. It reminded her too much of how he had looked the other night, dragging himself up the stairs to the healers’ clinic.

“Milori?” she called. Her voice echoed endlessly in the darkness.

He did not acknowledge her.

Abruptly, her feet struck solid ground. She stumbled as she caught her balance. Nothing had appeared beneath her that she could see, but with every step forward, the blackness rippled under her feet as though she’d alighted on the surface of a still, dark pond. Gradually, she broke into a run. She had to catch up to him.