*
BROADHANDSSETTLEon my shoulders, drag me to a sitting position. Blayze shakes me roughly, tilts my chin.
‘Look up!’
I battle against my heavy eyelids, force them open.
The mountain’s halo envelops us, like we’re sitting inside a rainbow, surrounded on all sides by shimmering pastels. This close, it seems a living thing, pulsating as it subtly changes shape and colour around us.
My eyelids blink closed again.
‘Look there,’ Blayze says, voice rougher this time, his grip on my chin tightening. He’s back in Clanschief mode: forceful, commanding. Marshalling me as he once marshalled the clans.
An archway of carved ice soars in the distance – the entrance to the Starfields finally in sight.
‘See how close we are? You can’t give up now!’
His words drag me from the brink. I lean into his gloved fingers, drawing comfort from their familiar warmth.
No more pain, no more worry, no more regret… but no more of anything else either, not if I let the mountain defeat me. Only death from exposure, and whatever awaits us beyond the Veil.
Heaving myself to my knees, I look at the faces surrounding me. Each of them looks as dejected and broken as I am. Maris and Delphine, ashen and breathless. Tansy staggers, clutching her head. She’s been complaining of dizziness for hours. Blayze is beside me, his face a taut mask of pain, and Astrophel is panting heavily, his hair dishevelled and slick with sweat. I think back to his meticulous appearance at court. This journey has changed him, as it has all of us. And not just outwardly.
Only a few moonscycles ago, we were strangers – enemies. Thrust together out of necessity, tempered by the crucible of shared experience, this journey has transformed us into allies – into more than allies.
I trust them. I only wish they could trust me in return.
Again, that dull gnaw of guilt. Confessions bubble at my lips. I reach for the starstone, press it against my heart, as if to thaw that icy callous, that part of me that doesn’t want to risk the others finding out about Arden, about all my lies, in case they refuse to go on any further.
But the callous holds firm, and I swallow my secrets, along with my fears, carrying them like millstones in the pit of my stomach. There may come a time, after all this is over, when I’ll have to answer for what I’ve done – the choices I’ve made. But to win that chance of a future, we first have to climb these steps.
I brace my jaw, haul myself to my feet.
Blayze is right. We’ve come too far, sacrificed too much, to give up now.
*
DESPITETHECOLD, something like warmth radiates my chest as I mount that final step. Gasping, I fall to my knees and grin. It’s an expression of relief rather than joy. My body is too strained, the challenges ahead too dreadful, to admit real happiness to this moment, but I allow myself to bask for a few seconds in the sense of accomplishment, another seemingly impossible milestone reached.
The muscles in my legs screech in protest when I eventually force myself to my feet, but the starsong resonates louder as I trudge towards the entrance to the Starfields, as if calling me home. I lead us under an archway of ice, pausing to trace the glassy surface and marvel at the carvings of constellations that embroider it.
As my eyes adjust to the dazzle, a sea of what look like twinkling candles dotting the ground come into focus.
‘Beautiful,’ I breathe.
Tansy edges forwards. ‘What are they? Glowflies?’
I shake my head. ‘Fragments of the Wishing Star. Starstones, like this one.’ I draw the Celestial Chain into the open. It flares with the same soft opaline light as the others. But on closer inspection, some of the fragments at our feet glow more brightly than others. Many are extinguished – blackened and splintered.
My eyes burn, but my sorrow quickly turns to rage. There’s no more poignant illustration of the Sickening than this: Arden’s curse draining Estelia’s lifeblood, tipping the Aethers out of balance.
Blayze frowns, ruffling Serafine’s crest as she alights on his shoulder, his other hand keeping a tight grip on his walking staff. ‘What’s that?’
I follow his gaze through the Starfields to a huge crater: a gouged eye-socket in the mountainside. The tunnel leading to the Crystal Caves lies within.
Peering out from under my hood, I cast a lingering look around the perimeter of the Starfields. Still no sign of Arden. But she’s near; I feel it in my bones.
The other members of the Quaternity gather around me in a loose crescent formation. I study each of their tired faces in turn. The moment has finally come. Confession can’t wait anymore.
