Gutted, Shine fell back to her knees. She covered her mouth.
“Would you like to see him?”
She nodded, and the sorcerer got smoothly to their feet. They wandered to the stone wall and touched one block. It rippled like water and became a window overlooking a vast valley of evergreen forest. The Scale murmured, and as the words left their lips, they became aether-sigils. Each pinged against the window with the soft ring of a bell, and the window shivered again.
Kirin appeared, and Shine leapt to her feet.
He was surrounded by warriors—imperial warriors in red armor with lacquered white moon chest pieces and demon-face helmets. Warriors of the Last Means. Kirin himself wore a chest piece of red scales, with two wide-bladed swords sheathed at his hips. He was arguing with Sky, whose own sword was strapped to his back over black leather armor. They both had their hair in topknots and wore gauntlets, and Shine saw warhorses and even two cannons in the crowd of warriors. Sky put a hand on Kirin’s chest to stop him from striding away, and the prince glared intensely at his bodyguard and covered Sky’s hand with his own. Shine saw the tenderness there, in public, damn them both! Then Kirin tore Sky’s hand away and stalked off.
“Those idiots,” Shine hissed. She could see their relationship as plainly as if it were scrawled in the air with fire.
“He wants to bring the army after you. He will attack the Living Mountains to get you back,” The Scale said.
Shine shuddered, shaking her head in refusal. “You did this—you and the others made this mess!”
“I wished to know your nature, Shine,” The Scale said kindly. The window faded back into plain gray granite. “A Dance of Stars and Still Wind do not understand that what you are has little to do with your bones or magma heart, your old names or old wives or what you used to say or do or be. It has everything to do with what you believe you are. What you believe is right. What you call yourself.”
“What it feels like to be me,” Shine muttered.
“Unicorns are preoccupied with feelings, but yes, that matters too. Feelings are closer to belief than thoughts.”
Shine gasped. “Can you read my mind?”
“Probably, but I did not need to. I know Esrithalan.”
Bending over, Shine pressed her forehead to the cool stone floor. It felt good, soothing her hot skin. It felt right. She liked stone, the weight of it, the slow-growing strength of it.
The Scale placed their hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. “You are still a mountain, Shine. You always were a mountain, even when you were only a tiny flower spirit.”
“Lutha,” she whispered. Not a question, just the flavor of the name.
“My friend.”
“What did you learn about me? With your experiment?”
They stroked Shine’s back and said, “Think of this: You began your existence as a single flower spirit, and from such a humble, small start gathered spirits to you, became a meadow, a family of flowers strong enough to become a great spirit. Eventually your roots wove into the stones of the mountain itself, and you became even more. You were strong enough that when your mountain erupted, you held on to those deep connections to life and aether, so instead of becoming a demon, you were a great demon, still able to draw upon aether. You were yourself—myriad flowers made of fire and stone and crystal. And consider this, too: I suspect that before you were even a flower, you were fire, born in the depths of that mountain, so eager to push out of the darkness you found a seedling to nurture in the cold black lava. I’ve known you in many forms, different iterations, but at your core you have been yourself. You still are. I was injured and you sought to help me, though it might’ve ruined your escape or your prince. Even when you were a demon you were too considerate to overlook a broken bird.” Something in the sorcerer’s voice tilted toward humor, and Shine lifted her head.
The Scale smiled at her and said, “Your sorceress was a broken bird, and you gave her enough of yourself to make her more than whole—both of you were better for it.”
“I don’t remember,” Shine whispered, wishing more than anything she could recall that moment when she decided to let the sorceress—a sixteen-year-old girl—into her mountain and give her magic.
“Everyone can be bigger than they seem, hold more than their bodies are capable of holding. You have always chosen to grow.”
Shine’s throat felt tight, her stomach hard with emotions. All the emotions. She squeezed her eyes closed. “How do I learn to be more again?”
“That you haven’t forgotten.” The Scale chuckled. “But if you need some practical advice: play with small magics before big ones. To take and give in a rhythm. Anything else is too volatile. Grow a seed.”
Taking a deep breath, Shine nodded. She held the breath and stared into The Scale’s silver-blue eyes. The sorcerer was beautiful in an overwhelmingly perfect way, no distinguishing features to remember when she left this place. “I can do anything,” she said. “Be anything.”
Their sky eyes widened. “Yes. You can.”
Shine licked her lips, thinking. She could stay and blast those sorcerers who’d hurt her; she could return to the Fifth Mountain right away and heal the core, give its power back so the sorceress had no need to take hearts, get to know her old wife; she could wander the entire world and never be hungry or tired. She could discover how near to the moon she could fly. Or float in the clouds, watching stars and lives pass until she understood the patterns of life and death.
But she wanted to go back to Kirin.
And Sky. She wanted to tell them both what had happened to her and see Kirin through his investiture. Safely. That had been the start of this quest: rescuing the prince from the Sorceress Who Eats Girls.
That would be the end of it too.
A smile grew in her chest, warm and sweet, with infinite space to keep growing.
She said, “Send me back, then.”
The Scale held out a hand, and her mostly eaten pear appeared in it. They tossed it to her. Then they flicked their eyes again from her crown to her toes, and Shine found herself dressed in trousers and wrapped tunic, with a long vest and leather boots. Everything was shades of blue. She stood, and The Scale said, “My friend the great spirit of the First Mountain will take you,” as specks of aether lowered from the ceiling, growing into bird shapes until Shine was surrounded by a flock of silver-rainbow starlings.
“Thank you,” she said, bowing, but her eyes were stuck on the spirits—spirit, for it was a single great spirit in many forms.
“You are very welcome, little star,” The Scale said, and Shine lost sight of them as she was enveloped in a cocoon of starlings.
THIRTY-SEVEN
TRAVELING WITHIN THE EMBRACE of a fluttering, chattering flock of spirit birds tickled Shine—she laughed in delight, eyes closed, giving over to the sensation of pricks and featherlight brushing wings. The magic tingled and popped and rushed like wind around her body, combing through her hair, kissing her lips and palms and the soles of her feet.
She spread her arms like wings of her own and ruffled her fingers in their sparking aether. Her stomach dipped as they dove, and her heart burst with exhilaration when they lifted higher and higher into the sky. Shine couldn’t see anything, but she felt it; she knew the speed at which they flew and the distance to the rocks of the earth. She sensed how far to her mountain and that, if she asked, the great starling spirit would take her there, instead.