When a moth loved a bee, p.45
When a Moth loved a Bee, page 45
I-I can’t do this.
“Runa…” Solin pulled me closer. “It’s almost over. Just summon your flame, and you can go.”
Go.
Yes, I wanted to go.
More than anything.
“A flame, Runa, then you’re free.”
Free…
A simple fire and then I could be alone with Darro.
Closing my eyes, I sank into the nervous jumble inside me. All my trapped energy, all my worry, confusion, and guilt.
All of it churned and twisted.
I was a ball of restrained intensity.
I was bottled to the brim.
Denied the urge to run.
Forbidden the need to hide—
“Runa…” Solin commanded.
I closed my eyes and gave in. “Burn…”
All it needed was a single spark.
The smallest tinder.
The quietest call.
All that nervous energy.
All that blinding power.
It fermented into something uncontrollable.
The entire clan went deathly silent. Their pounding feet ceased. Their happy voices cut off mid-word. Solin’s touch fell away from my elbow, and I opened my gaze.
I blinked at a blazing world.
I looked at my ash-tattooed hands as my skin danced and billowed with white-bright gold. Black smoke curled off me. Flames spat and crackled.
Fire didn’t just flicker in my palm.
It cloaked me from crown to toe.
I stood in a pyre of my own making.
I burned brighter than the sun.
I burned so vibrantly, so otherworldly, that every member of the Nhil slowly dropped, one by one, to their knees.
Their faces upturned.
Their lips whispered prayers.
And their worship sank into my flesh, feeding false belonging, believing I was someone I wasn’t, showing me a future that wasn’t mine to tread.
I’ve made a mistake.
A horrible, horrible mistake.
This wasn’t who I was meant to be.
This was wrong.
Darro appeared from the grasslands with a silver-furred wolf at his side, his lips parted wide with concern.
Our eyes met.
My heart cracked and shattered.
Instincts hissed that this was the moment when everything changed.
All my hopes.
All our dreams.
They went up in smoke because I finally saw.
I saw what was about to happen.
And I couldn’t believe I’d been so blind.
I should’ve seen.
Should’ve known.
Should’ve run—
Chapter Thirty-Six
. Darro .
SHE REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE that.
I’d told her by the river not to summon such light, such heat, such power. And just like by the river, the longer she stood in the heart of such fire, the less substantial her body became. The outline of her hair, face, and form glowed brighter and brighter until every member of the Nhil squinted and raised their hands to shield their eyes from her gilded luminosity.
Zetas grumbled beside me, her paws shifting with fear. Her nose sniffed the dangerous crackle of Runa’s power, sensing what I did: if that power loosened, the entire grasslands and every creature living in it would be blackened into dust.
The chief and chiefess grabbed Solin and spoke to him urgently. Their son kept weight off his bound leg all while gaping at the bright orb that was the girl he’d tried to hurt.
She really shouldn’t have shown everyone how much strength flowed in her veins. That sort of power had the tendency to terrify people into two extremes: blind worship or livid hate.
Runa’s magic was the exact opposite of mine.
I could conjure the very darkness into day.
And she could shed light on every corner of the night.
What that meant, I still didn’t know, but I did know we were wise to keep each other close. To keep learning about each other, keep testing our boundaries and gaining control over the powers we had forgotten. Because if we didn’t—if we pretended to be like them—then eventually, our pasts would catch up with us.
No one else was safe until we remembered.
No one else could be fully trusted until we knew.
And no one else could understand what it felt like to be empty of mind yet occupy a body that bristled with such potency.
The chief suddenly grabbed the Fire Reader, pulling him away from Runa and hissing in his ear. Solin nodded once, then untangled himself roughly from the chief’s grip. He shifted back to Runa, studying her gilded skin as if searching for a way to turn her back to mortal.
Her gold-blazing eyes met mine across the kneeling crowd, blinded by fire and as bright as the sun. I couldn’t make out her features or see the fear in her gaze, but I sensed it. I felt her calling out to me. I trembled with her panic as she glowed brighter and brighter, unable to stop.
I couldn’t look away.
I opened my heart entirely to her and let the whispers of her spirit shout loudly into mine. We both jerked in synchronicity, bolted by the searingly intense connection even on opposite sides of the camp. Our lips parted as we sucked in a shared breath.
Something forgotten skated around my recollection, teasing me to know.
This sudden sixth sense wasn’t new.
We’d shared such a gift before.
We’d spoken in silence and walked in purpose. We’d shared a destiny and accepted that whatever we were, we would never be fully mortal, even though we wished to be.
What are we?!
I screamed into the void in my head.
Nothing replied.
Silence mocked.
And in that silence, Runa’s voice, bright as the stars and fragile as flowers, resonated directly in my mind. “Darro…”
I stepped forward, leaving the grasslands behind, intending to run to her.
“Darro…I-I can’t…stop.”
I clenched my fists as a shroud of shadows peeled off me, swooping toward her at the head of the clan. Just like she couldn’t control her light, my shades appeared without summoning.
Nhil members swung their stares from Runa to me as my shadows cast over them. They clambered to their feet as they were barricaded, standing in the middle of light and dark. They shied away from my lengthening blackness as it whipped out and veined the courtyard. Some shuddered with fear, and others cuddled their younglings close as if to prevent them from becoming infected by my night.
I sank deeper into the spirit-link that bound me to Runa. My shadows thickened into billowing black clouds.
Zetas barked, nudging her wet nose against my wrist.
I was only vaguely aware of the external world, drowning in the intensity from this newly-remembered, internal one.
“Darro…”
I tried replying in the same silent way but couldn’t.
Frustration and need to touch her fed such commands into my darkness. Shadows twined around clustered males and females, licking through the fire without any pain, sailing straight for Runa.
I held my breath to touch her.
To offer her comfort and protection.
But the moment my shades brushed Runa’s incandescent glow, something happened.
A ricocheting boom.
A heart-rendering crack!
Both of us cried out, dropping to our knees.
Her light snuffed out.
A splintering vision sucked me deep.
She arrived as suddenly as I had.
A tear in the air, a lash of wind, a flash of sunshine.
I was no longer alone.
She glowed with golden glitter as if her bones had been forged by sunlight and her skin couldn’t contain its fire. Her white hair looked like the heart of a blazing star, blistering with life and power.
The silence that’d stalked me since my awakening two nights ago seemed less somehow. Less stark. Less thick. Less oppressive.
She broke it with her breathing.
Softened it with her presence.
Slowly, she raised her head and noticed me. Her eyebrows quirked up her flawless, sunglow face. Her eyes reminded me of twin suns—mirrors to her soul, blinding me with yellow brilliance.
We were the same, her and I.
The same two legs, two arms, two eyes, and living heart.
I knew what she was.
She knew what I was.
I hummed with our unfolding potential.
“We are all alone,” she whispered, looking away from me.
I felt the loss of her attention. My skin grew cool, and my heart hung dejectedly in my chest. Even my stomach twisted with the need to have her focus on me again.
Such a frail form we’d been given. So vulnerable to bone-bruising, breath-stealing emotion.
“There’s no life here.” She drank in the barren wasteland that stretched to every horizon. Flat and unremarkable. Brown and unexceptional.
Nothing but us and the stars—
The crescent-moon mark on my thigh shattered the vision, plummeting me back into a body that felt foreign. The searing mark dripped with fresh blood.
Runa’s loud gasp of pain ripped my head up.
I knew without seeing; her mark had bled like mine.
She kneeled like I did, her hands digging into the earth for balance.
I went to stand.
To go to her.
But…
Something smashed against my shoulders.
Something icy and heavy and violent.
I grunted as my chest was shoved toward the ground, forcing me to bow over my knees.
I fought.
I punched the dirt and tried to stand.
But it was no use.
I couldn’t move.
Not even a fraction.
I jerked and scrambled.
The pressure merely kept tightening until I could barely breathe.
What’s happening—?
Zetas nipped at my shoulder, whimpering, sensing I was trapped by something she couldn’t see. She stalked around me, seeking its weaknesses, all while Solin grabbed Runa by the elbows and hauled her to her feet.
“Don’t—!”
I howled the word through the heartlink.
I tried to use my mortal lips.
But both were gagged and silenced as I fought an unseen enemy, all while Runa swayed sadly on her feet.
She searched for me.
Tears rolled for me.
I waited for her to speak directly into my mind—
But nothing.
She looked at Solin as he rubbed her now extinguished arms and grabbed a handful of her white hair before letting it spill through his fingers as if searching for remnants of her flames.
He lowered his head to hers, speaking too softly for anyone else to hear.
I fought harder against the pressure lashing me to the ground.
But whatever entity or magic had captured me only tightened more, yanking my throat closer to my knees, making it harder and harder to keep my eyes on the girl I’d do anything to protect.
The girl I’d known for an ancient age.
The girl who wasn’t just a girl but was so, so much more.
With a soft smile, Solin cupped her cheek, spoke again, then turned to the chief who stood warily behind him.
Taking the bowl that Tral had been holding, Solin stepped back a little, looking past Tral to the hunter who would one day feel my wrath.
Aktor puffed up his ash-symbol covered chest before holding his head high and shifting reluctantly to Runa’s side.
Darkness billowed in my stomach.
I fought harder, sweat beading on my brow as the unseen, unknown force locking me over my knees pulsed with power.
No matter how hard I struggled, no one came to help.
The thick crowd all stood with their attention affixed on Solin, their backs to me. Even the younglings who looked around the camp, bored and restless, didn’t focus on me. A young male with his toddler arms wrapped around a carved bison toy glanced in my direction, but his eyes didn’t linger, didn’t study.
He looked right through me to the outskirts of the grasslands, focusing on a cloud of flickering fireflies as they swarmed with pinpricks of light.
He shouldn’t be able to see the dancing insects. I was in his way. My bulk would block him from seeing…
Unless.
I went cold.
Zetas huffed and shook her head.
Her yellow eyes glowed with nightshine, but they didn’t focus on mine like usual. They skittered around, panicking and searching, her nose wrinkling as she sniffed the sky.
I stopped fighting the invisible binds, my skin frosting in horror.
“Zetas, can…can you see me?”
The wolf spun around, her tail whipping. She sniffed again, following my scent away from where I crouched, following the trail I’d walked before, her pace growing jerky the longer she couldn’t find me.
How?
How could I vanish when I was still exactly where I’d been?
I snarled and fought again as my eyes returned to Runa, my heart thundering.
I had to get to her.
Now!
Dipping his thumb into the bowl, Solin held his hand aloft, revealing an oily silvery mixture. The clan all fell into hushed reverence, their gazes enthralled.
I fought harder, grunting under my breath. Sweat poured, and panic choked.
Zetas howled and broke into a run around the camp, her paws crushing the small grass seedlings that dared sprout in the Nhil courtyard. A few Nhil watched her running in crazed circles trying to find me, but no one looked to where I crouched.
“I’m right here!” I shouted.
I waited for the crowd to jump, for Runa to dash from the Spirit Master and race to my side.
No one moved.
Runa looked to where I’d been standing—to where I still fought—and her entire body stiffened. Her gaze shot around the camp as Zetas grew more and more unsettled.
She gasped as she looked to the heavy-swaying heads of the grasses, as if I’d disappeared and had no plans on coming back.
“I’m right here, Runa!”
A tear rolled down her cheek, heartbreak bright in her glossy stare.
“Runa!” I fought and fought, but she sucked in a thin breath and rolled her shoulders as if protecting herself the only way she knew how.
“Runa! I haven’t gone. I would never!”
She looked away from me.
She didn’t hear.
I was as invisible as the air we breathed and as silent as fallen snow.
I gasped past the dread curdling in my lungs.
Solin spoke in a loud, commanding voice, “As with all families, we have traditions and troths. Every mated pair within our clan began their matehood with the ashes of the fire that burned on the night of their first bedding. Their love was blessed by the flames, and the ashes of that blessing are stored for future happiness.”
Throwing a look at Tiptu, who clutched her son extra tight, Solin continued, “In this bowl are the ashes from the night of Tral and Tiptu’s mating ceremony. The fire burned a full day and night, and have brought many years of joy to the clan they watch over.”
Solin paused and looked around at the many watching faces. Slowly, the crowd shed their nervousness of Runa’s blinding power, and were swept back up into the magic of ceremony.
The girl on fire had extinguished, and the man who bled shadows had vanished.
The strangeness of the evening and the brightness in which Runa had glowed only added more to her mystique, her newly adopted value increasing with every strange phenomenon.
Her worth amongst the Nhil had been immortalized the moment she revealed how much the fire had blessed her. How animals gravitated toward her. How she seemed just a little bit different from the rest of them.
Turning to Runa, Solin smeared his ash-covered thumb over her forehead. He whispered something to her before saying loudly for the clan to hear. “You are now heir to the fire’s true calling and my adoptive daughter. You are touched by Quelis, and have been gifted this responsibility because your heart is pure. Are you prepared to die for your people? To think of them first? To always have their wellbeing in mind?”
Runa seemed to struggle, her hands trembling as she looked to where I’d been standing.
I fought with violence. “Runa! See me! I promised I would never leave you, and I haven’t.”
My words never travelled past my tongue, snatched by whatever force held me, silencing them into nothing.
Shaking hard enough to be visible, tears tracked down her cheeks as she glanced toward the grasslands. She seemed to choke on something before her head moved jerkily up and down. “I…” She moaned in pain. “I…I am.”
Her voice sounded despairing, unwilling.
It tore my heart into shreds.
With a stern nod, Solin accepted her vow before dipping his thumb into the ash-filled bowl again and turning to Aktor.
The clan vibrated with anticipation.
“And you, Aktor, son of Tiptu and Tral...” Solin’s voice changed from warmth to chipped with cold. With a harsh swipe, he drew oily ash on Aktor’s forehead as the Nhil male bowed his head, looking contrite and humble.
“You are touched by Quelis, and have been gifted this responsibility because your heart is pure. Are you prepared to die for your people? To think of them first? To always have their wellbeing in mind?”
Pure?
His heart wasn’t pure.
It was defiled. Rotten. Filth.
Aktor raised his chin, his gaze flicking to Runa who stood so close. Too close. The symbols on his chest glistened in the firelight as he sucked in a breath. “I am.”
Solin stiffened before nodding and turning to face the clan. Males and females, younglings and elderly all watched with rapt attention, their multihued skin catching the flame’s light differently.
Holding the bowl aloft, Solin announced regally, “By the fire and its light, you Runa and you Aktor, are bound within its might. You were asked and tasked, and now you serve the greater good.”
“Runa…” Solin pulled me closer. “It’s almost over. Just summon your flame, and you can go.”
Go.
Yes, I wanted to go.
More than anything.
“A flame, Runa, then you’re free.”
Free…
A simple fire and then I could be alone with Darro.
Closing my eyes, I sank into the nervous jumble inside me. All my trapped energy, all my worry, confusion, and guilt.
All of it churned and twisted.
I was a ball of restrained intensity.
I was bottled to the brim.
Denied the urge to run.
Forbidden the need to hide—
“Runa…” Solin commanded.
I closed my eyes and gave in. “Burn…”
All it needed was a single spark.
The smallest tinder.
The quietest call.
All that nervous energy.
All that blinding power.
It fermented into something uncontrollable.
The entire clan went deathly silent. Their pounding feet ceased. Their happy voices cut off mid-word. Solin’s touch fell away from my elbow, and I opened my gaze.
I blinked at a blazing world.
I looked at my ash-tattooed hands as my skin danced and billowed with white-bright gold. Black smoke curled off me. Flames spat and crackled.
Fire didn’t just flicker in my palm.
It cloaked me from crown to toe.
I stood in a pyre of my own making.
I burned brighter than the sun.
I burned so vibrantly, so otherworldly, that every member of the Nhil slowly dropped, one by one, to their knees.
Their faces upturned.
Their lips whispered prayers.
And their worship sank into my flesh, feeding false belonging, believing I was someone I wasn’t, showing me a future that wasn’t mine to tread.
I’ve made a mistake.
A horrible, horrible mistake.
This wasn’t who I was meant to be.
This was wrong.
Darro appeared from the grasslands with a silver-furred wolf at his side, his lips parted wide with concern.
Our eyes met.
My heart cracked and shattered.
Instincts hissed that this was the moment when everything changed.
All my hopes.
All our dreams.
They went up in smoke because I finally saw.
I saw what was about to happen.
And I couldn’t believe I’d been so blind.
I should’ve seen.
Should’ve known.
Should’ve run—
Chapter Thirty-Six
. Darro .
SHE REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE that.
I’d told her by the river not to summon such light, such heat, such power. And just like by the river, the longer she stood in the heart of such fire, the less substantial her body became. The outline of her hair, face, and form glowed brighter and brighter until every member of the Nhil squinted and raised their hands to shield their eyes from her gilded luminosity.
Zetas grumbled beside me, her paws shifting with fear. Her nose sniffed the dangerous crackle of Runa’s power, sensing what I did: if that power loosened, the entire grasslands and every creature living in it would be blackened into dust.
The chief and chiefess grabbed Solin and spoke to him urgently. Their son kept weight off his bound leg all while gaping at the bright orb that was the girl he’d tried to hurt.
She really shouldn’t have shown everyone how much strength flowed in her veins. That sort of power had the tendency to terrify people into two extremes: blind worship or livid hate.
Runa’s magic was the exact opposite of mine.
I could conjure the very darkness into day.
And she could shed light on every corner of the night.
What that meant, I still didn’t know, but I did know we were wise to keep each other close. To keep learning about each other, keep testing our boundaries and gaining control over the powers we had forgotten. Because if we didn’t—if we pretended to be like them—then eventually, our pasts would catch up with us.
No one else was safe until we remembered.
No one else could be fully trusted until we knew.
And no one else could understand what it felt like to be empty of mind yet occupy a body that bristled with such potency.
The chief suddenly grabbed the Fire Reader, pulling him away from Runa and hissing in his ear. Solin nodded once, then untangled himself roughly from the chief’s grip. He shifted back to Runa, studying her gilded skin as if searching for a way to turn her back to mortal.
Her gold-blazing eyes met mine across the kneeling crowd, blinded by fire and as bright as the sun. I couldn’t make out her features or see the fear in her gaze, but I sensed it. I felt her calling out to me. I trembled with her panic as she glowed brighter and brighter, unable to stop.
I couldn’t look away.
I opened my heart entirely to her and let the whispers of her spirit shout loudly into mine. We both jerked in synchronicity, bolted by the searingly intense connection even on opposite sides of the camp. Our lips parted as we sucked in a shared breath.
Something forgotten skated around my recollection, teasing me to know.
This sudden sixth sense wasn’t new.
We’d shared such a gift before.
We’d spoken in silence and walked in purpose. We’d shared a destiny and accepted that whatever we were, we would never be fully mortal, even though we wished to be.
What are we?!
I screamed into the void in my head.
Nothing replied.
Silence mocked.
And in that silence, Runa’s voice, bright as the stars and fragile as flowers, resonated directly in my mind. “Darro…”
I stepped forward, leaving the grasslands behind, intending to run to her.
“Darro…I-I can’t…stop.”
I clenched my fists as a shroud of shadows peeled off me, swooping toward her at the head of the clan. Just like she couldn’t control her light, my shades appeared without summoning.
Nhil members swung their stares from Runa to me as my shadows cast over them. They clambered to their feet as they were barricaded, standing in the middle of light and dark. They shied away from my lengthening blackness as it whipped out and veined the courtyard. Some shuddered with fear, and others cuddled their younglings close as if to prevent them from becoming infected by my night.
I sank deeper into the spirit-link that bound me to Runa. My shadows thickened into billowing black clouds.
Zetas barked, nudging her wet nose against my wrist.
I was only vaguely aware of the external world, drowning in the intensity from this newly-remembered, internal one.
“Darro…”
I tried replying in the same silent way but couldn’t.
Frustration and need to touch her fed such commands into my darkness. Shadows twined around clustered males and females, licking through the fire without any pain, sailing straight for Runa.
I held my breath to touch her.
To offer her comfort and protection.
But the moment my shades brushed Runa’s incandescent glow, something happened.
A ricocheting boom.
A heart-rendering crack!
Both of us cried out, dropping to our knees.
Her light snuffed out.
A splintering vision sucked me deep.
She arrived as suddenly as I had.
A tear in the air, a lash of wind, a flash of sunshine.
I was no longer alone.
She glowed with golden glitter as if her bones had been forged by sunlight and her skin couldn’t contain its fire. Her white hair looked like the heart of a blazing star, blistering with life and power.
The silence that’d stalked me since my awakening two nights ago seemed less somehow. Less stark. Less thick. Less oppressive.
She broke it with her breathing.
Softened it with her presence.
Slowly, she raised her head and noticed me. Her eyebrows quirked up her flawless, sunglow face. Her eyes reminded me of twin suns—mirrors to her soul, blinding me with yellow brilliance.
We were the same, her and I.
The same two legs, two arms, two eyes, and living heart.
I knew what she was.
She knew what I was.
I hummed with our unfolding potential.
“We are all alone,” she whispered, looking away from me.
I felt the loss of her attention. My skin grew cool, and my heart hung dejectedly in my chest. Even my stomach twisted with the need to have her focus on me again.
Such a frail form we’d been given. So vulnerable to bone-bruising, breath-stealing emotion.
“There’s no life here.” She drank in the barren wasteland that stretched to every horizon. Flat and unremarkable. Brown and unexceptional.
Nothing but us and the stars—
The crescent-moon mark on my thigh shattered the vision, plummeting me back into a body that felt foreign. The searing mark dripped with fresh blood.
Runa’s loud gasp of pain ripped my head up.
I knew without seeing; her mark had bled like mine.
She kneeled like I did, her hands digging into the earth for balance.
I went to stand.
To go to her.
But…
Something smashed against my shoulders.
Something icy and heavy and violent.
I grunted as my chest was shoved toward the ground, forcing me to bow over my knees.
I fought.
I punched the dirt and tried to stand.
But it was no use.
I couldn’t move.
Not even a fraction.
I jerked and scrambled.
The pressure merely kept tightening until I could barely breathe.
What’s happening—?
Zetas nipped at my shoulder, whimpering, sensing I was trapped by something she couldn’t see. She stalked around me, seeking its weaknesses, all while Solin grabbed Runa by the elbows and hauled her to her feet.
“Don’t—!”
I howled the word through the heartlink.
I tried to use my mortal lips.
But both were gagged and silenced as I fought an unseen enemy, all while Runa swayed sadly on her feet.
She searched for me.
Tears rolled for me.
I waited for her to speak directly into my mind—
But nothing.
She looked at Solin as he rubbed her now extinguished arms and grabbed a handful of her white hair before letting it spill through his fingers as if searching for remnants of her flames.
He lowered his head to hers, speaking too softly for anyone else to hear.
I fought harder against the pressure lashing me to the ground.
But whatever entity or magic had captured me only tightened more, yanking my throat closer to my knees, making it harder and harder to keep my eyes on the girl I’d do anything to protect.
The girl I’d known for an ancient age.
The girl who wasn’t just a girl but was so, so much more.
With a soft smile, Solin cupped her cheek, spoke again, then turned to the chief who stood warily behind him.
Taking the bowl that Tral had been holding, Solin stepped back a little, looking past Tral to the hunter who would one day feel my wrath.
Aktor puffed up his ash-symbol covered chest before holding his head high and shifting reluctantly to Runa’s side.
Darkness billowed in my stomach.
I fought harder, sweat beading on my brow as the unseen, unknown force locking me over my knees pulsed with power.
No matter how hard I struggled, no one came to help.
The thick crowd all stood with their attention affixed on Solin, their backs to me. Even the younglings who looked around the camp, bored and restless, didn’t focus on me. A young male with his toddler arms wrapped around a carved bison toy glanced in my direction, but his eyes didn’t linger, didn’t study.
He looked right through me to the outskirts of the grasslands, focusing on a cloud of flickering fireflies as they swarmed with pinpricks of light.
He shouldn’t be able to see the dancing insects. I was in his way. My bulk would block him from seeing…
Unless.
I went cold.
Zetas huffed and shook her head.
Her yellow eyes glowed with nightshine, but they didn’t focus on mine like usual. They skittered around, panicking and searching, her nose wrinkling as she sniffed the sky.
I stopped fighting the invisible binds, my skin frosting in horror.
“Zetas, can…can you see me?”
The wolf spun around, her tail whipping. She sniffed again, following my scent away from where I crouched, following the trail I’d walked before, her pace growing jerky the longer she couldn’t find me.
How?
How could I vanish when I was still exactly where I’d been?
I snarled and fought again as my eyes returned to Runa, my heart thundering.
I had to get to her.
Now!
Dipping his thumb into the bowl, Solin held his hand aloft, revealing an oily silvery mixture. The clan all fell into hushed reverence, their gazes enthralled.
I fought harder, grunting under my breath. Sweat poured, and panic choked.
Zetas howled and broke into a run around the camp, her paws crushing the small grass seedlings that dared sprout in the Nhil courtyard. A few Nhil watched her running in crazed circles trying to find me, but no one looked to where I crouched.
“I’m right here!” I shouted.
I waited for the crowd to jump, for Runa to dash from the Spirit Master and race to my side.
No one moved.
Runa looked to where I’d been standing—to where I still fought—and her entire body stiffened. Her gaze shot around the camp as Zetas grew more and more unsettled.
She gasped as she looked to the heavy-swaying heads of the grasses, as if I’d disappeared and had no plans on coming back.
“I’m right here, Runa!”
A tear rolled down her cheek, heartbreak bright in her glossy stare.
“Runa!” I fought and fought, but she sucked in a thin breath and rolled her shoulders as if protecting herself the only way she knew how.
“Runa! I haven’t gone. I would never!”
She looked away from me.
She didn’t hear.
I was as invisible as the air we breathed and as silent as fallen snow.
I gasped past the dread curdling in my lungs.
Solin spoke in a loud, commanding voice, “As with all families, we have traditions and troths. Every mated pair within our clan began their matehood with the ashes of the fire that burned on the night of their first bedding. Their love was blessed by the flames, and the ashes of that blessing are stored for future happiness.”
Throwing a look at Tiptu, who clutched her son extra tight, Solin continued, “In this bowl are the ashes from the night of Tral and Tiptu’s mating ceremony. The fire burned a full day and night, and have brought many years of joy to the clan they watch over.”
Solin paused and looked around at the many watching faces. Slowly, the crowd shed their nervousness of Runa’s blinding power, and were swept back up into the magic of ceremony.
The girl on fire had extinguished, and the man who bled shadows had vanished.
The strangeness of the evening and the brightness in which Runa had glowed only added more to her mystique, her newly adopted value increasing with every strange phenomenon.
Her worth amongst the Nhil had been immortalized the moment she revealed how much the fire had blessed her. How animals gravitated toward her. How she seemed just a little bit different from the rest of them.
Turning to Runa, Solin smeared his ash-covered thumb over her forehead. He whispered something to her before saying loudly for the clan to hear. “You are now heir to the fire’s true calling and my adoptive daughter. You are touched by Quelis, and have been gifted this responsibility because your heart is pure. Are you prepared to die for your people? To think of them first? To always have their wellbeing in mind?”
Runa seemed to struggle, her hands trembling as she looked to where I’d been standing.
I fought with violence. “Runa! See me! I promised I would never leave you, and I haven’t.”
My words never travelled past my tongue, snatched by whatever force held me, silencing them into nothing.
Shaking hard enough to be visible, tears tracked down her cheeks as she glanced toward the grasslands. She seemed to choke on something before her head moved jerkily up and down. “I…” She moaned in pain. “I…I am.”
Her voice sounded despairing, unwilling.
It tore my heart into shreds.
With a stern nod, Solin accepted her vow before dipping his thumb into the ash-filled bowl again and turning to Aktor.
The clan vibrated with anticipation.
“And you, Aktor, son of Tiptu and Tral...” Solin’s voice changed from warmth to chipped with cold. With a harsh swipe, he drew oily ash on Aktor’s forehead as the Nhil male bowed his head, looking contrite and humble.
“You are touched by Quelis, and have been gifted this responsibility because your heart is pure. Are you prepared to die for your people? To think of them first? To always have their wellbeing in mind?”
Pure?
His heart wasn’t pure.
It was defiled. Rotten. Filth.
Aktor raised his chin, his gaze flicking to Runa who stood so close. Too close. The symbols on his chest glistened in the firelight as he sucked in a breath. “I am.”
Solin stiffened before nodding and turning to face the clan. Males and females, younglings and elderly all watched with rapt attention, their multihued skin catching the flame’s light differently.
Holding the bowl aloft, Solin announced regally, “By the fire and its light, you Runa and you Aktor, are bound within its might. You were asked and tasked, and now you serve the greater good.”
