Page 9 of Ash and Feather

“Don’t worry,” I told him, dryly, “I’m not going to attempt magic. Nothing is going to get incinerated. Or blown up.”

“Thank the Creators for that.”

“I’m just going to take the longer way back to give Halar more time to finish his rampaging, as you suggested.”

He looked momentarily skeptical about me agreeing with his advice, but quickly shrugged it off. “Good. That means I can go back to minding my own business at my own home, perhaps get some more of that beauty sleep, which—as you so kindly pointed out—I so desperately need.”

“I’ve been told I’m honest to a fault,” I said sweetly.

“An honest pain in the ass,” he said, just as sweetly.

Despite our joking tones, concern still lingered in the depths of his gaze. For a moment, I thought he might insist on escorting me back to the palace, regardless of my wishes—but then he gave me a little salute, bade me farewell, and took several long strides before leaping backwards into a flip that sent shining particles swirling through the air. I blinked and he was gone, leaving nothing more than that icy dust as proof he’d ever been here at all.

“Show-off,” I muttered, turning to scan the fields around me, seeking the creature who had carried me from the Palace of Fire to the Garden of Elestra in the first place—Zell’thas, one of the selakir, a creation of Dravyn’s.

I spotted him quickly, the shifting oranges and reds of his fiery mane like a pulsing beacon against the silvery green hills.

He gave a high-pitched whinny as he caught sight of me. The sound was similar to one a horse might make, yet slightly off in a way that might have been eerie if I didn’t love and trust this creature so much. He resembled the horses of the mortal realm in appearance, too—closely enough that he could be mistakenfor one from a distance—but as Zell drew closer, the differences became more apparent; the small antler-like appendages, the softly glowing eyes, the impossible shades of gold he shifted between as he moved. He was clearly a divine creature born of far more magic than anything in the mortal world below us.

I didn’t have to whistle to bring him to my side; he was already trotting toward me as though he’d sensed my need to move, to be carried away from my latest mistake. It wasn’t the first time he’d seemed to anticipate me over these past weeks. He had been born partly from Dravyn’s power, after all, so whatever increased connection my gifted magic had given me with Dravyn, I suspected I shared it with his creations, too.

As I rubbed Zell’s favorite spot on his neck before swinging onto his back, I wondered again about just how deep the connection between Dravyn and I went. Not for long, however; all my questions faded mercifully into the background when Zell launched into a gallop.

This was one of the few times I was able to forget about all of the trouble surrounding me, here lately—while balanced on the selakir’s back, soaring across the fields, smoke and embers swirling and blurring the world around us.

Zell was a marvelous creature, fast as the wind with grace beyond measure. Little fires bloomed and died wherever his hooves fell, and I marveled for a moment at how easily they came and went and how smoothly we soared along, wishing I could manage anything half as effortless when it came to moving through this realm.

I hardly ever needed to guide Zell; I only had to ask him to take me to Dravyn, and he always managed to do the rest. So I tilted my head back, pulled my hair free of its braid, and focused on the feel of the wind caressing me. Breathing in deep lungfuls of floral and spice-tinged air, I studied Nerithyl’s strange sky as we bounded along.

There were no clouds within this sky, nor any proper sun or moon or stars. There was only a magical sort of…hazethat shifted colors according to whatever divine energies dominated it at any given moment. Sometimes it took on the colors of the mortal realm’s skies, other times it was nowhere close to them. The light shining within it depended on the gods below it; most of them could conjure up various illuminating objects if they desired it, even though they didn’t need light to see in the dark. Dravyn was particularly skilled at shaping fire into miniature suns, and he’d done it often while I was getting acclimated to this realm, trying to mimic the heavenly bodies of the world I’d left behind.

Today, the sky was the color of rich cream, and the illuminated magical orbs wrapped within its haze—forgelights, Dravyn called them—were fading. It had been days since he’d hung them; he’d been too distracted by other things to keep up with them, I guessed.

I caught a flash of something much brighter than those fading lights, and my eyes narrowed.

“I’m not surprised,” I told Zell with a sigh.

The selakir twitched his ears and picked up his speed, gleefully unaware of, or at least unbothered by, the comings and goings of gods.

I squinted harder, and I became sure of it, then: Despite what Valas had said, he hadn’t gone straight back to his own territory. It looked as though he’d tried to camouflage himself, wrapping his form in magic that took on the same off-white sheen as the sky. But his wings gave him away—every occasional flap of the ice-glazed feathers created a brief, telltale shimmer.

Keeping an eye on me, though he would never admit to it. I was almost certain Dravyn had sent him, now. The state of things—and whatever Halar had come to discuss—must have been more serious than Valas had let on.

I leaned forward, urging Zell faster, a foreboding feeling settling in my gut as the Palace of Fire took shape far in the distance.

Chapter 3

Karys

I didn’t haveto go very deep into the palace before I heard Halar’s voice booming through the otherwise quiet halls.

I followed the thundering sound to the first staircase I came across, then up to a landing of white stone that shimmered in the glow from a tall window. Here, flanked on either side by statues of winged beasts, was a white door that led into a small library.

The door was cracked, so I let myself in, steeling my heart and mind against whatever venom Halar would undoubtedly fling my way.

As I stepped into the room, my gaze was immediately drawn, not to the occupants inside, but to the walls around them. There were floor-to-ceiling shelves on the walls behind and on either side of me, each one crammed full of books of all shapes and sizes, most of which were well-loved with worn bindings and little bookmarks and slips of paper notes sticking up between their pages.

Books were a rare sight in this realm, as many of the Marr had more efficient, compact methods of recalling and storingthe information and stories of our world—magic methods. The Goddess of Stars and her servants, for example; they could conjure up records of realms and their inhabitants in the surfaces of certain reflective objects. The Ocean God, too, could use drops of water and similar spells to his advantage.

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