Page 11 of Ash and Feather

Halar glanced back and forth between me and Dravyn. He seemed to be weighing the odds for a moment before he swept irritably to the door, pausing in front of it and turning one last glare in Dravyn’s direction. “Heed what I said to you. All of it.” He jerked his head my direction. “Don’t let this one blind you to the truth.”

And with that he was gone, slamming the door on his way out.

The room cooled. The fireplace settled; the flames shrinking in both height and intensity until they were casting a much softer, warmer glow over the room.

Dravyn stared at the door as if expecting Halar to burst back through it.

Neither of us spoke for a long moment.

As my pulse finally calmed—and with it, my magic—my gaze went again to the marks scorched into the shelf. “You two weren’t playing nice at all, were you?”

Dravyn muttered something indistinguishable before prowling back toward his chair. He seemed to consider flopping back down upon it, but instead went to the nearby desk, bracing his arms against it and studying a large piece of parchment stretched across the shining mahogany top.

I moved closer, curious; whatever he was looking at was carving deep furrows into his brow and rapidly dulling his eyes from their usual shining silver-blue to a murky, frigid grey.

It turned out to be a map.

Before I could ask why he had it out, or what exactly concerned him about it, Dravyn spoke: “Valas found you, I’m guessing?”

I frowned. “So you did send him after me.”

He didn’t try to deny it. “The other courts are teeming with unease today, with a need to…act. Halar’s obtained some information that’s managed to get everyone riled up, all of them arguing about what to do next. It’s not just the God of Storms who’s restless and dangerous at the moment.”

“Dangerous? Even in our own territory?”

He took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders as though redistributing the weight of the world sitting upon them. “These are strange times.”

I considered the worry in his tone and found I couldn’t come up with a convincing argument to dispel it. “And I’m a strange new piece in this puzzling place,” I acquiesced, absently watching an ember as it escaped the fireplace and fell in a slow, twisting dance, landing and dying against the stone hearth.

“The strangest in quite some time.” A corner of Dravyn’s mouth quirked as I looked back at him.

My frown only deepened. “Still, you don’t need to worry about me so much,” I said. “There are more concerning things.”

He gave a thoughtfulhmm, almost a sound of agreement—even though he was suddenly looking at me as though I was the only thing he’deverbeen concerned about.

Tilting my face away to hide my blush, I mumbled, “I can take care of myself.”

“I’m well aware.” He stepped closer. “But perhaps I like taking care of you.” He reached for my hand, pulling me toward him. “Humor me, Wildfire.”

His thumb absently stroked my palm. His other hand cupped my face as he leaned down and pressed his forehead against mine, sighing and relaxing against me.

We stayed pressed to one another for a long moment, huddling against the outside forces threatening us.

I might have stayed like that all afternoon, letting him lean more fully into me and trying to shift some of his worry tomy own shoulders—but I was also determined to keep the conversation on track. To find out more about what he’d been discussing with the God of Storms.

“It’s all just venting and throwing their weight around where I’m concerned,” I insisted, taking a step back. “They’ll tire of hating me, eventually. Halar is my greatest detractor, and even he seemed more subdued toward me than usual today.” My eyes darted toward the door. “He left with so little argument…”

Dravyn looked to the door as well, his gaze unfocused, his mouth drawn in a tight, unconvinced line. “He was distracted.”

“As are you.”

He blinked, met my eyes, and gave me a small, tired smile that made my stomach flip. “Maybe.”

“So what is it that’s distracted the two of you? What did Halar find?” I moved away from him and circled around the desk, leaning over it as he had done, trailing my fingers along the same paths his had traveled. “This is a map of the northern territories, isn’t it? The Kingdoms of Galizur and Terrath, and the no-man’s land between them. TheHollowlands, I’ve heard that middle space called by human-kind, I think—though the elves have another name for it.”

He nodded in confirmation, and I studied it closer.

Several of the places upon it were labeled strangely to me, the letters odd, the spellings slightly different from what I knew, while the notes along the margins were written in a language I didn’t recognize at all. But the landmarks were unmistakable—the Duskryn mountain range, the upper and lower Berlnath rivers, the great Bloodroot Canyon.

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