Page 44 of Ash and Feather

“We’ve already decided it,” she told the room with a pointed glance at me. “No one could blend better within an elven stronghold than me.” Her eyes stayed on me. Hopeful. Expectant. A bit apologetic, maybe.

I rolled away the weight that had settled on my shoulders and mirrored her decisive tone, trying not to let my irritation show.

“It’s true,” I said. “She knows their languages, their customs, their mannerisms. There will likely be plenty of faces there that she’ll recognize, too. She will be able to navigate their ranks better than any of us could.”

“What about the fact thatshewill be recognized?” Halar wanted to know. “And after what she did during the last battle we fought against the Velkyn, it isn’t as though her old friends are going to welcome her in with open arms.”

Karys met the Storm God’s heated gaze without flinching, though she didn’t answer his question.

“My magic can disguise her and make her look like any common elf,” Mairu chimed in, as though she’d been a part of the plan all along. Maybe she had been.

I fought the urge to rake my hand across my face in exasperation.

“Her divine power will give her away,” argued the Goddess of Sky. “She isn’t in control of the new magic inside of her; onewrong move, and she will cause more chaos than this planof hers could possibly be worth.”

Zachar moved toward the table, shadows preceding his steps, sending cold rippling outward. “There are ways to at least partially suppress that, too.”

I glared at him, shrugging off a shiver. The crawling down my spine was less from my own discomfort at those damn shadows of his and more from the plan he was suggesting.

His draining magic could temper hers—but at what cost? She would be walking into enemy territory with either potentially out-of-control magic or a subdued version of that magic…

I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

I chanced another glance in Karys’s direction; the faint glimmer of fear in her eyes suggested the Death God’s offer was unexpected to her as well.

She recovered from any trepidation she felt quickly, however, blinking it away and nodding along with Zachar’s words as though this, too, had all been a part of her plan. She calmly sat back down. Her performance was convincing. Composed.

It was hard not to be impressed despite my irritation.

The conversation around the table fast returned to bickering, which lasted several minutes before the Goddess of Stars cleared her throat and spoke—an unusually assertive gesture for her, which might have been why she actually managed to quiet everyone enough to be heard.

“The God of the Shade had his reasons for allowing her to ascend, mysterious as they may remain to all of us.” She gave Karys a long, hard look. Then her gaze lifted toward the sky, her fingers moving as though she was walking them through a tapestry of stars no one else could see, trying to find some telling constellation or revelation we’d all missed. “Perhaps this is part of a grander plan. She is an interesting pawn, isn’t she? One with connections to multiple worlds.”

I bristled at the wordpawn, though I knew it was accurate. Whatever powers we had, they paled in comparison to the ones above us, and those upper-gods rarely missed an opportunity to remind us of that.

Another few minutes of arguing commenced, but this time it trailed off on its own. A feeling of reluctant resolve overtook our gathering, and no one—not even the God of Storms—offered any more protests against Karys’s plan.

“So it’s settled, then,” said the Healing God, his expression solemn. “We’ll allow our fledgling goddess to gather more information from the heart of the Hollowlands before deciding if and how we intervene in the conflicts plaguing Avalinth.” The god’s golden eyes fixed on Karys. “Remember the divine blood that now flows in your veins,” he said. “And do not disappoint us.”

Karys sat up straighter. “I won’t.”

I got to my feet, my gaze shifting toward the marble arch that led out of the garden—a wordless dismissal. No one objected to it. Most disappeared instantly, filling the space with a faint medley of magical energies on their way out.

Soon, only our own court remained in the garden.

Karys stayed in her seat, her hands clenched on the table before her, her head bowed in thought.

I stared at her, unsure where to start. Unsure Itrustedmyself to start.

After a moment, she lifted her head and glared back at me but said nothing.

Valas rose from his seat, stretching. “I’m sensing a bit of tension in the air.”

He moved toward me, but I ignored him, keeping my stare leveled on Karys. Quietly, as calmly as I could manage, I asked, “What were youthinking?”

“I told you what I was thinking before the meeting started.”

I caught a flash of something black and shining at her hands—claws.

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