Page 129 of Ash and Feather

Karys

I had a plan.

I’d spent the past two days making up my mind about it, pacing the edges of the yard, double-checking every square inch of rune-inscribed ground as I continued to try and make sense of the power those symbols invoked.

My sister came and went throughout the days. Whenever she was with me, I stayed away from the edges, pretending to be centering myself once more within my old life.

This was only a ruse, of course.

A way of hiding my actual intentions from her.

That’s what I told myself. But truthfully, it was alarmingly tempting to fall for my own lies. It was fast becoming too easy to talk to her again. To laugh and reminisce about our old life in between the painful questions and awkward silences.

I should have known better by now, yet something like hope threatened to bloom inside of me every time my sister returned.

Until she left again, anyway, and I found myself wondering—as I had so often throughout my life—where she’d gone.

True to form, she left me in the dark about most of the details. Only now I had things to fill those dark spaces with—the ugly, bloody, complicated things that I’d witnessed her doing.

So though I could fool myself into believing I had my sister back whenever she was here, every time she left it was like dropping on a pair of glasses that instantly made the truth perfectly, painfully clear once again.

It was approaching twilight. Savna had been gone for most of the day. Long enough that a familiar question had time to worm its way into my thoughts.

Is she coming back this time?

My chest always became painfully tight in the minutes following her departure, my heart instantly hardening in preparation for being abandoned again. The pressure had eased throughout the day as I focused on other things—more important things, like escape—but now it was growing tense yet again; this was the longest she’d been gone over these past few days.

“All the more reason to focus on my plans and not her,” I said aloud to no one.

And I continued to do just that, telling myself it didn’t matter if I ever saw my sister again.

If she stayed away, it would just make my plotting easier to carry out.

My plan was this: I didn’t need to destroy the barriers keeping me in. I only needed to be strong enough to destroy the runes holding them in place. And after diligent note taking and hours spent deciphering those notes, I was reasonably certain I knew which of the runes to aim for first—where I might be able to do the most damage. Enough damage to open a passageway that I could slip through.

I would set fire to the symbols holding me hostage, and then I would be free.

After I slipped away, I would just have to hope I could remain conscious enough to follow up my destructive spell with one that would carry me back to the middle-heavens. Back to Dravyn.

Just thinking about it—about him—made my heart pound faster.

The effects of the poison my sister had used to get me here still lingered, even all these days later. Drawing closer to the yard’s edges still made me feel like I was in danger of being peeled apart.

I needed to get as far away from the barrier as I could, I decided, to make sure I had an entirely clear head before I made my move. That farthest point, after some quick calculations, ended up being in my parents’ old room.

Which was how I ended up inside of this room, sitting next to the same shrine table my mother had once knelt and prayed before on a daily basis.

The space underneath was where I had set my first fire—an accident that all but destroyed the small table.

Mother had repaired and repainted the damaged parts, but it still carried the faint scent of smoke. In some places, scorch marks could be seen bleeding through the newer coats of stain.

The statues that had once adorned the table were all gone. They were the first things my mother packed before leaving us.

If they had still been there, would I have been tempted to set them ablaze? It would have been easier, now. Even in my weakened state, I could still summon enough power to set small things on fire.

Yet it also would have been harder, as I no longer believed all the gods should burn.

I was still debating which deities deserved my flames when my sister finally returned. I tried to collect myself, the notes I’d been studying, and to escape our parents’ room before she found me there, but I wasn’t quick enough.

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