Her words remind me of the secrets between us and help quell my crushing desire to fly her back up the mountain, lay her on my bed, and slake this fierce passion I’ve tried so hard to ignore.
I pump my wings, bringing us back up and through her window. Her legs drop from my waist, and I force myself to let her go. Her arms slowly fall from my shoulders, lingering just long enough to make me doubt my choice.
Her room is dark, though light starts glowing from inside the roosting wall almost immediately. Three twinkling lanterns to welcome her home.
My chest collapses with loneliness.
I back toward the window and hop onto the ledge. Standing there, I take her in.
Starborn.
Sunblood.
Idallia of Glarraden.
Which part of her will win?
She shivers, and I immediately want to warm her again.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re beautiful,” I rasp.
Her eyes widen as I drop backward off the ledge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
IDALLIA
As usual, life ignores my inner turmoil, and everything goes back to normal over the next few days. We train without Bale, and I stay out of sight to avoid any potential run-ins with Bloodwold vampires as Council delegations begin arriving in Drayke and hovering around the mountain. I haven’t heard about Rannigan Bloodthief appearing yet, but it could happen any day now.
Bale still hasn’t sent any of us away, and I don’t think he’s going to. From everything he’s said to me lately, this is the make-or-break Council—either things radically change, or he’ll splinter off and no longer adhere to a broken system initiated by a missing goddess.
My hands turn cold and clammy every time I think about Cealastra’s continuing absence, but if I’m honest with myself, when I look at the eye of the great phoenix in the sky, I know the Star of Ellonrift is fading. How long until its light snuffs out entirely? Cealastra’s constellation will still exist, but the eye will go dark, and she’ll no longer be watching us.
Maybe she’s dead. Maybe she’s turned her light elsewhere. Either way, I’m convinced she’s gone from Ellonrift.
When Bale’s staff starts putting out calls for in-mountain blood hosts to feed the Vampire King and his entourage while they’re here, I start having even worse nightmares. There’s no shortage of people willing to sell their blood for money, but my persistent fear of Bloodwold vampires becoming violent or going too far as they drink turns my stomach.
Even safe in my own room, I shudder, phantom pains bursting beneath fading wounds. I’ve never been scared like this in my life, and I hate it. Battles are hard and terrifying, but then I leave them behind and just think about the next one, not the one before. This time is different. I can’t leave the battle at Draywood behind. It lives inside me now.
Since according to Rexton Hale, Rannigan Bloodthief will be looking for me, I decide to test out Hale’s advice and avoid the sun entirely. If Rannigan wants a bite of me, he won’t ask—he’ll take, so the smartest thing I can do is try to taste normal.
We’ve been left to our own devices for training, so I just stop going. The team questions me, and I tell them I’m feeling under the weather. That becomes truer by the day. I don’t notice much of a difference at first, but by the third day, my energy wanes and my stomach puts up even more of a protest to meals than usual. The following day, it’s hard to get out of bed, the clear, bright morning mocking me. A splash of sunlight comes through the open window, and it almost physically hurts to not get up and move into the warm light puddling on my floor. By the next afternoon, I ache like humans do when they’re sick with a fever, shivering in my bed, my skin chilled and sensitive, and my teeth clacking together.
Fyrestar flutters down from the roosting wall. Concern furrows the feathers on his brow. “Should I get Sybil?”
Trembling in the shadows, I look out my window. The sunshine calls to me as though it has an actual voice. “She can’t fix this.”
“Hale’s theory is making you sick.” Of course I told my birds everything, and now they’re worried and decidedly anti-Rexton Hale. I might be, too, considering his suggestion is making me feel and look like death.
“Let’s go for a flight,” Fyrestar suggests, moving toward the window. He hops right into the sunlight, and longing swells in me. “Get outside for a while.”
I look yearningly at the blue sky as Sol flutters down next to me. “Pale,” she chirps. “Need sunshine.”
“You sound like Bale,” I say sourly.
“Dad’s right.”
I give her the side-eye. She hasn’t stopped with the Dad thing since she started. “Dad might be,” I agree. I can’t help humoring her. “But I’m always pale.”
