Page 132 of Ash and Feather

Savna clenched her other hand into a fist and fell into her habit of knocking them against one another.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

I averted my gaze. It eventually caught on the painting on the back wall. A myriad of conflicting feelings overcame me at the sight of the cracked and peeling mural of my ancestral house’s symbol. I’d always debated what to do with this wall; the art had been fading long before this home was abandoned. Should I repaint the symbols—sharpen the edges of the feather-wrapped sword, add shades of color back to the jeweled goblet?

Or simply paint over it all?

Or maybe just ignore it?

I still didn’t know.

When I looked back to my sister, something had hardened in her expression. Another defensive tactic I’d learned from her, that specific way of setting our jaw and silencing our emotions—like a steel barrier dropping down, cutting off the air so it couldn’t feed the flames inside.

“I amlistening to your truth,” she said evenly. “But Karys, I think maybe you’re being—”

“No.”

I didn’t realize I’d managed to say the word out loud until the surprise registered on my sister’s face.

My heart pounded painfully fast, but I didn’t take the word back. For once, I was not going to let someone else tell me what or who I was. For once, I didn’t feel the need to keep explaining myself.

For once, ‘No’ felt like a complete sentence.

And I realized, with a mixture of pain and relief, that it was all I had left to say.

I’d started the day with a plan, and in that moment, I made up my mind to follow it—I would be gone from this place before the night was over.

Even if it meant saying goodbye to my sister and everything else I had been holding on to for so long.

Chapter 32

Karys

Hours later,I bolted upright in my bed, awakened by warmth flooding my body.

I thought I was dreaming at first.

Then, I felt it again. Not merely a nudging, dreamy warmth this time—but truefireshooting through my veins. Heavenly heat ballooning in my chest, lifting me onto my feet.

I’d fallen asleep with a hope that I would wake up alone, my sister long gone. Something I don’t think I’d ever hoped for.

My wish had come true.

She was nowhere to be found.

I was burning, but the house around me sat as cold and empty as an expectant tomb, and I saw, now, that this was what it was—a place to bury things that no longer served me.

The God of Death had called it weeks ago, hadn’t he?

If I was going to move forward, I would have to lay some things to rest. Those things could stay in this house, this grave.

But I couldn’t.

So I made myself breathe and I made myself move, one foot in front of the other, heading for the door without looking back.

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