Page 5 of Flame and Sparrow

But even he hadn’t been able to rally our usual support.

I also suspected that usual support was too wary of the god the humans were dedicating this temple to, and that fear about his retaliation was therealreason no one had shown up tonight.

I continued to slice the glass of said temple away, carefully and methodically, until I had opened a space wide enough to slide my body through; it didn’t require a very large opening.

Lithe and elegant, like a swan, my father had always insisted.

Tall and gangly, like an awkward stork, was usually my reply.

However people described me, I’d always been skinny, and the years spent without my sister and parents had made me even thinner. In more ways than one, really.

My shoulder still caught a rough strip of the severed glass as I dropped down to the room below, and although the coat I wore—my sister’s coat—was thick enough to keep the edge from cutting into my skin, the rip of the fabric was painfully loud. Little tears like these already covered the coat, and my heart clenched as I wondered how much more it could take before ripping completely apart. I was getting better with a needle and thread, but patching the torn places didn’t feel the same as simply keeping it in one piece to begin with.

I pulled the garment more tightly around my body as I oriented myself in the dark room I’d landed in.

Mosaic tiles crisscrossed the floor in bright patterns. Elegant swaths of gold and crimson were draped along the walls, the fabric so thin and delicate it stirred with my movements, creating the appearance of softly dancing flames. The air felt thick, heavy, and smelled of various spices and lingering candle smoke.

I darted from one room to the next, soundless as a cat, my senses honed for any possible threats. With each new room, I paused just long enough to observe and memorize things. Beauty and opulence oozed from every corner, but I refused to let it distract me; I only cared about the layout of the space and any objects that might get in Cillian’s way.

Once I had a clear idea of every room on the second floor, I slipped to the first floor and took similar mental notes. Then I found a tucked-away alcove to hide in, reached for the scrap of parchment and my drawing stick, and I made a quick diagram of all these spaces—a simple, concise map.

As I put the finishing touches on it and folded the scrap of parchment up, I caught the scent of fresh, damp earth. Just a small clump of it…likely carried in on a pair of boots.

Footsteps confirmed my fears a moment later: There weretwosets of boots clomping through an adjacent hallway, drawing steadily closer to where I hid.

I pressed deeper into the alcove, attempting to fold up small enough for the shadows to fully engulf me.

The nearby window was covered in an ornamental curtain made up of more strips of delicate crimson fabric, dividing up the moonlight falling into the room. I closed my eyes to stop myself from imagining movement; the longer I stared at the columns of moonlight, the more they seemed like claws raking outward and trying to expose me.

My hand went to the dagger sheathed against my back. I had a small pouch of kastor-blossom poison on my belt, too. Just a handful of that powder would easily rise and rapidly engulf my approaching company, and—if they were weak little humans, as I suspected—it would be enough to render them unconscious for hours.

Which, given the plans we had for this temple, would ultimately mean their deaths.

The floorboards groaned. Whispers reached my ears, but any individual words were impossible to pick out. I could sort out scents beyond the mud now, however—the saltiness hovering beneath sweat, the certain dry earthiness that enveloped them even when they didn’t wear dirty boots…definitely humans.

I held my breath as a door creaked. The sound of someone shuffling through linens and the clunking of ceremonial receptacles being sorted through followed soon after. I tensed further at the thought of these humans spending hours in the nearby rooms, setting up and practicing whatever foolish rituals they had planned for the upcoming temple dedication.

Luckily, they kept moving after a moment, their footsteps fading into the distance.

I hadn’t heard the door shut, which made me think they would be back for more supplies. I crept quickly from my hiding place. Rather than risk an encounter, I opted to go back the way I’d come from and exit through a second-floor window.

As I hoisted myself out onto a narrow stretch of roof, a sudden chorus of barking dogs startled me. My foot slipped, and if not for my claws hooking into the gutter, I would have suffered a very unpleasant landing on the cobblestones below.

Another reason to be glad you have those claws.

I again swallowed down the complicated feelings I had toward them and kept moving.

I knew I was lucky compared to some—other family lines had been cursedwith far more beastly features than claws, and not everyone could retract those features and hide them the way I could.

They still bothered me. Because my ancestors had never had such…things. No elves had until after the Fall, when the three Creators had stripped us of our divine magic. Our scholars often argued about whether or not these mutated features were another intentional punishment, or just an unexpected side-effect of having most of our magic ripped away.

Some of my kind even pretended these things were partinggiftsrather than curses. Usually, these pretenders were the same ones who claimed the Creator gods would take us back if only we prayed enough. Begged enough.

Myself, I’d fully lost my appetite for praying and begging some time ago.

Five years ago, to be precise—since the day after my twentieth birthday, when I’d found the blood in my sister’s bed.

I would never pray to them again.

---