At his words, her curse turned. As sudden as it had soared upwards, it spun back to the ground and exploded against the sand.
The aura it found there was a new one.An ancient and furious presence, gnashing its teeth, like the last warm trickle of sunlight before an endless black winter.
Sonara clamped her eyes shut.
Come back,she begged her curse.Come back, come back, goddesses damn you, come back.
Jaxon’s hand pressed against hers as she dug her fingertips into Duran’s mane. She was on fire. She was going to burn until she became nothing but ashes, scattered away on a rogue wind.
“Sonara,” Jaxon said again. He shook her gently. The very same way he had, years ago, when she’d lost control of her curse for the first time. When Markam had backed away, fear in his eyes, but Jaxon had entwined her fingers through his and together, they’d waited the pain away. “Sonara. You’re not alone.”
She wasn’t.
She had Duran with her, the soul-ember in her chest warm and welcoming as she focused on it. And she felt Jaxon’s hand tighten over her own. They held onto Duran together, breath by breath.
She wasn’t alone.
She could bring it back. She was stronger than this.
Something seemed topopin her senses. The tether recoiled. Her curse slammed into its cage, and the lock turned tight.
The heat was swept away, as if the wind had changed course and carted it to someplace distant. Sonara took a nervous breath and found it mercifully empty.
“Blast,” she said, pointing up with a shaky finger. “The… the ship, Jax.”
The sky was on fire. The Wanderer ship rocketed across it, metal and blazing as always. But this one had a red emblem painted on its underbelly. A bird with flaming, outspread wings as sharp as knives.
“Soahm,” Sonara said, and in her mind, she saw the ship as she once had.
A shadow blotting out the stars, the red bird bathed in moonlight as the ship banked and rose higher. She’d never forget that bird. Not in a million years.
“That’s the one,” Sonara said. “I’m sure of it.”
The shadows in her veins roiled, as the very ship that had stolen Soahm, years ago, finally returned to Dohrsar.
Chapter 11
Sonara
A half-day later, their mounts breathing heavily, they crested the final stretch of road up the mountain pass. The Garden of the Goddess.
It was nestled in between the two smallest peaks of the Bloodhorns. Where the rest of the Bloodhorns were jagged terrain, rocky purple and crimson crags and treacherous mountain faces of shale that crumbled beneath the feet of even the most agile mountain beasts… the Garden itself was flowing with life.
An oasis like none other on Dohrsar.
Sonara’s eyes watered from the mere brightness of it all.
Grass, so lush it looked like an emerald sea, swayed gently in the wind, a carpet rolled across the entire valley. Among the grass stood tents in every shade of beast skins and stitched fabrics from across Dohrsar; natural sun-dried leathers and vibrant, dyed blue and purple and red skins. Through the valley, cutting through the grass like a silver tongue, a pure mountain spring that boasted the freshest, coolest waters. Some healers across Dohrsar traveled days just to fill their jugs from it.
Sonara followed the gently flowing river upwards, towards the center of the Garden of the Goddess: where the legend itself was born.
The jagged crimson fingers of the fallen goddess stood like ancient sentries.
They stretched upwards right out of the ground, towering crimson rocks that were so massive Sonara had to crane her neck back to follow them with her gaze. They rose far above the valley, surpassing even the surrounding mountain peaks until they disappeared into the clouds beyond. None could tell how far the fingertips of the fallen goddess stretched.
Thick blue vines stretched and twisted up the towering crimson rocks, glowing even in the daylight. Sun blossoms, with their jagged petals, hung from them in silken auburn and golden clusters. At night, the petals would fall. Moon blossoms would sprout to take their place; softly glowing flora that could be crushed and spread to make a paint that looked dipped in moonlight.
A waterfall trickled from one of the goddess’ fingers, thick blankets of moss hanging from it like an emerald curtain, sunlight glinting off it.
