The woman screams and ducks just in time.
She wrenches the dagger from my chest, drops to the side, and balances on her dagger hand. Her free hand flies upward, a streak of burning firelight pouring from her palm.
She is fae.
Yesterday, I guessed she was Imatra, but now I’m sure of it. She is the queen I trusted, who betrayed me.
Blood drips down her arm from her powerful fingers as Solstice fae power pours from her hand. She was clutching a small, gleaming object, but she loses hold of it as soon as she opens her palm to protect herself.
The object drops to the space beside my head, glinting at the corner of my eye.
It’s a curved piece of stone, barely bigger than my fingertip and covered in blood. Its glowing surface is tinted scarlet like Imatra’s hair.
Nathaniel’s father retracts his weapon with impressive speed and tilts its blade, bracing for the onslaught of her power. I’m shocked when the stream of firelight hits the blade’s surface and rebounds.
Imatra screams. Her power flashes, a sudden rush of wind sweeping the flames to the side before she would be burned by her own ricocheting magic.
Nathaniel’s father shouts, a deep roar. “She’s just a girl!”
“She’s not a girl,” Imatra screams, her usually serene voice harsh and full of rage. “She was never a girl!”
The dream flickers, the images vanish.
Suddenly, the world explodes around me again, the same bright, white light filling the sky, rippling across my vision. The same spiraling embers float above my body, close enough to touch.
The dream begins again.
“Aura?”
Nathaniel’s voice breaks through the exploding dark, pulling me away from the nightmare. His fingers brush my cheek. His scent fills my head, dispelling the darkness.
He’s alive.
My eyes open, but they’re gritty. I can barely raise my eyelids. I don’t know how long I was asleep. It could be late morning now.
I make out Nathaniel’s shape, kneeling in front of me before my head drops to my chest again. My hands are still bound behind me, my legs folded beneath me. I barely feel his touch because my entire body is numb.
“Darkest star,” he whispers.
He’s still wearing his torn clothing, his hair matted and dirty, but his face is no longer beaten and bruised. His skin is perfectly smooth. Healed and clean. Strands of his brown hair fall across his eyes, dark shadows building, the inky flecks in his gaze becoming darker still.
“Breathe for me, Aura.” His voice is low and urgent, his fingertips seeking my lips, his forehead pressing to mine so that his face blurs in my vision.
His thumb presses gently to the curve at the top of my mouth before he presses a light kiss right across the top of it. “Breathe.”
My lips part and air slips through.
He draws back as I cough.
I exhale dust into the air—charcoal gray dust from my mouth. The same dust that the moth consumed yesterday. The same dust that coated my body when I stopped breathing at the burn site.
My eyes brim with tears as oxygen fills my chest. I didn’t think I had any tears left, but they trickle down my cheeks.
“Are you alive?” I ask, afraid that I’m still dreaming—a cruel twist.
“I’m alive because of you.” His lips draw into an unforgiving line. “I need to undo your bindings now.”
Pure panic races through me, drowning any rational thought. My shoulder has already been forced out of joint and then wrenched around on top of that. I can’t stand another move.
“No!” I scream, making him jolt. “Don’t touch me!”
“Aura—”
Sobs tear out of me. “Please don’t… Don’t touch…” My head drops again. “You’re alive. Everything will be okay now. Just let me go back to sleep.”
His jaw tenses before he places both of his palms against my cheeks, lifting my face so I’m forced to meet his worried eyes. “Aura, you’re in pain. I need to unbind you so I can help you.”
I grit my teeth at him, a cold calm filling me. “I won’t let you help me. If you make me healthy, I’ll be strong enough to fight you. Leave me be, Nathaniel.”
Turning my face away, I close my eyes and exhale before I sink into the waiting nothing again, the cold, empty dark where I don’t need to breathe anymore, where I can fall like a dead stone into icy water.
I’m only asleep for an instant before Nathaniel’s frustrated roar jolts me awake again. He lurches away from me, rising to his feet to pace back and forth across the dirt, wearing a track across the ground in front of me.
The path between the buildings used to be grassy, but every living plant in sight is crinkled and withered. Mathilda must have used up every shred of natural energy to heal him.
My vision is fuzzy, still gritty with dust, but I make out Mathilda, Christiana, and Esther standing behind Nathaniel, watching him pace. The other trainees have fanned out behind them.
I also make out Hagan. He stands apart from the others, an immense figure, a mirror to Nathaniel’s strength. He’s alert again, the sharp intelligence returned to his eyes. He isn’t in chains and I don’t know whether that’s because Nathaniel ordered that he remain free or because nobody could subdue him. Either is possible.
He tried to stop them tying me up before he collapsed again. Now, Hagan breaks his piercing study of me to glance at Nathaniel, but he doesn’t attempt to speak.
Nathaniel pauses in front of me. He doesn’t reach for me, doesn’t try to touch my injured arm, because he will never knowingly hurt me, but his voice rises to a violent roar as he turns to the others. “Who did this?”
His glare rakes across the humans as the silence stretches around us.
“Answer me!” he roars. “Who. Fucking. Did this?”
Geordie steps forward from the row of trainees, his head down, his shoulders hunched, and his mop of golden hair falling across his face, but Christiana quickly steps in front of him.
“I ordered Aura to be restrained,” she says. “But we didn’t dislocate her shoulder.”
“But you knew she was hurt when you tied her up and left her here for hours,” Nathaniel says, an accusation.
Christiana tips her head back, her long braids sliding across her shoulders, her gaze flashing with defiance. “It’s her sword arm. Like she said, it’s better that she’s wounded.”
Nathaniel advances on Christiana, his voice a sharp demand. “Where is your honor, Christiana?”
She stands her ground, her armor dull in the gray light. “I’ve never been afraid to play dirty, Nathaniel.”
Nathaniel turns his head so that I can see the careful glance he casts at Hagan. His voice lowers. “Be careful about getting into the dirt, Christiana. One day, you might find yourself desperate to wash it off.”
She glares back at him. “I would tie her up again to protect our people. As many times as it takes.”
Nathaniel’s expression darkens, a snarl on his lips. “You didn’t do it to protect anyone, Christiana. You acted out of revenge.”
She inhales sharply at the accusation, but the flush rising to her cheeks betrays the truth in his claim. Sudden tears fill her eyes, but she bats them away. “She deserves to suffer for hurting our family.”