Blayze keeps a fire-striker and flint in his pack. I need them so I can destroy Noelani’s letter and the map I found in the Starshrine, before my courage fails. I can’t risk Arden finding them. I can’t let the others see what I’m doing either. It will raise too many questions. Questions I don’t want to answer right now.
His pack’s easy to find – hidden beneath the chair he’s been using as a bed. As I learnt that night we searched for Serafine, Blayze is jealous of his things, keeps them close to his chest, away from prying fingers. With one eye on the door to the dressing chamber, I open its buckles and root past his change of clothes, the taut curve of his water skin, the barbs of his ice-shoes, the bone handle of his climbing axe. My fingers close around something hard and rectangular. I draw it into the open. An old book, bound in white leather.
I glance at the door again, but the others are still safely occupied. Curiosity coaxes my hand, and I open it, braced for lewd illustrations, only half-sure Blayze was joking about an interest in erotica.
But there are no pictures, only reams of a whirling script I can’t read. Flametongue, presumably. From the arrangement of the characters, much of the book looks to be written in verse. Hardly smut; this looks more like a book of poetry. I smother a laugh. Blayze never struck me as the kind to read sonnets, much less drag a collection of them around the realms with him.
‘Why are you going through my things?’
Blayze is in the doorway. His gaze darts from me to the book. I want to fold in on myself, to disappear, as he strides forwards and snatches it from my hand.
‘I’m sorry. I was looking for your fire-striker. Wanted to make an offering to the Dawn Sister before we leave.’
‘And this looks like a fire-striker to you, does it?’ Blayze waves the book at me.
My eyes slide to his boots.
Blayze replaces the book at the bottom of his pack, takes up the flint and striker, and holds them out to me.
‘All you had to do was ask, Sparkles.’
I reach for them, but Blayze yanks his hand away.
‘Ask nicely.’
I narrow my eyes, and Blayze moves the striker further out of reach.
‘Please,’ I spit through gritted teeth.
‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’ He smirks, pressing the tools into my outstretched hand.
I try to ignore the way my heart flutters as his fingers brush against my wrist, focusing instead on how much I want to wipe that smug expression off his face.
‘Put them back when you’re done,’ he says, leaving to rejoin the others. ‘And never touch my pack again.’
I follow after him, and don’t stop walking till I’ve crossed into the room I’ve claimed as my own.
Drawing Noelani’s letter and map from my bodice, I study them one last time, committing them to memory, before casting both into the grate.
The sound of the metal striker scraping the flint makes me flinch, and my fingers tremble as I bring the sparks to the edge of the parchment. The pages catch alight, flames blackening Noelani’s amethyst script, reducing her words to a handful of ash in seconds.
Words that changed my life forever, permanently and irrecoverably expunged.
It’s like the floor is collapsing beneath my feet.
I’m tempted to scoop the ashes up, wishing I’d kept back fragments, something to collage into one of my paper sculptures, some small sign they once existed. That someone once had faith in me.
Lying to the others is fast-eroding whatever positive feelings I’d started to nurture about myself after the Starshrine. But I convince myself I’m making the right decision, the noble decision, in not telling them about my vision of Arden. I’m withholding the information for their benefit, so as not to worry them.
Turns out Orthriel’s right. In the end, we all lie.
I take one last look out of the window at the Astral Mountain. We’re close now. That’s some consolation. This is almost over.
I might be a liar, but at least I won’t have to lie for long.
ON THIN ICE
ASTROPHEL
