Page 97 of Flame and Sparrow

I tentatively touched her hand, and I instantly felt an odd tugging in the pit of my stomach as the wind around us picked up. Everything was spinning a moment later, the landscape around us reduced to a blur that quickly bled into rich, autumnal shades of gold and orange.

When the spinning came to a stop, we stood in the middle of an orchard with rows of trees stretching beyond where I could see, golden leaves fluttering all around us. The warm air teemed with a delicious mixture of tangy and sweet scents.

I didn’t know where we were or how far we’d gone, but it seemed far in a way I couldn’t really explain…like we’d somehow just traversed an entire kingdom in the span of a few heartbeats.

“Can you travel anywhere like that?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” she said, patting her crown of braids and checking for any strands the spinning journey might have pulled loose. “We travel to places by accessing the magical residue we leave behind in them. So, it’s very easy for me to go to my own home, of course, because of how much of my energy resides there, but it takes more effort to travel to other territories I don’t usually frequent in this realm.”

“And what about in other realms? In Avalinth, for example?”

“We can travel easily to most places in the mortal realm,” she explained. “The air is thinner, less constricting, for one thing—and our magic is spread throughout that realm by way of the humans who we bless with our power. It’s getting easier with every new generation of those humans, as more divine magic circulates among them.”

I had to avert my eyes to keep the goddess from seeing the fury that automatically roared through me at the mention of those divinely-marked humans.

That fury was becoming socomplicated.

A traitorous new side of myself wanted to like this goddess I traveled with…but then she so flippantly spoke of the marks and magic destroying my kind and the world we’d once known, and the cycle of hatred and disgust began anew.

“My home is a little ways beyond this point,” she told me, “but I brought us here because I thought you might enjoy a short walk.” She gestured to the wide, slow-moving river winding its way through the orchard.

We followed this river for several minutes, leaving the wonderful smelling orchard behind and making our way through increasingly thinner tree coverage until we came to a wide open plain covered in long, swaying grass. The last bits of lingering fruit gave way to a briny scent as the air grew heavier, stickier. It felt like there was an ocean nearby.

The feeling was proven right after another half mile or so of walking, as we summited a hill and found ourselves staring at a seemingly endless expanse of blue.

A tremble went through me as I remembered my last adventure alongside the water in the Death Marr’s territory. This looked more like the oceans in my own realm, however, with waves that moved fluidly and were clear enough to reflect the divine daylight as they crashed upon the white sand.

I drifted down to the sandy beach. Mairu followed, and after we’d walked along the shoreline for some time, she slowed and pointed at something in the distance.

“My home,” she informed me.

I looked and saw a shimmering ivory palace perched dramatically atop steep, dark cliffs. No less than a dozen staircases wound along the faces of the cliffs, most reaching up from the seaside and converging toward the center of the dwelling. At this center, a grand entrance pavilion flanked by flame-topped pillars awaited us, along with a front door so massive I could clearly make out its silver face and arched shape even from the beach.

A spiraling tower reached toward the peach-colored sky on either side of the palace, and circling around each of these towers were winged creatures that resembled much smaller versions of the serpentine dragon I’d seen the goddess shift into.

“The stairs aren’t as daunting as they look,” she assured me with a wink.

As we started toward the closest set of those stairs, a strange energy shot through my body, making all the hairs on my arms stand on end. The air grew oppressively humid, as though a thunderstorm was overtaking the area.

I turned toward the ocean, expecting to see white caps building, black clouds billowing, lightning flashing in the distance.

It all appeared perfectly calm.

A foreboding sensation skipped across my skin.

The Serpent Goddess seemed to have sensed something as well; she’d stopped several feet ahead of me and closed her eyes, her forehead wrinkling in concentration.

The air was becoming so damp it made my clothing cling uncomfortably to my body, while deep breaths were becoming increasingly more difficult.

“What is happening?” I asked.

A sudden, violent shifting in the water was my reply. We both took several steps back, watching as a whirlpool began to form with a twisting black hole at its center.

“Another one already?” The Serpent Goddess mumbled the words to herself, but I read the concerned expression on her face and quickly guessed the reason behind it.

“Another trial?” I asked.

She lifted her chin, clearly trying to appear calm and bold for my benefit. “The other Marr are restless and eager to continue with the ordeal, it seems.”

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