It licks its lips and tucks its head back beneath its wing, like it’s bored of me and wants to return to its nap.
“Stubborn beast,” I mutter under my breath.
It makes a noise deep in its chest, causing me to jump a little. Because yes, I’m still very scared of it, but I’m scared of a wasted trip uphill even more. At least, so long as this thing doesn’t start coming at me with its teeth. Then I’ll take the hill.
“Okay, I’m just going to start, then,” I call as I walk to the other end of the cave.
It doesn’t stir.
Letting out a breath, I warily keep it in my sights as I walk further away, careful to keep plenty of distance between us. I reach a spot on the floor where there’s a puddle of solid gold, and just behind it, a wall with some more gold splattered onto it.
I think this is the wall. The wall where I basically launched myself at Slade. My cheeks heat as I remember the animalistic way we clashed.
Bright side, at least the timberwing wasn’t there for that.
I carefully lower myself to the ground, crossing my legs beneath me. I stare at the frozen gold, its color dulled in the hazy dawn light, and I look at my slightly distorted reflection. With the way the gold solidified, it makes my face look sharper, eyes almost glowing as much as the timberwing’s, and my expression looks more…fae.
For a second, I’m a little caught off guard, because it’s as if I’m looking at that other side of myself. At the Auren who was more beast than person, at the fae who burst free for vengeance and blood.
Or maybe it’s just a trick of the eye.
I stare at the reflection, palms on my knees, searching for a gleam in my eye, a malevolent spark, anything to recognize that part of me that unleashed.
“My magic isn’t working right,” I say aloud, looking right into my eyes. “It hasn’t been ever since I woke up. And I’m pretty sure that’s because of that night in Ranhold.”
My reflection watches, and I’m probably just feeding into this, but I swear, I see myself smirk.
“But this is my power,” I say, fortifying my words. “It’s mine to control.”
I think my reflection might be daring me to prove it’s true.
I scrape off my glove, letting the leather fall to the ground beside me. Turning my hand in front of me, I look at my palm, at the shape of my fingers, the lines on my fingertips.
Behind me, the dawn is brightening ever so slightly, birthing a new day, and I hope it awakens my magic. Yet when I press my hand against the floor of the cave, nothing happens. No gold drips from my fingertips, no slick liquid metal coats my palm.
“Come on,” I murmur beneath my breath, keeping my skin pressed against the cold rock floor. It’s funny how I would’ve given anything to have been able to touch during the day without gilding anything. But now, I need to do everything I can to get my gold-touch back.
It’s time to stop blocking my power.
I press my palm hard against the rock, my fingertips digging into it like I want to claw my way through, but still, nothing happens. A breath of frustration tears past my lips with jagged edges that cut through the quiet. From the corner of my eye, I see the timberwing pick up its head, and I freeze in place.
When it doesn’t leap up and decide to eat me, I give it a heedful once-over. It stares right back at me, unblinking, and as I stare back at it, a chill travels down my spine. My eyes drop back to my gilded reflection, then back to the timberwing, and a jolting recognition shoves its way in my head. It suddenly reminds me of the beast, the one that clawed its way through my barriers and burst free.
Slade said I’m not a monster. He said the beast is the fae side of me. Now, I don’t know much about being a fae, and I know next to nothing about beasts, but there’s one thing I do know.
Beasts can be tamed.
“That’s it,” I hear myself say, and the timberwing cocks its head at me. The fae in me has no problem whatsoever with controlling the magic, because it’s inherent. My problem is that I’ve always fought or hidden my magic—and my fae nature.
I never embraced it. Never embraced myself.
Maybe I always had this ability to control gold, to call to it even after the sun went down. Maybe I just never found my voice to summon it before.
But I have a voice now.
Looking back down, I press my hand against the rock, the cold biting through my skin. “This is my power,” I say beneath my breath. “It’s not gone. It’s not broken. It’s just changed. I’ve changed.”
I close my eyes and let out a deep breath. I shove away all other thoughts, focusing entirely on searching for that side of myself that burned and scraped, the part that simmered and inflamed. I delve deep, fully expecting for this not to work right away, but it’s as if this part of me was there all along.