Chapter 55
Roan’s tinkering sounds do little to drown out Pyrok’s snores rumbling all the way down from the second floor. A welcome symphony as I look past where Líri is still draped over the lower branch that juts from the tree like an awkward limb.
Patient for the most part, I stare at the pink dam’s nest—my leather jacket buttoned, muddy cloak hanging over a nearby stool. Waiting for her to pry free and push into the sky.
I fill my lungs, trying to ease some of the tightness that keeps tugging my ribs, perfectly aware of how dangerous this mission is. But this is my own restless itch that’ll niggle until I slot that final shard into place.
Until Slátra’s whole.
Casting my stare past Roan, I look to where Raeve’s spread across the quilt in her nook, sleeping in one of my oversized brown shirts, hair dashed over the pillow like a spill of ink. Her lips are parted, a deep red in the low light. Like she bit into something bloody that stained them.
I watch her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm, my heart clenching …
Not a single moonshard has come to me easily, some obtained through measures I’ll never be proud of—not that I have any regrets. Some came at a great currency cost, while others almost cost my life.
I didn’t care then. Believed dying would bring me closer to the love of my existence. I’d have gone to Elluin in the afterlife, proud of the way I passed striving to make Slátra whole. For her.
Now it’s different.
My death … It would tear us apart again. Something I’m brutally aware of. But I’ll never be content so long as Slátra’s still in pieces. If Raeve had all Elluin’s memories at the forefront of her mind, I’m certain she’d understand why I can’t let this go. Because she wouldn’t.
I look back toward the bog. Waiting.
The first Moltenmaw that emerges from its nest is bright azure, almost the color of Raeve’s eyes. It shrieks as it tears free, a responding sound coming from somewhere amongst the heavy clouds overhead.
The nest is only bare a moment before a purple, pink, and red buck plummets toward the bog, landing on the mound before the opening.
He moves gently through, careful not to stand on anything important before he spins and drags his tail within the gnarly sphere—almost entirely hidden away.
I barely glimpse him through the opening: rolling the eggs, feathers fluffed as he tucks the treasures beneath himself and settles in for the coming dae.
More and more of the dams emerge, but not the one I want.
Tension blisters the underside of my skin, until finally, the pink dam pushes her long pale beak free of the nest’s opening.
I feel her guttural squawk in the pit of my heart. The grieving scream of a beast with a hole in her chest that’ll never be filled.
She tips her head, looking to where her furled mate rests just past the shifting clouds …
Another squawk, softer now. Like a quiet hello that falls on deaf ears.
If only she knew I was listening. That I know how much it hurts.
If only I could take her pain away.
The air chills so abruptly, my next exhale whitens like the Mists.
Líri’s eyes snap open—wide. She appears to look straight through the window that, given the runes, I’m certain she can’t see through.
Her front legs push up, claws shuffling back along the branch until her shoulders are much higher than her head. Submissive posturing that deepens as her wings droop. Almost like a—
Bow.
I frown, my heart smashing to a halt when I realize Raeve is standing beside me, staring out the window with her loose hair dashed around her shoulders.
I’m about to speak when I notice her eyes are not her own … but black, pricked with thousands of luminous specks.
“Moonbe—”
In the distance, a Moltenmaw screams, snapping my attention to where the pink-colored dam is pushing from her nest. Wings stretched, she crouches low and launches into the air, heaving skyward.
My stare latches on to the single soft-colored egg sitting in the bowl of her nest, next to a luminous silver shard. Small, though it still shines with so much light it glints in the smoggy gloom.
My heart pinches.
Raeve moves, feet and legs bare, motions feline as she makes for the swirling stairwell. She descends without a single look in my direction, and every hackling instinct tells me something’s not right.
I grab my muddy cloak and jog after Raeve. Barely make it halfway down the stairs before I glimpse her snatching one of the many exit vials from a shelf in the wall.
She smashes it against the wood, illuminating the concealment runes.
Fuck.
The exit slurps open, and two larks flutter through.
Raeve snarls and shrinks back from the bright world beyond the safety of the tree.
Using her hand to shield her face, she appears as though she’s about to step out despite her odd aversion to the light, then pauses, looks down at her bare feet, and angles her head to the side.
Quick to pocket the larks before they even have a chance to bump against me, I power down the final curl of stairs and leap onto the bottom landing. “Moonbeam, what are—”
She grabs her boots and stabs her feet in them, handling the laces like a youngling trying to mash a knot into place. With a huff, she stuffs the loose strings down the side and charges out into the forest—too fast.
Too loud.
“Creators,” I mutter, tossing my cloak around my shoulders. I wedge through the exit just as she prowls around the tree, moving toward the nesting grounds.
I realize exactly what she’s doing—unarmed, bar the full sheath she always wears. Garbed in no other means of protection. Not even a little mud to mask her scent.
I grab her arm—
She whips around and shoves me back against the tree with the feral poise of a predator, her mouth at my neck, breath so cold upon my skin it almost burns.
The forest goes still and silent. Even the chaotic waking sounds of the nesting grounds seem to fade while her canines graze the heaving thump of my carotid.
I swallow. Bring my hand around to run it between her shoulder blades, finding the muscles pinched so hard together I picture Rygun when he’s ready to fight—wings poised.
Tail raised.
Fire welling in his chest.
“You. Smell. Like. Me. Like Rygun,” I grind out, each word passed to her clearly.
Precisely.
Doing my best to cut through whatever’s come over her.
“They’ll swarm you. Kill you.”
Her snarl loses some of its edge. A little more as she pulls back.
I glimpse what appears to be the bud of a blue flame churning at the back of her throat before she closes her mouth—wondering if I’m seeing things.
If I’m going fucking mad.
Her head banks to the side as she takes me in with long sweeps of her strange ebony eyes, and something cold settles within me. Something that feels right, even though it aches. Something I don’t want to look at too closely, lest it ache more.
“I will bring her back to you when I am done.”
My skin pebbles in the wake of her words, because although it’s Raeve’s voice, it’s not. It’s the voice of something else. Something cold and ancient.
Something …
Impossible.
“You have my vow, mate of my Precious One.”
I stiffen, choking on the haunting echo of her words.
She turns for the bog, prowling toward it with long, animalistic strides, leaving me slumped against the base of the tree. Like some ancient, icy beast just sunk its teeth into my chest and tore out my heart.