Page 13 of Flame and Sparrow

I knew the wickedness and destruction they were capable of—this broken and beaten-down mansion was proof of it—but I couldn’t stop thinking about that young girl with her moon-shaped mark. Her prying eyes. Her questions. Her body burning in the temple while she clutched the beads around her arm, fervently praying to gods who wouldn’t answer her.

I’d warned her.

If she’d insisted on going inside anyway, it was her own fault.

And yet…

I closed my eyes and leaned back into a patch of sunlight, letting the growing warmth of the day spread over my skin. It was comforting at first, but soon my stomach was shifting uneasily, accompanied by a nasty thought—that I didn’t deserve to enjoy the sun’s light after the things I’d done in the dark.

I twisted my fingers more tightly into the blanket beneath me, fighting the urge to scratch at the old burn marks on my cheek.

My sparrow’s magic had worn off, so those scars were fully visible now, along with the rest of my identity. Pointed ears, hair the color of soot, eyes like my sister’s—slender and sparkling with a vivid green shade that more than one person had told me was unsettling.

All of me laid bare in the breaking day.

So of course I was uneasy.

“It’s getting close to breakfast time, isn’t it?” Cillian commented. “You want to cook something? I’m starving—stomach’s not feeling jumpy, for once.”

I pretended to be surprised by this last part, even though I’d caught onto his ruse years ago; he often claimed our missions gave him an anxious stomach, and sometimes he’d go days without eating because of it. But I’d long ago noticed the pattern surrounding his supposed ailments—the way his stomach issues only seemed to come up whenever our food stores were running low.

I’d never called him out on it.

I likely never would.

I knew he would just deny things. He felt obligated to take care of me, I think, because of how close he’d been to my sister. The night she’d disappeared, the two of them were supposed to meet, but he’d been late to arrive at our house. I know he blamed himself for not being there. We still didn’t truly know what had happened that night, but it was hard not to wonder about how things might have turned out differently if she hadn’t been alone in her room.

The what-ifshaunted all of us.

I believed he’d sworn to take care of me in Savna’s stead, even if it meant going hungry...though I liked to think we shared something deeper than a haunting obligation after all these years.

“It’ll take your mind off everything from last night,” he said, offering me a hand.

I let him pull me to my feet. As I was stretching and swiping the dust from my leggings, the sound of a commotion somewhere down below made us both go stiff.

“Sounds like we have guests, too,” Cillian said. “Kinnara and some of her group, if I had to guess. They probably want to know how things went in Cauldra.”

Kinnara Fellblade. The oldest daughter of the House of Greymane, and one of the few who regularly left their lands in the frigid northern wastelands to fraternize with outsiders. That house was not among our greatest supporters, but we still had a tentative alliance with them. Our common enemies kept us all civil at least—even if our ideas about how to deal with those enemies usually differed.

“I suppose I could prepare a royal feast for us all,” I joked, my eyes on the dust particles floating around us, stirred up by our movements and shining in the golden morning light. “Dining and politics…the ghosts in this place will be happy to see the manor returned to its former, more glorious usages.”

I could hear the smile in Cillian’s voice as he said, “Perhaps a masquerade ball to follow while we’re at it.”

“Of course.” I gave a little curtsy, pretending I had elaborate skirts to lift. “A full-scale, most splendid royal affair, befitting of our royal blood.”

Grinning, he bowed low, sweeping his hand toward the staircase.

I made my way past him, glancing one last time at the landscape below us. A few wispy tufts of fog had drifted over the hills, settling in the lowest places. They looked like clouds of smoke.

My stomach clenched.

I hurried on, but I couldn’t stop thinking about wildfires overtaking my beloved golden fields, sweeping through them as swiftly as the blood that had once watered them.

Chapter4

Downstairs,I visited briefly with Kinnara and her company—just long enough to not be considered rude—and then I used the excuse of making breakfast to escape.

No elf had ever turned down the honor of being cooked for, so I went with their blessing into our cobbled-together kitchen, which was only across the hall from the sitting room where they all continued their meeting; I remained close enough that I could still make out much of what was being said if I really wanted to listen.

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