The ceiling.
Hundreds of those bold, inky flowers that dominate the city spice the air with a zesty sweetness, the sight of them warming my chest and making me smile.
“Pretty.”
I move toward an organic, grown-from-the-stone cooking bench that reminds me of the butcher block in that little crooked dwelling in the mountain range, dragging my hand across the rough-hewn surface heavy with a layer of dust. The metal door on the stone range creaks when I open it to peer inside the ashen hollow, rusted from lack of care, my brow buckling as I run my fingers over twin terracotta mugs hanging from hooks on the wall above.
It’s tempting to lift one off and tuck it in my bag. They look lovely to drink from. It’s hard to find the perfect mug. When you do, they always break.
I pause beside a table that sprouts from the wall below a massive vine-clothed window, glowing runes etched into the frame, shredded curtains hanging limp at its sides. Two seats are tucked beneath the table, the leather padding on one pecked at by some animal, most of the feather stuffing pulled free and probably used in a nest somewhere.
I’m not sure why that makes my throat ache. A feeling I try to ignore as I move past twin leather seaters, stepping close to a large wall shelf and finding a pot of ink, an old quill, and a stack of flat, ready-to-fold parchment larks with pre-etched activation lines. I slide a thin leather-bound book from a pile next to the ink, blow off the dust, and crack it open, discovering the pages are blank.
Strange.
Crouching, I find the shelf below boasts a collection of small stone creatures—mostly dragons. All carved in the same style as the one currently tucked in my satchel. Pulling it out, I shake my head, setting the carving amongst the rest, right beside one of a sharp-tipped palace.
This is a couple’s home, packed with relics of their love.
I should go.
Moving toward the exit, I intend to ease back down the stairs when Clode nips past my ear on a whip of wind that swirls up.
“Geil. Geil asha.”
My heart stills.
Come. Come see.
It’s not often she speaks to me so directly. She’s too wild and aloof to maintain any semblance of a honed, sturdy presence.
I rest my hand on the dagger at my thigh and edge up the stairs. “Halagh te aten de wetana, atan blatme de.”
If I die this dae, I’m blaming you.
Strokes of luck aside, Clode’s perception of danger is just as skewed as her perception of my ability to dodge it, my thoughts tumbling back to the time she lured me into the Undercity, bringing me face-to-face with a rogue doomquill buck about to gut a young huggin I guess Clode took a liking to. Not surprising, since those things are damn adorable.
Not yet versed in the art of willing Clode to implode lungs, I’d only survived due to some swift maneuvering down an abandoned rubbish chute where I’d perched for half a dae with the balled-up huggin bound in my lap.
Utterly unfazed.
My muscles trembled with the effort not to plummet into the velvet trogg’s den while the huggin nibbled its nails, whiskers twitching, looking at me through googly, iridescent eyes that never seemed to blink—until the doomquill finally stopped clawing at the chute and clattered off.
I’ll never unsee the way it gnashed its prickly maw at the entrance, pink tongue wagging as it screeched for blood.
With a full-body shudder, I open myself to Bulder’s song, deciding he’s likely more reliable in situations like these—though all I hear is a low, droning hum that pours me full of a warm, heavy sense of peace.
Contentment.
Similar to the sound he made in Slátra’s tomb.
Frowning, I wind around another curl of stairs, spilling into a cozy chamber that’s fed with a beam of sunlight shooting down from the skyhole above—casting the lush space in devastating detail.
I pause, heart in my throat, hand slipping from the hilt of my blade.
The space reminds me of the cavern that held Kaan’s pieced-together moon, bearing the same embossed walls boasting a passionate clash of Moonplumes and Sabersythes.
But it doesn’t house a moon.
It houses a massive circular pallet pressed against the wall, softened by a spread of white sheets so fine it’s no wonder they’ve disintegrated in places, the pallet picked apart in others like gaping wounds spewing feathers that eddy with Clode’s giggling tune. A sound that echoes with another giggle that seems to rise from beneath the depths of my icy lake …
A vision strikes like a blow to my brain. My heart.
My soul—
Me, crawling across this pallet—naked.
Laughing.