Page 89 of An Honored Vow

Ish’kavra diiz’bithir ish’kavra.

From flame to ash to flame again.

Gerarda’s voice was powerful. It rose to heights that she held like birdsong through the highest treetops before lowering to a turbulent trill. Somehow the words sounded different; at Hildegard’s funeral she had sung with grace and refinement, but now her voice shook with the rage that had fueled Brenna every day on this island. It crashed and rolled with the tempo of the sea just as Brenna’s love had ebbed and flowed through my life.

Only when Gerarda sliced her hood from her cloak did I realize she was wearing black. It was not the black garb given to us as Shades, but Elvish-spun linen that held its darkness even after decades of wear.

It was a symbol—the hood Brenna never got to claim. Gerarda sliced her hand as she sang, coating the hood in her blood before passing it to me. The hood that had rightfully been Brenna’s, the one Damien had taken from her.

I sliced my own palm with my bloodstone blade and turned toward the palace of Koratha. I looked up at the middle tower topped in gold and wondered if Damien was watching us through his magnifying window. Part of me hoped he was, that he had to bear witness to this last act of defiance Brenna and I were doing together.

Gerarda and I lay the hood over the pile of bones. She laced her bloodied palm through mine and my magic seeped into her, stitching the flesh back together without a conscious thought. The last words of the funeral song hung from her lips like a final farewell and then the world went silent.

“Ish’kavra diiz’bithir ish’kavra,” I whispered, and then I set the pyre aflame.

We stood as the hood and bones burned away, singeing the petals underneath it before they too turned to ash. Gerarda drew a circle on the grass with her foot. “Light another fire here,” she said, pulling a knife from her belt.

The flames ignited in an instant. Gerarda placed the blade in the fire before grabbing thediizrafrom my hand and opening the top of it.

I could have used my magic to lift Brenna’s ashes into the small satchel, but that wasn’t intimate enough. Instead, I scooped what was left of her in my hands and let the ashes roll down my fingers into her new resting place. When the job was done, I used wind to blowthe dust from my palms too. The particles whirled together in a tight braid before dropping through the mouth of thediizra.

Gerarda folded the opening into an intricate roll that reminded me of a flower still tucked into its bud. Then she pulled the red-hot knife from the fire beside us and sealed the edge of the golden bag for good.

She pulled the chain from the other end free and held it up for my head to slip through. When she let go, Brenna’s ashes fell directly over my heart.

I gasped. “It’s warm.” Thediizrahad been cold in my hand but now it almost pulsed against the bare skin of my chest.

Gerarda nodded. “That life is now yours to carry. For a year until it will be yours to let go.”

I lifted my hand to my chest, the palm acting like a shield even though there was no threat nearby. “What if I don’t survive the year?”

Gerarda only shrugged and started walking back toward the lake where Riven waited for us both. “You have to.”

The training field was cloaked in shadow. Thick tendrils licked at my feet as I walked, climbing to my hips.

Thin vines of shadow twisted around my wrists like snakes, tightening as they coiled until I was held in place. Someone appeared from the darkness in front of me.

Feron.

He walked without need for a cane, his violet eyes glowing, but no ground shifted underneath my feet.

I smirked. “Impressive, Elaran.”

Feron’s face contorted, skin fading to a light brown. I was staring at myself. “Not as impressive as me,” Elaran said in a mockingtone before shifting back to herself. “And not nearly as impressive as that.” She pointed to Fyrel, whose eyes glowed amber before she transformed into a fox and then a badger and then a wolverine. Each form progressively bigger than the last.

She ran her furry body between my legs and flopped onto her back. I knelt and scratched her belly. “Is it draining to maintain the different forms?”

There was a flash of light and Fyrel was herself again with my hand on her stomach. “The smaller the animal the easier it is to maintain. I could spend all day as a field mouse and not feel tired, but shifting between different creatures is draining. And the bigger forms.” Determination flashed across Fyrel’s face.

“Don’t overextend yourself,” I told her. “This gift is already useful; you don’t need to push it further.”

Fyrel nodded with a quick glance at Gwyn.

She was standing at the bow of a small boat. It soared through the water with no sail, just Myrrah at the stern shifting the currents of the lake with amber glowing hands. In just a short time, everyone had made so much progress.

I turned back to the others. Crison had a flock of birds flying over the field, and Vrail was using her gift and books to learn anything that could help us win against theshirak.

I nodded at Gerarda. “Where’s Dynara?”

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