Page 4 of Flame and Sparrow

Good riddance, my sister had said. We’d managed on our own ever since, with Savna becoming more and more like our father every day—a rebel with her sights set on destroying the divine.

Now she was gone, too.

All of them were gone, and I realized that every major hurt or loss I’d suffered could be traced back to the gods.

Every. Single. One.

And those gods…oh, how I started to trulyhatethem.

Soon I could no longer remember a time before the hate. Before the burning. I forgot the statues, the prayers, the sacraments my mother had so fervently insisted upon throughout my childhood—it all left me soquickly, like a tree without any roots, a ship caught in a storm without its anchors.

Such fragile, useless, unsteady things.

Which was why sometimes I wondered if my childhood memory was faulty, and if setting fire to that smiling god had really been an accident at all.

Chapter1

Five Years Later

If I diein this temple tonight, at least my death will fan the flames of our rebellion.

This was what I told myself over and over—an affirmation that kept my muscles loose as I scaled the walls, a vow that cleared my mind as I pulled myself onto the sloped roof of the temple’s second story.

The incline here was steeper than I’d anticipated. I felt heavier the higher I climbed, my bottom half dragging as though someone had filled my boots with rocks. But I kept my balance.

Somehow, I kept my balance.

Gritting my teeth, I felt my way along the roof, grappling for a better hold, ignoring the burning in my arms as I pulled myself upward. I was breathtakingly high at this point, enough that much of the city of Cauldra—with all its cramped and colorful, ramshackle houses and trash-lined streets—had started to spin and blur beneath me.

I was not particularly fond of heights.

Andrel had only chuckled when I’d reminded him of this fear earlier. He knew I wouldn’t argue with his plan, fear or no fear. None of us ever did. And—to his credit, I suppose—all of us had survived every plan he’d ever come up with.

So far.

I took a deep, bracing breath. I was here, now, and I would have no room for fear in my mind as long as I stayed focused on my plan and purpose.

After shifting my feet into a more solid stance, I let my claws extend from my fingertips and dug them into a crease between the stone slab tiles of the roof. Now more tightly secured, I fully gathered my balance before resuming the climb upward, eventually coming to rest in a nearly horizontal position with my fingers curled around the lip of a recessed skylight.

I peered down through the glass, watching for movement in the room beneath me, scarcely daring to breathe.

When I was certain no threats waited below, I carefully rose into a crouched position and contemplated my next move.

In the dark glass of the skylight, I watched my reflection tucking a strand of raven-black hair behind my ear. My chest tightened at the sight of my still-extended claws. My eyes averted out of habit, but I swallowed my distaste and kept the claws out. No one was up here to see them; why not make use of them? So what if—

Enough,I inwardly chastised myself.

There was no time to waste thinking about these things.

I took a small, sharp knife from the thick pouch attached to my belt and carefully tested it on a corner of the glass. It sliced straight through, pinching off a neat, sharp little triangle thattink tink tinkedits way over the stone roof.

I held the blade more carefully after this, even as my forearm tingled and burned from the effort of keeping it steady. It was sharp enough to sever a finger with little effort, Cillian had warned, and I should have known better than to doubt him; he was the expert on weapons.

Meanwhile, I was the one responsible for diagrams and details, while Andrel was usually the face of our operations—the one most likely to talk us out of trouble…and to appear on wanted posters afterward. He often joked that his goal was to collect enough of them to line the walls of his bedroom, and he was well on his way to achieving this.

We had more who regularly joined our cause, but the three of us were the constants. All the others had refused to join us tonight, calling it too risky, claiming that too many eyes were fixed on this newly-constructed temple.

That’s the point, Andrel had informed them, heatedly.Let as many people as possible see that not everyone wants the new gods in our world. Then maybe those people will be brave enough to step forward and declare the same thing.

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