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I poured the water over my face and then into my mouth. Feron raised a root out of the ground for me to sit on. “You have made much progress this week, Keera.” His lilac eyes narrowed. “How are you feeling.”
I shrugged. “I feel fine. No strain on my magic at all.”
Lash perched on the armrest of Feron’s self-made chair. “I think it’s time we moved past defensive skills then.” He looked down at Feron, who leaned forward on his cane.
“Those skills will save many lives,” Feron replied slowly.
Lash shook his head. “The false king’s armies are too large for foot soldiers to fight. But a magic wielder as gifted as her”—he nodded at me—“could change the tide of this war.”
“And what about wielders as strong as you?” I glanced between them. The Fae had yet to declare their support for the rebellion.
Feron lifted his chin. “I will not leave the Elverin defenseless. The Fae will remain here.”
“Until when?”
Feron’s mouth was a straight line. “Until our prospects strengthen.”
After training all day, I longed for some peace. I loved having the Shades in the city, I loved seeing them play and laugh with theother Elverin as if they were lifelong friends, but monitoring every one of their needs was more tiring than any training session Syrra could design.
I walked along the lake, occasionally stopping to skip a flat rock across the glass-like surface. Something moved in the corner of my eye. I turned and realized I had walked to the north side of the lake. The usually empty clearing was to the east, but there was someone in it. At first I thought it was Nikolai, leaving flowers at his mother’s statue out of habit, but as I neared closer I saw her chair.
Myrrah sat under the statue of Maerhal and the shade of the tree that was the living memorial of Nikolai’s son. She sat facing the city with her head craned upward at the burls and connected bridges along the upper branches.
“Nikolai could find a way to get you and your chair down if you wanted to go up by faelight,” I called out from the far side of the meadow. “If not, Feron certainly could.”
I sat down in the grass next to her and watched as another group of initiates emerged from the hollow trunk of the Myram tree in a fit of shrieks and giggles.
Myrrah smiled softly. “I was never fond of heights even when I could’ve made the climb. Besides, seeing it from the ground is thrilling enough.”
I turned back to the city and tried to view it with the same sense of awe that filled Myrrah’s face. My first impression of Myrelinth had been clouded with the threat of mutiny and banishment, but even I couldn’t deny it was beautiful. The second sun had just dipped behind the Burning Mountains, darkening the gold leaves of the Elder birch along the peaks and streaking the sky with copper. The faelights that rested in the branches during the day had lifted from their nests and floated like stars waiting to greet their sisters that hung from the sky.
“Hildy would have loved this city,” Myrrah whispered, more to herself than to me.
My throat tightened and I pretended to still be studying the swaying treetops.
“Every day, I see something that I wish I could show her.” Myrrah’s chin trembled as she turned the gold ring on her middle finger. It had been a gift from Hildegard for completing her first mission after her accident. Every time she shifted it out of place, the pale indent that was left above her knuckle was visible. I doubted Myrrah had ever taken the ring off.
I tried to imagine Hildegard spending her days training with Syrra and laughing with Nikolai, but the painting in my mind was hazy, like a canvas left unfinished. Perhaps it hurt too much to imagine knowing she would never have the chance, or maybe I knew that for people who had worn a hood as long as we had, that we would never truly belong in a place so beautiful and untouched by misery.
Hildegard would have felt just as I did, like a figure painted into a portrait long after it was rendered, forever separated from the other figures by layers of dust and time.
“She would have loved the trees and lights, but the vines—” My lip perked to the side.
Myrrah laughed so hard she snorted. “She would have found it utterly ridiculous having to fall to your death each time. She’d never stop mentioning it—”
My belly filled with laughter too. “Every jump would leave her bun undone.”
Myrrah wiped her eyes, half in laughter and half in grief. “There isn’t enough tea in all the Faeland to fix the temper that would follow.”
We sat until our laughs faded and the sky blanketed us in darkness. The silence pulsed between us, beating against my chest untilthe words I wasn’t sure I should say sprang forth. “I’m sorry that my taunt cost you your wife.”
Myrrah went completely still. I would have counted my heartbeats, but I was sure my own heart had stopped waiting for her to speak. Instead, she pulled the brakes free from both her wheels. Her callused hands pushed against one wheel and my heart split, thinking she was leaving me alone in my guilt.
But Myrrah’s face was soft as she positioned herself directly in front of me. Under the faelights, the gray strands of her hair almost glowed against what was left of the black, all of it wild and unkempt in a way that her wife would have never allowed.
Myrrah took a deep, raspy breath. Her gray-blue eyes were no longer misted but were rippling pools of uncertain waters. “Keera, I know.”
My shoulders relaxed into my knees, but Myrrah shook her head.
