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“No, no, no—” The words tumble from my lips in a frantic prayer. The mist latches on to the marks carved across my body. It slides into my skin and enters my bloodstream, burning like a fire was started inside me.
My body convulses against the chains as the green light burns brighter, hotter, until it feels like it’s devouring me whole.
I lose all sense of time, of feeling, of self.
And then it stops.
The pain vanishes, replaced by green, vibrant life that floods my senses—too much, too bright, wrong. It overwhelms me, as if I’ve been thrust into a world painted with a color my eyes were never meant to see. Something other pulses beneath my skin, alive and ancient. It digs deeper, crawling through me like roots burrowing into soil, embedding itself into my muscles, my marrow. My soul. I can feel it growing, pulsing with power as if my body is no longer mine alone. It hums in my veins, a quiet, invasive song threading through my thoughts.
It’s not mine. It’s not—
Violent trembles seize my body, my vision blurring at the edges. The Eagle leans over me, smiling like a proud parent admiring their work.
“Rest now, Sparrow. Tomorrow, we fly.”
Chapter 43
Aella
The impact buckles my ribs; pain knifes clean between them and detonates along my spine. A scream rips out of me before it’s snatched away by the wind.
My eyes fly open.
Not the ocean.
A pelt of pure snow floods my vision.
The world heaves, then steadies as I sprawl along the slope of a broad back—muscle and sinew moving in long arcs. Wings unfurl to either side, catching the aurora’s light and scattering it across the night with each powerful beat.
“Ares?” I choke out, the pain ricocheting through my body snapping everything into cruel clarity. My fingers fist instinctively in his fur; he huffs once, a sound like bellows closing, and banks.
The wind rushes past us as he flies low along the cliff face.
I did not emerge.
It hits me like a second impact, the words echoing in my mind.
Failure settles cold and precise inside my chest, a weight that my bruised ribs must now carry. The wind plucks at the edges of the feeling, but it doesn’t move. The ache in my chest deepens, spreading like a crack through glass. I’ve spent so long running, so long searching for belonging, a purpose. A reason to keep moving forward. And now, when I thought I’d found it, it’s gone.
Thunder growls overhead, the sound vibrating through my bones. A flash of lightning splits the sky in the distance, jagged and brilliant, swiftly followed by another. Then another.
Ares’s wings cut through the frigid air, unflinching. Each powerful beat sends ripples through the stillness, trembling like waves across a frozen lake. I ride in silence, the sharp wind curling through my hair and brushing my skin. It’s not as steady as flying with Lyxander. Where his flight is graceful, this is different. Wilder. Unpredictable.
Ahead, Aerilos emerges—faint at first, a soft glow scattered across terraces and snow-dusted bridges. Then brighter as we near, and the light from the celebration of those who had remained in the city competes with the auroras above.
I will not be able to return to this place.
The thought arrives without ceremony. For a stunned heartbeat, I feel only the absence, the shape of the door closing—how the world rearranges itself around the space where an opening used to be.
Ares slows, descending toward the city’s outskirts with fluid, purposeful glide. His chest expands between my legs, body trembling, and then he tosses his head back with a roar that cracks through the air like shattering ice. It climbs higher, a piercing, primal cry that ripples across the wind and echoes across the mountains.
I scream with him—pushing as much fear and frustration and fury as I can into the sound—then bury my face in the rough fur of his coat.
The landing hits harder than I expect, a jarring thud against the earth that sends a tremor through my bruised rib cage. Ares flares his wings once, braking with a violence that throws my weight forward; I slide, scramble, and half fall from his back, landing on my knees in the snow.
Hissing out a pained breath, I look up.
Ares faces me—close enough that the heat of his breath rolls over my skin in slow pulses.
