Page 194 of The Shadow Wand

Her small finger thrusting into the flame, unharmed by the lovely warming fire that sparked straight through her body and bristled through her wings.

Her whole self coming alive.

Her wings coming alive.

And then the shock of cold hands. Wrenching her away from the flame. Hauling her to the head priestess. Then being thrown into a cell where her small form was doused with icy water again and again as she cried out for her brother and cowered on the floor in penitent robes. Struck with sticks. Made to recite verses about abominations who play with hellish fire.

Verses every shred of her being recoiled from.

But then, the cruelest memory of all.

When her own time to wear the Zalyn’or came.

The minute the necklace touched her skin, a terrible knowing descended. And she finally understood, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that every last passage about the “wingeds” in theEalaiontorianwas true. And that the priestesses had been right all along.

She was an abomination. Dirty and evil and unclean to the bone. Even a lifetime of penance could never wash away her terrible stain.

Newly subdued and distraught with contrition, she threw herself into her art, glorifying the whole unwinged Alfsigr—that group she could never be part of. That shining, blessed thing.

Unlike her.

But there was something else flowing from deep inside her. Something the Zalyn’or could not extinguish—her love for her kind brother, Cael, and for Rhys, who refused to give up on her even after the necklace claimed them all.

“Did you have fire?” Ysilldir asks, breaking through Wynter’s tormented thoughts. “Before the Zalyn’or?”

Wynter winces with contrition and nods, almost imperceptibly. Wanting to disappear from the cruel weight of her shame laid bare.

“I want to get this Zalyn’or off,” Wynter says, feeling as if the words might detonate the end of Erthia. Her gut cinches, her wings tightening to the point they risk a tear.

Ysilldir’s silver eyes widen, fierce struggle in them. “I, as well.”

“I can barely think it,” Wynter admits tightly.

“Nor I,” Ysilldir says in grim agreement. “Wynter...” Ysilldir starts then stops, and this hesitancy catches Wynter’s attention, cutting through the owls’ collective drone of warning. “Do you think the other things that Sylmire said could be true? If the Alfsigr were all free of the Zalyn’ors...” Ysilldir stops again, then looks at Wynter dead-on. “Do you think we would feel desire?”

This surprises Wynter—not only the nature of the question, but the idea that the Alfsigr would cease to be such a uniformly chaste group if they were freed from the Zalyn’ors.

“Perhaps,” Wynter concedes, although just the idea of that type of desire seems too intense for Wynter to fully consider. Just touching people brings on such a rush of intimate memory and emotion; to experience yet more intimacy, and possibly a stronger pull and bond...

“Tamalyyn spoke to me after the Queen’s Council adjourned,” Ysilldir tells her, an unsettled gravity to the words. “She is convinced that if these Zalyn’orsare removed...that she and I are destined to formally pair as Goddess-bonded am’ior. And it is true that I have never felt a spark of friendship that is as strong as what I feel for Tamal.”

Wynter considers this, her heart going out to both Ysilldir and Tamalyyn, the young Smaragdalfar woman as passionate and boisterous as Ysilldir is reserved and contained.

It’s clear that Tamalyyn is madly in love with Ysilldir.

“Perhaps you will feel the pull of a closer bond to Tamalyyn if we gain our freedom,” Wynter considers, pushing past the thicket of bindings in her mind. “And perhaps you will be as some here, naturally free of desire and content in that path.”

“And you, Wynter Eirllyn?” Ysilldir asks, slipping into the Alfsigr’s casual use of full names. “Is there someone who you might love in a more passionate way?”

Wynter’s heart seizes at the question, instantly overcome by an upswell of grief.

Ariel.

“She’s gone,” Wynter finally says, barely able to get the words out. “She was killed by the Gardnerians.”

Ysilldir gives her a sympathetic look as Wynter reels from sorrow over her loved ones falling away, one by one.

Cael, Rhys. Where are you, my beloved ones? Have the Alfsigr locked you in a cold prison? Will they hurl you into the sublands below?

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