Tucking in her wings, Mariah dived. She tore through the skies like an arrow, the ground roaring up to greet her, Callamus chasing at her tail. She braced at the last moment, wings snapping out. Her muscles burned as she slowed, beating furiously against the air.
She tugged on the winding thread of magic in her core just before her legs hit the soft earth. The world shifted and snapped, the vibrancy dimming with a flash of silver-gold light. Her feet—no longer taloned—touched the ground, humanity settling back around her like a shroud.
Andrian was still grinning, but it had softened, replaced with something filled with a bit more awe and a little more concern.
“Welcome back, princess.”
Mariah lurched forward, bare feet churning up the soft grass. She slammed into Andrian’s waiting embrace, inhaling a deep lungful of his rain and sandalwood scent.
His chest rumbled as he chuckled, folding his arms around her shoulders. “I mean, you weren’t gone forthatlong.”
She pulled back, finding Andrian’s gaze. “How long?”
“Fifteen minutes; maybe twenty? Long enough for Matheo to shit himself, but not long enough for us to be truly concerned. I knew you were fine.”
Mariah blinked. She felt like she’d been in the staor for hours. Like her conversations with the Crieré had lasted a lifetime.
Matheo scoffed. “Iwas shitting myself? You were pacing around like a wild animal. I had to keep you from diving into that pool at least five times?—”
Mariah grinned, shaking off her confusion at how differently time had passed. “I’m gladMatheowas able to keep it together.” She leaned around Andrian’s shoulder, tossing the younger man a wink. Matheo’s eyes widened then blinked, and he gave her a crooked grin.
Andrian growled. Mariah laughed softly, laying a hand on the side of his face, bringing his forehead to hers. “I promise,” she whispered, “that I won’t do anything like that ever again.”
Andrian sighed heavily, breath ghosting over her lips. “You will,” he murmured. “And I’ll hate it just as much the next time. But there is, unfortunately, nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Mariah smiled. Their kiss was quick, chaste, but said more words than she had left.
When she pulled back, he was watching her with a lifted, scrutinizing brow. “So? How does it feel?”
“It feels—” She was going to saygood, or maybenormal. But as she reached into herself, to that place where those threads had wound into one, she wasn’t sure that was true.
Her magic was there, right in her grasp. She could pull it out, wind it around her wrists. It felt as much like a part of her as it always had, ever since that day it had burst to life below her ribs.
There was also something different. Something foreign about the way it sang in her veins, a bit older in the way it crawled up her spine.
Mariah swallowed. “If I’m being honest,” she said quietly, “I’m glad to have it back. But it feels like I brought something else back with me.”
“Mariah.” Callamus stood a few paces away, back in his human form. His spine was rigid, his brow furrowed into a hard line. His eyes were on her wrists.
Mariah followed the line of his gaze.
Shock rippled through her, stinging and cold. She drew in a sharp breath, stepping out of Andrian’s embrace, holding her hands up before her.
Andrian’s eyes widened in alarm.
“What thefuck,” he growled, “is that?”
Markings—tattoos—scrawled across the skin of her hands and forearms, skin that had once been smooth and unmarred. They were not black like an Armature Mark or any other tattoo that some inked purposely on their skin. Instead, these shimmered and glowed, catching the sunlight and changing color as she turned over her hands. They carried a luminosity that reminded her oflunestair, the moonstone that housedallumeback in Onita.
They stretched up her arms like stalks of wheat. And hidden within the vines were a smattering of feathers and eyes.
A blurred memory flashed through her mind. One of swaying tendrils glowing with power wrapping around her wrists as she was flung from the gods’ plane.
Mariah found Callamus’s stare, a chill snaking down her spine.
For the first time since she’d met him, real fear shone in his galaxy eyes.
“You met them, didn’t you?”
