“For a long time, I never knew this place existed,” Kythel told me quietly, watching me trace the strips of silver metal hammered in. “She kept it a secret for years.”
I blinked, looking at him over my shoulder. “It hasn’t always been here?”
“There were old hunter outposts in Stellara, but all are abandoned now. This,” he said, gesturing to the cottage, “was built recently. From the materials alone, I’d guess thirty, no more than forty years ago. Perhaps even by Ruaala. Perhaps even with your father. But it’s obvious to me they weren’t builders. The structure needs a lot of improvements. I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.”
A breath wheezed out from my lungs.
“She did those. I remember her giving a wood carving of akyrivwith metal stripes to my sister once,” he told me, his eyes glued to the way my fingers traced the doors. “You saw the trees?”
“Yes,” I said. “Like she was marking the way. Like she wanted this place to be found.”
His lips pressed into a grim line at the words. He knew more than he was telling me—that I was certain of. But I knew better than to press. With time, perhaps he would tell me.
“I need to leave,” he informed me abruptly, turning to back down the path. “I’ll bring you azylarr. Tomorrow. Until then, be careful. Don’t stay here after dark. There were oncelyvinsin these woods.”
“No promises,” I said. “Will I see you at—”
But he shot up into the sky, my hair blowing back from the sudden gust, and I didn’t think he heard me.
I watched him fly over Stellara until he disappeared from my line of sight entirely. Then I turned to the cottage. If my father and Ruaalahadbuilt this place, then it only made me more determined than ever to restore it.
I looked at the door. I smiled.
At least now I could keep the critters out.
* * *
Kythel camethe next afternoon with azylarr, just as he’d promised.
“The crystal will melt into a silver pool as the souls begin to feed on it,” he informed me when he noticed I’d arrived for the day. He’d already set it up, curiously at the back of the cottage, next to a bleeding tree that had encroached close to the main structure of the house. “It needs to be replaced every month. Don’t forget.”
Thezylarrwas a shallow basin of white stone, perched on a columned pedestal that must’ve been heavy to transport here.
“You’ll let me stay formonthsnow?” I couldn’t help but tease, silly pleasure rising in my chest at the sight of those broad shoulders and black wings. “Just yesterday you weren’t going to let me stay at all.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he grumbled, and I chuckled. His gaze swung to me, and he studied me until my laugh slowly tapered off.
“What is it?” I asked, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, the back of my neck tingling with his intense assessment.
He said nothing. There was a single chunk of smooth crystal, the crystal I assumed was responsible for the molten pools of silver I’d seen within thezylarrsscattered through Erzos. I hadn’t known they began in crystal form or that they needed to be replaced every month because soulsfedon them.
“I haven’t looked at the book you lent me yet,” I admitted quietly, watching him straighten. The crystal clinked in the basin, and I watched as a stream of silver ran down the side of it, pooling beneath it.
Already?I wondered, though I didn’t sense that familiar icy chill in the air.
“Why not?” he questioned. He placed his hand on my lower back, the warmth of it leaving me a little flustered, as he guided me around to the front of the cottage, away from thezylarrand the bleeding tree.
Every time I’d thought about cracking open the book’s spine, something had stopped me. Maybe because I was scared at what I would find, which was foolish and ridiculous.
“Sometimes I’m angry with her,” I admitted, something I’d never voiced. “A lot of the time actually.”
“Why?”
“Because she haunted him,” I answered, leaning back against the strongest stretch of fence of the front garden.
This patch got the most sun. I planned to plant seeds here but only after I retrieved my father’s body from Horrin. I refused to spend a fraction of the credits on anything else for now. All the supplies I’d collected so far—like the cleaning solutions and the spare rags and buckets—I’d found and scrounged for. The fungus pastes I’d gotten from Marr, a local villager.
“She followed him wherever we went. Her memory,” I added. “And she was the one who chose a different life. A life that didn’t include my father.”
