Page 174 of Ash and Feather

I stared at my fingers, now completely clear of the ink-like substance. Nothing to see, yet my skin still shivered.

Myentire bodyshivered—not with fear, but with possibility.

These creatures showing themselves now, of all times…it seemed almost too obvious. Too coincidental. Impossible to ignore.

As I lowered my hand, I looked to the sky, thinking of the heavens I’d become familiar with over the past months. And then beyond Nerithyl—higher than that place I’d started to think of ashome.

A plan started to form in my mind.

But could I manage it?

There were no maps to where I needed to go.

No clear guideposts.

And I would go alone—Ineededto go alone. Too long had I spent looking to other people, to other powers to hide behind. My sister’s rebellious dreams. Dravyn’s fire. I loved them both, but I couldn’t exist merely as a shadow or an extension of either one of them anymore.

If I was going to bring balance to all these different worlds I had tethers to, then I was going to have to forge a new path through them.

My own path.

“I know the look of someone considering a chaotic decision,” Valas said, “and you have it.”

I gripped the fused shards of ceramic tightly, bringing the shivering in my hand to a stop.

“Come on. Out with it.”

“…The tellesk share his power,” I recited, lowering my gaze back to the bushes the creature had been hiding in. “So does that mean focusing on the energy this creature leaves behind might help my own magic carry me to wherever the largest concentration of that energy is?”

Valas considered the question. “…Yes,” he answered, carefully. “I would think so.”

“And that place is the dwelling of the upper-gods themselves.”

The Winter God’s brows rose, but he didn’t reply.

“I’m not wrong, am I?”

“It’s…possiblefor us to visit those upper-heavens, at least for a short amount of time. Usually only when we’re invited, though.”

“I’m not waiting for an invitation,” I said, fiercely. “I think a certain upper-god owes me a conversation.”

Valas fixed me with a familiar look—one that was part exasperation, part admiration, part amusement.

“If the God of Fire asks, I tried to talk you out of it,” he said, dryly. “And I thoroughly warned you about the consequences of not treading carefully where the Moraki are concerned.”

“He’ll understand why I needed to go,” I said, more to myself than Valas.

Dravyn would be worried, but in the end, he wouldn’t stop me. He would empower me. It was what he’d been doing all along, after all—he had given me fire, showed me the way to unfold my wings…but then he’d let go and let me fly on my own, stepping in only when it looked like I might crash to the ground.

If I wanted to soar to the highest heavens, he would be there to catch me whenever I came back down, I knew. However I came back down.

But this was a dangerous new game I was thinking of playing.

And even if I won it, deep in my heart, I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t come back to him at all.

Chapter 40

Karys

---