“Pass,” I say, watching her pull a thread from one of her right palms—so much brighter than any other draped across the cavern’s ceiling. “Definite pass.”
“Such pretty, pretty secrets,” she purrs, her words pinching my nerves.
Think it’s time I get the fuck out of here.
Shaking off the tension climbing my spine, I drag my chair back to the pile, passing her a dubious stare. “You’re not going to eat me on my way out, are you?”
Hard to say, but I think she frowns. “Course not, little morsel. I don’t eat those I strike bargains with. Only the ones I don’t.”
“And how many have you struck bargains with?”
Still dragging the bright thread from her palm, she rubs her chin with a spare hand, appearing to think long and hard. “Six,” she announces, lifting Pah’s málmr to her nose and drawing another deep sniff. “Including you.”
“Right.” I glance at the steadily growing pile of slurpy string glowing brighter than a Moonplume egg. “Lucky me.”
I give her a wave she doesn’t appear to notice, too transfixed on her task. Or maybe she does and she just doesn’t care?
Probably the latter.
I move around the piles of trash, arm heavy with the bangle I once won from a deeply troubled Mindweft who claimed she knew how to speak the language of Aether. That she’d studied the Book of Voyd in length and knew the secret to our insignificant existence.
She told me the bangle would serve me in two ways. That both would be painful but necessary.
Don’t remember the first, so can’t speak for that.
Probably won’t want to remember the second, either.
He came back.
He didn’t explain why he’d left, nor did I ask, nor admit how much I’d missed him.
Too much.
Like one of my ribs had been snapped free, leaving an ache right over my heart.
He had a fresh scar on his arm—the one he uses to strum. He was also wearing a necklace. A long braided piece of leather attached to a flat, circular pendant. A silver Moonplume and a reddish-black Sabersythe bound together, their jagged and sweeping bits fitting against each other.
From what I understand, only one Sabersythe has silver scales, and she lives in Gondragh. Nobody has been able to get close enough to climb on her back and attempt to tame her—and honestly, I hope they never do.
I ate my meal in silence, watching Kaan play his instrument with that pendant hanging proudly against his chest …
Wondering.
I wanted to touch it. Weigh it in my palm. Ask him where it came from. All things that are absolutely none of my business.
If he caught me looking at it, he didn’t let on or even lift his stare from his strings—not that he ever does.
Normally.
When he began playing “Song of the Silent Sun,” I closed my eyes and sang, getting lost in the tune and his sturdy, comforting presence. So when the song finished and I opened my eyes, I certainly didn’t expect to see him staring at me.
For a long moment, we sat there watching each other, unspeakable truths thrumming between us, more palpable than the pluck or strum of his chords.
Something I’d never felt before fluttered through my belly and up into my chest. Like I had a fluffy sowmoth caged beneath my ribs, dusting me in its powder and lighting me up from the inside out.
Pulled toward him like I was caught in a current I had no interest in fighting against, I’d risen.
Edged closer.
He was stone still as I pushed aside my veil and leaned close, so desperate to know what his lips felt like. If they were smooth and warm like I’d imagined them to be.
I brushed against him—featherlight.
It was barely a touch, but it ripped a hole in my perception of the world and bared the guts of a whole new version of existence …
Bigger.
Brighter.
Happier.
I wanted to stay right there forever, caught on that quiet yet clamorous threshold, my heart pounding so hard and fast I was certain my chest was cracking open.
I knew it was wrong. That I was breaking a thousand rules. But how could something so wrong feel so fucking right?
He cupped my face with such tenderness it was like he was cradling a dragon’s egg, and I nuzzled his palm. Found so much comfort in it that I wanted to stay right there.
Forever.
Then he asked me what I wanted, and I told him my truth. One three-letter word that weighed too much, being promised to his kin.
You.
I pulled away with the key in my hand, just unlocking the door when he gripped me from behind, swung me around, ripped off my veil, and kissed me with such ravenous intention I lost myself.
Found myself.
It was the kiss of someone who wanted to give me everything. Take nothing. Yet I gave him my whole heart anyway. Realized it was rightfully his.
That it had been for some time.
I was about to drag him down to the far corner of the hutch where there’s a pile of hay Slátra has no interest in, but then someone came running down the hall, requesting his help on an urgent matter.
They almost caught us kissing. As it was, they blushed at the sight of me unveiled, no doubt noticing the scrap of material clutched in Kaan’s fist before they spun and apologized for intruding.
I didn’t care.
I don’t feel like Haedeon anymore. I feel like Allume—wobbling along, being forged into something strong despite my broken bits.
Perhaps I’ll fly, too.
Iwander down the twirling staircase, yawning as I push past the fall of vines and move through the jungle, following a well-worn path I’ve forged back into existence over the countless cycles since I came here.
Time works differently in this place. It folds into itself like a parchment lark, hiding scrawled secrets I keep tucking away.
And away.
And away.
The path opens to a small spring puddled beneath a burbling waterfall, and I smile.
Dropping my bag and towel on the stone shore, I strip, taking tentative steps into the cool water with a bar of purple bogsberry soap and a piece of pumice I foraged from the Loff’s pebbled shore. I scrub my clothes, myself, then lather my hair and rinse it beneath the fall of water, combing some conditioning oil through the heavy length, leaving it to drip-dry down my back. I wring out my clothes, drape them across a low-hanging vine, then bind a towel around my body and tuck all my things back in the mesh bag I purchased from one of Dhomm’s market stalls.
Moving through the jungle, I pause to pick handfuls of black bogsberries from clusters of wild shrubs that grow tucked at the base of trees, collecting them in a sack of threaded fiber. I forage through the underbrush for fallen gongnuts I pile in there, too, as well as a copperdew melon I cradle in my hand as I make my way back to the dwelling.
Humming a merry tune, I climb the staircase and empty my foraged goods into a large clay bowl, rinsing the berries, cracking the nuts, slicing the melon into juicy segments I arrange on a platter. I settle my spread on the table next to my terracotta mug of water and sit, about to bite down on a piece of melon when my gaze flicks to the shelf.
To the diary I acquired from The Curly Quill.
I stand and move toward it, reaching out to pluck it from its resting place, tracing the Moonplume embossed on the cover. My stare drifts to the old quill I dusted several aurora cycles ago, then to the jar of ink.
Shrugging, I carry all three items to the table and settle them beside my spread, cracking the diary open, brimming with the strangest urge to … write.
I’ve never felt inclined to journal before. But this place does weird, unexplainable things to me, and for the most part, I’ve been going with it. Exploring these odd urges in this quiet place where there are no eyes. No ears.
No commands.
In the beginning, I called it an experiment. Now I see it a little differently.
I think I’m learning how to exist without shackles and expectations. Without the hurt and the crippling fear of loss that hacks my head from my heart.
I think I’m learning what it means to live.
Fallon would be proud.
Mostly.
I ink my quill, pausing to pop a bogsberry in my mouth, the burst of tart sweetness exploding over my taste buds as I scratch my thoughts on the parchment, the words flowing easier than I expected them to …