Page 50 of Flame and Sparrow

The old tapestry fully ignited,filling the air with the horrible stench of smoke and burning dust. The griffin writhed about in the fire, tangling himself further in the fraying, burning threads. I snatched for him, missed, and watched in horror as more flames erupted from his body.

The brightness and fumes stung my eyes and throat, forcing me to cover my face and take a step back. I wafted the thickening plumes of smoke away as I did, still searching frantically for some sign of the griffin.

Embers showered down, landing on the rug at my feet. I stomped them out before darting around the room in search of something to extinguish the flames…a thick cloth to smother it, a basin of water, something,anything—

I heard a pained, animalistic cry and I doubled back to the fire, preparing to reach through the searing heat and grab the little beast before making a run for it.

I tried not to think about what sort of trouble I was going to be in if one of the gods caught sight of me fleeing from the burning building.

Cursing under my breath, I ran faster. As I approached the steadily building inferno, I nearly slipped in a puddle of water I hadn’t noticed before. I thought nothing of it until I splashed through another, and thenanother—they were everywhere, as though the roof of the tower had peeled open to embrace a sudden rainstorm. I looked up.

It wasn’t raining.

It was snowing.

I held out my hand, mesmerized, and watched as a few flakes landed and melted against my palm. A cold wind spun up around me, biting at my skin, lifting and playing with the loose strands of my braid.

“Setting fire to a sacred Tower of Creation is an interesting way to make an impression.”

I spun around and saw the God of Ice leaning against the doorframe, a look of smug amusement on his handsome face.

“Then again,” he said, propping a hand on his chin, “I suppose it makes sense, given the god you came here to try and impress.”

“I didn’t set fire to anything,” I snapped, too frantic to have much patience for the gods and their games at the moment.

He pushed away from the frame and sauntered into the room, reaching a hand toward the wall above the blazing tapestry. A slight twist of that hand was all it took to cover a large section of the wall in ice. As the heat from the fire rose, it melted the new ice and sent a waterfall cascading over the flames.

He repeated this trick several more times until the fire was fully out. As the smoke and steam rolled away, I finally spotted the little griffin clinging to a swath of the ruined tapestry. The charred swath was attached to the rest of the cloth by only a few threads, and seconds later, it was ripping off and falling away. The griffin fell with it, tumbling lifelessly to the ground with a loudthud.

I let out a panicked cry, but the God of Ice only gave a snort of laughter and said, “So the troublemaker is revealed.Nowthe situation makes sense.”

I ignored him and dropped to my knees beside the griffin, rolling it onto its side and laying a gentle hand against it.

To my relief, its breathing seemed normal.

“He’s just being dramatic,” Valas said, drawing my gaze back toward him.

As soon as I took my eyes off the griffin, the creature let out a low, mournful yowl, and when I looked to him once more, I found him on his back with his legs sticking straight up in the air, tongue lolling from his mouth.

Dramatic, indeed.

I heaved a relieved sigh while giving him a sharp poke in the side. “I don’t appreciate you playing dead on me.”

His tail flicked back and forth with increasing enthusiasm, more doglike than catlike for the moment. He rocked upright and leapt into my lap, tail still wagging.

“He ignited on you, didn’t he?” asked Valas.

I reached for the piece of fallen cloth he’d been tangled in, nodding.

“Typical Moth.”

“Moth?”

“That’s his name.”

“What sort of a name is that?”

The griffin nipped my arm and wriggled free of my lap, flipping into the air with a haughty flick of his tail, as though he was offended by my questioning. The tuft of fur at the end of that tail turned to flames, and I worried he might ignite once more.

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