Page 85 of Skysong

She’d thought she’d never see either of them again. Andala didn’t know how to feel, now that was not the case.

‘Is everything all right?’ came a tentative voice. Oriane had caught up with them and stood nervously to the side, her arms wrapped304self-consciously around her. Andala cursed herself internally. Oriane was still in the golden gown she’d worn when she last transformed; her face still shimmered with the remnants of the cosmetics Andala had painted there. Naturally, the villagers’ eyes were drawn to her, this stranger who looked like the sun itself as she arrived in their town on the day it returned.

‘Everything’s fine,’ Andala said. ‘Let’s get you inside.’

Never mind that inside lay more secrets Andala had kept hidden, laid bare for Oriane to see.

Leilyn and Amie sat together at a table by an open window. There were no other patrons in the inn; everyone who would usually have been there was outside, revelling in the resurrected sun’s warmth. It was just the two of them: their skin the same ivory as Andala’s, their hair slightly different shades of her own night black – Leilyn’s streaked with cool silver, Amie’s with a touch of her father’s bronze warmth. They were playing some sort of game atop the table, but looked up as Andala and the others entered.

‘Daddy!’ Amie cried, upending the game pieces as she launched herself from her seat.

‘Andala,’ Leilyn breathed, her own piece falling from her hand. For the second time in a handful of days, Andala’s mother put her arms around her and drew her close. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ she whispered, her voice thick. ‘I thought I’d lost you again.’

Andala stiffened in Leilyn’s embrace, but felt her own eyes prickling too.

‘Who’s that lady? Is she a princess?’

Andala and Leilyn broke apart at the sound of Amie’s voice. She was staring across the room at Oriane, who had remained at the doorway of the inn, hovering half-in and half-out of it with the nervous air of someone who didn’t want to interrupt. Amie’s eyes305were wide as they took in Oriane’s gown of molten gold. Despite its torn and dirty hem, it was easy to see why Amie thought her royalty. Oriane glowed, backlit by the afternoon sun, her hair and skin and gown limned with light.

Girard laughed, though the sound was a little uneasy. ‘Not quite, my love. That’s – that’s just a friend.’ He looked to Andala, swallowed visibly. ‘And you remember Daddy’s other friend? Andala?’

Amie turned to Andala. The girl studied her for a moment, then nodded. ‘I remember.’

Andala’s stomach flipped. But before she could work out what to say, or how to say it, she curled forward involuntarily, a hand to her chest.

For the first time in weeks, a familiar feeling of ice flickered there.

When she looked up, she met her mother’s eyes, which were full of understanding. ‘It’s almost sundown,’ Leilyn said.

‘I need to go,’ Andala muttered. Before Girard or her mother could respond, she crossed the room to Oriane. Andala had only to look at her for something to pass unspoken between them – a question, an offer, an invitation.

Oriane nodded, and after Andala had swiped a lantern and matchbook from behind the bar, the two of them left the inn, emerging into the afternoon’s dying glow.

Most of the village was still outside, savouring the last of the daylight. But there was a strange feeling in the air as the hour grew late: a sense of waiting for something, a kind of nervous dread. Andala thought she understood why. The night was soon to fall. And the last time it had done so, weeks without light had followed. They must have all feared the dark now, the way she once had.

She steered Oriane into the hush and shadow of the nearby tree-covered hills. They walked in silence for a while, and soon came to306a secluded clearing. A warm breeze stirred up the scent of summer grass and sunblossom. It was as if the brief, unnatural winter had never been.

Andala hovered uncomfortably, the centre of her chest growing colder. She had not missed the pain, the way it made her body feel as if it wasn’t her own – but it seemed less severe now, perhaps, its edge a little duller than before. ‘It’s almost time,’ she said, simply to have something to say.

Oriane gave a tentative smile, but Andala could sense the doubt that lay behind it. Andala didn’t blame her. After everything she’d been through, it made sense that she might not trust Andala to tell her the truth.

Andala had never liked transforming in front of anyone. In fact, until the dungeon, she’d barely done so since she was a child. It had not taken her long to shake off her parents at the end of each day, and later, to slip away from Girard when the sun sank low. It made her unbearably nervous to have Oriane watch her now.

Oriane waslikeher. They were the same. The first time she had seen Oriane transform – the first time she’d seen the bird of day to her bird of night – it had felt … She couldn’t describe how it felt. Like the sunrays conjured by Oriane’s song had somehow pierced the depths inside her, just for a moment – a light bright and strong enough to reach the ocean floor.

But what would it feel like for Oriane to seeher, this creature of darkness, call shadows into her world of light? What would it feel like for Andala to have a witness to the source and symbol of all her hurt and fear and shame?

She closed her eyes. She needed to breathe, to focus on the biting chill in her bones, the frost-rimed blade poised at her heart. Better to focus on familiar pain than this new, fragile fear.307

When it happened, it was the same as it had always been. Her body shrank, the way it always had; the nightingale’s song burst forth, an uncontrollable stream of notes that forced their way like shards of ice from her heart to her throat. Slowly, slowly, the afternoon light began to fade.

She flew once around the clearing, awkward and uncomfortable as ever in this body. How humiliating it was, that Oriane, so graceful and at ease in her skylark form, should see her this way. She probably thought Andala ridiculous – was probably laughing at the sight of the inelegant nightingale, the complete antithesis of herself.

But when Andala glanced down, her song still streaming from her as it called the evening forth, she was shocked at what she saw.

Oriane was weeping.

Tears flowed freely down her pretty face. Like little glittering jewels, they caught the last of the dying light as it filtered through the trees. Andala was concerned, at first – but as she swooped closer, she could see they were not tears of sadness. No; that wasjoyon Oriane’s face. Pure, radiant joy, bright as the dawn she called.

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