Chapter 31 #2
‘You’re sure you’re all right?’ he says at last. ‘I could sleep here if—’
My mouth drops open.
‘On the floor,’ he adds quickly.
‘That won’t be necessary.’
His lips tighten. ‘They’re getting more frequent. These dreams…’
Oh Stars, he’s keeping track.
His eyes linger on my hair, on the dark ribbon of the Shadow Mark. His hand drifts towards my face, as if to trace my jaw. My breath hitches low in my throat. He flexes his fingers, jerks his hand back.
I will my treacherous heart quiet. I’m a fool. He thinks I’m dangerous, is probably worried I’m summoning evil spirits in my sleep.
And he wouldn’t be entirely wrong.
And yet his scorn doesn’t wound like it once did. I’m still clinging to the fragile hope my magic can be a force for good. That I can prove Blayze wrong about me.
‘Perhaps Maris needs you to warm her bed.’ I lift my chin, allow a hint of tartness to enter my voice.
His eyes darken. The blade of my words serves its purpose. He steps away from me, takes up his lantern and crosses back to the door.
But then he shuts it, sinks to the floor, folds his arms. ‘I’m not leaving.’
Dragging furs around myself like a shield, I open my mouth to protest.
‘I know what it is to suffer storms in your mind, Sparkles. I’ll wait here till you get back to sleep.’
The memory of those clamouring wretches, their grasping fingers and snarling faces, rises up, mixing with my dread of that vision in the moonstone. I’ll feel safer with Blayze close.
‘I need to speak to you all in the morning.’
‘Ready to tell us what happened in the Starshrine?’ Blayze lifts his scarred eyebrow, back to his normal irreverent self, all traces of that earnest, fearful man who towered over me erased.
‘Something like that.’
‘Try not to scream the place down again, eh?’ Blayze winks, leaning back against the door.
Some part of me wishes him closer still again, craves his warmth, the solidity of him, here in this bed.
I squeeze my eyes shut, blocking the errant thoughts from my mind before they can take root there.
For once, I’m glad of the weakened connection to Orthriel since the avalanche. It means I can’t be sure how much, if anything, my Guardian has gleaned of all that. Flopping back against the fetid pillows, I’m half-waiting for their lecture on the dangers of ill-starred attraction.
The rebuke never comes.
*
THE NEXT MORNING, expectant faces gaze up at me like starvelings in a nest. Ones whose mother has returned empty-mouthed.
Maris leans back on her furs. ‘Caves at the top of that mountain, that’s where we’re going?
’ Her eyes drift to the arched window behind me.
Soon, they’re all looking, jaws slackening as they take in the height of the Astral Mountain.
Blayze pales, and I don’t know if it’s the enormity of the challenge that scares him, or the idea of being forced back underground.
I square my shoulders. ‘We should leave as soon as possible.’
A moving target is harder to hit. Though I don’t tell them Arden’s snarling face is the main reason I want to leave Talini without delay.
‘We need to organise our supplies. Discard any deadweight, finish scrounging for things that might prove useful within the city walls. Astrophel, do we have enough ice-shoes to go around?’
‘Yes. And climbing axes. But we still need rope. Candles too. More lanterns if we can find them.’ Astrophel tightens his grip on the pommel of his sword, his expression sharpening as he shrugs off the uncertainties of future challenges to focus on the practicalities of the job in hand.
‘What about weapons?’
‘We’ve enough for one each,’ Blayze grunts. His eyes haven’t left the mountain. Sweat jewels his brow.
‘Medicinal supplies?’
‘Astrophel salvaged my case from Galtair,’ Tansy says, smiling at him. ‘A few things are running low, but it’s fairly well stocked.’
I nod. ‘We’ve enough dried starfruit to last the return journey, if we’re careful.
And we should manage to forage snowberries and catch a few more hares as we climb.
The furs will only go so far to protect us from exposure, but the tincture is still in our systems and the map Izarius gave me shows a series of shelters on the Astral Mountain – relics from when the Starfields were under construction. Hopefully, they’re still inhabitable.’
Inhabitable, but not inhabited. Guilt knots my stomach again.
I can’t wait till the time for half-truths is over.
*
AS THE OTHERS bundle up the furs lining Briar’s makeshift sickbed in preparation for our departure, I slip unnoticed into the chamber Astrophel and Blayze have been sharing for the past two moonsrisings.
I’ve a job to do before we leave. One that requires privacy, and an act of petty theft.
Blayze keeps a fire-striker and flint in his pack.
I need them so I can destroy Noelani’s letter and the map I found in the Starshrine, before my courage fails.
I can’t risk Arden finding them. I can’t let the others see what I’m doing either.
It will raise too many questions. Questions I don’t want to answer right now.
His pack’s easy to find – hidden beneath the chair he’s been using as a bed.
As I learnt that night we searched for Serafine, Blayze is jealous of his things, keeps them close to his chest, away from prying fingers.
With one eye on the door to the dressing chamber, I open its buckles and root past his change of clothes, the taut curve of his water skin, the barbs of his ice-shoes, the bone handle of his climbing axe.
My fingers close around something hard and rectangular.
I draw it into the open. An old book, bound in white leather.
I glance at the door again, but the others are still safely occupied. Curiosity coaxes my hand, and I open it, braced for lewd illustrations, only half-sure Blayze was joking about an interest in erotica.
But there are no pictures, only reams of a whirling script I can’t read.
Flametongue, presumably. From the arrangement of the characters, much of the book looks to be written in verse.
Hardly smut; this looks more like a book of poetry.
I smother a laugh. Blayze never struck me as the kind to read sonnets, much less drag a collection of them around the realms with him.
‘Why are you going through my things?’
Blayze is in the doorway. His gaze darts from me to the book. I want to fold in on myself, to disappear, as he strides forwards and snatches it from my hand.
‘I’m sorry. I was looking for your fire-striker. Wanted to make an offering to the Dawn Sister before we leave.’
‘And this looks like a fire-striker to you, does it?’ Blayze waves the book at me.
My eyes slide to his boots.
Blayze replaces the book at the bottom of his pack, takes up the flint and striker, and holds them out to me.
‘All you had to do was ask, Sparkles.’
I reach for them, but Blayze yanks his hand away.
‘Ask nicely.’
I narrow my eyes, and Blayze moves the striker further out of reach.
‘Please,’ I spit through gritted teeth.
‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’ He smirks, pressing the tools into my outstretched hand.
I try to ignore the way my heart flutters as his fingers brush against my wrist, focusing instead on how much I want to wipe that smug expression off his face.
‘Put them back when you’re done,’ he says, leaving to rejoin the others. ‘And never touch my pack again.’
I follow after him, and don’t stop walking till I’ve crossed into the room I’ve claimed as my own.
Drawing Noelani’s letter and map from my bodice, I study them one last time, committing them to memory, before casting both into the grate.
The sound of the metal striker scraping the flint makes me flinch, and my fingers tremble as I bring the sparks to the edge of the parchment. The pages catch alight, flames blackening Noelani’s amethyst script, reducing her words to a handful of ash in seconds.
Words that changed my life forever, permanently and irrecoverably expunged.
It’s like the floor is collapsing beneath my feet.
I’m tempted to scoop the ashes up, wishing I’d kept back fragments, something to collage into one of my paper sculptures, some small sign they once existed. That someone once had faith in me.
Lying to the others is fast-eroding whatever positive feelings I’d started to nurture about myself after the Starshrine.
But I convince myself I’m making the right decision, the noble decision, in not telling them about my vision of Arden.
I’m withholding the information for their benefit, so as not to worry them.
Turns out Orthriel’s right. In the end, we all lie.
I take one last look out of the window at the Astral Mountain. We’re close now. That’s some consolation. This is almost over.
I might be a liar, but at least I won’t have to lie for long.