Page 99 of Skysong

Shadows grew on the eastern horizon as the nightingale’s song stole forth into the quiet. The skysingers kept pace with one another, flying together for the first time as easily as if they’d done it all their lives.

When Andala’s wings started to dip a little, Oriane swooped down with her, anxious to make sure she made it to the ground in time. They cut back through the trees together and landed on the road. The moment they did, Andala transformed. Back in her body,349she landed clumsily on her hands and knees, her head drooping towards the ground. She didn’t move.

Oriane changed back too, dropping to the ground beside her. Ahead she saw Kitt and Tomas dismounting, but at a glance from her they turned away quietly, taking their mounts’ reins and continuing up the road.

‘Andala?’ Oriane said, laying a tentative hand on her shoulder.

Andala’s head jerked up at the touch. Her eyes were rimmed with red, but no tears shone in them, as if she had driven them back inside through sheer force of will.

As one, they stood, and Andala turned towards Oriane, her black hair silvered with starlight. Despite the fear and anguish on her face, in this moment she looked every bit the nightingale, the goddess, and Oriane wished she could see it herself.

‘The island,’ Andala whispered. ‘How can we be sure it’s really there?’

The question sounded like it had been turning in her head all day. Oriane understood; it had been turning in hers, too. ‘I don’t think we can,’ she said gently, truthfully. ‘But I think … I think we have to try anyway.’

Words began to spill from Andala in a rush. ‘I can’t do this, Oriane. Even if I did manage to make it to the island – and I doubt that I will; you saw me just then, I nearly … But even if I did – I’m not the right person to be there with you. I lied before, when I said I was ready to be a god.’ She scoffed at the word, a dark, humourless laugh escaping. ‘I’m nogod. A god shouldn’t feel like I do – like their power is a … a curse, some awful spell they can’t control that has only ever made the world worse.’

She looked up, and Oriane’s heart twisted to see she was crying in earnest now. It transfigured her face from its usual masklike beauty350into something more raw, more real. Something even more beautiful than before.

‘I’ve hurt so many people, Oriane. I don’t want to hurt you. Not any more than I already have.’

Oriane took a breath, gathered her courage. Andala had known what to say to her when she had visited dark places. And Oriane knew what she wanted to say now.

‘I know you’ve struggled,’ she said, her voice low. ‘I know your power – your darkness – it doesn’t sit easy with you. But I’m not afraid of it, Andala. I’m not afraid of you. If you want to learn to live with it, you don’t have to ask me to help you.’ She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. ‘There is nothing in this world that I would rather do.’

Andala’s eyes had lowered again as Oriane spoke. But now she looked up once more. After everything she’d just said, Oriane felt bare, vulnerable under her gaze, but she held it nonetheless. That was what she had wanted all along, wasn’t it? To share something of herself with others? To be seen?

Slowly, Andala raised a hand, placed it whisper-soft to the side of Oriane’s face.

This. This was what she had wanted, without even knowing.

She raised a hand to match Andala’s, and they stood in mirror image, palms burning on each other’s cheeks.

‘Oriane,’ Andala whispered. ‘I—’

But before she could finish what she’d been about to say, the sound of running feet made both their heads swivel sharply. Kitt was approaching.

‘Terault’s people,’ he panted as he reached them. ‘They’re already here.’351

They followed Kitt back to where Tomas waited in a hidden spot off the road. On the way he told them what he’d seen.

‘There’s a rise up ahead. I think the place we’re looking for is on the other side of it. I left Tomas so I could scout it on foot. And thank the skies I did, because they have people waiting. After the rise, the land smooths out into a kind of clearing, on top of a promontory. There’s something there … I couldn’t get a good look at it, but it looked like ruins of some sort, huge stone structures.’ He glanced between them. ‘I think it might once have been a temple.’

A temple. Oriane nearly stopped short. Of course – it made sense, didn’t it? This had to be the place. Worshippers had built a temple on the very spot the gods had first come to Cielore.

They’d found it. The island had to be there, just across the water. They were so close.

‘Terault’s followers are everywhere,’ Kitt went on. ‘Camped out among the ruins. He must have sent them ahead when he dispatched his scouts. I don’t know how, but he must have suspected you’d come here.’

They reached the animals and Tomas, who greeted them with a grim look. For a while, nobody spoke. They simply stood there, reeling from the discovery.

‘So we go no further,’ Oriane said, after a while. ‘We transform here, and fly the extra distance. Now that we have a marker of the way we’re supposed to go, we don’t have to fly from the ruins themselves. We just have to make sure we’re on the right course.’

Kitt was nodding, but Andala stayed silent. She bowed her head, her curtain of dark hair falling to obscure her face.

‘I still can’t transform.’352

A beat. Then Oriane said hastily, ‘That’s all right. We’ll … we’ll just wait until tomorrow’s nightfall. The moment you transform, we’ll go.’

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