Page 8 of Flame and Sparrow

A cold wind whipped to life, carrying the scent of the nearby cedar forest and drawing clouds across the half-moon. Darkness overtook the garden, and I spat at the god’s feet before turning and walking away, determined not to look at his face—or any likeness of it—ever again.

Chapter2

“Cillian is taking a long time,isn’t he?” I kept my voice calm despite the pit forming in my stomach.

Andrel didn’t move from his spot. For the past five minutes he’d been leaning against a willow tree, partially concealed by its flowering branches, with his head bowed in thought.

He looked far more casual than he should have given the magnitude of our plans for the night.

But that had always been Andrel, for as long as we’d known each other—powerful certainty radiated out from him wherever he went. No matter how chaotic our adventures got, he never looked bothered or out of place.

“Let’s give him a few more minutes before we start considering our backup plans,” he said.

I nodded, settling down against a separate tree. We were across the street from the temple, camped out in the overgrown yard of a long-abandoned house. The juxtaposition of this rundown house and the pristine temple had not escaped my notice; I wondered vaguely what had become of the person who used to live here. They had most likely been magicless…and driven out of their home because of it.

The ones not blessed with divine magic got by well enough in this realm—better than my kind did, at least—but they were still considered a lower class, and certainly not worthy of living so close to the temple of such an important middle-god. The house would probably be torn down or repurposed soon.

More waste.

Andrel broke the quiet again only a minute later. “Your wrist,” he said, stepping toward me and nodding at my left hand. “What happened to it?”

I lifted it, and only then did I notice what he had seen—a thin trail of dried blood winding out from under my sleeve.

I shrugged. “I must have nicked it when I was sliding off the roof.”

“Looks pretty deep,” he said, crouching before me and carefully taking my hand in his, twisting it around for a closer look. His fingertips were soft against my skin, his nails clean and smooth-edged.

Cillian always teased him about being too smart for his own good, and Andrel usually replied by informing him that the smarter you were, the less dirty you had to get your hands—a mantra befitting of the roles we would have had if not for the Fall, I supposed.

Andrel was of royal lineage. All three of us were, actually—our ancestors had belonged to separate, but equally powerful, elven houses, and they’d been among the last ones to stand against the rise of the Marr and the shifting of power in this realm. Not that it meant much now, as that…

Well, that was a long time ago.

Now we were reduced to crouching among weeds in the shadows of those gods we refused to pray to.

“It’s not thatdeep,” I mumbled, pulling my hand from Andrel’s. “I didn’t even notice it before now.”

A pause, and then, “You could heal it easily, I bet.”

“I could. But I won’t.”

He studied the cut a moment longer before turning away, his features relaxing into an approving smile as he did.

We’d all had magic before the Fall—some of it powerful enough to challenge the gods—but it had disappeared from most of our bloodlines at this point. Those who could still summon any power drew it, not from themselves or the gods, but from the residual energies divine magic left on the planet.Earthbound, was the term used by elven scholars to describe this new evolution of our magic.

I seemed to have a natural affinity for drawing healing power from the planet, and I had used this power by accident a few times when I was younger. But I was fully in control of it now, and I would bleed to death in this yard tonight before I wielded it on purpose.

No healing, no gods, no magic.

The one and only exception to myno magicrule was the sparrow hanging around my neck—the gift from my father to Savna, and now my most prized possession.

It was not an ordinary carving; it was infused with divine power ultimately derived from the Goddess of Control...enough magic to temporarily conceal or change small things. A brush of my fingertips over the worn wood, a bit of concentration, and even parts of my own appearance could be altered by it. I occasionally used it to round off my pointed ears and smooth the burned skin of my face.

Deep down, I hated concealing these things, and I dreamed of a day when I wouldn’t feel like I needed to do it.

But for now, hiding my true self was sometimes a necessary evil.

I checked to make sure the sparrow was safe and tucked away under the layers of my clothing before taking the scrap of papyrus from my pack, along with my drawing stick, and getting back to work.

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