I pressed my finger to my lips. “Shh.”
Cris floated toward me, curiosity in the way he writhed like flame, but he was soundless as I pulled out my letter and reread it one more time before leaving it by Sam.
My friends,
By the time you wake, I’ll be gone. I hope you won’t follow. It was selfish of me to ask you to come this far. This isn’t your duty.
I don’t know if I’ll succeed, but I’m going to try to find answers, to find help. Someone told me he believed I could do anything, be anything I wanted because I’m new. He made me realize that one of my best qualities is not listening to what other people think I should do. He made me believe in myself.
If I have only one life, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to fight for what I believe in. I believe in this.
I hope you can believe in me too.
I love you all,
Ana who Has Life
Quietly, I rolled my sleeping bag and strapped on my flute case, then secured my backpack over my shoulders. Cris and a handful of sylph followed me into the winter night, questions in their quiet songs.
-Where are you going?-
“To the prison,” I whispered.
-We’ll go with you.-
“Half of you stay with them. They’ll still need sylph.”
Cris bristled. -We are your army. We follow you.-
I crept away from the tent, careful where I placed my feet. My flashlight beam was weak, dimmed with the end of my scarf covering it. I didn’t want anyone to wake and notice the light. “You’re my army, so you’ll follow my orders, right?”
A few of the sylph grumbled, but finally Cris nodded and handful of shadows peeled away, heading back for the tent.
After one last look at the tent and my friends inside, I walked north, uncovering my flashlight once there was a thick layer of trees behind me. “Is there an easy way down the cliff that will get me to the prison wall?”
A few sylph darted ahead to scout a path.
-Sam will be angry.- Cris stayed beside me, keeping me warm. Snow drifted through the forest, melting away in my sylph’s heat.
“He’ll live.” I watched my step over a tangle of roots, listening hard for sounds of pursuit or animals in the forest. Dragons aside, other creatures were unlikely to bother me with sylph so near, but Sam had been right when he said I could fall or get hurt, and sylph wouldn’t be able to help. I had to be careful.
I could go back. I could sneak into the tent, crumple up the letter, and go to sleep. No one would ever know, except for the sylph, and they would keep my secret.
But I pressed on through the deepening night, following the sylph to a snowy path. My boot skidded, sending me to my butt and knocking the air out of me. I found my feet again, wincing at a new bruise as one of the sylph heated enough to dry my clothes.
“Can one of you—” I waved at the steep path that wound down the slope. It looked like a dragon path, all the branches above shredded and the ground littered with sticks and fallen evergreen needles, creating traps beneath the snow. “Melt it? Harden it?”
Sylph eased into a line, singing softly to one another. Steam rose around them, hot and hissing like a part of their melody. Heat billowed around me, smelling of ozone and ash; a trickle of sweat crawled down the back of my neck.
Within minutes, it was done. The sylph seemed to shake themselves as they returned to my side, only one or two leading me down the now-dry path.
“Thank you.” I had my light, so I could see the twigs and leaves on the ground, but as we descended into the valley, they glowed red and then crumbled to ash when I stepped on them. The sylph were being careful with me.
-We’re so close,- Cris sang. -I don’t know if what you’re trying will work, but we sylph love you for the effort. We’ll do anything it takes to protect you.-
Ah, and we were going to see the dragons, so no wonder he’d wanted all the sylph.
I stretched out a hand for him, and tendrils of shadow wound around my wrist and up my forearm.
I took the hill carefully, testing rocks before I trusted my weight to them. Every step took me away from my friends and into danger, but an odd sense of peace pushed through me. I’d said in my letter to Sam and the others that I believed in what I was doing, and I did. This was right. I couldn’t give up.
I only realized I was humming when the sylph began singing with me, eerie and unearthly sounds that echoed through the night. Our song lifted, warm and rich like honey as it filled the dragon path and ran down ahead of us.
Sylph undulated in the darkness, tendrils of shadow reaching for the snowy sky as they danced. When we found level ground, I twirled awkwardly in my heavy backpack and all the sylph gathered around, burning with joy. They coiled around one another, around me as though I were one of them, and all of the sylph made flowers bloom. I danced through a garden of shadow roses.