‘Saving Arcelia or saving your mother?’
His words lash. I flinch as if they’d cut me. I deserve it – all of it. But it still hurts.
Silence again. Dreadful, heavy silence as they continue to absorb all I’ve just thrown at them.
At last, Astrophel rubs the heel of his hand through his hair. ‘So how do we overcome a flock of night-birds, then?’
I stare up at him. Once I saw his pragmatism as a flaw, evidence of an unfeeling heart, but now I admire his resilience, his ability to not let emotions cloud his logic. In this moment, I’m grateful for his clear head.
‘I have an idea,’ I whisper, wishing I didn’t have to speak it aloud.
Blayze juts his chin. ‘Out with it, then.’
And here we are. The final disclosure. The one I’ve been dreading more than all the others.
My gaze drifts to Serafine, sweeps to her one remaining fire-feather. ‘Only heat can truly overpower them.’
Blayze follows my gaze. His face contorts, the expression frozen somewhere between fury and terror.
‘No! Never! There’s got to be another way!’
THE TASK NO ONE WANTS TO PERFORM
LEILANI
THETUNNELSTRETCHESbefore us, a dark, fanged maw. But I’m leading us to the heart of this mountain, if it’s the last thing I do.
The passage is wider than I expected; three could walk abreast, though we descend in single file, hugging the wall, trusting its snaking contours to steer us through the darkness. It was the right decision, discarding our packs, cloaks and gloves at the crater; it’s dank and slippery down here, hard enough to stay upright without the added bulk.
The rock face is thickly veined with starcrystal, and I press gingerly as I grope forwards to avoid slashing my fingers on its sharp facets. Blayze limps behind me. He left his walking staff at the surface too, insistent he needed both hands to defend himself from the night-birds. His tread is even more faltering than usual, every laboured step making it clear how loath he is to be here.
Serafine flies at my side, the faint glow of her feathers and the starstone around my neck our only sources of light. If Blayze had accepted my scheme back at the surface, allowed me to extract Serafine’s last fire-feather there and then, we would have had light and heat as we descended the tunnel. But in agreeing to enter the caves, he wasn’t agreeing to any such plan. He made that point quite clear, practically spat the words at me. And hasn’t spoken to me again since.
My palms itch. Despite my promise to Orthriel, the temptation to unleash starshine to light our way is almost overwhelming, but the memory of the avalanche stays my hand. Bringing the mountain down on our heads is unthinkable. The walls already feel like they’re closing in. I don’t want to risk exposure to that heady inhuman power again anyway, not with a blood rite still to perform.
As agreed, we walk in silence, eyes rooted to the ground to avoid looking at the night-birds, in case they’ve escaped the third cave. Our footsteps echo through the winding tunnel, but I hear them only dimly over the starsong, growing steadily louder the deeper into the mountain we delve. I flinch at every muffled sound, listening for the rush of wings, but also trying to count our footfalls, unable to shake the feeling Arden is walking behind me, her breath warming the back of my neck, her merciless high-pitched laugh piercing the silence behind the thrum of the fallen Wishing Star. I cast occasional glances over my shoulder, but each time I check, there’s only the outline of Blayze’s broad shoulders, the wink of the torc around his neck.
I try to catch his eye, hoping he’ll look up just once, let me know everything’s all right – that it will be, at least. That he’ll agree to let Serafine sacrifice that feather, that he won’t let this all be for naught. That he’ll find a way to forgive me.
But his eyes remain pinned to the ground, and for all we’re bound by the brands we bear, my magic can’t pierce his mind.
His breathing is harried. Not unlike my own hitching gasps. Strange, from a man who’s always made his home below ground. I shudder at the thought. How can a people live like this, without sunlight, without stars, deprived of even a fresh breeze? And then I remember the desperate blows Blayze levelled at the snow when we were trapped by the avalanche, his inflamed words as we searched for Serafine in the hills, railing against being penned in the dark. Perhaps something more than his injuries and his simmering resentment is causing his feet to drag.
What is it costing Blayze to follow me into the bowels of this mountain?
The tunnel swerves to the left. Stumps of four great crystal pillars greet us as we turn the corner: white, red, green, blue. The Flarestones.
I slow to look at them and Blayze swears, almost crashing into me.
‘Sorry,’ I mumble.
He barely grunts in reply. I press the starstone to the icy callous walling my heart. I am sorry – sorry for everything. But sometimes, sorry isn’t enough. And the truth is, faced with the same choices, I’d do it all again.
A faint glow silvers the passage in front of us.
‘We’re approaching the first cave.’ My voice seems little more than a strangled whisper, but I might be shouting for all I know. Starsong rings in my ears now, blotting out everything else. If night-birds truly remain in the mountain, they won’t like this glare – it should be safe to look up. A blessing, for I can’t miss the sight that awaits us round this next bend.
The tunnel veers to the right, yawing into a vast cavern – deep, wide and pockmarked, riddled with cavities that must once have held starstone fragments before my forebears harvested them to create the Starfields. A small number remain in situ, glinting in the darkness like eyes staring back at us. And in the middle of the cave, towering before us, is a sphere of pulsating prismatic light.
