I remember her tears. They’d turned into pearls that had scattered across the burning ground. “What did you do with the rest of my heart?”
“It crumbled to ash in my hands when I cut it out,” she says, her eyes glinting in my light. “You have as much of your heart now as you will ever have.”
I consider the bulb floating at Imatra’s side and all of its messy, shattered edges.
My fist darts out, making her flinch as I take hold of the glittering weapon. I yank it toward myself and snap the thread of dark magic that she’s using to constrain it. My power streaks around the shattering bulb, a bright flash, before I open my fist again.
Imatra takes a reflexive step back, stopping when she sees that the bulb has transformed into a flower resting in my palm. It’s a poppy, its petals crushed and bleeding crimson sap, just like the poppies that Imatra gripped at the coliseum when the Vanem Dragon sealed the Law of Champions.
“I will stop the glitter field,” I say, even though I have no idea how. “And you will return Nathaniel’s weapon to him.”
She smiles again, regaining her mask of control. “Agreed.”
I step away from her, my weapon raised again. “Do not try to imprison me or Nathaniel. We are caged enough as it is.”
Imatra’s hair floats gently around her shoulders as her gaze runs from my face to my clenched fists to my hastily pulled-on clothing. “So you are.”
Turning, I leap back to Treble, but this time, I position myself with a deliberate gap between Nathaniel and me.
“Treble,” I call softly to my thunderbird. “Take us to the glitter field near the burn site, please.”
When Imatra’s guards crowd their thunderbirds inward as if they’re going to stop us from leaving, she raises her hands to halt them. “Let Aura and Nathaniel leave. We’ll see them again soon enough.”
Treble cracks his wings, I grip with my thighs to stay on his back, and we rise above the other birds.
As Treble banks left, we soar away from the Spire.
Nathaniel doesn’t attempt to close the gap between us, but he says, “She’s wrong. We always had a choice about whom we love.”
My throat closes up and I can’t answer. His assertion confirms that he heard everything Imatra and I said to each other, including her contention that Nathaniel and I had no say in how we feel about each other.
My emotions are in pieces.
All I hope is that Nathaniel is willing to walk through the glitter field with me one last time.
Chapter 16
Glitter bulbs lift into the air ahead of us as we coast high above the field’s surface. Far to our left, explosions along the crystal peaks indicate that Evander and the others continue to protect the city from the power of the bulbs.
Nathaniel and I are quiet during the flight, sitting apart.
I ask Treble to land on the Bright side of the field so that we have a clear view around us. The Fell side is obscured by the Misty Gallows and even darker at night.
Dropping to the ground, I hug Treble’s neck. “Thank you, my friend.”
He keens softly as I turn to Nathaniel and draw myself upright. “You don’t have to follow me into the field. I won’t go so far that you can’t see me.”
“I’m coming with you,” he says.
I give him a nod and hold out my hand, waiting for him to take it. I’m prepared for the energy to rise between us. He slides his hand around mine and I fight the need to tug him closer. The last time we traveled through this deadly meadow, we were running for our lives, attempting to escape Imatra’s fiery anger.
The grass never hurt me and now I know why.
As soon as I step into the field, the sharp stems soften against my legs, becoming green and flexible. A breeze hums through the space and the bulbs sing as they bump gently against each other, making a chiming sound.
I trail the fingers of my free hand across the top of the grass, finding myself humming with the bulbs as we make our way farther into the field. I allow my starlight to glow around my fingertips, warm and calming, the aspect of my power that I used to soothe Nathaniel’s mind this morning.
Even though the bulbs transform from brittle glass to soft, living material beneath my fingertips, in the distance they continue to rise and float away from the meadow, hundreds of them.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do to make the glitter field stop sending out deadly memories. If vengeance and violence started this, then maybe peace and acceptance will end it.
Tipping my head back, I consider the night sky, struggling to comprehend that is where I came from. If not for Imatra, I would still be there—somewhere in the ether—a formless blaze of light, unconcerned with the worries of humans and fae.
The moment I lower my head, my humming dies in my throat.
Three bulbs have suddenly risen up in front of us.
They spin in the air, unmoving as I consider them warily. I expect that they’ll float away like the others, but it’s better if I defuse them than allow them to drift toward Bright—even if I can only defuse them one by one.
The minute my fingers touch the first bulb, a flash of dark light fills it. A shock of energy runs up my arm. The contact knocks me to the ground like a punch across the back of my head. At the same time, my fingers clamp around the bulb, unable to let go.
With a shout, I maintain hold of Nathaniel just in time, taking him with me as I fall into the now-soft grass. I manage to turn my left shoulder, landing with my left arm outstretched, the bulb clutched in it. Nathaniel falls half across me, punching the ground with his right fist to stop himself from crushing me and driving the air from my chest.
Alarm shoots across his features. “Aura!”
Releasing my hand, he rolls to the side but hooks his arm around my waist to maintain the contact between us.
I gasp for air, feeling like my stomach was ripped out of me. The bulb is leaden in my hand, heavy and full. I struggle to raise it to my eyes, shocked when the other two drop onto my chest. Each one is a crushing force that knocks into me so hard that the remaining air whooshes out of my chest.
Nathaniel reacts swiftly, hooking his leg around mine to free his arms, rearing up over me in a kneeling position, one knee between my legs as he makes a grab for the bulbs.
“No!” My voice is a bare rasp as I struggle to draw breath. “Don’t touch them.”
He hovers above me, ready to swoop. “Aura?”
I take a deep breath when the pressure on my chest eases, allowing me to inhale carefully. “The other bulbs came for you… for Mathilda… even for Imatra.” I squeeze my eyes closed before opening them again. “These must be for me.”
Forcing my left hand to rise to eye-height, I focus on the bulb. The ground inside the bulb rushes toward me at sickening speed, faster than the dive of any thunderbird. I’m still high enough up to see everything below me.
The earth I fall toward is scorched to ash, blackened and covered in human bodies. Hundreds of firehorses lie with them, latent steam rising from their silent stomachs. A squadron of thunderbirds and fae is scattered, dead, among the humans. A fae woman with arctic blue hair the same color as Evander’s rests closest to Imatra’s feet.
Nearby, the outpost still stands, a tall wooden building—the place where I used to believe I lived with my fae parents, where I thought I was born. Except that I never had parents. And I really was born in the ash of the burn site.