She had to reach the spirit first, before anyone else did. And she would find them sooner if she rode, but requesting a horse from a groom would alert her parents.
Adaira hesitated. She hadn’t been granted permission to venture out on her own and knew she risked Innes’s anger by doing so.
The wind gusted, ringing the hour’s bell.
She would have to go by foot then. Adaira turned to the portcullis and warily approached the bridge.
It took her past another heavily guarded entrance, and since she looked like any other Breccan woman moving from fortress to city, Adaira was able to weave her way to the westernmost gate. She expected to hear talk of the fallen spirit, but the markets and streets were preoccupied with nothing more than their daily routines.
Was I the only one to witness her fall? Adaira wondered as she at last emerged from the city. The wilds undulated before her, and she began to chart her course. But it was far more difficult than she had anticipated. The western hills were a bewitching, deceptive place, swarming with valleys and mist and veined with rocks. Adaira would crest one rise, believing she had come upon the place where the spirit fell, only to discover another hill in the distance.
She passed through a glen and a small forest, startling a company of red deer and a pair of doves. Where the trees thinned, Adaira saw a loch—a small circle of dark water, hedged by the foothills. In the center of the loch was a tiny island that held a cottage, its dilapidated stone walls nearly conquered by vines and lichens and impossibly tall thistles. A narrow footpath bravely ran from the island to the land, providing a way to reach the cottage.
Adaira stared at it, shivering. The cottage was abandoned, and she wondered who had once lived there as she continued onward.
She soon saw a promising sign. A few branches on a lone elm were splintered, as if the tree had attempted to catch a falling spirit.
Adaira strode directly to it. She traced the tree’s trunk, looked up into the path of brokenness. Something had indeed fallen through these boughs. A raven was perched amid the damage, peering down at her at with curious, beady eyes. And then she noticed something sticky and wet beneath her fingers.
Slowly, she drew her hand away.
She studied the honeyed substance that glistened on her fingertips. It was golden and boasted a sweet aroma, like nectar.
She wiped the spirit’s blood on her plaid and studied the ground until she saw a minuscule path, bending the grass. Her eyes traced it carefully. The path was made by narrow feet that had dragged every other stride, obviously because of a wound. Beads of that sweet-smelling blood glittered on the grass every few paces, catching the dim sunlight like dew. The traces of blood brought Adaira down into a valley and then up to a daunting outcrop of jagged rocks, their many facets mimicking a host of frowning faces.
Seeing the path she needed to take to reach the ledge at the top, Adaira breathed into her hands to warm them. It had been so long since she had walked the hills alone. Since she had climbed into caves and swum in the sea. Adaira felt a spasm of nostalgia, but she shook it away before it set its claws into her. She began to climb.
She reached the small ledge, where the blood pooled in thick drops. The trail seemed to end here, and Adaira searched the rocks around her, eager to find another lead. But she soon realized this was it. The path went cold. She crouched by the beads of golden blood, confused until she felt the wind sigh through her hair.
“Of course,” Adaira said, unable to hide her disappointment.
Why did I presume that I could find you? That you would need my help?
She stood and tried to convince herself to begin her descent down the rocks. That was when she felt a slight tremble beneath her. A faint vibration, like laughter in one’s chest. And then there was the damp smell of a cave, a breathy welcome.
Adaira pivoted, astonished to see a slender opening in the rock. She was certain it hadn’t been there before, but she sensed that the rock was inviting her to step within its mouth, should she be brave enough. She reverently entered, worried that she needed a torch, but she soon realized that mysterious fire burned along the cave walls. The fire looked like tangles of brambles, and the flames were white. Fire but not fire. Frowning, Adaira leaned in closer to study it. . . .
She heard a shuffle of feet. The soft clink of wind chimes, followed by a hiss.
Adaira glanced to her right.
The fallen spirit stood two paces away, and her hands were up, wordlessly commanding Adaira to come no closer.
Adaira merely studied her at first. The spirit in her manifested form was slightly taller than her, slender, composed of elegant lines and curves. Her hair was long, a rich indigo in the magical light. Her ears were tapered, and her face was heavily scratched, as were her forearms. The nails on her fingers and toes were sharpened into points and her skin was a pale blue, save in a few places: her right shoulder, her left collarbone, and a portion of her legs were blotched with brilliant gold, as if she had been illumined with a paintbrush. She wore silver-linked armor that sounded like chimes every time she moved, and one of her thighs was carved with a deep gash. Amber-hued blood continued to drip slowly down her leg.
She had only her two left wings, one larger than the other, both stained mauve. They were iridescent in the strange cave light, strung with intricate filaments like the wings of a dragonfly. Both hung limp and tattered behind her, resting on the cave floor.
“I’ve come here to help you,” Adaira said. “I saw you fall from the clouds,” she added as she began to step forward.
Again, the spirit motioned her to stay back, a warning flash in her eyes.
“I don’t want to harm you,” Adaira whispered, stung by the spirit’s coldness. “Please, let me help you.”
The spirit’s face softened.
She recognizes me, Adaira thought. She continued to study the spirit and realized that she must have been present the day Jack summoned the four winds. The day when Adaira had stood face-to-face with Bane and he had taunted her.
The spirit parted her lips to speak, but no sound emerged. Devastation stole across her lacerated face. She laid her hand to her throat, as if a hook hid within it, anchoring her voice.
“You can’t speak?” Adaira surmised, sadly.
The spirit nodded. The loss of her voice seemed as fresh to her as the wound in her thigh.
“Will you let me tend to you?” Adaira brought her provision pack forward. But she patiently waited and was surprised when the spirit nodded and came to her. There was no fear in the spirit’s limping gait, no hesitation. Why, then, had she held Adaira at bay at first?
The spirit must have read her thoughts. She pointed to the strange fire, then back at Adaira. She made other urgent motions.
Don’t look directly at this light.