CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
“Your version of it,” I corrected. “It won’t change what I know I saw.
But I still have to know.” My focus shifted to his shoulder, my jaw working on the question that had wormed its way into every corner of my mind since that night at Dray’s.
“What happened?” The words were tight. Strangled by every ounce of my annoyance at needing something from him.
His attention snapped off me. “I can’t answer that. Archon Davina issued an order that no one was to talk to you about Solstice.”
My blood boiled. I shoved it all down into the smallest box I could manage before I sent the entire flock skyward with the force of my anger. “Why?” The word still snaked out as a hiss.
He shrugged. “Because she thinks you’re one of us. And for some reason gives a shit if you believe the truth.”
I sat in silence until the anger cooled to a simmer. “Then…why?” I asked again, but this time it contained every ounce of my confusion at being here.
He glanced at me and I tossed my hands towards the phoenixes.
A shudder wracked his frame and his eyes snapped shut. For the briefest moment, I thought I saw the striations of Stone creep out of the neckline of his leather jacket and over his cheeks. But in a blink, it was gone.
“Because a gargoyle with no damned control is dangerous. And given the Archon saw fit to make me your babysitter, I’d rather not have my face ripped off when you shift and lose your oath-cursed mind.”
My brow cocked. “So this is just a—a what? Happy memory?”
“That’s it. So enjoy it. If you’re capable.”
My jaw clenched tight. I was tempted to have an absolute shit time out of spite, but I couldn’t quite work my brows into a furrow in the presence of the feathery little beasts.
Laney and Alexei weaved through the throng of birds with a mound of blankets and kindling.
“Don’t come crying to me when she relieves you of your balls,” Laney said to her twin. “Oh, here you go.” She passed me a thick leather square to sit on.
I took it with brows shot toward the sky.
She waved me off. “Old argument.”
I snorted and straightened with a cringe, my knees stiff from kneeling for so long, and tossed the square at my feet.
Alexei dumped the pile of kindling in the middle of our loose circle and pulled a flint out of his pocket.
A tendril of mischief leapt into existence and joined all those other foreign emotions that warmed my chest. I flicked my finger when he dragged a dagger over the flint.
The fire roared to life and he fell on his ass, losing his grip on the flint.
It tipped into the fire as the phoenixes went wild.
He looked into the flames with a crestfallen expression. “Damn. That was the best flint I’ve ever had.”
Griffon and Laney threw him disbelieving looks.
“What?” he demanded—until his searching gaze fell on me.
I waggled my fingers at him.
“Oh. In my defense, she’s not supposed to be able to do that.”
“No,” Griffon rumbled. “She isn’t.”
“But she can,” I hastily threw in. I splayed my hands and set a dancing flame at the tip of each finger.
The flock’s wide eyes shifted from the fire to me as one, and I couldn’t help the full-bellied laugh that burst from my lips. I relished it, the sound so foreign I’d almost forgot what it sounded like.
“May as well enjoy it,” I said with a smile, and tossed the ten little flames skyward. The phoenixes burst into the air, squabbling over who got to be the ones to swallow them.
I was still lobbing flames into the air and across the barren plain by the time night fell.
Laney and Alexei had already debated meaningless gargoyle politics and rehashed a few old arguments, and were now pondering whose bed they would most like to wake up in.
Griffon was notably silent as he watched me entertain the flock.
The twins finally settled on their next romantic conquests.
I hurled one last fireball into the sky and tilted my head back to track it.
It disappeared down the throat of a phoenix, leaving a starburst burning in my vision.
I blinked it away and found Alexei glancing between the three of us when I lowered my chin.
“Do you remember that game we used to play at Boris the Bold-er, when we were younger? Where we tried to guess what Lakuro showed each other?”
Griffon went rigid out of the corner of my eye. My own body locked up, my halting gaze stuttering between the three of them.
“I’d wager our fears have changed in the past seventy-five years. And no one knows yours.”
I swiveled back to Alexei. My fingers curled into my palms when I found him watching me. “I’ll give you a new fear if you insist on trying to figure out mine.”
He raised his hands in front of his body. “Rein it in. It’s just an innocent game.”
“I don’t think—” Laney started quietly, her gaze darting to Griffon.
“I’ll go first,” Alexei interrupted, so intent on his stupid little game he didn’t hear her.
“Laney…” He rubbed his chin and stared at his twin.
“I bet Lakuro would show you something to do with Brie. And Griffon…” He turned to his friend, but his face fell.
“Well, shit. I guess we know what it would show you.”
My brow cocked as I looked between the three of them, the mood plummeting to a degree that rivaled the ice surrounding us. Griffon rose and trailed toward the far side of the plain, his black leathers and midnight hair disappearing into the darkness. Laney and Alexei both turned to me.
“Shockingly, he and I agree on something.”
I pushed off the leather and trudged through the snow in the opposite direction Griffon had gone, away from Falcos and her valley.
I halted once I reached the plain’s eastern edge.
A narrow ridge trailed along the side of the peaks that meandered northward, until they met up with the bulk of the range.
I crept along it until the light of the fire was swallowed by the night and put my back to cold, unyielding stone.
Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the soft light of the star-studded sky that illuminated the world sprawled before me.
The Falconridge Mountains consumed everything to my left and disappeared into the distance, her sharp peaks scraping the heavens.
The Abing Forest blanketed the land in front of me until it abruptly ended at the Tynbourne.
The raging river glittered in the Quartet’s glow, slashing across the land like a silver-infused scar.
Small clusters of light popped in the darkness, marking the thousands of lives playing out in villages dotted across Privalt.
I tilted my head to the sky and lost myself among the stars. Lynnix would have loved everything about this. I could imagine her tucked into my side as, for the thousandth time, she pointed out constellations I could never find.
Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, their warmth siphoned by the frigid air before they hit my jawline. The arms I wrapped around myself were empty, Lynnix’s presence as unattainable as all those worlds winking in the distance. Something in my chest broke.
“I miss you,” I gasped. “Gods, I miss you so much I can barely breathe.” I threw my head back into the wall as a sob punched out of my chest. Another chased it into the darkness, my cloak scraping over the stones as my shoulders shook. And I cried.
And cried.
And cried.