Page 53 of Flame and Sparrow

Moth grumbled and burrowed his head underneath my braid.

I gave him a reassuring scratch under the chin, my gaze still on the hallway.

The God of Ice glanced back at me, violet eyes glinting in the dark, and said, “I was hoping you’d ask.”

Chapter16

“This feels like a bad idea,doesn’t it?” I asked Moth, who replied with a noise that sounded halfway like a growl, halfway like a purr, and all the way like agreement.

He insisted on staying close to me, however, his talons clinging tightly to my shoulder as I made my way down a steep embankment covered in white flowers.

“We won’t stay too long,” I promised him—and reminded myself. I didn’t think Icouldstay too long; the air seemed to be growing heavier the deeper I moved into the Death God’s territory. Each breath I took felt like it was coating my chest and lungs, bits of dark energy clinging to and decomposing me, slowly rotting me from the inside out.

I carried a gift from the God of Ice to help ward off some of the darkness—a chamberstick I’d taken from the Tower of Creation, which he’d magicked blue fire onto in order to create a sort of torch that burned indefinitely. Or maybeburnwasn’t the right word; what I held resembled a torch, but the ‘flame’ was freezing cold to the touch, more dense than a true fire, and its edges did not flicker or shift no matter how fast I moved.

It gave off plenty of light, though, and with its help I had found my way down a long path running alongside a narrow stream of turquoise water, and then through a small forest of twisted grey trees. When I emerged on the other side of the forest, the sky had changed to an inky black canvas shining with spirals of light. Things had only gotten brighter as I walked onward—likely bright enough that I didn’t need the torch I carried.

I clung to it anyway, prepared to brandish it like a sword if necessary.

Now, as I came to the bottom of the flower-strewn hill, I found myself facing a diverging path. To my left, far in the distance, stood a building crowned with glittering spires reaching so high into the sky the shining tips were lost among the stars.

Amalith, I assumed. The Tower of Ascension. Valas told me I might catch a glimpse of it when traveling this way, depending on how the energies in the air shifted.

Stay far, far away from it if you see it, he’d warned.

My curiosity burned as I stared, trying to determine the distance between it and where I stood. I felt it unfurling inside of me again—that wild desire to destroy, to find a way to bring the glittering tower down at whatever the cost…but I convinced myself to heed the god’s warning for now; if he’d actually urged caution despite how little he obviously cared for me, then the danger surrounding that tower must have been very real.

Soon enough, I promised myself.

I could only focus on one objective at a time, anyway, and today I’d made up my mind to investigate the Death Marr and whatever connection he might have had to my sister’s death.

Harithyn—that was what the area he’d staked his claim upon was called. All four of the Marr in the Shade Court had their own respective areas in this divine realm, I’d learned, with the Garden of Elestra standing in the middle of each of the territories. I repeated these facts over and over to myself as I walked.

“Harithyn, Harithyn, Harithyn,” I said, turning it into a soothing chant under my breath as I looked over the dark landscape. It comforted me to be able to label that darkness. Moth joined in, chirping to the same rhythm as he leapt from my shoulder, swooping about and bobbing up and down in the air alongside me.

We climbed another steep hill. At its crest, I could see for what seemed like miles in every direction—miles and miles of ground comprised of obsidian streaked with veins the color of starlight. The shining rock stretched on until, very abruptly, it stopped, cut off by a line of white, swirling energy far in the distance.

Beyond this line of pale energy, a churning mass of…somethingstretched and glistened like an ocean, though the water was an odd shade of mottled purple, pulsing from deep violet to green-tinged over and over. It made me think of a bruise rapidly healing only to immediately darken again. The longer I looked at it, trying to make sense of it, the less sense it made—and the more uncomfortable I felt.

Most of this realm felt foreign to me, but this bruised ocean felt…wrong.

Closer to where I stood, shadows stretched and swept over one another, cloaking most of my surroundings. I looked carefully, mapping out their shapes and the structures casting them, and I soon realized that some of them were more than mere disruptions of light; they were solid shapes in and of themselves.

Movingshapes.

As we started down the second hill, their movement grew more violent, the not-quite-shadows rising and falling so unnaturally that I became certain something was controlling them.

“Magic?” I wondered aloud to Moth, who responded with an uncertain whimper.

I probably should have expected such things at this point, but a small gasp still escaped me as the tendrils of darkness collided and exploded into a cloud which began to take the shape of a building. I took several steps back, but whatever magic my approach had triggered continued to unfold.

The not-shadows continued to work, weaving a foundation—a first story no less than a hundred feet wide—before stretching to form towers, turrets, and a roof edged in glowing blue stones that brought to mind eyes peering out from a haunted forest.

When the shadows finished and fell away, a massive house stood before me. It was as dark as the magic that had formed it, but clearly solid, complete with a low, gated wall surrounding its yard and a path of white stone leading up to a beautiful door framed in silver.

A palace fit for a king.

Or a god.

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