Page 188 of Flame and Sparrow

Then came aBOOMloud enough to shake the ground. It rattled the rocky hills all around me, sending streams of pebbles rushing down and stirring up storms of dust.

Moth let out a high-pitched shriek and shot for the cover of trees on a distant hilltop. I sprinted after him, but couldn’t help slowing down after a few seconds, turning and jogging backwards long enough to gape at the veil.

Something was spreading across its face—an inky black darkness that caused a sharp, devastating sensation of despair to rush through me.

AnotherBOOM.

The inky dark cracks lit briefly. Like lightning. Similar to the attacks I’d witnessed alongside Dravyn the day he’d told me about my sister—only these were brighter. More powerful, maybe.

Pulse racing, I abandoned my decision to follow Moth and instead crept my way back toward the encampment I’d first seen, hiding once more in the bushes to spy.

My fears from earlier—that I had only been witnessing the start of a building wave—were confirmed.

The encampment had already grown, nearly tripled in size.

There were several people gathered in a circle near the veil, holding something between them. They seemed to be reaching into the barrier as I’d tried to do earlier, only they moved with much more confidence—and they weren’t reaching with empty hands.

As a few of them took a step back, I was able to see the object they’d been gathering around—a small, pale weapon with a faint trail of smoke wafting up from it.

That smoke twisted into the veil. As I watched, it became the darkness I’d seen farther down, a shadow that spread with a sinister slowness, spiderwebbing this way and that, laying claim to a large section of the grey.

It seemed to be creating a path; once the trails of darkness had eaten away whatever magic existed within the veil, the chaotic energy had room to surge—which it then did, flashes of brightness crackling violently into existence, heralded by the warbling and booming that made me jump nearly every time, even now that I was expecting the sounds.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

With every flash and explosion, the veil’s face looked more uneven. More unsteady. Little by little, it was being scraped away.

Panic rushed through me, like a bitterly cold wind, while a single question beat against my mind, over and over—

How long do I have before it weakens to the point of total collapse?

I sank back into the bush, trying to collect myself. As soon as I dared, I again raced away from the encampment. This time, I kept running all the way to the very end of the veil—nearly a mile away—where the grey wall of energy dissipated against rolling hills that rose steeply into mountains just a little farther ahead.

Perpendicular to this ending stretched the edge of a cliff. Bits of smoky energy rolled off the veil and tumbled over the edge, streaming down into the canyon below; it almost looked as though the excess magic of the veil had been responsible for eroding the rock, creating that canyon in the same way rivers slowly carved them out over time.

The cliff edge felt like a cruel metaphor—a dead end at the crossroads of the two worlds I’d been caught between for so long. They’d intersected in the most violent manner possible, and now I had nowhere to go.

I stood there, heaving for breath. I wanted to shout loud enough for the gods to hear me. I wanted to claw the veil down myself, peel it away bit by bit until my nails broke and my fingers bled and I could at least glimpse the heavens I’d left behind, even if it was only one last time.

Moth caught up to me once more, his big eyes wide and sorrowful as he took in our surroundings with the same sort of despair I felt.

I briefly considered sending him through the veil without me; could I put what I needed to say into a note for him to deliver?

But I had nothing to write it with, no confidence that Moth would leave me to deliver it, and no time to come up with a more foolproof plan.

I looked to the mark on my wrist. Pictured Dravyn’s face and his fires wrapping around me, protecting me, carrying me away from the trouble I’d found myself in the last time I came to this realm.

He’d felt my pain, my desperation, and he’d answered it.

I was not in any extreme pain at the moment, but maybe…

After a deep breath, I extended my claws and dug them into the flame-shaped mark, biting back a cry as I broke through skin and felt warm blood bubbling up, oozing around my fingers.

Please let him feel me.

Please let him reach back for me.

Please let him feel how sorry I am, how much I—

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