by Hanna Howard
I nodded, but the pride in his flinty eyes was making my throat tighten again. I let out a long breath and bent forward, putting my face in my hands.
“Oh, my girl,” murmured Yarrow, laying a hand on my back and rubbing slowly up and down. “My brave, hard-headed lass.”
“Yarrow, what if I can’t save them?” The words came out in a choked squeak as I struggled to hold back my tears.
“You may not be able to,” he said. “You may not even be able to save yourself. But we’re past the luxury of options, aren’t we? You’re the last hope of this kingdom, Siria, my dear, and the equinox is the best chance you’ve got. Use it.”
“No matter the cost?” I raised my head to look at him.
His expression was bleak. “If you can kill Iyzabel, banish this Darkness, and ignite the sun? What do you think?”
“I think some costs will always be too steep.”
He smiled sadly. “You do remind me of her.” I realized that for the first time since I had transformed, he was looking me full in the face, taking in every detail. “Same loyalty. Same passion.”
“Someday, will you tell me about her?” I said. “And your children?”
“Someday,” he said, though I knew by his tone that he didn’t believe that day would ever come.
I stood up and bent down to put my hands on his belly again, sending my sun energy down into the wound to check its progress. It was mending very well, but I did what I could to strengthen him for the journey ahead.
“You could stay here,” I said, even though I knew it was pointless to try and convince him. “Safe. Away from Umbraz.”
He laughed. “Oh, my dear girl. No, I am with you. Unto death, my little Starthistle.”
I leaned to kiss his forehead. “Please,” I said. “Call me Weedy.”
“Take care of Yarrow.” I lifted my satchel, which Elegy had recovered after the fire, and slung it over my shoulder. “And yourselves.”
Bronya and Roark, who had been discussing lodging, timing, and distance with Sedge and Freda, broke off their discussion, looking solemn. Elegy hurried forward for a hug, and I felt suddenly—embarrassingly—close to tears again. I squatted down and pulled her into my arms, stroking her head. “Be safe,” I whispered, “and do what Bronya tells you.”
She nodded against my neck, and I could feel her hot tears on my skin.
“Siria,” said Bronya, looking me in the eye. “Be careful.” She handed me the lantern she was holding in the waning dark. “We need you, you understand?”
I did. That was what terrified me most.
Roark hugged me, then Bronya did, with a fierce, tight grip. I nodded briefly to Sedge and Freda, then turned away before my nerve could fail, gripping the lantern handle so hard my knuckles ached, and holding back my tears with all my might. But by the time I had walked all the way through the ghostly, charred camp to its northern borders, where the fire seemed not to have reached, I found that I no longer wanted to cry.
I set off into the trees to the north, determination pulsing in my chest as a softer accompaniment to the anticipation now crashing through me like a drumbeat, quickening my steps and stealing my breath.
I let myself feel it fully now, that tug at the center of me, which had been present since I arrived in the Northern Wilds.
At long, long last, I was going home.
To the sun.
PART FIVE
“Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.”
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, “DIRGE WITHOUT MUSIC”
51
CHAPTER
My energy was spent, so I hiked the ever-steepening woodlands toward the northern peak rather than trying to fly. When dawn came, I would have access to more sun—and when dawn came, I planned to be waiting at the pinnacle.
I considered Yarrow’s instructions in a new light now, knowing they were founded on firsthand knowledge of his wife. I wondered what she had been like, how they had met, how old they had been when they married. It seemed plain enough that Yarrow had at least been present through her training.
He had told me that a sunchild’s powers were not complete until they stood in the direct light of the sun. But would it be enough? Would my power be strong enough to compete with Iyzabel’s Darkness, or Iyzabel herself, once I arrived in Umbraz? Or would she kill me before I even had the chance to try? I had only spent two days using my practical skills, and she’d had a lifetime to perfect her own.
The night began to soften, turning the sky a rich cobalt beyond the evergreens above me. The forest was tranquil, its colors a soothing balm, and I took steadying breaths as I walked.
I was willingly going into a trap.
I raised a hand to the jasmine and honeysuckle wreath still tangled in my hair and felt my chest contract. What was happening to Linden now? Would he try to escape the soldiers, or would he hope for rescue? And what would Iyzabel do to him and the others once they reached Umbraz?
I took another deep breath and thought about the color of the sky. It was becoming more purple than blue. A gentle indigo. I walked faster, my clothes catching on briars and thorns.
I wondered what Yarrow and Ilona’s children had been named, how old they had been, before Iyzabel murdered them. Would my name—and Linden’s, and Eamon’s—soon join that endless list of the dead; those countless names the Darkness had blotted from memory?
The sky was deep periwinkle now, and beyond the pine needle canopy I could see a pack of fluffy clouds in the east tinged with pink. The sun was very near the horizon. I increased my pace.
What would I do now if I knew for certain I would soon be dead? If I knew I had nothing left to lose?
To the east, I could feel the sun’s steady presence rising, a low glow beneath the edge of sight. I started to run.
The break in the trees was abrupt, and I stopped on an outcropping of white rock, which wound farther up to the mountain peak to the right and dropped off to the left as a sheer, bare cliff above the roaring sea. Here at last the edge of the Darkness showed itself: to the south, a frayed, hulking dark thing far overhead, whose fingers reached but failed to grasp this last patch of Volatian sky. The place was so remote, I supposed Iyzabel hadn’t bothered to push her enchantment over it at the beginning of her reign.
But that was her mistake.
The pink northern sky was exposed, obscured neither by tree branch nor enchantment, and I stared out at it with an awe that prickled my whole body. It was so vast. Bigger than trees, bigger than mountains, and as I gazed up at it—this infinity of glowing color and fathomless space—I saw with sudden clarity that I was a mere speck on the endless scroll of time. The idea was bizarrely comforting. Iyzabel could cover up this majesty, she could starve an entire kingdom of its presence, but in the end she was a speck just like me, and she could no more destroy the Light of the heavens than swallow up the ocean.
Pushing through a patch of heather, I clambered up a rocky rise and stood upon a bleached white boulder. I am here, I thought, feeling the sun’s searing presence rising inexorably to my right, approaching the skyline and lightening the eastern sky.
The scudding clouds turned a vivid orange, shot through with a color like leaping salmon, and a gold so yellow it made my eyes stream. Never had I seen colors like these: colors that breathed, danced, sang. Burned. And now the gray of the west over the sea was blushing, and the pinks and violets were spreading, casting arms out across it, reaching to lighten the earth . . .
I turned upon the bleached cliff that stood like the last sentinel of the world, overlooking sea, wood, and mountain, and stood as straight as I could, raising my face eastward, and holding my arms out, palms stretched open.
“I am here!” I said, and the first true ray of morning burned red over the rim of the world and fell upon me like a flame.
52
CHAPTER
The sunlight ignited my blood and swept through me like brush fire, burning so hot it was almost as excruciating as my initial transf
ormation in the Black Castle. I gritted my teeth and made myself bear it, knowing it was necessary to complete the process my body had begun nearly two months ago.
But unlike that day, when I had not wanted or understood the change, I was ready for this. I yearned for it. It did not feel like becoming a stranger now; it felt like becoming myself.
So I stood still on the white cliff, my back to the sea, and let the sunlight pour through me from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, through my arms and legs and fingers and toes, through every wild hair follicle, behind my eyes, and into the sunspot in my chest, like water filling a pitcher. The sunlight pushed away my fear, and as it made its way through me, finishing the work it had begun on my birthday, I felt a whole new set of instincts—hazy and half-formed before now—solidifying within me. The skills I had worked on over the last months sharpened like new blades, and I knew I would now have no problem controlling my energy, healing, or even flying. But that wasn’t all: I now understood Yarrow’s practical training on a more fundamental level, and saw how my sun energy could be used for all kinds of tasks, even beyond what he’d shown me. I was conscious of my powers in a way I had never been before, as if I had been half asleep since my transformation, and now, suddenly, jolted fully awake. I understood, too, that as long as I remained in view of the sun, I would not weary from use of my power; its current running through me was a fathomless, endless source.
Turning my focus outward again, I found myself several inches above the rocky ground, my body hovering as if weightless. Just as Yarrow had said, it was now difficult to make myself return to the ground. I laughed in delight.
When I had planted my feet once again, I crouched to retrieve my abandoned lantern and blew out its flame—now barely visible in the light of the morning sun. Then I rummaged in my satchel until I found the only clean item it contained: the white-and-gold dress the rebels had given me.
White and gold, Linden had reminded me, were Luminor’s colors. I shook out the dress and folded it on top of my satchel, then disentangled Linden’s crown from my hair, placing it carefully on the folded dress. Then I began to strip off my filthy clothing.
When I was completely naked, I faced the sun once more and let it fill me until the glowing energy seeped in and out of my bare skin as if my body were made of light. Then I stepped to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the whitecapped waves far below.
It was strange to gaze from such a height, to prepare myself to leap, and feel no fear. Indeed, it was strange to do anything and feel no fear. But the sun had at last finished my transformation, and I knew myself now. I knew what I could do, and diving three hundred feet into the ocean without hitting any of the craggy boulders jutting up between the waves seemed not only possible, but easy.
Sun energy cushioned my impact as I sliced into the water. The air was cold, and the water colder, but warmth encased me as I kicked farther down into the cerulean depths, scrubbing myself clean and letting the seawater carry away the blood, dirt, and sweat that coated my skin and hair. I felt a pang for Merrall when I broke the surface, spraying salty droplets through cracked lips. She would love to be here. Thoughts of the naiad pounded my focus to a sharp point, and I clambered onto a slimy boulder and shook out my hair—curling madly with the salt water—then kicked off into the air.
By the time I reached the top of the cliff again, the sun’s warmth—inside and around me—had dried me completely. My bruised ribs and sternum, I realized, were completely mended.
Linden’s garland went back on my head, woven into the curls that now glowed with burning light, and I slipped into the dress, which was flexible and had good range of motion. If there was a piece of clothing more likely to cause a wild uproar in Umbraz than this blatantly Luminorian attire, I couldn’t imagine it. I laced on Linden’s old boots, then dug out my citrine dagger and belted it to my hip beneath the dress, accessible through a slit I cut in the folds. Then I emptied my satchel of everything but the food and water skins I had brought from the rebel camp. My filthy clothes and the extinguished lantern I tucked into a nook between two rocks.
If I lived, I could come and retrieve them. If I didn’t, well . . . I certainly wouldn’t need them anymore.
Straightening up, I walked to the edge of the cliff and faced not the risen sun but the boiling black presence that swelled like a coming storm above the southern landscape. I would have to fly above the Darkness, where the sun could still reach me, and I would likely have to fly continuously, since I didn’t yet know what would happen if I touched the Darkness itself. I hoped that when the time came to break through, the citrine dagger would prove useful. But I wouldn’t know until I tried, and the longer I waited, the less time I would have to work out alternate solutions if that one failed.
“Right,” I said aloud, squaring my shoulders. “Rise and shine, Weedy.”
And as the energy expanded inside me, and light burst from my skin like glittering smoke, I flung myself once more over the side of the cliff and soared upward, toward the malevolent dark crust that had loomed above me for as long as I could remember.
53
CHAPTER
Yarrow had said once that flying was, to a sunchild, more like levitating. When sunlight hits you, I could hear him saying, it draws you upward, like a flower or a tree. Only you don’t have roots, so you leave the ground.
He almost had it right. It was certainly not flying in the sense I had always thought of it: the way pixies or wood sirens or wyrms flew. They had wings and could propel themselves through the air.
It was not so with me.
It was like swimming—the way the water holds you suspended, and yet you can move through it—but even that comparison fell short. The difference was that swimming was an act of immersing yourself in something foreign, disparate from yourself, whereas this union of body and sunlight was like becoming more me. I had only to intend a movement or direction, and my body complied.
Soaring above the landscape of pitted, black sorcery that served as Terra-Volat’s ceiling with nothing to separate my body from the sun except thin, clear air and wisps of cloud, I could finally appreciate what it must have been like for sunchildren who had lived before Iyzabel’s Darkness arrived.
It was sheer, undiluted pleasure.
The idea of going back down beneath the Darkness, separating myself from this power, was unbearable.
But Linden was down there, and Eamon, and Yarrow and Merrall.
I thought of speed, and the endless black beneath me blurred into a smear of shadow.
By the time the sun began its slow arc toward the west, some of my euphoria had worn off, and I was beginning to think practically about my situation again. I had no way of guessing how far I had flown, but the Darkness was still somewhat thin, which meant I was probably only about a fifth of the way to Umbraz. It was an impressive distance to fly in one day, but not nearly far enough. Noon in four days was my focus, when Iyzabel’s invitation declared she would kill Eamon, and I needed to be in Umbraz before that.
Beneath me, the Darkness stretched out in all directions like an endless landscape of volcanic rock. It looked more solid than I had expected. From far below, it had appeared to be a cloudy, wispy presence, able to admit rain and snow, though I knew that when I tried to force light through it, I would find it stronger and more substantial than stone. It was relatively easy to keep flying now, even for hours on end, but what would happen when the sun set and its light could no longer hold me up?
I could, of course, try to break through the Darkness now—practice on a weaker point than over Umbraz, and spend the night on land—but if it closed over my head again once I was separated from the sun . . . I couldn’t risk that.
Through the remaining hours of daylight, I pushed myself harder, trying to cover as much distance as I could. When the sun finally slipped below the horizon, leaving behind a sky covered in soft, purple clouds, I was as full of sun energy as I had ever been. I wished I could stop myself from glowi
ng to retain the excess energy, but I had to admit the light was welcome company as night fell.
When my light eventually receded and it was full dark, it became much harder to tell where I was heading, and I worried I was flying off course. I fought to ration my sun energy, but that too proved difficult, and soon I was dipping closer to the Darkness than I wished to. I flew slower, more carefully. Every ounce of energy spent felt like something precious slipping through my fingers.
Soon the sky was so black I could not tell the difference between the night and the Darkness. After nearly an hour of slow, blind drifting, my hand brushed something—at first almost solid, then cloying like sap to the touch—which burned so cold I cried aloud, and did not stop burning even as I soared up, away from what I knew had been the Darkness itself. Shaking with the effort to control my sun energy, I sent just enough to my hand to heal it. As it glowed, I glimpsed the skin before it turned back to normal—burned and scaly as charred bread.
I hovered, trying to master my terror. I had assumed I should not touch the enchantment, but I had never imagined that a single brush of the hand would do so much damage. What if the dagger could not break it? And how could I stay away from it if I could not see where it was?
As if in answer to my question, the clouds, which had blanketed the entire sky at sunset, drifted apart to reveal a scattering of silver pinpricks in the dark. As light strengthened and blazed from the bright dots, I realized what I was seeing: the clouds had been hiding the stars.
I had once thought stars were just another fairy tale, like the sun. And the moon too—but there it was, off to the east, rising in a halo of the silver specks that now shone pearly light down onto the surface of the Darkness, making it look strangely and unexpectedly beautiful.
I gazed around in wonder, tears prickling in my eyes. I could see perfectly now, and would be able to carry on all night without trouble if my energy lasted. I tried not to think about how tired I was as I readjusted my course, focusing instead on the starlight, memorizing it so I could describe it to Linden after I rescued him.
