Chapter 8 #2
“Again,” she said, already spinning more threads from her hands.
My jaw ached from clenching. I tried again. The thread took more fire before failing.
“Better,” Keres said. “Again.”
We did it until my hands shook and the air tasted like burnt leaves.
“It’s not working,” I said. “What I have… it’s too big.”
“You’re not opening to it.”
“If I open to it any more, it’ll kill you.”
She smirked. “I doubt it.”
I thought of the moment I’d lost control with Rydian and unleashed my furyfire on him. It hadn’t even singed his clothing. Was Keres also immune to its destruction?
My furyfire jumped, zapping Keres with a hot ember. She yanked her hands back and glared at me. I had my answer.
“How do I keep it small enough without snuffing it out?” I asked.
“Don’t think of it as small or big,” Keres said. “Think of it like threads inside you. Find the one that leads to the source of your power. Separate the signal from the noise.”
“I don’t have a signal,” I said. “I have a pack of glimfangs fighting over a single piece of meat.”
“Glimfangs can be taught,” she said.
I snorted. “You ever met one?”
“As a matter of fact, I was raised by them.”
I blinked.
She merely smiled with eyes colder than the whipping wind and walked toward the house. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
I turned to find Amanti sitting alone at the edge of the stone circle. When I moved to join her, she waved for me to remain standing.
“Walk with me. I need to stretch,” she said, grunting as she pushed to her feet. I didn’t offer to help her. I knew better.
We took a narrow path skirting the house that led through a copse of trees before spilling into a small meadow.
Waist-high grass rippled like someone ran fingers through it, bending low against the brittle gusts.
A ledge dropped off sharply, offering a view of mountain ridges stacked in the distance like sleeping beasts. A hawk made a slow circle overhead.
If not for Heliconia hunting me and the bounty on my head, it might have felt almost peaceful. My thoughts drifted again to Rydian. I snarled at myself and shoved them back.
Amanti kept close to the woods, one hand trailing leaves like she needed the touch to remind her body that the ground was real. She didn’t look winded. She didn’t look well, either.
“I need to tell you something.”
Her words, the seriousness held in them, stopped me. “What is it?”
She looked away. “The Brindalorn’s attack injured me gravely, but that’s not the reason I haven’t healed.
” She turned back to me as if forcing herself to meet my eyes.
“Not long after my attack, I felt something shift within the magic I’d been gifted by the Fates.
Our Aine magic has been fading for years, but this…
This was different. And it is not something I can come back from. ”
“You’re no longer Aine.”
“I’m no longer Aine.”
I searched her gaze, trying to decipher why she seemed so braced. “Do you worry I’ll think less of you for it?”
“I worry I won’t be enough to help stop her,” she admitted quietly.
“Everything I was gifted, everything they imbued in us—it should have been the realm’s to use.
To stop Heliconia. And instead… it’s gone.
All of it. And I’m sorry for it, Aurelia.
I know what it’s like to feel the realm’s hope rests solely on your shoulders. ”
“Amanti, to me, you have never been just one of the Aine. You are the one who taught me how to shoot with a bow. How to hunt. How to drink.” We both grinned at that one, undoubtedly thinking of our late nights spent in Sunspire’s library with a bottle of whiskey between us, but my humor faded quickly to longing.
“You are my family just as Sonoma and Lesha are. I don’t need you to be Aine.
I only need you to be here with me. To love and support me. ”
She grabbed my hand in hers, her brown eyes welling with tears in an expression I’d only ever seen once or twice in my life. “I will do so always.”
“That is all I need,” I whispered.
She squeezed my hand. And for a fleeting moment, I was transported back to those years in Sunspire—my days spent with Lesha, Sonoma, and Amanti. A family of protectors. Of warriors. Sisters and friends. No matter what. Grief stole my joy as those memories washed over me.
“What is this?” I looked down, noting the mark the oracle had given me.
Amanti’s hand closed over my wrist and pulled my sleeve back to reveal it fully.
“I made a bargain with the oracle in Grey Oak,” I told her.
“Meerdra.” She dropped my arm, not nearly as upset as Rydian had been about it.
“She said you told her I would come.”
“Sonoma said she’d had a vision,” Amanti told me quietly. “I delivered the message about eight months ago. Before I went south.”
“Sonoma never mentioned visions to me before,” I said, trying not to hate how many secrets my mother still carried even from the Afterlife.
“I suspect it was more of a message,” Amanti said. “From your father.”
Of course.
We walked on in silence, my memories drifting back to the past. To the three Aine who had raised me. Become my family. Two of them lost now.
“You are troubled,” Amanti said, noting my expression.
“I keep thinking about her,” I admitted. “Lesha.”
Amanti’s expression pinched. “Me too.”
“I should’ve gone with her,” I said, the truth cutting its usual path straight to guilt. “If I had—”
“If you had, you’d both be lost,” she said. “She made a choice to protect you. That doesn’t become your failure just because you survived.”
Her words cut at wounds inside me that had been there so long I’d forgotten to tend them.
“She might still be out there,” I said.
“If she is, we will find her. Together.”
I swallowed hard, tears burning. “Promise me.”
She didn’t hesitate. “On my blade and what’s left of my wings.”
Her mouth quirked at that.
I shook my head. But the knot in my chest loosened just enough to let air in.
“Okay?” she asked.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
We started walking again.
By the time we’d rounded the meadow and returned to the cabin, a draft had slid over the yard, colder than before. The sun had dipped behind the horizon, casting long shadows across the stones, but it was more than just sunset heralding in the twilight.
Beyond the cliff’s edge, something approached.
Amanti didn’t comment, but I felt her tense, bracing for something.
Or someone. Thorne and Daegel were suddenly there.
At the edge of the clearing. They didn’t draw their weapons, though.
They only waited; their gazes trained on a narrow dirt path that wound away over my shoulder into the trees before descending sharply.
I felt him before I saw him—like a storm rolling in. The hair on my arms lifted.
Bootsteps found the edge of the yard and stopped.
I turned.
Rydian stood in the fading light, half his face cast in shadow. Across the space, his gaze found mine. His mouth tipped, not kind—never that—but edged with something I wished didn’t make my pulse climb.
“Hello, Furious,” he said, voice low enough to scrape across my skin. “I’ve missed you.”