Page 156 of Flame and Sparrow

A lump formed in my throat, making it difficult to swallow.

“Just promise me you’ll stay close to the palace for the foreseeable future, please?” The air tingled with her power, more hardened scales appearing along her skin, as she looked behind us and said, “Because it feels as though something big is about to break.”

* * *

Dravyn still had not returnedto the palace by the time we reached it.

Mairu brought me straight to Rieta, who helped dress the wound on my arm and fetched a tonic to rid me of the lingering chill of the veilhound’s magic.

The Serpent Goddess made us both swear not to tell Dravyn what had truly caused that wound; if he asked, we were to blame the bite on one of the selakir. If he learned what Zachar’s beasts had done—and tried to do—to me,All hell will break loose,Mairu warned,and we have too many other things to focus on without inciting that battle.

After we’d agreed to keep the secret, Mairu excused herself to return to her own palace—though not before promising that Valas would be by later to check on me as well.

Or maybe it was a warning, rather than a promise.

Hard to say which.

It was unnecessary, either way; I was done with my adventuring for the day, my courage and curiosity all used up. I was perfectly content to lock myself away in my room for the remainder of the night.

Luckily, Rieta wasn’t in a prying mood. She largely left me to my quiet room and private musings, hardly even fussing when I insisted I wasn’t hungry and wanted nothing to eat for supper. She was too distracted by the growing trouble outside of the palace to bother much with me, I think.

Even Valas was not his usual goading and playful self when he stopped by; he lingered only long enough to say hello, and—to use his words—make sure I hadn’t set anything on fire. Then he was gone again, mumbling about needing to go speak with the God of Storms about something.

My heart stuttered as I watched him leave, as I thought about my last encounter with the Storm Marr. I nearly called Valas back, the wordsbe carefulon the tip of my tongue. I stopped myself from speaking, but I couldn’t stop the realization that slammed like a cannonball into my chest.

In a matter of months, I had gone from hating the gods of this court to worrying about them.

Caringabout them.

Which made the weapons—and potential weapons—hidden in my room uncomfortable, to say the least.

Once again, I’d succeeded in the task I’d set out to do, but I didn’t feel successful. I’d taken what I needed to take from this realm. I knew the way back to my own realm. I could have fled that very moment with my spoils, could have used them to carry on my sister’s legacy, to get my revenge. The path to what I’d once thought would bring me peace lay before me, glittering and tempting and more clear than ever.

All I had to do was walk it.

Instead, I kept perfectly still, my hand braced beside the window, staring out over a world I was no longer sure I wanted to leave.

The tower, the knife, Melithra’s water…these past days I had only been going through the motions, I was beginning to think. I’d been fueled by hatred and anger for so long that I’d walked the steps toward vengeance as thoughtlessly as I took my breaths.

Yet, no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t clearly picture a different path.

Even if I could no longer bring myself to harm Dravyn or anything else in this realm, there was no happy ending in my future.

I couldn’t go back to my home and tell them I’d failed, that I cared too much about the gods to follow through with our plans—I’d be banished from every place my kind dwelled. I’d be laughed at. Attacked. Or something far worse.

I also couldn’t stay here in this realm that seemed perched on the brink of disaster, filled with danger and turmoil—turmoil that my presence was clearly exacerbating.

As night fell over the palace, the God of Fire still had not returned. And there was no point in denying my feelings about this; they were the same I’d felt watching Valas walk away earlier, only magnified.

I was worried about him.

So worried I could hardly breathe.

I kept pacing the room, inevitably returning to the window every few minutes. Watching the sky. Hoping for fire.

Meanwhile, I swore the shadows all around me were moving in impossible ways. Slinking in and out of the places where I’d hidden the evidence of my plans for betrayal, drawing my eyes unwillingly toward them. Paranoia coiled around me, making my breaths too tight, too shallow. Despite the tonic Rieta had given me earlier, I still felt as if the Death God’s beasts had left a permanent mark on my body, chilling me so deeply that nothing I did seemed to warm it.

The cold made me feel unbearably heavy, and eventually, I drifted off to sleep right there on the floor beside the window, chased to exhaustion by visions of shapeshifting shadows and poisonous knives.

---