Chapter 30
brYONY
I HAVEN’T SEEN you eat shit this enthusiastically since day one,” Amara says with a smirk, twirling her blade.
I’m on the ground again. Today has been an impressive test of perseverance—and by that, I mean enduring the humiliation of Amara kicking my ass for three hours. I don’t think I’ve managed to get a single hit in.
A snarl builds behind my teeth. “Don’t strain yourself with the compliments. Wouldn’t want you to pull something.”
She snorts, shaking her head. “Why don’t you just… take a minute. Gather up the shredded bits of your pride.”
I flop back into the grass, too wrung out to even think of a good retort.
I let my eyes drift closed, and the Wolf’s face rises to the surface of my mind like it always does when things are too quiet.
I wonder where he is right now. If he’s out on one last slaughter in Vartena before the rut hits, or locked away preparing for the onslaught.
I’ll be alone, he’d said, and those words haven’t stopped repeating in my head since he walked away and shut the door behind him.
“So. Anything you want to talk about?” Amara asks. Because, naturally, she can’t let me have even a second of respite.
Desire doesn’t give a fuck about should or shouldn’t. We want what we want, even when we know it’ll destroy us.
Something twists hard in my chest. I shove the memory down deep and chain it up where it can’t cut me open.
“No idea what you’re getting at,” I say, playing stupid.
“Uh-huh. Well, you were making puppy eyes at tall, dark, and dickish during drills yesterday.” She points her dagger at me for emphasis.
I smack the dagger away. “I did not make puppy eyes.”
“Please. Your whole face went soft and dopey when he tossed you that little scrap of a compliment. Classic puppy.”
Heat crawls up my cheeks. “Are we done with the interrogation portion of today’s ass-kicking? Let’s move on to something more productive. Like me punching you repeatedly in the face.”
Amara just laughs. “Please. The way you’re moving right now? You’ll be in your grave before I take off tonight.”
Wait. What? I push up on my elbows. “You’re going somewhere?”
“Caelestis. The Aethertide Festival is the only time I get to lose myself in a crowd without Alexios sniffing me out.”
Why would Alexios be looking for you? I almost ask, but then a flicker of memory fights to surface—cracked leather spines, gilt-edged pages, beautiful illustrations of a place in the clouds.
Stacks of forbidden books in my father’s study that I wasn’t supposed to touch but pored over anyway, hungry for a glimpse of the world beyond our borders.
“Caelestis is… a city?” I ask, chasing that wisp of memory—the maddening sensation of almost grasping it.
“Yep. Picture one big citywide orgy, but with great wine and even better food.” Amara watches me chew my lip in thought. “I can hear you thinking too hard. Spit it out, Devaliant.”
“That name the Wolf mentioned yesterday,” I say.
“Rhosyn. It’s familiar, and I think…” I shake my head, straining to call up the particulars.
“I could swear I saw it in one of my father’s books when I was little.
Something about Rhosyn and Caelestis. If I could see it, I might be able to recognize something from the illustrations—”
“Absolutely not.” She gestures at me, movements sharp. “Did the endorphins from the beating scramble your brain? One look at that opalescent skin and everyone would know you’re a Devaliant. Taking you there would be like dangling a slab of meat in front of a pack of starving dogs.”
I resent being compared to a slab of meat, but I concede the point. “Does the festival have masquerade protocol? Veils, costumes, that sort of thing? For people who want anonymity?”
She blows out an annoyed breath. “Sure, some demis cover their faces. But any male with a working nose will clock you as mortal if he gets within a wingspan. Won’t matter how good the costume is.”
“So use your scent to mask mine,” I say, an idea forming. “Won’t everyone be too busy looking at the sky to notice me?”
“That’s so not the point.” Amara drags a hand down her face.
And I know she’s right. It’s foolish to even consider leaving the Wolf’s tower and putting myself in a city full of demis who would probably be all too eager to tear me apart. But I can’t stop thinking about yesterday—the grim set of the Wolf’s mouth, the quiet urgency in his voice.
I’ve been hunting vermin in Vartena. The kind that trades in black market parts.
I can’t say that’s one I recall, but there’s a lot I carved out afterward. Some things aren’t worth remembering.
I don’t know what any of that means, but Amara’s response had made something cold settle in my gut. They’ve been echoing over and over again in my thoughts—because she and the Wolf share this secret that I have no right to.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Might as well.” She rubs her forehead with a sigh. “While we’re passing ludicrous ideas back and forth.”
“The Wolf mentioned black market parts yesterday. During your conversation.” She looks up, expression icing over, so I quickly add, “Is Rhosyn—whatever it means—important to you both?”
For a long moment, she just stares at me, holding her elbows in tightly as if she’s warding off a memory. A breeze kicks up, sending leaves skittering across the flagstones.
Then she blinks. “Yes,” she says roughly. “Very.”
That answer carries old wounds that haven’t healed, the kind of memories that burrow deep. Like rot. Like the Void. If there’s anything I can do to help her ease even a fraction of that pain, I will. I owe her that much.
“Then let me help. I’ll follow your lead. No risks, I promise.”
“Ugh, fine,” she says, raking a hand through her hair. “We’ll go, see if anything there jogs your memory, and then leave. Immediately. I want us gone before the males are so deep in rut they’d screw a knothole.”
I wrinkle my nose at the mental image. “Got it.”
Amara nods sharply and spreads her wings. “I’ll get us something to wear. Go make yourself semi-presentable and wait for me in your chambers.”
* * *
“You can’t be serious.”
The gown Amara lent me is barely more than strategically placed fabric held up by wishful thinking.
The soft blue silk is embroidered with gold and silver threads, with a neckline dipping well past the shadow between my breasts to expose my stomach.
It leaves my back entirely bare, and the sides are slit up to my hips.
One wrong move and everyone will be intimately acquainted with parts of me that have no business knowing the open air.
The delicate chains crisscrossing my chest and shoulders are supposed to hold it all up, but I’m beginning to have my doubts.
This thing is more jewelry than a dress.
“Dead serious.” Amara doesn’t glance up from where she’s crouched at my feet, tracing intricate whorls and lines down my arm with a pen of metallic paint.
She’s been at it for nearly an hour, covering every exposed inch of my skin, which is basically all of it.
“No Caelestis without the dress. Take it or leave it.”
Twisting, I watch the markings shimmer across my skin. “What do all these symbols mean?”
“Nothing.” The answer comes way too quickly. She waves a dismissive hand and clears her throat. “Just some ritual Aethertide nonsense that’ll help conceal that sheen on your skin.”
“That was an evasion.”
“Too damn bad.” She caps the paint pen and gives me an appraising look.
“There. You’ll do.” Her own gown is a rich blue several shades deeper than her eyes.
A silk hood sits low on her brow, obscuring the distinctive shade of her hair.
The symbols inked on her limbs are different from mine.
“In the dark, with the paint, you’d pass for a demi. Probably.”
“Are we certain this will help me blend? I’ve worn underwear with more coverage.”
“At a Scillarian Festival?” She snorts, spinning me. “Tits out, wits out. You’ll fit right in.”
“Wow. Really comforting.”
I crane my neck to see whatever fresh indignity Amara’s inflicting on me. Her hands move quickly, weaving something into the chains at my back.
“Are those ribbons?”
“Missing wings are a common sight at gatherings like these—lots of demis have turned to accessories like this to conceal the damage from the war.” She finishes tying them off and steps around to face me.
“You have to be smart tonight. If the wrong people discover what you are, they won’t hesitate to make an example of you. ”
I start to tell her I’m not an idiot, I know, but she cuts me off with a sharp slash of her hand.
“This isn’t a game. I’m trying to keep your insides from becoming your outsides.
Here, this’ll help you blend.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out some shimmering fabric—a shoulder-length veil.
“Between this, the paint, and my scent to cover yours, you should be good,” she says, fixing it in place.
The fabric is gauzy enough that I can see, but it obscures my face and hair to lend me an added layer of anonymity.
Amara draws a slender blade from her bodice, its silver handle worked in an intricate serpentine design. “One of my favorites. Strap it to your thigh and pray you don’t have to use it.”
I take the knife, my throat tight. “Thank you.”
Amara just rolls her eyes. “Thank me by not getting caught. If I bring you back to the Wolf with so much as a scratch, he’ll string his bow with my entrails.”
We slip out into the gardens, and she offers me an upturned palm. “Let’s fly.”
* * *
Caelestis. The Crown of Asteria.
In Hellevig, travelers and troubadours spoke about its glittering towers and aerial gardens. I had hazy memories of seeing the painted illustrations in the books, but nothing could have prepared me for the reality.