I keep plucking, dimming my insides one pinched bead at a time. Keep squishing, smoothing, applying—until the crystal is thick and sparkling, that ball of emotion stuffed down deep and locked away.
My next breath pours into me unburdened, blown out on a shuddered sigh. I blink, freeing the warm tears that had gathered in my eyes, feeling heavy but light. Hollow but full. Broken but whole.
Nothing.
This is better …
My gaze drops to my dagger and chain and the three bloody blooms in the grass—the large one too big and bulky to tuck into my pocket. I dig a hole in the ground and bury it, patting the soil before I carefully gather the others. I secure my necklace around my neck, succumbing to the tight gulp of my fake exterior as I stab the dagger into the makeshift sheath bound around my waist.
Looking at the blood on my hands, I frown, stretching my fingers, scrunching them up …
Hairline cracks weave through the dome.
“Shit,” I mutter, squishing more beads of light, bogging up the gaps. Unfortunately, it’s no magic fix-all. I just have to … keep plucking and squishing and bogging. Forever.
I can do that.
The underbrush crunches and pops beneath my bare feet as I walk toward the spot where the sprites fell. Every step, everybreath,tracked by countless pairs of eyes.
The Irilak drift backward in the wake of my approach, maintaining a healthy distance. I kneel, drawing on the heady scent of damp soil and decaying vegetation, brushing through soft, flimsy foliage to reveal the sprites—the smaller one with tear-stricken cheeks and twigs in her fire-red hair.
She looks up at me, dragging on the other’s torn garb, trying to haul her toward a tiny scrap of light filtering through the canopy. “Ge ni ve lashea te nithe ae nah! Ge ni ve lashea te nithe ae nah!”
Something, something, chase, worry …cake?Or is it eat?
Hmm.
Too bad I flunked sprite linguistics.
I look at the larger one face down in the dirt, her hair the same bright red. Perhaps they’re mother and child? She’s even wearing a similar dark shift, but in place of her left wing is a frayed nub, a clear liquid leaking from the wispy sever.
Another sharp caw pierces through the canopy, and I peer up, squinting toward a single blade of light and the dark shape circling, circling …
“Ge ni ve lash te nithe ae na!”
“It’s okay,” I murmur, gently sweeping the injured sprite into my sore palm that bears a wound I refuse to acknowledge, tucking her close to my chest. The younger one flutters up until she’s hovering near my face, her wide eyes steeped in emotions that make more cracks appear in that crystal dome—cracks I bog with another layer of light plucked from my dimming insides.
My next blink feels heavier than the last.
“Where do I take her?”
She looks around at the Irilak still cowering in the shadows.
“They won’t hurt us.” I don’t know why I’m so certain—as certain as I am that I never want to feel again.
Ever.
Nothing is everything I never knew I needed. The ability to skate along the surface of my conscious mind, lift my feet and move forward. To continue down this pulseless, soundless void.
It’s …safe.
With a pained glance at her mother, the sprite waves her little hand—a gesture for me to follow.
The Irilak cleave a path for us as I trail her through the jungle, every step away from that heaving waterfall feeling like a string is tethered to my ribs, stretching.
Stretching.
I tune into the injured sprite’s shuddered breaths, timing my own to match their pattering beat.
