Chapter 26
WHITE WAVE
LEILANI
ASTROPHEL’S GAZE SWEEPS the mountainside again. ‘Surely we’ve lost them, by now?’
I tighten my grip on his waist, try to ignore my brandsong’s dark whispers. We’ve been running from the guards for seven moonsrisings. Seven moonsrisings spent trying to rebuild our strength and trust in each other as we travel the Desolate Peaks.
A sense of homecoming stirs in my chest as the cragstalker picks its way along the narrow path.
My people have been displaced, dispossessed – but we belong to these mountains.
They call to me, claiming me for their own, as I inhale the pinesap in the too-thin air, and watch the rising sun daub the sky above the glistening snow-capped peaks with streaks of pink, orange and lavender.
‘They might be Highlanders,’ Astrophel mutters to himself, ‘but they haven’t the tincture to help them as we have. They must have turned back.’
Even with the tincture now inside me, I have to gulp great lungfuls of air to breathe comfortably, and behind the crisp menthol of the sap, there’s a bitterness that burns my throat and stings my eyes. Temperatures have dropped further overnight too, resulting in a heavier snowdrift.
I’m glad I doled it out when I did, that first night in the cave.
I’m glad I didn’t wait. It took a few hours to fully work its way into our systems, but it’s served its purpose, bringing the Outrealmers back from the brink.
Orthriel too. We’re surviving the peaks.
But it’s hard to imagine the guards withstanding these conditions.
Not for this long. The Arx Magnum may have bred horses to endure exposure to the lower passes of these mountains, but there are limits – even for the guards force-fed Briar’s blood as part of his vile experiments.
There’s a reason the mountain cities had to be abandoned.
We’ve passed many of these ghost cities since fleeing Galtair – reminders of all the Sickening has stolen from my people.
We’re less than a night’s ride from the largest of them.
Talini – Estelia’s old capital and seat of the Starshrine.
We passed one of its deserted watchtowers last night, and another stands a short distance ahead of us.
I want so desperately to believe Astrophel, to accept we’ve shaken off the guards, so I can stop checking over my shoulder. But something holds me back: a needling at the nape of my neck. Those doom-laden whispers that won’t let me alone. The nightly visitations from the Faceless Woman.
The dream is always the same. Her trying to talk, to tell me something.
Something important. Something that will change the course of our quest. But though she struggles, though she claws at me with beseeching fingers, I can’t understand her lipless grunts, her tongueless moans.
And then the flames start to burn, the smoke to thicken.
And I wake up gasping, chest tight as if I’d been truly smothered, no clearer as to why she comes, what she means to impart.
Left only with a lingering conviction, deep and sure, something’s hunting us.
Something besides the Arx Magnum’s cavalry.
I’m reaching for the starstone, determined to access my second-sight, to search its tapestry of silver threads for answers, something clear-cut this time, when an arrow whistles through the air.
I flatten myself against Astrophel’s back and stare up at the rocky mountain ledges. The bowmen aren’t visible, but arrows are raining down. They must be hidden up there. Surrounding us. My blood runs cold. Those transfusions from Briar must have been as potent as the Arx Magnum hoped.
Astrophel shouts for the others to steer the cragstalkers towards a tangle of pine trees. The scraggly branches provide poor cover, but it’s better than remaining in the open.
My palms tingle. Should I summon starshine? I could daze the guards, grant us time to run from their ambush. The tingling intensifies, as if willing me to unleash my powers.
‘Remember what I told you.’ Orthriel’s warning comes swift and sharp. ‘Only if you’re sure you feel no ill effects. I’d flare myself but…’
They trail off, not needing to remind me how weakened they remain, even after the tincture.
The memory of that bone-crushing fatigue after I stunned the hoarclaw, the bitter taste of ash, the icy pounding in my head and breast as if my mind and heart were being cleaved, and mostly…
mostly the vision of Blayze thrown back in Galtair, lying lifeless on the snow-dusted cobbles, stays my hand.
As I hesitate, unsure whether to risk it, Serafine circles overhead, beating her wings in a strange, staccato rhythm, cawing at a pitch that sets my teeth on edge. Her ravaged body glows – a broken beacon in the sky.
Leaden clouds gather. In the distance, thunder rumbles. The deluge of arrows halts.
Sister’s mercy! Perhaps I won’t need to call on my magic, after all.
Astrophel cranes his neck. ‘What’s she doing?’
‘Creating a distraction.’ Blayze’s face is tight with tension, his eyes stormy as the clouds scudding overhead.
He’s even more protective of Serafine after what she suffered in Galtair, and something of the wild frenzy that overtook him when he bludgeoned those guards as we escaped remains, rage always simmering beneath the surface.
Serafine keeps up the tattoo of her wings, but the storm never breaks.
Why isn’t it working? Too far from the Oralian core? Or maybe she’s weakened by the missing fire-feathers…
The tempo of her wings stutters, and Serafine glides back to Blayze’s shoulder: spent, crestfallen.
There’s a hiss. Arrows start flying again. I duck, breath clouding in sharp bursts in front of me. A desolate yowl echoes the mountain and the cragstalker carrying Maris and Delphine lurches. An arrow has struck one of its front paws.
Maris stretches forwards, yanks the arrow free.
Astrophel reaches for his Crescent Sword, but before he can draw it, the cat’s howls are eclipsed by rich, sweet notes.
They crest and fall, drawing my ear as nectar does bees.
Spritesong. I glance over at Delphine. Her expression is rapt.
Her hair, lapis in this moment, billows like sea-mist, but I can’t see past her mouth, past her beautiful shell-pink lips.
Her spell is quick to act. A syrupy lethargy spreads through me, slowing my pulse, making me light-headed. Astrophel slumps forwards, a glazed expression on his face, like he’s drunk too much shimmerwine.
Maris is staring at Delphine too, but she doesn’t look intoxicated.
Her blue brows are drawn tight, concern writ large on her face, and with good reason.
The tincture saved Delphine. It restored colour to her cheeks, and vigour to her flaccid limbs, after the horrors she endured in Galtair, and the corrupting influence of the strangleweed.
But her recovery is fragile. Depleting her Aether reserves too much now could place the pearlsprite in very real danger again.
Only, this time there’ll be no tincture to save her, and Briar is too weak to heal her again.
The hail of arrows slows, dwindles entirely, as the spritesong works its charm, befuddling the bowmen.
Now’s the time to make a run for it. But it’s hard to think – hard to do anything.
I want to close my eyes, glut deeper on the sugary refrains.
They’re reaching a pitch so honeyed my teeth ache and my heart is threatening to burst. Delphine’s hair is darkening.
Dimly, a warning bell sounds. But my thoughts are thick, slow as treacle.
I can’t remember why I should be worried – can barely remember my own name.
As she reaches the climax of her song, Delphine gasps – a strangled animal sound – and wilts in Maris’ arms. Maris screams and the candied web of the spell shatters.
Delphine stirs. Responsive, thank the Stars. She stopped in time. Astrophel is still prone, sprawled across the cragstalker’s back, but the echoes of the spritesong fade to silence. Its effects will soon wear off.
For us, and the bowmen.
I search the mountainside for proper cover.
The watchtower.
It’s only a short distance to our left. We could make a run for it, barricade ourselves inside till moonsrise, attempt a getaway under cloak of darkness. But it’s a gamble. The moment we emerge from these trees, there’s every risk those arrows will find us.
‘Look out.’
Orthriel’s warning comes a split-second before a movement drags my eyes upwards.
The bowmen. A bank of them overhead, one with an arrow nocked directly at Blayze.
But he’s oblivious, still stunned by Delphine’s spell.
Without thinking, I lift my hands, consumed by some primal need to protect him.
My extremities tingle as darkness tugs at the periphery of my vision and Star-Aether surges through my body in an icy, dizzying wave.
Starshine streams from my hands, the arcs broader and brighter even than those I summoned in Galtair – an explosion of light, blinding as the birth of a new star.
The force of it shunts me back, raising Astrophel from his stupor.
He stares at me, open-mouthed, shielding his eyes from the glare.
I want to cry out. Perhaps I do. Star-struck.
Giddy with power, drunk with it, inside and outside my body all at once, as this vital force flows in and through me, vibrating every nerve, heightening every sensation.
Filling me in a way I’ve never let it before.
More. I want more.
The dying echoes of Delphine’s song are replaced by the bowmen’s screams. But these are soon displaced in turn by another, louder noise. A thunderclap so powerful, it shakes the mountain.