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“Like a betrothal gift?”

“No.” Rhaya bites her lip, head tilting. “More like an intention to start courting someone.”

She reaches back with one hand and plucks a small feather from the underside of her wing, its soft tawny surface shimmering in the light as she holds it between two fingers. Then she reaches for the chain at my waist, securing it to a clasp.

My eyes widen as the clasp melts into golden threads that travel along the feather’s quill until it’s coated. Then it flares bright and settles into a muted, metallic sheen.

I lift my gaze to Rhaya’s, and my throat tightens. My palms grow clammy, but I don’t pull away when she takes my hands.

“For courage,” she says, and then she’s tugging me out of my room and toward the stairwell. “Now, come on. The others are waiting.”

I let her lead me up the stairwell. My fingers graze the chain again, trailing over Rhaya’s gift. It’s such a small offering, but at the same time so monumental. As if the gilded feather contains the courage I can’t quite find on my own.

Then we step out into the open-air chamber, and the air itself seems to catch its breath.

The night sky breathes with light. Streaks of green and gold and pale blue dance across the endless expanse, shimmering like threads of spun glass. The auroras twist and fold, brushing the edges of the stars before falling into waves.

Aethernight.

I drag my gaze from the dancing lights to where the rest of the kin stand near the edge, their profiles sharp against the aurora-lit sky. They’re all dressed in the same white fabric as Rhaya and me, each movement catching the light in its shimmering threads.

But it’s Lyxander who steals my attention.

His hair, his wings, the pristine drape of his tunic that curves across his broad chest and reveals the sharp, ink-black marks—all of it seems carved from the same impossible white. Cold and vibrant and breathtakingly untouchable.

His eyes meet mine, and for a breath too long, I can’t look away.

I memorize him—the way the auroras paint his skin in shifting hues of green and gold, the way his wings catch the light, the way his gaze somehow softens and heats when it meets mine, as if I’m the only thing in the world that matters. For just this moment, I let myself believe in the thought. No matter how foolish it is.

“Well, don’t you look divine.”

The voice breaks the spell, and I finally tear my gaze from Lyxander as Kato strides toward me. Despite the usual teasing in his tone, there’s a tightness to his expression that turns his grin sharp.

He halts in front of me, a feather I hadn’t seen him pluck already in his hand. With a flourish, he secures it to a clasp on my chain and nods with satisfaction as it turns to gold.

“For luck,” Kato says, leaning in to press a swift kiss to my cheek.

Before I can summon a response, Kato sweeps me off my feet with no more effort than he held his feather. His grip is secure but casual, his grin widening, softening, as I instinctively wrap an arm around his shoulders.

“Hold on tight,” he says as his wings snap open.

And then, without so much as a chance to greet the others, we’re airborne, the wind rushing against my skin as the auroras glimmer above.

The Aethernight celebration, I learn, does not take place in the city. As Kato’s wings slice cleanly through the air, Aerilos unfurls below us, then falls away as we crest the ridge where the wind harps stand like sentinels watching over the city of sky and stone. The snapped strings of the harp I’d broken lift on a gust, and I swiftly avert my gaze.

The mountains stretch in an endless chain of snowy peaks, vast and white, and the air grows colder, thinner, until we descend into another valley where a large pavilion overlooks a frozen lake. The vast plate of ice, moon-pale and veined with darker seams, catches the auroras and throws their colors back in ripples. Beyond it, the land falls away into a sheer plunge over the sea.

We touch down at the edge of the pavilion.

Kato glances up as he folds his wings and sets me down on my feet. “I’m in trouble.”

Before I can ask what he means, the sound of wings cutting through the air draws my attention. I turn as Lyxander, Rhaya, and Cynna land by us.

Lyxander arches a brow at Kato before sweeping his gaze over his kin. “Give Aella and me a moment?”

Kato grins, unbothered by Lyxander’s pointed look, and gives a mock salute before turning toward the pavilion. Rhaya and Cynna follow, their wings folding neatly behind them. The crowd of Harpaurai shifts to make way for them, the movement fluid and seamless, like a tide parting and then closing again.

The hum of conversation drifts toward us, and I can’t help but feel like an outsider standing at the edge of something I don’t quite belong to.