Page 194 of Flame and Sparrow

Beyond him, drawing his gaze, were dark clouds dancing with electricity. I couldn’t see the Storm Marr, but when his power lit up the sky I saw the God of Winter beneath it—a sleek white beast leaping and chasing the lightning, sending daggers of ice shooting upward with every twist of his slender body.

I slowed long enough to watch the battle unfolding, to see the God of Storms finally emerge from his clouds. Bolts of his magic came first, weaving into an outline of a winged beast with a long, jagged tail.

He dove at Valas.

The two of them became a tangled mass of shifting forms and energies, moving so violently and quickly I couldn’t tell them apart.

After several heart-pounding moments, Valas emerged from the chaos, breathing a frigid mist over the God of Storms before turning and darting away.

Halar shook the icy glaze from his form and gave chase.

They disappeared into the distance—the God of Winter keeping his promise, drawing Halar away from me and Dravyn.

Dravyn’s fiery marks flared brighter as he watched them leave, wings unfurling from his back as he prepared to join the fray himself.

I clung tighter to Zell and urged him faster, racing onward until I was close enough to be heard over the lingering, uneasy energies from the gods’ battle.

“Wait!”

Dravyn spun around at the sound of my voice, a whirlwind of fire spinning with him.

The flames around him extinguished the instant our eyes met. I drew Zell to a stop, and everything else seemed to stop with him, save for a few lingering embers drifting and swirling slowly to the ground.

I leapt from the selakir’s back and strode forward before I could lose my nerve.

The fire in Dravyn’s eyes gave way to silver as I approached, but his expression remained fierce, a painful combination of anger and disbelief.

I nearly stopped at the sight of that anger, a flood of confusing emotions overtaking me. Maybe I needed to regroup, to rethink, to better plan what I could possibly say—

He grabbed my hand and pulled me the rest of the way to him.

I buried my head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me, and for a moment—just a single, breathless moment—nothing was chaos, nothing was breaking, nothing was burning.

When I finally made myself lean away from him, his gaze caught on my wrist. He took it gently, studying each of the jagged claw marks.

He was still staring at the dried blood on my skin as he said, “You came back.”

I swallowed hard, chasing away the distracting butterflies that swarmed through me at his touch. “Of course I did. You sent for me. I saw the Gatterlen lights.”

“Lights?”

“The same ones you sent months ago, when you first called me into the divine realm.”

He continued to study my bloodied arm, his brows furrowing in thought.

“You seem surprised?”

His gaze lifted to mine. “It’s just…I didn’t do it on purpose, like last time.”

I opened my mouth to reply but couldn’t find the words.

He hadn’t done it on purpose?

What did that mean?

“You didn’t feel me calling for you, then?”

“No—I did.” He let go of my wrist as his eyes scanned the broken ground and sky all around us. “I felt you, even among this chaos. Something in my blood, in my bones, calling for my attention in spite of it all. And I couldn’t get away from the God of Storms to answer right away, but I…” He trailed off, shaking his head at himself, as though he’d just realized something that he should have known all along.

---