Page 180 of Ash and Feather

Chapter 41

Dravyn

I returnedto Avalinth after several hours spent talking and negotiating with the God of Healing, and then helping him create the tonic I now carried—one that I’d been instructed to give to Savna.

The first thing I noticed upon touching down in the mortal realm was that Karys was missing.

“Don’t panic,” came Valas’s voice, almost immediately. I turned to see him reclining against the side of Karys’s old house. He looked as if he’d been waiting for me.

“Where is she?” I demanded. Her magic felt faint—not in this realm. Yet I hadn’t felt her when I was in Nerithyl, either.

Valas pushed away from the wall, a troubled expression darkening his gaze. “I was only instructed to tell you she was safe,” he said, “and that she’d be back soon. She didn’t want you to worry.”

As though that would stop me.

“You know more than that,” I insisted. “I can see it in your face.”

“Maybe.” He summoned a crystal of ice to his palm and walked it back and forth between his fingers—a habit he sometimes fell into during the rare instances when he was nervous. “But I’m going to let herexplain things when she gets back,” he said. “I’m curious about what her actual plans and reasoning are, too.”

I scowled; I was not in the mood to be patient ortoplay guessing games.

“That bottle you have there,” said Valas, “it’s from Armaros, I hope?”

I shifted the tonic to my other hand and gave it a shake, holding it up for his inspection even though I was annoyed by his change of subject.

“Karys’s sister is not doing well. You may already be too late.”

Too late.

Just like I’d been with Cillian.

I couldn’t—wouldn’t—fail her again.

Loathe as I was to do it, I shifted my priorities and forgot about tracking down Karys for the moment.

As I started toward the house, Moth appeared in a flurry of feathers and fire, startling me—though I should have expected him; I’d ordered him to stay behind, but following commands was not his strength.

It had been too long since he’d seen Karys, too. So there would be no keeping him away, no sending him back home.

Knowing this, I didn’t protest when he perched himself on my shoulder and accompanied me to Savna’s room.

Once there, he hopped down and started to rummage through her belongings; sniffing under furniture, rooting through drawers, snatching blankets and pillows in his claws and dragging them in every direction.

Savna slept on, oblivious, even when he leapt onto her bed and inspected her more closely. He appeared confused, for amoment, by this elf who looked so much like Karys but clearly wasn’t her. He trotted back to me and clamped his beak around my ankle, tugging, as if he wanted me to follow him in his search for the real Karys.

“You and Zell are both lost without her, aren’t you?” I mused, prying his bite off and shoving him toward the hallway. “Go on, wait for her outside, why don’t you?”

While he plodded sulkily from the room, I stood perfectly still, silently reciting the instructions the Healing God had given me while watching Savna for signs of life.

She was, as Valas had warned, barely hanging on.

I’d planned to hand this tonic from Armaros over to Karys and let her handle its administration. But now she was nowhere to be found, and time was of the essence.

Knowing her, she’d be glad I had this chance tobondwith her sister. Another chance to mend the brokenness between us all, just as she wanted my brother and me to do.

I smiled wryly at the thought and, sighing, made my way over to the bedside, shaking the glass bottle as I went. Uncorking it sent spirals of whitish-gold, magical residue fluttering into the air, along with the scent of citrus.

It wasn’t a remedy she needed to ingest, thankfully; her skin could absorb it easily enough. There was a basket of medical supplies on the shelf next to her bed, so I took some of the cloths from it and soaked them in the citrusy substance.

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