Page 173 of Ash and Feather

Every time the scene played in my mind, I felt a little more sick.

I kept vigil by her bedside for as long as I could bear it. Then I stood, moving around the room, tidying and organizing, humming softly to myself. Trying not to think of the past. Not five hours ago. Not five years ago. Just…now.

I only needed to survive this moment.

One breath in, one breath out.

One foot after the other.

I went outside once more, and I found Valas close to where I’d last seen him—in a wild, overgrown section of the yard.

The area was filled with trash and debris. The remnants of the old storehouse that had once stood in the corner made up most of the junk; there were splintered, weathered boards, rusted nails, bits of broken jars that had lined the building’s shelves.

Valas held two pieces of those broken jars, studying them.

I gave him a curious look, and he gestured for me to follow him as he walked over to a clearer section of the yard.

He leaned against a stretch of rundown fencing, dropping the shards onto the ground next to him, and said, “Did you know, in the mortal kingdom I was born in—Olithia—they have a tradition of never throwing away broken things if they can help it? It’s considered bad luck to do so.” He pointed at the jagged pieces beside his boots. “So they keep shattered bits of jewelry, pottery, decor—anything and everything. They collect it in ornate boxes and put them on display. Like shrines to mistakes, almost. And they often forge these pieces into something new, binding the brokenness in all sorts of creative ways. There are regular festivals to celebrate the remaking of these objects, even, that most of the royal city participates in.”

He took the golden bangles from his wrist and placed them on a nearby stone paver.

“Melt them,” he instructed.

Still curious about the point he was making—and happy to have another target for the still-smoldering fire inside of me—I did so without questioning him.

As the bracelets turned to liquified metal, he nudged the broken pieces of the jars closer to me. Understanding, I took one shard and pressed it into the sticky glob of molten material, then grabbed the other and affixed it to the same stickiness.

“The masters of this art form have other tools and materials they use, of course, but this is essentially the same thing.” He cooled the melted gold with a gentle, icy wind as he spoke, fastening the shards of ceramic more permanently together.

I leaned against the fence beside him, holding up the still-fragile, but now singular, piece. It wasn’t a perfect match. Even with his aid in cooling the adhesive, the shards continued to slip and slide and settle against one another. It looked messy. Crooked. I kept waiting for one to break off, fall to the ground, shatter.

Yet they never did.

“A disastrous first attempt at the art of it,” Valas said, grinning his usual teasing grin, “but my general point still stands. And you’ll get better with practice, hopefully. I mean, you can hardly getworse.”

I aimed a punch at his arm, which he avoided with a graceful little spin. He danced out of my reach and moved back to the long grass, gathering up more broken things.

Fighting the urge to both smile and roll my eyes, I went back to studying the joined shards.

The two pieces were not from the same jar, I noticed—they could not have been more different in terms of their designs. I didn’t know if Valas had chosen them on purpose or not, but I couldn’t stop staring, comparing the two patterns.

They complimented one another, I decided.

And something about the shining gold in between them brought me a sense of peace as I stared at it.

I was still studying it when I sensed movement in the bushes behind me.

Strange energy accompanied what sounded like a small, rustling creature, but by the time I turned and pinpointed where that sound and energy was coming from, the creature causing it was disappearing into thin air, leaving nothing but swirls of sparkling, purplish-black residue in its place.

“We’ve had an audience,” Valas muttered, sauntering back to me.

I took a few cautious steps toward the bushes, running my fingers through the magical residue, which clung like ink to my skin for an instant before evaporating. “I’ve seen one of them before.”

Valas didn’t seem particularly surprised by this. “Atellesk,” he informed me. “They serve the Moraki. Usually the God of the Shade, to be exact—the creatures share his power to read minds, emotions, and the like.”

“He’s been watching me through them over this past month, hasn’t he?”

“Through them and who knows what other methods.”

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