“You’ll never get your wings now.”
The Dark Father stood behind her. She sensed his presence with distaste but did not move. Her gaze was fixed on the far, blank horizon of her demesne. Even her hated offspring had left the city. Her prisoners were swiftly putting distance between themselves and Etalpalli. The vastness of her solitude was impressive, to say the least.
“You let Bebo’s cousin go.” The Dark Father placed a long-fingered hand on Hri Sora’s shoulder. She wanted to flinch but wouldn’t. “She was a good chance. She is weak, at the mercy of her own vanity. You could have wrung the secret from her had you made the effort.”
In the cold clarity of her mind without fire, Hri Sora acknowledged the truth of her Father’s words. But it did not matter. Learning Gleamdren’s secret would not have guaranteed her the Flowing Gold. And even had she succeeded and laid the fabled treasure at the Dark Father’s feet, who could say if he would have honored his side of the bargain? He was a liar. He was the inventor of lies.
But this way—if it worked, if the girl was smart and did as she was told—this way, Hri Sora’s deepest desire could be fulfilled. And the Death-of-Dreams himself could not stop it!
“I’m no fool, my daughter,” said her Father. “I can piece together this little puzzle.”
He needed no motivation, and she did not care to give him any. She sat as though stone. He laughed to himself, and embers fell from his mouth and singed her tatty hair.
“You came back from your second death stronger and more beautiful than tongue can tell,” he said. “The Flame at Night rekindled! And you dared laugh in my face and tell me your fire was the greatest to burn in all of Time. To prove your words, to make your defiance complete, you declared before all your brethren in the Netherworld that you should do what I dared not try. You would rise to the vaults of heaven and devour Lady Hymlumé, the moon herself, destroying the harmonies of the Sphere Songs forever.
“You flew far and you flew fast. You rose to the highest reaches. You looked Hymlumé in the eye, and the worlds felt it when she, frightened, stumbled in her dance and lost the beat of her Song. How powerful you were, my daughter! How glorious beyond all created beings!
“But I am your Father. I will not be undone. You will not defy me to my face and go unpunished.
“I stripped away your wings. I stripped away your dragon form and left you in the frail, wingless body of a woman. And there you stood before the moon. And she looked upon your pathetic state and said: ‘Poor little thing.’
“It was too much for you, wasn’t it, my darling? In despair and disgrace, you flung yourself from the heavens, willing to die your third and final death rather than be pitied. The flame of your fall was like the destruction of worlds, fire spilling from your mouth, lashing from your hair, your fingertips. Your screams shattered the sky. And you streaked to your destruction, striking that mountain in the Near World with such force that the fire could be seen far and wide. It burned for days, for months, possibly for years as counted in that mortal world. When at last it died away, the nations assumed you had met your final end.
“But that wasn’t how it went, was it, my child? You didn’t die. You lay exposed upon that bald mountain peak for a year or more. But you did not die.
“At last you woke. Your fire was gone, and your shell of a body was empty. You wandered down the burned slopes of that mountain, helpless as a new babe, no memory of yourself or your past glories. The mortals of the Near World found you. They took you in as one of their own, and you became no better than they. A Faerie queen turned dragon turned beast of the dust. And so you lived for years. . . .
“What made your fire return, Hri Sora? What finally kindled that memory of flame? You blazed back into Etalpalli ten years after your death was declared, destroying them all. And you brought those monstrous children with you.
“I am no fool! I can guess at your story as easily as though you told me!
“You met Amarok the Wolf in the Near World. He took you for his bride. He, a self-styled lord, a lowly shifter, a devil in animal form. When you were Queen of Etalpalli, he would not have dared look you in the eye. When you were a dragon, he would have fled before your fire!
“But he saw you then, reduced to this helpless state, wingless, witless. What a prize you were! More valuable in his eyes than you could ever have been to Sir Etanun.”
Here the Flame at Night’s body convulsed. Smoke streamed black from her nostrils. But she stopped and drew it back, breathing it deep and swallowing it down. She could not lose her mind so soon! She could not let the flames overtake her again! She must wait. She must wait for her children’s return. She must hear whatever news they might bring.