16. Snowfall and Sensitive Horns
Snowfall and Sensitive Horns
SAPPHIRA
A fter the Vordrdjul situation, they’re a lot more vigilant over the next few nights. And when they finally leave the deadlands, it’s with a sigh of relief.
They leave their camp in the early morning, and Kaelen flies them over the border of Mork Kall. The black sands transition to a bright wasteland. When evening falls, they’re bundled in their jackets by the fire.
Isabel is still fascinated with the snow, crunching it under her feet.
Her smile shows through her fur scarf and hat, which she designed in a shape like her mushroom hat to block out the heavy winds and falling snow, the cloth strap tied beneath her chin.
She also made one for Sapphira and Kaelen, though he assures Isabel he doesn’t need it.
He mostly stays in his shifted form, keeping warm from the harsh elements.
Sapphira finishes her meal of hot porridge heated over a fire and lies back in her sleeping pack, her arms behind her head, as she stares up at the stars being blown about by the wind.
Her eyes drift to a nearby tree, where she can see a speck of Kaelen’s fur as he lies curled up high in the tree.
As her raw nose and cracked lips tremble, Sapphira is jealous of the takops’s immunity to the cold.
She’s distracted, though, by Isabel cooing at the Hybller as she finishes feeding it.
It’s spent most of the journey at Kaelen’s side, and Isabel has had to fight him to let the thing go.
Isabel thinks it’s Kaelen’s mating instincts activating. She says he’s nearing that age when he’ll find a mate and have his own children. Sapphira doesn’t even want to think about that. She shudders.
Isabel puts a log on the fire, stacks their bowls, and then crawls into her sleeping pack beside Sapphira.
Sapphira watches her, eyes trailing over the glow of firelight on her cheek and the reflection of stars in her eyes. She hasn’t seen Isabel as lit up as she has been these past weeks. She’s in her element, traveling the world in a way Sapphira never saw back in Cielo.
“Well, good news, right?” Isabel says. “The townsfolk in Fiskis said there are rumors of brujas with ice powers farther northeast, near the crystal bridge.”
“Yes. And some said there is nothing out there but danger.”
Isabel sighs, and Sapphira feels guilty for dimming the smile on her face. As much as she wants to find out where she came from, she’s also scared. She doesn’t know these people. What if they don’t want her?
“I’m sure they were wrong,” Sapphira says. “You’re right. I bet we’ll find them at the crystal bridge.”
A soft smile crosses Isabel’s lips as she gently strokes the creature curled beside her. It’s grown much since they first found it, and it seems to thrive in colder weather.
Isabel sits up and reaches for her bag. As she has done every night since they left, she takes out her journal and, in the light of the fire, begins recording everything she saw today.
Sapphira sees her sketching an image of the creature they saw at the edge of town. It traveled at the back of a pod and made a warbling sound in its throat that the others echoed back. They appeared to play together, jumping into snow mounds and climbing trees.
The animals collected rocks and brush from the trees.
Scaled quills formed a sort of armor around their pudgy bodies.
The small thing raised its quills outward like little arrowheads, and as soon as Isabel, Kaelen, and Sapphira got close, it closed them up and rolled away.
The whole group made whistling sounds as they disappeared into the snow.
The townsfolk called them Pigglefins.
“You love it out here,” Sapphira says, unable to keep denying the obvious. “I mean, not here, here , but traveling. Why don’t you ever leave Cielo?”
Isabel’s hand stills on the page, and her smile turns wistful.
“As you know, my mother was an explorer. She traveled all over Sule?hare?n, to the smallest and farthest dominions. Some so small, they couldn’t even be called a dominion.
I always wanted to be an explorer like her. To follow in her footsteps.”
Isabel tucks her journal away and eases onto her back, her fingers playing with the tip of a horn. “Since I was little, she was my hero. She told me amazing stories about the world and what she had seen. Her magic was stronger than mine, and she did so much good with it.”
“But?” Sapphira presses, trying to meet her gaze.
Even though her words say one thing, Isabel’s face says another. In the glow of the fire, Sapphira sees tears build at the corners of Isabel’s eyes. Frustration and confusion fill her voice.
“My mother never recorded any of her travels. She kept no record of the things she saw . . . except for what I recorded. I was her recordkeeper. I kept everything she told me in my head and wrote everything I could remember. I’m sure there’s much she never said, things that are lost forever.
I might be one of the only ones who hold her memories. ”
The strings in Sapphira’s heart tug painfully at that admission.
She knows what that’s like, to be afraid of being forgotten.
She doesn’t remember much of her own parents, and that guilt eats at her.
What kind of daughter would she be if she couldn’t keep her parents’ memory alive?
Even their kingdom will be forgotten, their legacy crushed under Cornelius’s reign.
“I told you about the attack that crushed my leg,” Isabel continues. “When I was young, my mother took me on her travels. She didn’t let motherhood stop her. She was fierce like that. But after that encounter, she grew cautious. Afraid almost.
“She would leave me with her draek?n when she went away. Soon, she stopped leaving altogether. She would beg me to promise I’d stay safe, stay in Cielo.
She said there was nothing out there for me .
. .” Isabel draws patterns in the snow with her finger.
“She made me promise,” Isabel repeats. “And with my leg how it was, it was difficult for me to go on long journeys or explore without coming back so sick and exhausted, I’d be in bed for days. I’m not built for this.”
Sapphira can see the pain etched on Isabel’s face at the memories.
“I don’t believe that,” she says, putting force behind her words.
“You were built for this. You love it! There’s no way that someone with that much passion for something wasn’t meant for it.
You would push yourself so hard, you’d be laid up in bed for days.
I watched you climb a draek?n’s back and climb to the most dangerous mountain to make a dessert.
You can do anything, Isabel. Nothing can stop you. ”
Isabel is blushing so hard, it looks like her cheeks might explode. She hides her face in her sleeping pack. Sapphira turns back to the fire, giving her mercy from the heated stare, when Isabel blurts out, “Why didn’t you tell me?” The words tumbled quickly from her lips.
“Tell you?” Sapphira presses, her brows creasing.
“About your ability.” Isabel sighs, turning back over, her hair spilling across the quilt. “You knew about my magic all along, but didn’t trust me with yours.” There’s hurt in her voice.
Sapphira gnaws at her lip, her heart beating loud and rapid in her heaving chest. “I wasn’t—” She swallows. “I still don’t know much about this power. I was born with it, I guess. But I’ve never known how to control it or had anyone to talk to about it.”
“What about your family?” Isabel asks, her brows furrowed, the fire playing over her face. “I mean . . . your father’s family. They had to have been supportive at least.”
Sapphira’s heart squeezes. “I don’t know my father’s family.
It was just my mother’s side, and none of them liked him either.
They didn’t want them to get married, but my mother ignored their wishes.
” She looks away. “I didn’t even know about my power until my parents died.
When Fein—my mother’s guard—told me they were dead, it just exploded from me.
“It was like an anguish I’ve never known, bursting out of me. All of my emotions scattered like glass. It was a miracle Fein wasn’t killed, but he got cut up. I felt so guilty. And then my aunt moved into the castle, and she was appointed regent until I could turn of age.”
Sapphira shakes her head, laughing bitterly.
“Aunt Agath said I’d been born with this power.
But where was it all my life?” Her hands ball into fists beneath her sleep pack, her teeth grinding.
“Why did it disappear again when I needed it? I could have used it to . . . to get away from Agath and my cousins.” She wipes away angry tears, embarrassed, as she turns her face away.
“I’m sorry,” Isabel says, leaning across to cup Sapphira’s cheek. She moves Sapphira’s face to look at her.
Quietly, looking up into Isabel’s eyes, Sapphira whispers, “I want to go with you.”
As she leans over her, Isabel’s nose scrunches adorably. “You are.”
“No.” Sapphira shakes her head, cupping Isabel’s hand that’s on her cheek. She turns it, kissing her palm. “As you journey across the Sand Isles, documenting the world. I want to be by your side.”
Isabel bites her lip adorably, a smile breaking across her face. “Yes. A thousand stars, yes.”
A warmth spreads throughout Sapphira’s chest as Isabel squeals and retreats to her sleep pack and burrows down to hide. Sapphira stares at the back of her head too long, watching the light and shadows play across her curls and itching to reach a hand out.
Isabel Bajiyah , she silently vows. I will be your recordkeeper .
It grows colder as they get closer to the crystal bridge, and no more cities are here at the edge of Mork Kall.
Since entering the Arctic region, the Hybller has become stronger, bigger, and faster. It’s shed its gray fur, and its bat-like wings have grown. Its streamlined, waterproof feathers are flat to its longer, leaner body.