Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
IDALLIA
As usual, life ignores my inner turmoil, and everything goes back to normal over the next few days.
We train without Bale, and I stay out of sight to avoid any potential run-ins with Bloodwold vampires as Council delegations begin arriving in Drayke and hovering around the mountain.
I haven’t heard about Rannigan Bloodthief appearing yet, but it could happen any day now.
Bale still hasn’t sent any of us away, and I don’t think he’s going to. From everything he’s said to me lately, this is the make-or-break Council—either things radically change, or he’ll splinter off and no longer adhere to a broken system initiated by a missing goddess.
My hands turn cold and clammy every time I think about Cealastra’s continuing absence, but if I’m honest with myself, when I look at the eye of the great phoenix in the sky, I know the Star of Ellonrift is fading.
How long until its light snuffs out entirely?
Cealastra’s constellation will still exist, but the eye will go dark, and she’ll no longer be watching us.
Maybe she’s dead. Maybe she’s turned her light elsewhere. Either way, I’m convinced she’s gone from Ellonrift.
When Bale’s staff starts putting out calls for in-mountain blood hosts to feed the Vampire King and his entourage while they’re here, I start having even worse nightmares.
There’s no shortage of people willing to sell their blood for money, but my persistent fear of Bloodwold vampires becoming violent or going too far as they drink turns my stomach.
Even safe in my own room, I shudder, phantom pains bursting beneath fading wounds.
I’ve never been scared like this in my life, and I hate it.
Battles are hard and terrifying, but then I leave them behind and just think about the next one, not the one before.
This time is different. I can’t leave the battle at Draywood behind. It lives inside me now.
Since according to Rexton Hale, Rannigan Bloodthief will be looking for me, I decide to test out Hale’s advice and avoid the sun entirely. If Rannigan wants a bite of me, he won’t ask—he’ll take, so the smartest thing I can do is try to taste normal.
We’ve been left to our own devices for training, so I just stop going.
The team questions me, and I tell them I’m feeling under the weather.
That becomes truer by the day. I don’t notice much of a difference at first, but by the third day, my energy wanes and my stomach puts up even more of a protest to meals than usual.
The following day, it’s hard to get out of bed, the clear, bright morning mocking me.
A splash of sunlight comes through the open window, and it almost physically hurts to not get up and move into the warm light puddling on my floor.
By the next afternoon, I ache like humans do when they’re sick with a fever, shivering in my bed, my skin chilled and sensitive, and my teeth clacking together.
Fyrestar flutters down from the roosting wall. Concern furrows the feathers on his brow. “Should I get Sybil?”
Trembling in the shadows, I look out my window. The sunshine calls to me as though it has an actual voice. “She can’t fix this.”
“Hale’s theory is making you sick.” Of course I told my birds everything, and now they’re worried and decidedly anti-Rexton Hale. I might be, too, considering his suggestion is making me feel and look like death.
“Let’s go for a flight,” Fyrestar suggests, moving toward the window. He hops right into the sunlight, and longing swells in me. “Get outside for a while.”
I look yearningly at the blue sky as Sol flutters down next to me. “Pale,” she chirps. “Need sunshine.”
“You sound like Bale,” I say sourly.
“Dad’s right.”
I give her the side-eye. She hasn’t stopped with the Dad thing since she started. “Dad might be,” I agree. I can’t help humoring her. “But I’m always pale.”
She clicks her beak. “Not like this.”
“It’s a little like your winter blues,” Rim says, joining Fyrestar at the big window. “When the days are short and dark.”
I nod. He’s right. I get listless in the winter if there are too many cloudy days in a row, but I go outside, and there’s still some sunlight on me. This is much worse. “Do you think a sunblood feeds off the sun? Like a vampire feeds off blood?”
Fyrestar tilts his head toward the emptiness outside my window, the invitation clear. “I think you’re happier in the sunlight—happier and stronger—and that’s all that matters.”
I huff at the simplicity of it after all these days of questioning myself. I have two options: stay out of the sunshine so vampires don’t find me as delectable, or soak up as much sunshine as possible so I can be stronger and faster if they come after me again.
The choice is easier than I thought. I throw off my covers, stagger toward my south-facing window, and tilt my face to the rays.
The light and heat shock me. I gasp, the sunshine on my face and neck scorching me like a blast of fire—a sudden, fierce burn. But then it soaks in, wonderful, and I sigh, basking in the warmth.
“I needed this.” Oh great stars, how did I ever let a stranger convince me to weaken myself? “I need a whole day of this. Or ten.”
“I guess you’re done with your experiment.” Rim sounds relieved. Sol joins us all at the window, squeezing herself between Rim and Fyrestar.
“If I want a witch’s hope of being able to fight off vampires, I need some sunshine again. Let’s go for a flight around the lake.”
I hurry to change into warmer clothes and tie my hair back. It’s chilly outside, but I roll up my sleeves to get more sunshine on my skin. I already feel stronger just from standing at the window, and I want to absorb as much as I can before dusk.
“Off you go.” I flick my fingers, encouraging the phoenixes to take off. Fyrestar leads the way off the window frame. When they all drop below my line of sight, I take a few running steps and dive out the window after them.
Wind pulls at me, cool air battering my skin.
Sunshine coats me all over. Grinning, I spread my arms and soar.
Sensation rushes through me, my laughter snatched away by the wind and left to echo against the granite.
There’s nothing like leaping out my window, the sheer mountainside a blur, the weather magnificent.
Drayke is a sprawling pattern of buildings and streets below, the river a shining ribbon winding through the middle of it.
My phoenixes fly with just as much joy, their bright plumage glowing.
A weight slides off my shoulders. Too soon, Fyrestar swoops underneath me.
I clamp my legs around his body and plunge my already chilled fingers into his warm, black neck feathers, holding on. Rim and Sol flank us, my wing guards.
I can’t help my shout of excitement as we bank hard, heading for the lake.
“Feeling better already?” Fyrestar trills a chuckle.
I laugh. “It’s like magic.”
“Magic!” Sol caws.
“A sunblood must need sun.” Rim’s dry comment fills my head as his amber eyes glint over at me.
I smile wryly. “You’d think we’d have been smart enough to figure that out a few days ago.”
“It’s never a bad thing to heed advice and see where it takes you.” Fyrestar is far wiser than I am most of the time but, right now, I don’t agree with him. For all I know, Rexton Hale is a liar. Unfortunately, I’m worried that Bale is too.
“I didn’t know the source. I shouldn’t have given him five seconds in the tavern, let alone five beautiful autumn days cooped up inside instead of enjoying the sunshine with all of you.”
“You can’t believe Rexton Hale about you being a sunblood—which no one’s ever heard of—but disregard everything else he says,” Fyrestar tells me.
“Well, aren’t you the annoying voice of reason?” I say without heat or malice.
He warbles a chuckle. “Look, even Embersol is nodding her agreement.”
I glance off our left wing. Sol is bobbing to her own merry tune and not even listening. Her playful zigging and zagging makes me grin. She’ll fly circles around all the other warbirds once she’s fully grown again.
“Since you’re probably right, as usual, let’s go to the library after our flight and see if we can find any books that mention sunbloods.
We can recruit Sybil if she’s not too busy.
” I already told Sybil about the Fanghaven vampire in the tavern and his warning. She’d never heard of sunbloods, either.
“I’m not sure how much help we’ll be with books,” Rim chirps.
“Moral support,” I tell him with a wink.
“Support!” Sol tweets.
I laugh, new purpose piling on top of the deepest love and filling me completely.
* * *
Sybil and I descend the many levels to the Drayke Mountain library and head toward the vampire section, my birds lighting the way. We both carry a lantern as well. It’s cold and dark in the preservation caverns, and I already miss the sunshine.
“Why does Bale keep the books down here?” Sybil’s voice holds an audible shiver, and she pulls her cloak more firmly around her.
“He must think they’re safest here.”
“Along with all his gold?” She flashes me a grin.
“That’s locked up.” I grin back at her. On the way here, we passed the tunnels leading to the many vaults and treasure troves of the residents of Drayke Mountain, mine included. “Everyone has access to the library.”
“I bet he’d show you his gold if you asked him to,” she says suggestively.
I snort. “You’re incorrigible.” A snap of heat still warms me to the core, despite the frigid cavern.
“I’m romantic.”
“There’s nothing romantic about shoving gold at someone.”
“Says someone who’s never lacked for gold.”
“Have you?” I counter. Sybil comes from a wealthy family in Ruthinock, and Bale pays her generously.
She tosses me an exasperated look. “Would you rather have flowers?”
I shudder. “And cut the poor things in their prime? Never.”
“Then what would make you swoon?” she asks.
I laugh. “Nothing, I hope. I prefer to stand on my own two feet, not keel over unconscious.”