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This…was not a throne room.
Once again sprawled on a rug on the floor, a weary Raana craned her neck to observe dusty, partially tarp-covered furniture—a large mahogany desk, bookshelves, some chairs, easels with scribbled-on maps, and a dry bar—that nearly blended into the darkness of the poorly-lit destination.
The shadows had carried her where they wanted to. Another study, apparently. Her vision was fuzzy, her ears ringing and hollow from their shouting that had blissfully stopped once she’d been spit from them onto the floor.
Shaking her head, she rose onto her hands, sitting and sputtering a shadow-laced cough. They tasted like smoke and how she imagined the tang of dread and terror would taste. On her inhale, the hair on the back of her neck stood, and she lifted her head higher, a gasp spilling from her lips.
In wonder, she fell to sit on folded legs, her neck straining as she looked up to the ceiling spanning the vastness of a stained-glass window.Thewindow that one could see for miles, no matter where one walked down below.
She was behind it.
Why would the shadows bring her here?
Without much moonlight, the colors of the window that reflected onto the floor were muted but still a wondrous sea of blues, purples, and near-blacks. Raana ran her hand through the rippling, swearing the beams felt heated. So, this is how glorious the window in Phobos would’ve been if it hadn’t been destroyed.
Raana’s eyes fell on an outline in the glass, some kind of door. Drawn to it, she rose and trekked across the expanse of beauty, the rays tickling her skin until her hand was pressed to its cool surface, feeling a slight jolt to her arm.
Iron.
She pursed her lips. Though iron, it wasn’t warded. So, she weathered the pain and pushed.
“Spirits,” she murmured into a rush of wind as she became one with the skies, staring down at the full glory of the city: its lights, distant crystals, hills, and the river, the way mountains cradled it like offering hands. She’d never seen something so wondrous, spellbinding, beautiful. Ethereal, almost.
There was a sudden pull at her wrist, and Raana glanced down to find a shadow slithering around her skin, coiling near her iron bracelet. Not touching; it couldn't. But it wanted…something. Running on some unconscious thought, Raana reached for it, hissing against the flare of its always-present pain when she found the latch. When it fell away, she gritted her teeth. Her power, the shadows rushing at her in full force.
She gripped the rail in front of her tightly, weathering it. It hadn’t been as intense as it had been in the Wilds a week ago, her power hadn’t been confined that long, but it still nearly brought her to her knees and knocked the wind from her lungs.
Breathing hard, she glanced down at the glow at her fingertips like starlight, creeping up her arms into her long sleeves like gloves. Her tongue ran over the points of her teeth, and she didn’t have to touch her ears to know. No glamorat all.
The world had become so loud, sovivid, that even the air tasted different. The lingering taste of dread and terror so potent she nearly retched.
Straightening, Raana drew her eyes up to look back at the sky and nearly fell over again. Those wheeling stars, all that pressure and hell she’d felt earlier staring up at them, had ceased. Now, beyond the clouds, within the silky, gem-crusted velvet, she found an entire new world. A swirling, ebbing cacophony of existence that she could just barely see, barely touch. A world that felt like power, felt like fear, felt like…home.
A whisper of a breeze slid over her skin, a shadow from the ones that had once again become her cloak sliding over her ear.
Turn, child.
Raana did.
Spinning, she peered into the colors of the window at her reflection amongst them. Peered at the stretch of darkness that stood at her side. Her breath caught as she turned her head, but nothing was beside her. Not a shadow, not a person. On the other side, maybe? Had someone found her?
But she didn’t panic as she was hit with another unconscious thought and felt another pull forward.
Fixed on the writhing ebony, Raana didn’t stop walking until her nose was nearly pressed to the glass, squinting up in that darkness that seemed to change form, beginning to clear.
Lifting a hand, she pressed her finger to the glass.
And beneath her touch, it cracked.
CHAPTER15
KAI
Kai peered over Isla’s shoulder from where she stood at one of several elongated, high banquet-style tables strewn across this quarter of the lower city. His arms bracketed either side of her as she worked on scribbling on a piece of parchment.
One of their many Equinox traditions was the custom to write down three things you were grateful for, three things you hoped to change about yourself in the upcoming year, and three things you hoped for the future, personally or in general, that would be sent up to the goddesses in a lantern that would eventually burn up and rain down in glittering ash.
She hadn’t worked on building her lantern yet, but a few feet away, he could see Davina had been busy crafting hers, her hands a mess of glitter, glue, and gemstones. Beside her, Ameera lazily drew her hand over her own parchment, a vacant look on her face that, every so often, edged with rage, pain. Both.
