The word lights the match.
Shifter. Monster. Girl.
Who the bloody ends are you?
No more.
“My name is not shifter,” I spit, surging to my feet. “It’s Rora.”
Hutta starts to reply, but I’m already gone, thundering off without a destination in mind.
Weslyn catches up quickly.
“I think that went well,” he observes in a dry voice.
I just continue marching.
“You have to remain calm in a negotiation.”
“How very diplomatic of you,” I retort. Feeling out Minister Mereth, establishing ties with the giants, rescuing Finley—how many reasons for coming on this journey did he have, exactly? Have and not tell me? My eyes cut over to him in the emptiness that follows.
He’s grinning.
I nearly stumble over my own feet. It’s the first time he’s smiled, really smiled, at me. It’s not his brother’s smile; not as open, not as easily given. But I decide the subtlety of it makes it even better.
It dissipates some of my anger.
“What you said back there about doing nothing.” I stop to face him. “You didn’t used to feel that way.”
He holds my gaze. “I do listen when you speak, you know.”
A twinge of anxiety courses through me, but he’s walking again before I can make sense of it.
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
I follow him to his pack, which he pulls onto his lap after sinking into the grass. I sit opposite him, surprised to find it feels natural now, replaying the moment he stepped between me and the caegar. Hasn’t anyone ever warned you about their eyes?
“Here,” he says, pulling me from my thoughts. I take the proffered book from his hands—not the one he reads, but the one he writes in, the one he’s never let me or Helos see.
The light brown leather binding is travel-worn. I run my hands over its crinkled surface, amazed he has managed to keep it dry and whole, before opening to the first page. Then I look up at him.
“It’s okay,” he says. “You can read it.”
So I do—the first page, then the next, then the next. It’s an account of our journey, but the contents aren’t sentimental; they’re notes. Things Helos and I said and did—tips for traversing the wild. For surviving. I flip through the pages, spotting illustrations and diagrams interspersed throughout the text. Sketches of plants I said were poisonous, Helos’s fire pits, honeysuckle blossoms folded back to reveal the tiny pearls. The holly hare’s razored teeth, and even the widow bats. It’s wonderful.
He smiles again, and I realize I said the last part out loud.
“It is, though,” I insist, flipping to an illustration at random. “These are really good, Weslyn.”
He opens his mouth to speak, hesitates, then settles on running a hand along his cheek. He makes no move to take the book back, only watches my face, as if waiting for me to say more.
Wind teases the ends of my hair, smelling of blossoms and pine.
A few drops of water patter across the open page, shattering the moment. I flinch backward, slamming the book shut on instinct. It’s a mantis butterfly, with wings so dazzlingly blue they’re almost glowing—water droplets sprinkle down from the tips with every flap. This one flits away at the fuss, but another few come to take its place, hovering mischievously over my head, then Weslyn’s. His own personal, miniature rain cloud.
He ducks away, swearing softly and throwing his arms over his head.
And I just laugh. For the second time in days, weeks maybe, I laugh before I can remember my masks or the usual stony set of his mouth. Before the memories of this place and the weight of our mission settle over my bones once more.
His attention flicks back to me, at the way my shoulders are shaking with mirth. After a beat of deliberation, he drops his hands grandly as if conceding defeat, scrunching his nose a little when the butterflies’ barrage meets its mark. It’s all so absurd I can’t help but laugh again, louder this time, and he maintains his false composure for another moment or two, three, before dropping his head to his chest and laughing, too. Like he’s trying to hold it in, but can’t. Like he needs the respite as much as I do. And I realize with a pang that I haven’t heard him laugh since that day in King Gerar’s throne room, before the messenger came rushing in.
“Stop it,” I say at last, not to him, but the butterflies, swiping a gentle hand to scatter them.
Weslyn laughs again and shakes his head, brushing the water from his loose curls, his gray button-down dotted with moisture. The gesture makes him look younger, somehow. Less weighed down.
Warmth brushes my face and whispers to life in my chest. An unexpected impulse I’ve only acted on in a borrowed form, one that makes the voice inside my head whisper, Danger.
He watches me a moment, unblinking. “Listen—”
“Thank you for showing me this,” I say abruptly, handing him back his book and berating my accelerating heartbeat. “I should see how Helos is getting on. There’s a stream that way, if you want to wash your clothes.” I stand before I can interpret the look on his face.
Realizing I have to make good on my word, I leave in search of my brother, wringing my hands roughly as I walk. It makes no sense, the flicker of feelings all wrong. Weslyn is the difficult one. Hardheaded. I hardly even know him—yet there was his book between my hands, freely given. The farther I walk, the more the adrenaline subsides, but I have trouble dismissing his expression from my thoughts. I think I’m disappointed, too.
* * *
There isn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sunset that evening is one of the prettiest I’ve seen; brilliant shades of orange, lavender, and pink are streaked across it, the canvas a dramatic backdrop for the canopy above. Almost time.
We dine on similar fare as the night before, joined once more by several of the giants. I’m still aggravated from our earlier spat, but no one alludes to it. Instead, the meal is a pleasant affair, and even Weslyn laughs now and again. I’m still not used to the sound.
When the first crystal stars appear in the sky, we process past the moss nests and the rippling pool to another clearing toward the edge of the woods, near the place where the earth meets the sea. Helos trails in the giants’ wake around the meadow’s perimeter, keeping up whatever conversation they’ve begun, but I take a seat in the grass. Weslyn joins me.
The nights are growing cooler, and a shiver passes through me as I cross my legs and lay my arms across them. Neither of us says anything for a while. I catch my brother’s eye at one point, but he glances away quickly, chatting animatedly with the smallest giant. Odd.
“I still don’t understand,” Weslyn mutters, the first to break the silence. “Why didn’t the mist bring us here the first time?”
“You heard the giants—it puts things where they belong. Maybe helping those people was more important.” My thoughts recoil, conjuring the caegar’s bloody flank and terrified eyes. “Even if they didn’t deserve it.”
“More important to whom? The mist?” He huffs quietly in disbelief. “Would have been easier if it had just deigned to admit us on the first try.”
Legs crossed, he tears at scattered blades of grass, then chucks them into the distance and leans back on his hands. A few strands of hair have fallen over his face.
“You’re afraid for your brother,” I respond at last. He turns his head away. “That makes it easy to deal out blame. But you can’t fault the mist for doing what it will. It doesn’t have a consciousness like you or I do, doesn’t feel empathy or take sides. It just is.” I track the giants’ progress around the clearing as they free oversized vines from the branches, smiling when Helos tugs on one several times, only to have it fall on his face. “You can’t assign intention to magic. I told you, it’s neither good nor bad. It doesn’t fit human labels, can’t be put into a box any more than you or I can.”
Weslyn doesn’t respond for a while. I’m learning, though, that his silences are not always
for shutting down, but for thinking. So while I wait, I tilt my head back to the sky and breathe it in. The darkness is familiar and unfamiliar all at once.
“And you feel you’ve been put into a box?” he says at last.
It’s not the part of my little speech I expected him to pick up on, but I nod anyway. “Of course.”
“The Prediction.”
I hug my knees against my chest, studying the sky again. “Not just that.”
The silence that follows feels slightly expectant, which elicits a strand of nerves. Though I’ve faulted him before for shutting down on me, I still find myself pleading that he won’t push on this. Not right now, when I feel I can finally relax, and when that day by the riverbank seems so far away.
“You love the stars,” he says instead, and I feel a twinge of gratitude.
“I like the dark,” I tell him, smoothing the hem of my dress. And really, I’m not looking at the stars. I’m gazing at the velvet-soft night between them, its warmth an infinite void of colors and complexity and depth. It’s not as bright, but to me it’s beautiful.
“I used to fear it,” he confesses, smiling ever so slightly when I raise my eyebrows. “Probably not something a potential future king should admit.”
I wish he hadn’t mentioned the king thing. It broadens the distance between us.
“Though I doubt I’ll ever see the throne,” he muses, as if reading my thoughts. “Not with Violet next in line.”
He doesn’t sound sorry about it.
“Does that bother you?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I don’t need to be king to make a difference. Besides,” he raises an eyebrow, “it would be difficult to murder my sister. She’s too clever.”
My eyes narrow suspiciously. Did he actually make a joke? “Maybe you can go to university once she’s queen.”
He seems surprised by the suggestion. “I’m meant to train as an officer. That won’t change even if the sovereign does.”
“And that has to be forever? What about what you want?”
Weslyn studies me calmly, almost with sympathy. “I want to do my duty. I don’t begrudge my title or the responsibility it brings, Rora. I’m not my brother.” He shakes his head a little, marking the giants’ movement around the perimeter. “I just would have chosen a different role, that’s all.”
I’m trying to act normal, as if hopeful energy isn’t suddenly coursing through my veins, but it’s hard. This is the first time he’s said my name in four years.
You have everything, I would have replied even two weeks ago. A life without baseless judgment and a family who loves you. I’d hardly say you’re stuck. But I remember what he said about serving to spare Finley, assessing the future and reshaping his life for the sake of someone else’s, and I think a box might still be a box, however velvet its walls. “Well,” I say, feeling encouraged by his use of my name, “What would you study if you could go?”
He straightens a little, warming to the subject. “History,” he answers, like the word has been building inside him. “The sciences. And—” He breaks off, looking almost shy. “You’ll laugh.”
“Why would I laugh?”
Weslyn doesn’t answer for a while, just tosses blades of grass into the distance. Suddenly far more the boy on the horse than the somber soldier prince. “Architecture,” he mutters. “I think there’s a lot we could do to improve the cities’ infrastructure. The farming towns, too. If we could just—you said you wouldn’t laugh!” he protests, but now he’s smiling too, happiness contagious in this peaceful place.
“I’m not,” I tell him earnestly, though I’m unable to staunch the ridiculous grin that’s taken over my face. “I think that’s smart. It suits you.”
And it does. Overseeing planning grids and building projects, refining the kingdom’s smaller intricacies while the crown handles the larger picture—all those people in Grovewood he knew by name. I can see it.
Weslyn nods his thanks and looks away, the ghost of a smile still playing at his lips.
I hate that I’m looking at his lips.
A rush of wind slivers through the clearing, and I hug my legs tighter against the chill. In contrast, Helos appears to lean into it, spreading his fingers and letting the air twirl around them. Anything to ground him in the present, I’m sure. I’m relieved to see his bearing is lighter here than out in the woods, more relaxed, and he glances over to check on me before sidling away with a smirk.
And then I understand why he’s absented himself.
“Now that you’ve interrogated me,” Weslyn says, “can I ask you a question?”
Yes, Helos is definitely keeping his back turned now. I’d like to chuck a rock at him, but there are no stones lying around.
“Does anything good ever follow those words?” I reply, uneasy with the way his tone has sobered.
He seems to take that for permission. “Why do you cry in your sleep?”
Now it’s my turn to feel taken aback. “You noticed, then?” I remark, stabbing at humor. He remains serious as ever, though, so I relent. “I have a lot of nightmares. From the past.”
He nods once. “Back in Roanin, when we devised this plan—I didn’t consider what it would be like for you, to have to return.”
There it is again. An invitation to share more. A door left open, if only I choose to step through. I know little about friendship, but I’ve been raised on instinct, and mine is thrumming a warning.
If he knew the truth of what I am, I would lose him.
“You never asked,” I agree at last, but I soften it with a smile.
He doesn’t return it. “I should have.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Helos says, making far noisier an entrance than is strictly necessary. He plops down on my other side, setting the small box we had used for the Old Forest seeds on the ground beside him. “I’m supposed to leave it open. The giants said that not enough stardust drifted down in the daylight to provide the supply we need, so they’re going to tap into their ‘vault.’ They told me it’s time.”
“Time?” Weslyn repeats, still looking at me.
As if in answer, the giants grab hold of the vines they’ve collected, wrapping the ends around their palms like bandages. Fireflies dart around them in frenzied anticipation, as if they know what’s coming. The white orbs blink out one by one, until the only remaining source of light is the star-strewn night sky.
To my astonishment, the giants begin swinging the vines, higher and higher above their heads until the ends sweep across the treetops. The resultant breeze lifts the hair from my shoulders. I hear the stems connect with leaves, like bear grass in the wind. Weslyn straightens beside me.
Specks of light cascade down from the treetops, winding and twirling like autumn leaves. There are hundreds—no, thousands—millions of lights shimmering down, silver and pearly white and iridescent gold, glittering in the blackness.
Stardust.
Steady as rain, gentle as mist, the particles glide to the forest floor. Some settle on my hair, others over my outstretched legs. They’re surprisingly cold to the touch, but I make no effort to brush them off. Though the giants said it would have to be ingested to do its work, I still find myself searching within me for a sign, some change wrought by making contact with this concentration of consummate magic. Like calls to like.
There’s no singing in my bones. No metamorphosed blood in my veins. And it doesn’t repair the cuts on my hands or my stomach.
Tenderly, I pinch a few bits of dust between my fingers. The beads are ice-cold and tiny like sand. Before I can change my mind, I pop them into my mouth and swallow.
At first, the chill moves like a blade, traveling down my throat and beyond. Then it softens to a glow, almost how it feels when shifting. I can feel the cuts on my hands and stomach stitching back together.
Helos extends a hand of his own but makes no move to swallow any.
The giants continue to swing their vines, and the fireflies swirl higher, dancing with th
e dust, the meadow their ballroom, as it spirals to the ground. It’s the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.
The boys to either side of me say nothing. We just breathe, content to witness in silence, and suddenly I feel it.
A twinge of release. A chink in the armor. A slackening on the tether encasing my heart. As if pools of water have been drained from my lungs, and finally I can breathe easy again.
Happy.
For the first time, in a long time, unbroken, untainted, peace.
EIGHTEEN
The following morning dawns clear and bright. I awaken only when Helos shakes me gently, having slept fitfully through the night; my restless thoughts kept turning over the events of the evening, and one particular exchange that taunted me loudest of all.
You never asked.
I should have.
“I thought an early start would be best,” Helos says, as I pull on clean clothes and shove the dress to the bottom of the pack.
I just nod. Truthfully, I’d like nothing more than to fly—there are few better ways to clear a cluttered mind than by soaring far above the ground. But I can see the way he keeps running his hands through his hair, feet shuffling. And really, I’m as anxious as he is to get back on the move. There’s no telling what state Finley’s in back in Telyan, and besides, I’m growing tired of living on the road again. I’m ready for this journey to be over.
Once everything is in order, I hoist my pack over my shoulders and trail Helos to the stone circle where four giants are seated, Hutta and Guthreh among them. Weslyn is there, too.
Adrenaline brushes through me, unexpected and difficult to ignore. I settle next to Helos, not daring to check until my traitorous eyes shift of their own accord. He’s watching.
Yes, the sooner we leave the confusion of this place, the better. I accept the proffered breakfast eagerly, grateful to have a use for my hands.
Corloch says sometime in the coming week, they’ll be sending a message to Weslyn by black-tipped caw. Once we return to Telyan, Weslyn is to send one back with updates on the situation with Eradain, as well as King Gerar’s plan of action. No mention of trying to track down the people who tried to kill us.
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