Page 56 of Ashen Wings

Mocking me, the bowl still waits on the pedestal behind us. Its surface dims with the dying candlelight. When we started, I promised that if I stared long enough, focused hard enough, I’d finally slip into the cosmic plane. Maybe I’d see Astora herself, or maybe my mother, maybe even a version of myself I could come to embrace. But that hope is gone.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever change, Yaris,” I whisper, wiping at my eyes. It’s pointless, because I’ve cried myself dry, but it gives my hands something to do besides shake.

“Then for tonight, don’t. Just rest.” His voice softens.

The words settle in me like cooled metal, heavy but holding shape. I let out a long, uneven exhale. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try again. “Okay.”

He gives me a small, knowing nod and in that subtle gesture, I feel something I haven’t felt since I was a child. Blurry and faded, it’s a safety that doesn’t need to be earned.

I withdraw from his embrace, smoothing the silver strands from my face. A flicker at the corner of my vision catches my attention. For a moment, no more than a breath, the bowl’s water shudders. Not like a reflection, but something beneath its surface stirs. A faint shimmer ripples over it, fading almost as quickly as it appeared.

“Yaris…” I blink, but it’s gone. Again only candle flame and stillness. My heart pumps an exhausted rhythm, and I extinguish the glimmer of hope seeding within me. It was a trick of the light or my own damned imagination, that’s all.

I draw my robe tighter around my ribs if only to keep myself from coming undone all over again. Yaris doesn’t comment or follow my gaze. If he saw it too, he offers no sign. The chamber is calm again, silent, and still.

26

“Welcome to Storm,” I say, kneeling beside the bench where a young boy sits, a blanket drawn tightly around his frame. He smiles as I press a mossy-green dragonstone shard into his palm. The edges bite into my skin, yet the fragment is weightless compared to the burden in his muted eyes.

Stiller than stone, he says nothing.

Nimbusport’s marina wears the weather like a grey shawl. Fishing boats sway against damp, algae coated lines, their planks black and sea-slick. Above us, gull cries are thin and sharp, dragged out by a gustless, salty wind. The dark skies offer an omen for another storm, and I shudder against the electric chill.

“Go on,” Thaye murmurs, her presence a quiet anchor beside me. “Take it.”

My stomach twists when he finally plucks it from me with trembling fingers, chin dipping in a shy bow. “Thank you, miss.”

“Make an offering at the Motherwood,” Thaye says. “Obdiris will bless you.”

We move along the line of trauma-stricken refugees, placing fragments in their open palms. Each is a silent promise of hope in waiting hands.

Some look at me with startled wonder, others with faint, guarded suspicion. One woman stretches out a shaking palm and clutches the dragonstone without a word, eyes brassy like tarnished gold.

“It’ll be okay,” I whisper. “You’re safe here.”

She nods and slips through the crowd waiting to follow Thaye’s lead up to the temple. My feet ache for a rest, but we’ve been passing out offerings to rain-soaked strangers, seeking shelter from their native factions, all morning, and the line off the boat hasn’t grown any smaller.

“There’s a second ship coming into port this afternoon,” Thaye says, plucking another shard from her pouch. “Once we’ve finished up here and gotten this group settled at the temple, we’ll come back to collect them.”

A cool, humid mist rolls in off the water, carrying the distant creak of rigging. My eyes land on a man wearing a torn crimson cloak, and recognition presses in on my ribs. “These people are from Smoke…”

“Seeking refuge from the slave districts, I’d imagine,” Thaye replies quietly, her tone measured and precise. “We hold their past in anonymity, but you’ll come to find most bear scars on their backs.”

“Oh…” I whisper, fighting the earth’s spin against my feet. Keep your shit together, Nova. A quick reminder that I’m here, I’m free, goes unheard though. My own scars sting like they’re fresh as I move down the last few in line. The terror in their eyes strikes through me as acutely as if it were my own. My pulse booms in my ears, but I swallow it, desperate for a distraction from past traumas now boiling to the surface.

With each offering, I catch a flicker of hesitation in Thaye’s gaze. She isn’t watching the refugees, but me. When our eyes lock, she shifts in her boots.

“I was unsure if I should let you join me this morning,” she says as I place a shard into the palm of an aging man. His grip tightens around the stone with a swift thank you, and he, too, disappears into the crowd.

“Why?” I ask, not turning to her. The tide laps against wooden docks and stone piers in time with the building thrum of pressure against my temples.

“I wasn’t sure how you’d react. Smoke leaves a mark on its people, and I thought it might follow you here. This piece of our service shows us the brutality of our world, the cruelty of human nature.”

“It hurts seeing them…there are so many faces just like my own here, I…”

“You were a slave?” Her nostrils flare as she places a hand on my shoulder. I fight the reaction to jerk away. “Nova, I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

“Just as all orphans in Smoke are. I was passed around for a couple years before I was purchased by the man who raised me.”