by Everly Frost
A second later, the tickling antennae leave my face. My eyes fly open again to see the creature move on to my hand, where I rest it against Nathaniel’s chest.
Tiny smudges of ash rest in the crevices between my fingertips. I’d stopped breathing when Nathaniel and I stayed too long at the burn site where my parents were killed. Where I killed them.
Ash had formed across my skin, coming both from inside me and from my surroundings—some sort of catastrophic reaction to the events of the past when my power had exploded across the border and killed thousands of humans. The entire human army…
I shudder as the moth’s antennae brush across my fingers, pressing firmly before moving on.
The breeze caused by the moth’s wings fades. It lifts from Nathaniel’s chest and flies upward, flitting through the air and quickly disappearing into the mist.
I try to calm my breathing, intense embarrassment washing through me at the fear I felt. Along with a thick sense of shame. I could have easily killed it. I was afraid of it because I didn’t understand it. If it had been a Bright butterfly instead of a moth, having it land on me would have been a gift, not a trauma.
Nathaniel’s arms soften around me, a relenting cage. His left hand slips between us and quickly presses against my rapidly beating heart.
He doesn’t speak, but I welcome the firm pressure of his hand like a lifeline, the sensation reminding me that I’m strong, that the cold emptiness of panic isn’t going to suck me down into a void.
“What was that creature?” I ask.
“A mold moth,” he answers, his tone calm, moderated, as if he’s also taking a moment to breathe. “Don’t ever kill one. We need them.”
I cast a quizzical frown skyward. Now that I’m not looking down at him, I can see the branches of the tree next to the one Nathaniel threw me into. This one has sprawling limbs that resemble crooked spires that zigzag across the space above us as if it once chased sunlight from side to side in an effort to grow.
“Why do you need moths?”
His voice softens. “Look up.”
I hold my tongue before I growl at him that I already am facing upward. Squinting harder at the tree’s branches for a long moment, I don’t see anything other than its mottled bark.
I startle as something shifts on its surface. Nathaniel’s hold tightens around me again. Just as well, since I’m as on edge as a jittery humblebee right now.
Another moth unfolds from around the branch above me. When the creature drops away from the branch’s surface, the branch looks somehow cleaner and brighter compared to other parts of it.
I crane my head upward for a moment without leaving Nathaniel’s arms. The parts of the tree the moth wasn’t touching are covered with intermittent patches of some sort of gray substance. “What is that stuff?”
“Mold,” Nathaniel says. “Sunlight doesn’t reach the ground in Fell country. Even beyond the marsh, a haze covers our country. That makes mold a real problem for us. It attacks plant growth as well as homes. The moths help us by eating it.”
My eyebrows rise in surprise. “They clean your environment?”
My gaze flickers to my hand—where the ash dusted my fingertips. It’s gone. Clean now.
“They do,” Nathaniel says, “but unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them. So we like to keep them alive. Also…” His smile fades. “Their bodies are full of the toxins they ingest. You don’t want them to explode on you if you value your health.”
I exhale carefully as another moth sails toward the tree, wraps its wings around the trunk, and buries its antennae in a patch of gray mold.
I don’t know anything about the challenges that humans face. I have no idea what their lives are like, what they have to battle through. My life in Bright is already looking overly spoiled.
Easing upward within the circle of his arms, I position myself so I can see him again. His hand slips away from my heart, sliding around my waist to rest against the small of my back.
In my heart, I know that my fear is about more than the moth.
I am afraid because of what the creature represents for me: uncertainty.
My situation right now is more precarious, more dangerous than anything I’ve ever experienced.
I don’t understand human laws. I know nothing about their world. I would have struck all of the wolves down and turned that moth into dust without a single thought.
It would be easier to admit my uncertainty without looking Nathaniel in the eye, but he promised he would always tell me the truth. I want to give him the same respect.
“I suspect that what I know about your land and your people is all wrong,” I say. “I don’t know what you face living here. I don’t know your laws. I’m going to make mistakes. I’m going to… need your help.”
“You have it, Aura.”
His statement is so sure, so immediate, that it takes my breath away.
His eyes darken as he takes a deep breath, as if he’s weighed down by the importance of what he needs to say. “You left your world behind with no guarantees that I’m going to help you survive. You followed me into the dark despite knowing that in another two days… it’s in my best interests for you to die. That takes courage.”
I bite my lip so hard, it hurts. My instinct is to brush off what he said because acknowledging it feels far heavier. “You did it first. You left your world behind when you came to Bright.”
He shakes his head, a careful movement while his body remains completely still beneath me. “It wasn’t the same. I went with a plan and a purpose. Sure, it all went wrong, but it’s easier to make choices out of hatred than out of trust. Hatred means you can fight whatever threatens you, no matter what. Trust means you have to weigh the consequences before you act.”
He stops speaking and the silence between us suddenly feels jagged.
There’s too much truth in his statement. I could have allowed the Queen’s Day Guard to kill him in Bright. Moments before we crossed the border, I could have chosen to leap onto the back of another thunderbird and let the Solstice fae use their power over sunlight to burn him to death.
I could have let go of his hand as we ran through the deadly glitter field and allowed the field to cut his body to shreds.
I had a million chances to end all of this. If I had taken those chances, I would be alive and victorious right now. Instead, I chose a path with no certain outcomes.
By the same token, he had no reason to defend me during the fight. He’d fought at my back, protecting me from attacks. Then, when Imatra announced that I was the one who’d killed the human army and murdered my own parents fifteen years ago, Nathaniel spoke up in my defense, questioning her claims.
He has everything to gain from my death—just as I have everything to gain from his—yet neither of us has chosen to act without thinking first, without weighing the consequences, just like he said.
He breaks the brittle silence. “I think I can get up now.”
He finally rises beneath me, pulling me up with him. He is an immense figure of a man, surprising me at the way he seems to gain in strength with every inch as he resumes his full height.
He suddenly winces. His right arm is half-raised, having just brushed his waist. We’re both covered in mud, but the dark sludge is barely visible against the backdrop of our black clothing.
He slowly lowers his arm as if nothing happened and turns to walk away, but his shirt is tight enough that I can see the catch in his breathing as he moves.
I smother an unhappy murmur.
I was right: He’s hurt. There’s no other reason he would have lain still for so long. Now he’s attempting to hide whatever pain he’s feeling by turning away from me.
I press my lips together. I’m not having any of that. “Where are you hurt?” I demand to know. “Was it the wolves? Or your crash into the tree?”
He stops walking with a quiet, “Damn.”
I guess he thought he could get away with it.
“Show me
,” I order him, zeroing in on his back since that’s where he was wiping off the mud when he winced.
His chest rises and falls, catching again on the inhale. Without turning, he tugs the bottom of his shirt up. “Bottom right ribs.”
I carefully peel his shirt further upward.
An angry bruise is already growing across his middle three ribs on the right-hand side of his spine. It’s the side on which he crashed into the tree. It’s also the side I was lying on when the moth flew down on us.
I can’t believe he lay there for so long with my weight on him.
Stubborn man.
Lightly running my fingertips across his skin, I check for breaks, relieved when I don’t sense any.
“Your ribs are intact, but you’re already developing an almighty bruise.”
He starts to pull away. “I’ll be fine—”
“Hush. Let me help you.” I’m not a healer like my adoptive father Crispin, who is a Dawn fae, but my power has calming properties, the same kind I used on the wolf just before.
I hover my palm over the site of Nathaniel’s wound and draw on a glimmer of starlight, allowing my power to trickle between my fingertips until it fills the space between my hand and his back with a soft, white glow.
His breathing eases immediately.
“That feels much better.” He sounds surprised. “What are you doing?”
“Using my power to ease your pain.”
He is suddenly still. “Your power has many facets, Aura. It has the capacity to destroy as well as the power to heal.”
Yesterday morning, I healed a fae girl infected with an illness that Nathaniel calls the Ebon Rot. He told me it affects humans when they age—that they come to the border for a quick death because of its debilitating effects. They dress themselves in furs and cover their faces with animal skins to hide the disfiguring effect of the Rot on their bodies. I killed many of them, never seeing their true human forms beneath their coverings.
Neither one of us has spoken about that since Nathaniel said that fate couldn’t be so cruel that I would have the power to heal the illness.
If I can heal his people… and yet he’s destined to kill me and take the cure away from them…
He turns back to me sooner than I expected, and the starlight I was administering to his bruise spills into the air between us, trailing like a broken thread.
“What now, Aura?” he asks.
The misty marsh is quiet around us. Only the moths disturb the air.
Until now we were either running or lying still. Two extremes. Now I have to choose a path.
I try to bring moisture to my suddenly dry lips. “You told me that you came to Bright for me,” I say. “If everything had gone to plan, where would you have taken me?”
All Nathaniel told me before we started running was that he came to Bright to take me into Fell country. He said he did it because he promised his dying father that he would, but he didn’t explain why.
He says, “Fell country is set out in a mirror of Bright. Your cities and villages are circled by mountains. Ours are circled by this marsh. We call this place the Misty Gallows because it rings our land like a noose. The northern part of the Gallows—where we are now—is wolf territory. The southern part of the Gallows belongs to the bears. The east is King Cyrian’s hunting ground. And the west belongs to Mathilda. She’s the witch I told you about.”
I nod to show him that I understand. He told me that a witch had created the spells he used to subdue the Border Guards yesterday morning. She’s the same woman who made the careful cuts across each of his shoulders—one cut for each person he lost. He told me that her magic is as powerful as Queen Imatra’s.
An edge of tension enters his shoulders. He watches me carefully as he speaks. “There’s a small village near the western Gallows. It’s a place of no consequence to anyone. Ignored by the King. Tolerated by Mathilda. It’s so insignificant that it’s called Null. I want to take you there.”
“Why?” It’s such a small question, but I’m not sure if I want the answer.
He chews his lip for a moment. “I want to tell you, but just like King Cyrian used dark magic to stop anyone speaking my name, I asked Mathilda to cast a spell so I can’t talk about Null. Saying anything is dangerous and would threaten…”
He swallows, clearing his throat. Then he shakes his head as if he’s attempting to bat away a mental block. “I can’t tell you why. I’m sorry.”
He takes a deep breath, as if he’s centering himself before he holds out his hand to me. “Will you come with me and let me show you?”
Chapter 5
He’s asking me to trust him.
A massive leap of faith when all I’ve known over the last few hours is betrayal. He could be taking me anywhere. He could be taking me to a place where my power will be limited somehow and I won’t be able to fight back…
I mentally stomp on my spiraling fears. Sunlight is my only weakness and there is very little of it here. I just subdued a pack of wolves, survived an encounter with hungry moths, and eased Nathaniel’s pain.
To answer him, I place my hand in his, allowing his fingers to close over mine. His grip is firm. I have a feeling that now that he’s holding my hand again, he won’t let go of it easily.
“This way,” he says.
He urges me in a generally westerly direction, but this time at a brisk walk instead of a run.
“You seem to know the Misty Gallows by heart,” I say as he steers me left and right despite the visibility issues.
He pauses for a beat. “I’ve been through this part of it many times. I’ve trained myself to read the environment here. The trees make it easy. They all have distinct shapes.”
He tugs me to a stop beside another jagged tree. This one’s branches stretch directly upward like prongs.
Nathaniel presses his free hand against the trunk, a frown settling across his forehead as he surveys the mist. “I was hoping he’d be here…”
“Who?” I ask.
Nathaniel places his fingers to his lips. He gives two quick, soft whistles. They sound like bird calls as they waft away into the mist. They’re similar to the calls I use to summon Treble, except not as sharp. My heart fills with worry at the thought of Treble. He was struck with fire in our fight to escape. Evander healed him, but that doesn’t mean Treble is safe. He was my thunderbird, and I am now a traitor to the throne. I don’t know what Queen Imatra will do to Treble now and my worry is a heavy weight in my stomach.
I jolt as a soft drumming sound meets my ears and my senses expand again.
What now?
Unlike the moths, this creature has an intense presence—it’s large and approaches swiftly from our left. It’s big enough that its footfalls thud against the earth, increasingly loud as it draws nearer at speed.
Nathaniel’s hand squeezes mine as he studies my face. “You hear something? Animal or human?”
“Animal. Large. Four legs.”
He relaxes and it makes me wonder how tense he would have been if I’d said I heard humans.
“The environment here is neither bright nor beautiful, Aura,” he says. “Everything you face will appear dangerous to you. Just like the moth. If you see an animal you don’t understand, please don’t fear it. Chances are it’s peaceful. Okay?”
I take a deep breath as the thudding creature continues to approach. I give Nathaniel a firm nod. “Okay.”
“Good.” His smile broadens. “Because I’d hate for you to kill my horse.”
The stallion bursts into view, a black-as-coal beast with a wild mane that billows around his head as he rears up in the mist. His powerful forelegs pummel the air before his silver hooves pound down into the earth, crushing the stones beneath him with a single stab.
The stallion’s eyes are solid white and the steam puffing from his nostrils is like smoke from a fire. My eyes widen when I see that his shoulders and belly glow amber with every indrawn breath, fiery light inside his torso making his
ribs visible. I’ve seen sketches of horses, but I never imagined they would look like this, let alone breathe magic the way this horse does.
He’s wearing a bridle as well as a harness that consists of soft-looking straps wrapped around his shoulders and stomach. A satchel is attached to one side of the harness and a pelt attached to the other, both sitting precariously across the horse’s shoulders. I guess the pelt was Nathaniel’s intended method to get me past the wolves.
I lower my voice to a whisper. “What is he?”
Nathaniel smiles. “His name is Flare. He’s a firehorse. A creature of dark magic. One of the few left.”
Nathaniel tugs me along as he approaches the horse. “Easy, Flare.”
The horse paws the earth, snorting angrily and bouncing his head at Nathaniel. He reminds me so clearly of Treble when he’s mad at me that I miss a step. Nathaniel pauses too.
“Can he understand you?” I ask.
Nathaniel gives me a quick nod. “Like your thunderbird. But he can’t speak back.”
He quickly turns back to Flare, his tone placating as he tries to calm the stallion. “I know, I know,” he says. “I was gone a long time. I didn’t mean to be.”
Nathaniel reaches out to stroke Flare’s nose, but the firehorse jerks away from him. Flare snorts again, jabbing at the ground with his right foreleg, an increasingly irritated movement.
“C’mon, buddy. You have to—”
Flare doesn’t let him finish. With a sharply indrawn breath, the horse exhales a wash of smoke all over Nathaniel.
I close my eyes and hold my breath as the acidic substance fills the air around me. Ugh. It burns the inside of my mouth and nose, although the scent isn’t too bad—like a campfire.
Nathaniel coughs and wheezes, his eyes streaming as he bats at the smoke. “You have to forgive me.”
Flare shakes his head with a ‘fat chance’ snort that covers Nathaniel so completely in smoke that he has to step back into the clear, taking me with him.
“No?” Nathaniel’s forehead crinkles in dismay as he looks at Flare. “Really?”
Ignoring Nathaniel, Flare swings his head in my direction, fixing me with his white-eyed gaze. Despite the fact that he doesn’t have pupils or irises, he somehow manages to look accusing.
