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I shrugged and ran my hand over Syn’s tiny antlers. “You trust a lynx. Why not a wolf?”
He kept my stare for a long moment before nodding and waving his hand at the men. “Walk on. The wolf can come with us.”
A male gaped. “But, chief—”
“But nothing,” Tral grunted. “Walk on.”
With a grumble, the hunters obeyed.
We all resumed our march.
Dropping his head to speak to me privately, Tral murmured, “Come dawn, we will be home. And then you can enter the fire again and bring our Fire Reader home.” His hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed. “After all, you are our next Spirit Master. You will need his guidance to reach your full potential now that you are his acolyte.”
I shook my head. “I am nothing. I’m not even Nhil.”
“You are everything.” His eyes burned into mine. “You are light itself. You embody the very word that Nhil represents. Surely, you see that? You know the Firenese word for light is nhil. And you are so bright you lit up the night sky, Runa. How can you say you’re nothing when you’re everything that we believe in?” His voice sharpened with urgency. “The moment Solin wakes up, you won’t just be named Nhil. You won’t just be marked with the spirit animal that the flames have given you; you will be marked as the next Fire Reader and Spirit Master of our clan. You are Solin’s heir. And from this day forth, you are Quelis royalty.”
Chapter Thirty
. Darro .
MOTHS.
Everywhere.
They blinded me and carried me.
In a cloud of their wings, I flew from earth to moon. The silver cast of its glow set my skin to pewter.
I hovered by the stars and smiled as my favourite moth appeared with its white-dusted wings and silvery wake, black bushy feelers, and banded legs.
It fluttered closer, tickling my nose before dancing to my ear.
Everything about this dreamworld seemed familiar.
I’d been here before.
Before everything.
Memories clawed at me to remember.
Anger billowed. My past still frustratingly hidden.
But then I froze as the white-winged moth whispered secrets into my ear. Secrets that sent shades siphoning from my pewter skin and wrapping thickly around us.
I sank into its story, catching a glimpse of my before.
I walked the silent earth.
And there was nothing.
Just endless brown dirt and soaring blue skies—a wasteland of possibilities.
I was...alive.
What an odd concept.
What had I been before I was alive?
Where had my thoughts dwelled and what was I called?
“You are what you are,” the moth answered. “You are balance. One half of a vital whole.”
“Who is my other half?”
“You already know. You will have to make a choice soon.”
“What choice?”
But it never replied.
My attention fell back on the newness of living.
Of the ache in my chest for something I didn’t know and the gathering awareness of consciousness.
Consciousness.
What was consciousness?
What was I?
I’m...alive.
But why?
Follow the sunrise.
Without the sun, you are nothing.
Darkness cannot exist without the day.
So...I looked at the horizon, waiting for sunrise.
I waited.
I waited in the darkness before padding barefoot across a desolate dreaming world.
I grew familiar with bones fashioned from the moon and slipped into skin tainted with starlight.
I waited for my other half.
For the sun.
And a new day.
* * * * *
My eyes snapped open.
Just like when I’d passed out with fevers and Salak had taken me back to the cave, I woke with frost coating me. My bones were brittle with cold. My blood thick and unwilling to flow. It took a few moments to settle back into such a stifling form after floating in a vision of moonshine.
Images of the white-winged moth taunted me, whispering it wasn’t a vision this time but a memory.
Gritting my teeth, I forced life to flow through my veins. Sluggish and icy, I shivered as I raised my head and willed my foggy gaze to focus.
Yellow eyes instantly met mine, looming over me, framed with fur, and crowned with horns.
My heart pounded in recognition and relief.
Zetas.
My fellow sister-wolf who shared the same knowledge of loneliness.
My heart skipped and tripped, trying to find a smooth tempo. Its erratic pump made me breathless and woozy. Rubbing my chest, I frowned as the strangest sensation of cold blood flowed through my heart, only to become warm and wake again.
Coughing, I sat up as Zetas nuzzled into me. Her wet nose pressed over my defective heart, whimpering quietly.
“Hey...” I wrapped my arms around her thick ruff. “Don’t be sad. I’m fine.”
She pressed closer, crawling over me and dropping onto her belly, blanketing my spread legs with her warmth. I hugged her closer, pressing my cheek to her mighty head.
We stayed like that while my mind scrambled in familiar forgetfulness. I tried to remember where I was and how I got here, but I couldn’t...
I was blank.
All over again.
Zetas raised her head and licked my temple, washing my hairline with her tongue.
I hissed and pulled away, pressing my fingertips to the stinging pain she’d found. I winced as I poked a painful bruise, then stiffened as another bruise made itself known, fanning out over my jaw, throbbing along the entire side of my face.
