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Cirra led them to the area, which was thickly wooded enough that they were forced to search on foot. The moment Leap stepped beneath the canopy of trees, a chill raced over him, and the hairs on his arms stood straight up.
Next to him, Ryker shuddered. “Do you feel that?” he asked, his voice hushed.
“Quiet,” Leap hissed back. He moved on silent feet, gathering electrical energy into his body from the surrounding environment without actually calling lightning to his fingers. The crackling sound would give them away to whatever entity was lurking in these trees.
For once, Ryker didn’t argue. He followed Leap’s lead, clutching his javelin tight as they swept the area. The forest was far too quiet, and as they moved deeper and deeper, the chill turned into something dark and sinister.
A hissing sound caught his attention, and he turned just in time to see a figure leap from a thicket. Ryker and Leap dove out of the way, in opposite directions, and whirled around to confront their assailant. The figure was fae in appearance, with long, dirty silver hair, a torn gown, and skeletal features. Her eyes were completely black, dark veins scattered across her deathly pale skin like an inky web of malice. She snarled at them, baring a mouthful of fangs.
“Tempest!” Ryker cried, and Leap’s mouth dropped open in shock.Thiswas his long-lost cousin? Ryker’s grip slackened on his weapon, and he took a step toward her, his face an almost comical mask of part horror, part joy. “It’s really you!”
“Yessss,” she hissed, surprising them both. She gave Ryker a smile that was full of sweet venom, her eyes gleaming with malice as she flexed her claws. Leap had assumed she was a mindless monster, but while shadow magic had obviously poisoned her brain, she still possessed her intelligence. “It’s been a long time, brother. Come, and let me feel your embrace after all these years. I’ve missed you.”
A heartbeat passed as Ryker and Leap looked at each other over Tempest’s head, torn about what to do.
And then she pounced.
34
Adara
Iarose before dawn two days after the feast, feeling more at peace with myself than ever.
“You seem different,” Quye noted as we dressed and packed our belongings. “More centered, if that makes sense.”
I nodded as I folded my cloak and stuffed it in my pack. It was still far too warm to wear here, but I imagined it would still be winter when we returned to Ediria. “It feels like a missing piece of me has finally clicked into place,” I told her. “Which, in a literal sense, it has.”
Quye nodded. “I felt the same way when I went through my own Coming of Age ritual.” Her gaze drifted to my leg, where the Umnar tattoo rested just beneath my leggings. “When I connected with my animal form, a floodgate opened within me. I’d always been able to hear whispers on the wind, but they were faint, and I could rarely control which ones spoke the loudest to me. After the ritual, I felt connected to the universe for the first time, like I finally understood my place within it.”
“Exactly.” I turned my palm up and allowed a small flow of icefire to pool into it. It wasn’t quite the same as regular fire—its form was more liquid, almost like magma at first, before it unfurled into tongues of matter similar to flames. My beast lifted her head inside me, checking for danger before settling contentedly once more. I no longer doubted my role in this war of shadow and light, no longer felt sad or guilty about not fitting comfortably into any of the boxes the others had tried to put me in.
I was a daughter of dragons and fae. And I would live and fight and die on my own terms.
A knock sounded at the door, and Yaggir poked his head in. “Are you ready? Everyone is waiting to send us off.”
We shouldered our packs and followed Yaggir to the same beach we’d arrived at. Sure enough, the entire village had risen from their beds to see us off. We spent the next twenty minutes exchanging heartfelt hugs and words with everyone, some of which brought me to tears more than once.
“I really do wish you were coming with us,” I told Ylena as I embraced her. “I’m not ready to let you go yet.”
Ylena smiled. She removed a gold ring from her pinky finger, set with a tiny, star-shaped diamond, and set it in my palm. “Take this with you to remember me by,” she said, curling my fingers around it. “My place is with my people here, but a piece of my heart will always be with you.”
I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat, wishing I had something similar to offer. An idea struck me, and I pulled a knife from my belt, then took a lock of my hair and cut it, only a few inches from the root.
“May I?” I asked, reaching for a lock of hair framing Ylena's face.
Ylena seemed a little taken aback, but she nodded. I think she expected me to cut the piece off her hair as well, but instead, I deftly braided my lavender-blue locks through her dark, reddish brown hair, threading the contrasting hues until they blended seamlessly in the morning sun. Someone appeared at my elbow, offering a bead, and I used it to secure the braid at the bottom.
“There,” I said, stepping back to admire my handiwork.
Ylena rubbed the braid between her fingers, admiring it too. When she looked up at me again, I was surprised to see her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “You will make a wonderful mate to Einar,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “May your flame shine ever brightly.”
“And may yours never go out.”
I turned away to find Orga, the elderly dragon, conversing with Quye. “It’s too bad you’re not staying longer,” she said, clucking her tongue. “I was looking forward to watching you translate the rest of that diary, especially since the author’s name was so similar to my grandfather’s.”
“Trust me, if we weren’t running out of time, I would have begged Adara to let us stay longer,” Quye said. A thoughtful look came over her face. “When you were telling me stories of your grandfather, didn’t you mention he had a deathly fear of spiders?”
“I believe I did.” Orga gave Quye a puzzled smile. “Does that have something to do with the diary?”
