“I didn’t kiss you because I felt compelled to.” Nathaniel brushes the hair from my face and wipes the icy liquid from my lips. “I did it because I wanted to. Because you are a beautiful, complicated, loyal woman who surprises me with your strength and your mind. We always had a choice about loving each other, Aura.”
I close my eyes, unable to meet his. “We have choices to make now, too.” I take a deep breath, trying to focus as his hands trail through my hair. “Imatra lied to me at every turn. I hoped that I could trust her word, but I can’t. She promised to bring your weapon to the fight, but she won’t. I know that now. You need the light to kill me—”
Nathaniel’s jaw clenches, suddenly furious. “That will not happen—”
I cut him off. “Without that weapon, you don’t have a chance! Look at how much power I control!”
I allow starlight to flood my body, calming power that could just as easily turn sharp and kill him.
Nathaniel tries to disentangle himself from my arms, the rage that he’s been fighting all day returning to his eyes. Since the moment I woke up tied to the pole, he has been angry, more reckless than before.
He’s fighting the future, but he can’t win.
“You need your weapon,” I say, my hands clamping around his forearms. “We have maybe six hours until midnight. It’s hardly enough time to find the halberd, but I won’t fight you without it. I choose to spend my last hours finding the light. You need to choose too.”
He becomes still, his hair falling across his face, obscuring the darkness of his expression. I can’t follow his thoughts anymore, the rapid changes of emotion hidden behind his hair. I can’t read his rage or sadness or even know if his emotions have turned to stone.
“With Treble, we can fly anywhere,” I continue, not giving up. “We can fly to Bright. We can get your weapon. We can make it back to the border by midnight. We can’t change what’s going to happen…”
Tears burn at the back of my eyes and my voice chokes up.
“We can’t change this,” I repeat, this time a whisper. I hold my breath as I ask him, “Will you come with me, Nathaniel?”
He has asked me that many times—asked me to come with him, to trust him. Now I’m asking him to trust me.
His chest rises and falls. His knee still rests between my legs. His attempts to untangle himself from me have lifted me half into a sitting position while he pulls backward so that we balance against each other.
I breathe out my relief when he says, “I will.”
He reaches forward instead of straining against me, sliding his arms around my waist and shoulders but staying apart from me as he draws me upright.
The light inside my chest flickers—hurts—as we rise to our feet.
I inhale sharply when I finally see the field around us.
The glitter stems have transformed.
In every direction, soft waist-height grass sways in the breeze.
The bulbs that were already floating away have become flowers of all kinds drifting quietly toward Bright. My pain isn’t gone, but I don’t need the glitter field to protect me anymore.
I slip out of Nathaniel’s arms, stepping back from him and finally breaking the contact between us.
Nothing explodes.
The field is quiet for the first time in fifteen years.
The air is sweet and warm despite the chill, the scent of new growth mixing with Nathaniel’s body heat and filling my head.
Treble has already risen into the sky from the edge of the field where we left him, lightning sizzling around his body as he soars toward us. His wings crack as he exercises a new freedom to fly as close to the meadow as he wants. This place was once deadly. Now he lands on the grass beside us and extends his wing for us to climb up, his neck arched and his eyes gleaming.
I race up his wing and settle onto his back while Nathaniel follows me. Despite the distance we are starting to put between us, Nathaniel’s arms close around me as we settle onto Treble’s back.
All around us, night has fallen, a heavy dark while the space around me glows. I can’t dim the light that shines from my body. Maybe with practice I would be able to, but it’s not the most important use of my time right now.
I only have a few hours left.
I plan on using them to do all of the things I need to do.
“Treble, do you sense the squadron above the mountains?” I ask, pointing to the specks in the distance. Evander, Talsa, and the others will be waiting there to protect Bright from more glitter bulbs. They won’t know that the glitter field is no longer a threat. “I need you to take me to Talsa. She knows where Nathaniel’s weapon is.”
The last time I saw the halberd, Talsa was walking away with it. She never told me where she put it or what became of it. I pray to the stars that she knows, since Imatra could have hidden it somewhere—or tried to destroy it. I regret now that I revealed to Imatra how important the weapon is to us.
Treble rises into the air, spearing a path straight for the mountains. I relax in Nathaniel’s arms, stealing his warmth and nearness like a hungry thief.
Casting a glance into the grassy dark beneath us, I can’t tell where the transformed glitter field ends and the flower fields begin, but as we approach the mountains, I can see where the glitter bulbs exploded. Parts of the crystal peaks have been chipped away, the glittering gemstones they concealed now exposed in the moonlight. Other sections have been blasted open by the bulbs, widening the pass through the peaks. Jagged edges jut dangerously on all sides.
Treble beats his wings but doesn’t crack them as we speed upward. At the same time, Cadence drops from the clouds above, soaring down to meet us. I catch sight of Talsa’s coral hair as her thunderbird follows, while Calida, Mia, and Serena span out, alert and on guard, staying focussed on the sky around us.
“Aura!” As Evander draws level with us, the wind dies down and the air quiets. He’s controlling it so that we can speak without shouting.
Nearby, the quiet concentration on Talsa’s face tells me she’s communicating with all of the thunderbirds, asking them to continue coasting near each other while we speak.
Evander’s arctic-blue hair is braided back from his face like usual, but his blue-gray eyes are dull and strained. He never appeared angelic, but right now, the edge of rage in his drawn-down eyebrows and the stern line of his lips make him appear savagely angry. His gaze passes across my face, my hair, and all of the changes that must be as startling to him as they are to me.
Squeezing Nathaniel’s hand, I rise on Treble’s back before I judge the distance to Evander’s bird and leap across the space between us.
I land in a streak of light on Cadence’s back, just behind her saddle but still securely on her body, bending my knees to maintain my balance, while Evander slowly rises to stand.
“Aura?” He speaks my name like a question now.
Nearby, Talsa draws closer, her pink lips parted in surprise as she studies me.
I give my brother a half-smile. “It’s me. I have so much to tell you, but there’s no time—”
The air rushes from my chest as Evander steps across Cadence’s saddle and scoops me into a sudden hug, his big arms wrapping around me, the scent of frost and ice enveloping me. “I’m glad you’re okay.”