As we walk, Auren has them morph from wings to ribbons and back again a few more times, delighting with every transition. I can’t get enough of watching her.
And inwardly, I’m still reassuring myself.
She’s alive.
Soon, the moss-covered cobblestones of the road bring us to what looks like the center of the new city. They curve around a water well like a halo of green, while bigger buildings are set further out. Behind the well, the sight opens up to the river and a thicket of greenery.
When we finally stop, the group stops with us.
“Now what?” someone murmurs.
The question seems to catch onto the faces of every watching fae. As if now that we’ve stopped walking, they’re able to stop reeling.
But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop reeling.
In truth, my heart hasn’t stopped racing since the ground gave way beneath my feet. Once the air hooked around Aurenand me and we were dragged down into a free-fall, I thought it was over. That it was all done.
And a part of me was relieved.
Because Auren was gone, andI didn’t want to exist without her. I clutched her as we fell, and I was okay with it, because it meant I wasn’t going to have to let her go after all. It meant we could stay together.
But then, she started clutching me back, and instead of falling, we flew.
Sheflew. In more ways than one. And she’s here. Not lifeless in my arms, but here with me again.
I don’t understand it. Don’t know how it’s possible. But somehow, Auren denied death. Somehow, she came back to me.
So even though I don’t know all the explanations behind it, my heart hasn’t stopped racing. Not once. So I can understand this question that’s being lobbed back and forth as it travels further down the crowd, because I feel it too.
What next?
I turn to look at Auren, just as Wick and my mother step closer to us.
Wick still hasn’t quite lost that edge of shocked stupor.
My mother, though, she wears a quiet smile. Who knows, maybe as a diviner, the goddesses whisper in her ear. Her lips may be quiet, but perhaps her head is full of words. And while I’ll always wish I could hear her speak to me more, the one word she did bless me with changed everything.
That one word was all I needed.
But that isn’t true for this parade of fae who’ve followed us. Who look expectantly in our direction, waiting for words and explanations.
A Vulmin moves through the crowd to get to the front, his collar exposing the embroidered sigil of the broken-winged bird.I wonder if some of the Vulmin will change it now. If the symbol will shift with the appearance of Auren’s wings.
“Yes, what happens next?” he asks with anticipation, his gaze moving back and forth between Auren and Wick.
Auren shifts on her feet, and I know she’s slightly uncomfortable to be the center of all this attention. “Well…” she begins, with a glance darted to Wick. “We can rest here in the city. There seems to be food…”
“The bridge is gone,” the Vulmin says. “And the Stone Swords said that Carrick went to Orea. So if that’s true, he’s gone too.”
The thought of the Stone King being in Orea makes worry tighten my shoulders. I hope King Thold unleashes his serpents on the bastard until he’s nothing but a constricted corpse riddled with venom. I hope they defeat him and that my brother and my Wrath are okay.
But the bridge is gone.
And Brennur, the only fae who had the power to transport between realms is gone too.
Which means we will never get answers, and I will never get to see my brother or Lu or Os or Judd again. My Premiers. My people. I’ll never know if Orea suffers at the fae king’s hand, and I can’t get there to help them if they do.
Guilt weighs on me like an arm slung over my shoulders, intent on pulling me down.
