Shame filled me at the hurt that crossed her features.
“I came to help,” she said, her tone gentle. “Not to make you an enemy. Please don’t force my hand here, Finley. I’d like us to be friends or, at the very least, allies.”
“Why?”
“It wasn’t only the pixies I helped, but you as well.” She toyed with the tips of her dark hair, her eyes steady on mine. “I’ve watched you, Finley. You would rather harm yourself than cause others distress. That’s rare.”
My stance loosened, just a breath. “Thank you,” I said because the pixies were alive, but I didn’t permit myself to drop my guard.
When my knees threatened to buckle, I lowered myself to the ground, my gaze fixed on her. I ran my hands over the tall grass, my veins pulsing with the energy that flowed through each blade.
I took in a deep breath, holding the soft scent of the summer night in my lungs while relief flooded through me.
The pixies were alive. Despite my magic malfunctioning, they hadn’t died.
“Who are you?” I asked the female.
She sat opposite me, placing my sword and dagger on the ground, just within my reach.
“I am Zaicha, daughter of the gods,” she said.
Daughter of the gods. Why would a daughter of the gods be here, in my realm? Talking to me?
“I have watched you for some time,” she said. “Your magic was never meant to be a burden.”
I scoffed. “A burden is all the crown has ever let me be.”
Her smile deepened, her eyes bright like I’d spoken the answer she’d wanted.
“That’s all your kings have made you believe,” she said, a dark undertone of something vicious nestled beneath her words. Her features softened so that all I saw was the pain she hid behind her eyes. Pain, I was all too familiar with. “But I see the truth. I see the way you measure your breath before you speak. The way your hands tense before you touch anything alive, as if your presence itself is a curse. You, sweet Finley, are so much more than their fear of you.”
My brows pinched together. “What?—”
She vanished. Just as suddenly as she’d appeared, she disappeared. No sound, no shimmer, just the absence ofsomething, someone unknown. The air around me shifted. Dense and electric, humming like my magic before it surged. It pressed against me, as if Zaicha left a part of herself behind.
Had I imagined her? But she'd seen me. She knew that I tensed before touching anything living, and she knew that I held myself back before I spoke, never trusting myself.
“You, sweet Finley, are so much more than their fear of you.”
Or was I only giving shape to words I’d spent my life aching for?Vith.Probably the latter, as nothing so sweet existed for me.
Chapter
Two
BRENTON
There was freedom in flying,like the bonds that shackled me to the ground were no longer there. My dragon flew us under the sun and over the mountains, gliding us through the sky.
Brilliant gray wings spread from Hoshiko’s mighty body. When he dipped down, I pressed my chest to the orange and yellow scales of his neck and laughed when he did three tight spirals. Fanning his wings out, he leveled us only a few feet from the green ground. The warm wind blew across my face, and I breathed it in, filling my lungs with the fresh air.Freedom.
It was nice to fly without snow slicing into me, and although two months remained before the snow inevitably returned, I already dreaded it. I lived for the warmth the sun provided and for the long days I could swim in our pristine lake.
Three months were all we were granted of that warmth. While it wasn’t enough, I soaked in every beat of every day, all the while hoping that whoever had cursed us with our eternal winter would somehow be appeased.
Looking down, I cupped a hand over my forehead to block out the sun to see my one-year-old nephews watching me from the ground. Caspian held his chubby little hands in the air incelebration while his twin brother clapped in Teddy’s arms. That was Zayne, though, a mama’s boy through and through.
I beamed down at the sister magic gifted to me after I’d been shot with an iron bullet. Taking in her mage blood, which she hadn’t known she possessed at the time, bonded us, giving me the family I’d longed for since my youth. While it didn’t erase the memories I had of the orphanage, of watching youngling after youngling go home with family members or friends while I remained unwanted, it eased much of that heartache.
