Page 219 of Flame and Sparrow

“Has offered up an unprecedented amount of his power to her for the transition.”

My heart clenched at the mention of Dravyn.

“Her kind were cast out of such power for a reason,” the Goddess of the Sun reminded the other two. “We take a great risk, allowinganyof it to transfer to her—much less such a large amount.”

“Yes, but with what he offers, she will be as much a goddess as an elf—and perhaps her two halves might help make the worlds she has walked between more whole,” said the God of the Shade. “Consider the poetry of it, my dear Solatis. There is more beneath the surface of all these beings than we give them credit for.”

The Goddess of the Sun sighed. “You and your foolish poetry.”

He smiled that clever smile again, and she responded in a language beyond my comprehension—one that all three of them were soon speaking in, presumably arguing even more furiously over my fate.

I still did not know what that fate might look like, but there were a few things I needed to know regardless of what happened to me.

“The God of Fire you mentioned…” I began, loudly, the sound of my sudden voice startling them into silence. “Is he safe? And the middle-heavens outside of this tower? What became of them? Are they okay?”

They all turned to look at me. I met the eyes of the Goddess of the Sun, first, and found I couldn’t look away from her.

Her fiercely powerful gaze softened a bit the longer we stared at one another, until finally she said, “The God of Fire waits at the tower’s exit. We pulled him into the tower along with you, as we had need of his magic for what potentially comes next.”

“And yes,” said the God of Stone. “Nerithyl stands untouched. Damage has occurred in Eligas, but the magic of that realm withstood the weapons of your kind better than the middle-heavens could have. It can be repaired easily enough.”

“What cannot be repaired so easily is you,” said the God of the Shade. “You were dying on the shore of the mortal lake known as Irithyl. I had my servant—you know him as Zachar, I believe—stall your soul’s passing long enough to transport it here. But that death is imminent, and cannot be reversed unless we were to break the very laws we created. You cannot go back to what you were.”

He seemed to be questioning me—testing me—with the last sentence, but I didn’t have to think hard about my response.

Not anymore.

“I don’t want to go back to what I was,” I said.

The upper-god nodded, pale eyes shining as though he understood the very depths of all my painful thoughts and questions that had led to this decision.

“The other option is to allow your soul to ascend to its final resting place,” Solatis said. “For your service to the divine, we would, of course, offer you a place in the most brilliant of mortal afterlives.”

It was tempting, if only for a moment, to think of an eternity spent in peace and paradise without any more worrying about the wars between my kind and the gods.

But there would be one very obvious thing missing from that eternal paradise.

And I still had questions to answer, besides.

Things I needed to fix.

“I want to stay,” I said, quietly but firmly. “There’s more I’m meant to do, I think.”

The God of the Shade looked pleased. “Then so be it,” he said.

The other two looked more solemn than him, but they didn’t object to my decision.

Quietly, they took a step back as Malaphar stepped toward me, and we all watched the God of the Shade lift his clawed hand and summon a small, dark orb. It floated above his outstretched palm for a moment, threads of shadowy energy pulling toward it from out of thin air.

The threads circled it for a minute before slowly shifting to a reddish-gold shade.

“Inhale,” said the upper-god, “and breathe in this power that I offer you now.”

I stared at the fiery-colored energy. My thoughts raced for an instant of panic, realizing what I was about to do…but in the end it was as easy as breathing, the decision to step forward and do as the god had commanded.

A deep breath in, and suddenly I no longer ached, or feared, or doubted.

Everything was bright and warm. I was brightness and warmth myself—and then there were flames peeling from my skin, forming rippling, beautiful ribbons that wrapped around my body. I felt a moment of pure peace as they cocooned me, as I thought of all the times the God of Fire had wrapped his arms around me in a similar way.

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