Page 71 of Ash and Feather

I smirked. “Well, yes, necessity can be an excellent teacher.”

“In other words, you’re admitting youneededto cheat to beat me?” She poked me in the chest. I feigned a pained expression as I caught her hand and stopped its jabbing, making her laugh and roll her eyes.

Absently intertwining my fingers with hers, I said, “I still remember the first successful flight I managed.”

“And whatnecessitatedit?”

“Valas shoved me off the top of my palace’s tallest tower.”

Her brows lifted at this, but her expression quickly turned thoughtful as she turned to stare in the direction of that palace we’d left behind—thinking of potential high places that could be utilized, I suspected.

I shook my head. “I will not be shoving you off a tower. Don’t get any ideas.”

Her lips quirked as she looked back at me. “Find another way to teach me, then,” she said, eyes burning with this new challenge.

There would be no talking her out of at leasttryingto fly today, I was certain.

“See what you can do on the ground, first,” I suggested. “Summoning the wings themselves is the first step. Then we’ll see about using them.”

“You said it was harder to summon them while on the ground.”

“It is. But it’s also safer, and if you can master it under these circumstances, then calling them forth when you actuallyneedthem should be even easier.”

She didn’t argue against this logic. She fell silent and watched me expectantly, studying my every breath and movement as I made my wings disappear, only to bring them back with a burst of smoke and heat.

She copied my movements with the methodical precision I’d come to expect from her. It wasn’t enough; not even a hint of feathers appeared at her back.

“It’s not the sort of spell you can memorize and go through the motions with,” I explained. “You have to feel it out.”

She exhaled a quiet, frustrated little noise.

“Just imagine they’re already there,” I offered. “Something that has been inside of you all along…tucked inside your coat at the moment, perhaps.”

She looked doubtful, yet determined to keep trying. Her forehead creased in concentration as she closed her eyes. They remained closed as she shrugged free of that coat.

No wings emerged as the heavy garment fell away—but after a minute, something else did.

The outline of a massive creature began to take shape around her, its lines of fire etching into the air, the glowing strokes extending far higher and wider than either of us.

I blinked several times, and the form being drawn grew clearer—similar to the eagle I often became, but altogether different. More elegant, more smooth…not like that hulking bird that featured on my family’s crest, but more like a creature I’d only ever witnessed in paintings and in storybooks as a child.

A phoenix?

The form never fully materialized. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, lasting no more than a single, awestruck breath. The glowing edges gave way to smoke and ash that fell like snow over Karys, prompting her to sneeze and open her eyes.

She didn’t seem to realize she’d done anything impressive; she watched the ashes fall around her with her lips pressed into a clearly disappointed pout.

I tried not to stare.

How could I explain what I’d just seen?

Had I imagined it?

No, I didn’t think so. There was more power sleeping within her than either of us realized. And I still had no desire to push her off a tower, but maybe…

“On second thought, let’s try something different,” I said, abruptly. “Something more challenging.”

She stopped wiping the ash from her shoulders long enough to give me a bemused look.

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