19. Belonging #3
"I told you we'd be fast," she said as Starspark wiggled his large tail and shook his head back and forth in excitement. He bumped his snout into her as she drew closer, happy little whines slipping from him that she'd never even heard before.
No. She didn't regret it. She doubted she ever would, if she got to greet Starspark like this every day.
It was dark. There were… things gripping at her legs, a band of pressure around each one. She tried to flex the extensions from her back, instincts screaming to flee, but her wings didn't move. Her mouth couldn't open, something biting into the skin around her snout to keep her from doing so.
Another vision.
She felt deeper than her usual visions with Starspark. She couldn't sense her body sleeping against his warm side beneath the tree. No, in this moment, she was Starspark.
The tang of magic was in the air, prickling Starspark's confusion because magic didn't always feel like this. The sweaty, stale scent of humans mingled with the odd smell. Fear pulsed through them, an emotion Aaryn knew the name to, but one Starspark knew only as flee, get away.
But they couldn't.
The bands dug into the backs of their legs. They just wanted the pain of it to stop, and it only lessened when they moved forward. So they did. The scuffle of human feet filled the air along with their murmurs.
Something tingled around their eyes, blinding their vision, and Starspark knew those tingles to be magic, so Aaryn did too.
Their pulse thundered, and she began to recognize her own chest moving, the sounds of her harsh breath in the night air, and she feared it meant the dream was coming to a close. She was too affected.
Don't let go! she pleaded. Because now she had questions. Where was Starspark? Who had taken him? When was this?
The panic tightening her chest was overwhelming her—Starspark's panic. His fear.
She had to separate herself, to focus on the draw of her breathing, to remind herself that this vision… wasn't real. Not right now, at least, because they were safe. In the circle. With… Thea.
She calmed and forced herself to relax, opening herself up to the magic, but since Starspark's vision was blocked, there wasn't a picture she could focus on, and the emotions ravaging Starspark made her shake.
Then—
Voices. She strained to listen, but with Starspark's senses, she didn't have to strain very hard. The bulk of the panic lessened, her curiosity stronger. To know why.
She recognized this accent, plain, Evergalian. The voices were deep, their words oozing with… exhilaration. Disgust made Aaryn's lip curl.
They halted, and the sounds suddenly echoed.
They'd come to a larger room, and when the bands around his feet finally stopped pulling at him, Starspark's instinct was to make himself small, sinking down into a shape as unobtrusive as physically possible.
His talons gripped at a surface too smooth and cold to be stone. Marble.
"Great Hoard, look at him," someone said, their voice thundering and stricken with awe. But it made Aaryn's skin crawl. "Where did you find him?"
"Inhabiting the Throat, circling. So we think they're here, in Evergale."
The Throat. Coarse slang amongst those in Evergale's forces for the canyon beyond the back of the castle. Thea had taught her that.
A booming clap, a chuckle of crooked delight. Starspark went bone-still. Then the man hummed. "He's well-minded, isn't he?"
He's scared! Aaryn wanted to snap as voices both in and witness to the conversation laughed.
"Well. Let's find a new Tethered, shall we?"
Aaryn gasped.
The vision shifted, things around Starspark changed, and he remained so still, so scared, for days.
The one thing that remained constant was a little…
tug, inside Starspark. Or an awareness of something.
Like an itch, or a shape just out of one’s periphery.
His instinct was to move closer, to seek out that something.
It glittered like magic, and he wanted it. But he couldn't.
Then, it was moving closer to him. That awareness grew larger, and excitement built in him, and he moved for the first time in a while, head tilting up. So close. Above him. Near. Near. Near.
Moving feet, shuffled bodies, a pinch of excitement in the air around him.
It all made Aaryn's stomach twist. She knew now what was happening. What she was feeling. What that itch was. Or… who.
"Everyone's gathered? Ready to start?"
"The doors of the church just closed. Let's go."
More movement, more huffed orders, and the scrape of something metal, heavy. The flare of magic, the stink of something burning.
Aaryn wished she could look away. There was nothing to look away from.
"Keep him still."
The bands around his feet tightened, which was unnecessary because Starspark was as still as ever. His head lifted in the direction of that glitter.
"This is the only spot I can reach, really. He's all loafed up, scales too hard. Ready?"
Aaryn braced herself.
And a burn as hot as the sun pressed into her neck, and Starspark would have roared, except he couldn't.
It was Aaryn who had screamed instead, so long ago, on the steps of the church as she'd cursed her luck for missing the lottery.
And it was Aaryn who screamed now.