Chapter 46
CHANGELING
LEILANI
DARKNESS.
At first, it’s the absolute dark of a starless, moonless night. Slowly, pricks of light pierce the gloom. The light surges: filling me, flooding me, forging me anew. And with it comes knowledge. A great torrent. I can see everything: past, present, future. All their possible permutations.
And then I see myself.
As if I’m perched above my own body, looking down. Both here and not here. Peering through a murky fog.
Am I dead? Is this what it is to cross the Veil?
‘Leilani? Lili, can you hear me?’
Astrophel is crouched over my body, shaking me, calling my name over and over. Tansy is by his side, frantically checking me over for signs of life. Her mouth twists; she shakes her head.
‘She’s gone.’
No one speaks. No one moves. The cave is silent save for occasional croaks from the savaged night-birds.
The night-birds live, and I am dead…
Then something moves in the strange shifting shadows that envelop me.
Something flashes in the darkness. A knife – a bright, short blade.
And wielding it, a woman with the burning eyes that haunt my dreams, that wild mass of red hair vivid as unmarked blood.
The others don’t react. They don’t see her. They’re weeping over my body.
‘Arden.’ I shudder as I speak her name.
She laughs. And it’s the same high-pealed laugh that’s echoed my mind all these moons.
‘Arden,’ I say again.
Her laugh fades as she fixes me with those flaming amber eyes. ‘No, ’fraid not.’
Heaviness settles in my core. ‘Who are you, then?’
She doesn’t answer.
‘Who are you?’ I shout, louder this time.
She steps closer. The spiced smoky scent which trailed me in Talini presses thick around me as she slips something inside my pocket.
‘Sister’s teats, now there’s a loaded question.
But don’t fret,’ she says, still holding my gaze.
‘You’ll know me soon enough. Mine is a sad tale, and we haven’t the time to do it justice.
’ She winks. ‘Look to your pocket for answers. Though I warn you, you’re not going to like them.
Not one flaming bit. If you thought Noelani played you for a fool over the night-birds, hold on tight, Princess.
It’s just the tip of the iceberg.’ Again, she laughs that sharp, cruel laugh.
‘But look.’ She motions to my corpse. Brands shimmer on both her wrists – Wave and Flame. Twice-Touched? No, it’s not possible…
My corpse starts to twitch, drawing my attention away. I watch as my eyes crack open. Only they’re not my eyes. They burn a deeper, eerily familiar shade. The purple of a ripening bruise.
‘Time for you to go back,’ she says. ‘But this isn’t goodbye. We’ve unfinished business.’
Before I can ask what she’s talking about, there’s a tug deep in my centre, and I’m being pulled back inside myself, like a moon being dragged back into orbit.
No. Not before I understand who she is, why she’s tormenting me.
‘Who are you?’ I scream. But she only smiles and melts into the shadows.
And then I’m back. Back in my body.
Only it’s not my body anymore – it’s something different. Colder. Harder. A thing more of ice than flesh and bone.
As I stare up at the worried faces ringing me like the wilted petals of a dying flower, a single thought clamours to be shared.
‘I know,’ I rasp. ‘I know where the next sceptre is.’
The Starlight Staff is heavier than I expected. I tighten my fingers around it, checking this isn’t a dream, but unfamiliar strength flows through my hands, and I hurriedly loosen my grip, lest it snaps. My hands feel different. I feel different – a changeling.
A changeling in possession of both Sister-Stones.
A smile tugs at my lips. I can save my mother. I stand and the others scatter like snowflakes in a blizzard.
Blayze turns to face me. He’s still hunched over what remains of Serafine, his eyes desperate as they implore me.
My smile withers. I can only spare one of them, and I’ve already sworn to save the emberwing.
The stench of burnt feathers swirls the cave. Serafine’s eyes, usually so shrewd and piercing, are soft and glassy, and her chest rattles with each shuddering, shallow inhalation. She’s on the brink – on the point of crossing the Veil. If I’m to save her, if I’m to keep my word, it must be now.
I take a breath, the words ready on the tip of my tongue.
But then I remember that last vision of my mother’s face, wasted and wracked, and that icy callous spreads, hardening my heart, sharpening my resolve. The reasons for choosing to save Serafine feel suddenly far away and unimportant.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, redoubling my grip on the Starlight Staff.
Blayze’s eyes bulge. Hurt, then rage, hurtles across his savaged face. One arm still cradling Serafine, he reaches for me, tries to wrest the sceptre away. But it’s too late.
The starstones at my throat and in my hand flare as I make my wish silently, repeating it over and over again in my head. The chill shimmer of magic sweeps through this strange new body that’s both mine and not mine. Blood rushes to my head and I sink to my knees.
And as the starstones dim, something sparks in my consciousness – a taper catching light.
I shut my eyes and moan. My brandsong purrs in agreement, confirming what I already know.
She’s safe. She’ll live.
But my joy is shallow. She’ll live, but at what cost?
I sidle up to Tansy. ‘Can anything be done?’
Tansy shakes her head but doesn’t meet my eye.
Blayze is murmuring the same soothing words in Flametongue as before: a lullaby, a prayer, I’m not sure which. He strokes Serafine with heart-aching tenderness, till ruddy plumes of smoke rise from her ruined body, and she crumbles into embers in his arms.
A howl rips through the cave. Blayze stares, hollow-eyed, at the flecks of ash staining his now empty hands. I know this pain, remember how it ought to feel; that visceral wrench when I left Orthriel in Nimbi. And I had the hope of reunion to bolster me – I’ve taken Serafine from Blayze forever.
I look at my hands. The spotless silver skin taunts me.
They ought to be stained like his, only with blood instead of ash.
This isn’t like the guards in that avalanche; I knew the consequences of saving my mother.
They’re truly a killer’s hands now, and yet the knowledge doesn’t cut me as it should – a mild ache in place of a rending pain.
As if the core of my heart has yet to thaw, is still a thing of ice.
Another cry. Sharper this time. My head snaps up.
It’s Blayze. His hands are on fire.
Maris screams, rushes towards him as crimson tongues lick his palms. The flames swell, twist, transmute into the shape of an emberwing, then gutter out.
Something clatters to the ground. Blayze doesn’t move, just sits there, lips curling in horror.
But then he bends, picks up a lump of smouldering metal, handling it like it’s no more than blood temperature. It’s an effigy of Serafine.
Fireweaver.
Somehow, Blayze can wield Flame-Aether now. Metalbend too. An effect of the blood rite? A parting gift from Serafine? Stars only know…
He won’t let anyone touch him. Maris tries several times, but he shrinks back. When Tansy offers to treat the wounds on his face, he whirls on her. He sits alone, cradling the effigy to his chest, rocking backwards and forwards.
He won’t want to hear me, but I have to try and explain.
I close the gap between us, hovering at his shoulder. My heart pounds as I lick my lips, as I summon the courage to speak.
‘Blayze, I—’
His expression as he lifts his gaze to my face shrivels my tongue. His eyes hold no fire, no accusation – they’re cold as flint. As if I mean nothing to him. As if I never did.
‘I might have done the same thing in your place,’ he snarls. ‘But you swore me an oath and you broke it, and I have lost the creature that loved me best. You know what she was to me.’ His chest heaves.
The snag in his voice is a knife to my gut. But the blade is dull, inflicting a flesh wound rather than a killing blow.
‘Blayze, I—’
‘I won’t hear another word from your lying lips. I was a fool to expect better from Starspawn.’
Blayze stands.
‘It’s over.’
He elbows past me, hobbling towards the mouth of the cave. I consider going after him, trying again to explain. But what is there to explain? I made him a promise. I broke my word. Again.
Maris follows him instead, flashing me a weak smile as she leaves. Delphine, as usual, is only a few steps behind her, clutching her bloodied shoulder.
I sink to the floor.
Tansy places a hand on my back. ‘He’s grieving, he doesn’t know what he’s saying. He’ll calm down, just give him time.’
I crane my neck. Something like fear flickers in Tansy’s eyes as she looks down at me.
She’s trying to be kind, but I know better. Blayze will never forgive me for this.
I can’t forget his parting words, and the stony expression on his face as he uttered them. I would have preferred if he’d raged at me; his words cut deeper because they were so measured. They weren’t said in a moment of passion. He meant them.
And what of the Quaternity? Is that over too? Will he destroy our chances of finding the other sceptres now, of curing the Sickening?
It’s then I realise he didn’t actually say it was over. Not aloud, at least.
I heard those words inside my head. But I’ve never been able to read Blayze’s mind before. Not once.
Squawking from the night-birds draws my attention to where they’re clustered in the furthest recess of the cave. I’d forgotten all about them.
Holding Noelani’s staff in front of me, I use the glare of the starstone to light my way as I creep towards them. Serafine did a thorough job. Their ravaged eye-sockets are wells: deep and dark as the cave itself.
Tansy and Astrophel are at my side a moment later. Astrophel keeps his distance, but Tansy bends closer to the birds, tries to examine them. It seems her need to care, to heal, extends even to these monsters.
Another spark. Another lit taper.
And just as I knew the location of the second lost sceptre, knew too that my wish to save my mother had been granted, I know I can command the night-birds. The flock will obey me as they once obeyed Noelani.
I clear my throat. ‘Peace.’
The birds quieten immediately. I stretch a hand to the nearest bird, stroke its silky midnight feathers. It accepts my touch without protest.
‘How are you doing that?’ Astrophel whispers.
‘The sceptre.’ I only discover the truth of these words as I speak them. ‘I don’t understand how, but it’s… it’s changed me.’
The bird I’m stroking spreads its great wings.
Another spark.
‘Light can no longer hurt them,’ I say.
Tansy and Astrophel exchange a nervous look.
‘I can command them to carry us.’
These giant disfigured predators are hardly an inviting mode of transportation.
However, there’s a rightness to this idea – like stars are falling into alignment as I speak it into being.
I’ve the sneaking suspicion this was part of Noelani’s plan all along, a way to spare us a gruelling return journey across Estelia.
‘Ascend to the crater and await us there!’ I’ve no idea how far the night-birds can carry us, how well they tolerate heat, but carry us – at least part of the way – they will.
The flock flap their wings, whipping up the dank air, as they glide towards the passageway which will lead them to the surface.
‘You are changed,’ Astrophel says, once the birds are out of sight and earshot. I can’t tell if the tightness in his voice is from shock, fear, or awe. Perhaps, all three.
I don’t fully understand what’s happened to me, the precise nature and limits of my new powers, but Astrophel is right – something did change the moment I took possession of the Starlight Staff.
It’s a subtle shift, as though my mind has expanded, or a door inside has been unlocked, granting me entry into previously unused compartments.
But there are losses too, to balance these gains: that numbness in my core, that sense of hardening, as if I’m becoming one with the mountain – a thing of ice and stone.
All magic has its price.
I think back to that night, only a few moonscycles ago, when I tried to flee Meissa.
How I looked up at the Astral Mountain, intent on ridding myself of magic forever.
Now I’m standing inside that self-same mountain, only instead of relinquishing my powers, I’ve amplified them.
Stranger still, I’m happy about it. Orthriel’s warnings about sinking too deep into Shadow echo dimly, but remembering the moment I took ownership of the Starlight Staff – how my mind opened, how it expanded, flooded with that sudden rush of light and knowledge – I realise how stupid I’ve been to ever doubt that magic is power, that my being Branded is a blessing.
All magic may have its price, but this is one I’m more than happy to pay.
This is my destiny. This is who I’m supposed to be. More than human, better than human. Not star-damned – never star-damned. Star-sworn.
Astrophel clears his throat, reclaiming my attention. ‘You said you know where the next sceptre is?’
I nod, and turn to Tansy. ‘In Xylia.’
She flies at me the instant the word leaves my lips, embracing me so hard I can scarcely draw breath. A smile of pure joy stretches across her face. ‘Home,’ she whispers. ‘Am I truly going home?’
I smile back, but as Tansy pulls away, as she and Astrophel turn for the mouth of the tunnel and the surface, a chill breathes down my spine – a chill that has nothing to do with the temperature of the caves. I clutch the sceptre tighter in one hand and place the other on the wall to steady myself.
I’ve overpowered the night-birds, reclaimed the Starlight Staff, saved my mother’s life, and learnt the whereabouts of the next lost sceptre. I would have given anything to be in this position a few hours ago. Why, then, do I still feel so uneasy?
Yes, I’ve lost Blayze. Yes, the future of the Quaternity now hangs in the balance – and with it, Arcelia’s future. Yes, I’ll carry Serafine’s death on my conscience for the rest of my life. But there’s something else. The niggle of something not remembered.
And then, all at once, I do remember.
Arden – not Arden. The Nameless Woman of my nightmares.
Who is she? Where is she? What does she want? And what did she slip in my pocket?
She promised me answers…
I pat myself down. At first, I think my pocket is empty, that I imagined the whole thing. But then my fingers catch on something.
A chain.
Unfamiliar magic seeps from the charms that dangle on it: a force potent and bitter.
I draw it into the open. No, not a chain. Not charms.
A bracelet. A bracelet of tears.