Tears slip down my face, and a hollow ache takes shape around my heart. When I speak, it’s all I can do to force the words out. “I don’t remember a fucking thing.”
He steps closer, catching one of my tears on his finger and holding it up for me to see. “This says otherwise.”
“So where is my firebird, then? If I have one, like you claim, where is she?”
“I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing.”
“I can feel her. Her presence, like she’s a part of me.” I press a hand to my chest. “But I don’t know how. Nothing’s there. I have no memory of any of this.”
“And what you did just now? It must have taken even more.” His gaze moves past me to the firebird, whose steady breathing is a song to my wounded soul.
“I don’t care,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “I had to save her.”
“I know.” His voice softens. “Because you areyou, even if you don’t remember it. I see that now.”
“And who are you, Taliesin Wynn?” I fire back. “Because there’s more to you than what you’re saying. More than just an exile the Order cast out. You’re hiding something.”
A strange smile tugs at his mouth. “I’m the person who’s going to fix our sky.”
I blink. “What?”
“I’m going to make it whole again. That’s what I’ve been hiding, though I suspect the Order found out. That’s why they sent you after me. They’ll want to stop me.”
I shake my head, nearly too stunned to speak. “The Order wants the sky restored. That’s the goal once the war ends.”
“That’s the second lie they’ve taught you, Swynwraig. When the sky is full of stars again, magic will flow freely, and the Orderwill no longer be able to control it. That’s the last thing they want.”
I bite the inside of my cheek until it burns, because I’m holding back everything I’ve been trained to believe. It makes me feel like I’ve held my breath too long and the world is blurring at the edges. But some part of me hears him. The Orderwantsto control magic. It’s evident in the way they control me.
“If that’s true,” I say at last, “what does any of that have to do with firebirds? With you, your dreams, the rogues hunting us? Why can’t I remember any of it if it happened so recently? Do you think...do you think the Order has anything to do with it?”
My voice spikes. I can’t believe I’m saying any of this. It’s treason to question the Order this way. It’s treason to eventhinkit. If anyone but Taliesin Wynn could hear me, I’d be hanged the moment I stepped foot in Caer Draen again.
I just...can’t believe it.
The Order would never hide something this important from me. But what’s more, they’d never prevent the return of the stars.
May the stars never be forgotten.
But even as I think it, the words ring hollow. I try to think of something—anything—to stand against what he’s said. Examples of what the Order has done to heal our sky, to mend what was lost.
There is nothing.
All I can remember are the missions they’ve sent me on to track down fugitives. Or those who fled conscription in the army. Or those they believe to be working with the rebels in secret. Anything to serve the kingdom’s endless fight. Nothing they’ve done, at least that I can remember, has anything to do with the world we’ve lost, or the hole the stars and gods have left behind.
And that thought shouldn’t hit me the way it does. It should feel like blasphemy just to think it, something my training wouldchoke out of me before it ever formed. But it doesn’t. It just stays there, weighing down everything I was taught to believe.
Because if that’s true, if there isnothingI can remember that proves the Order is restoring anything at all, then what exactly have I been doing all these years? What exactly have I been losing myself for? And why does it feel like I’ve spent my entire life chasing shadows?
Or what if, like so much else, I’ve simply forgotten the things they’ve done to help?
Distant thunder cuts through the noise in my head.
I look up, meeting Taliesin’s steady gaze, which offers more comfort than I want to admit. I shouldn’t trust anything he’s said.Of coursehe would blame the Order. They’re the ones who ruined his life by exiling him to this dreadful place, cutting him off from the rest of the world.
He’s lying to stop me from doing what I came here to do.
Except if he really wanted to stop me, he already would have—by doing far worse than dampening my power with iron.
