“Then we’ll build that too.” I dare a step closer. “I’ve got a lot of out-of-work soldiers these days. I have more gold than I know what to do with, thanks to the skills and needs of the gildenfae. Torridaig is rich in stone, in timber, in strong people looking for employment. A mountain to hollow out and turn into a stronghold will bring in droves of people looking for a new beginning. A city will grow from there. It’ll probably be done in a year.”
“You’d leave Drayke Mountain? For me?”
“I would die for you.”
Her lips part. Her stare is golden starlight in the dead of night. Magnetic, almost hypnotic. It draws me to her, and her birds let me in. Idallia watches me warily. “You don’t even know me anymore,” she murmurs. “It’s been two years.”
“Two years don’t erase two hundred.” I reach toward her on Fyrestar’s back, offering my hand. “I know you.”
She swallows hard. “Do I know you?”
“The only secret I had was yours. You know everything now.”
My hand still hovers between us. Reach for me.
She grips Fyrestar’s feathers instead of my hand. “Meet me here on the first day of the next full moon. Come at midday but wait until dark.”
I drop my hand to my side, my skin still aching for the touch she didn’t give. “I’ll wait. Noon. Dark. Forever. I’m not giving up on us.”
She turns from me, but not before I see the anguish on her face and the tears in her eyes. Fyrestar lifts off without her signal, knowing it’s time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
IDALLIA
This is it. The test. My birds watch me with encouraging but slightly anxious expressions. Sybil and Stuart are with me. Danica’s here, too, but that’s just a coincidence. She visits a lot. She’s bored without Wade. He lives in Drayke now with his husband, Brian. They make the most fantastic carvings out of birchwood and red cedar and juniper trees that hold details down to the thousandth-layered dragon scale or the tiniest shivering leaf on an autumn tree.
They bring new pieces to me every so often, and contrary to the cold, classic statues all over Glarraden House, I only see the light and joy in this artwork and don’t mind it decorating my home. I see the improvements in Wade’s work every time they visit. He’s learning from Brian, and their business is booming. Not that they need the gold.
“Just a little sunlight won’t do too much damage, will it?” Danica asks nervously. “You know, if the magic doesn’t work?”
I shrug. “I’ll get some nasty burns, but I can jump back into the shadows before anything too awful happens.”
Dawn isn’t far off. Light already limns the horizon in bright gold and blood red. When the sun rises, I’ll step into its light for the first time in two years and test the combined magic of Stuart, my best sorcerers, and the earnest, endless love of my birds. Everyone’s been working nonstop for nearly a month. Today is the deadline—the day I’m to meet Bale on the mountain where our kingdoms join.
My heart swoops, free-falling into the void of my chest with maybe no one to catch it. I almost hate Bale more for giving me this hope—of sunlight, of a new home we build together, of us.
But love is stronger than hatred, and mine feels like it’s climbed the endless steps of Drayke Mountain, one foot at a time, until it reached the top and pushed hate out the window. I’ve wondered these last weeks who I’m really punishing at this point. Continuing to punish Bale feels a lot like punishing myself now.
I needed time. Bale gave it to me.
Now I think I need him.
I swallow hard, tears blurring my eyes. Hope and dread. Fear and elation. I wouldn’t change anything about my choices, but I never expected to have this choice again—to move around outside, both during the day and at night. I would drink from Rannigan, pull off his arm, and pound him to death with it again in a heartbeat, even if it ended my time as a sunblood. His blood made me truly starborn, a queen, and the scourge of Bloodwold—until the kingdom finally turned the corner I wanted.
And now…maybe I can live again.
The sorcerers only just finished, and most of the residents of this keep are heading to bed right now as the sun rises in the east. If the Bloodwold sorcerers hadn’t already had a base spell to modify, it would probably have taken years, not weeks. The first one did, and those human sorcerers are long dead. Creating Rannigan’s firebreath shield from Bale’s stolen scale took most of the decades I lived at Glarraden House. It was done by the time I reached school, giving me equal footing to fight Torridaig’s greatest enemy. Fire and flight didn’t necessarily crush vampires anymore.
My bound breasts are covered, and I take my shirt off. For this magic to work, for it to be safe and not something someone can take from me in broad daylight or that’ll wear off with time, it needs to merge with my skin. A tattoo would only be inked on. This will be fused with my very being.
Fyrestar’s feather is soft, medium-sized, and fiery orange. He plucked it himself straight from his chest. Closest to the heart, just as he promised.
Rim’s came from his reddish-gold wing. It probably won’t grow back, but it was so long and beautiful that he wanted me to have it. It’s still warm with inner fire, even weeks after he pulled it out and gave it to Stuart.
Sol’s gift to me was a little feather from her bright-yellow head crest. It might be small, but it’s one of the feathers that always brought me the most joy as I watched it fly in the wind, trailing sparks like a ray of sunshine in this endless dark.
I take a deep, steadying breath. “Here goes.”
