I set it aside and lift the puddle of silken fabric, revealing a gown unlike anything I’ve ever seen—all strips of draped material clamped in places with diamond brooches. Beneath the garment, I find a pair of crystal-encrusted slippers to match, as well as a corked bottle of sun-shielding poultice. The same sort I purchased from a store many slumbers ago when I realized bathing naked in the spring was a recipe for chapped skin and fevered sleep.
The final thing in the basket is an elaborate fold of parchment I side-eye like it’s going to leap out and bite me.
Cutting another glance toward the city, I pull out the note and unpleat the folds.
Kaan’s málmr tumbles into my lap, and my heart drops into my belly.
For a long moment, I stare at the beautiful pendant before finally taking in the note.
My eyes squeeze shut as I pluck the málmr from my lap and hold it tight, a quiet trepidation thrumming through me.
There’s a weight to the note that’s threaded between those three small words. A weight in the mask. The gown.
This málmr which speaks of an us that existed long ago.
I think he’s asking me to pretend. To let down my walls and open my heart to him for this special occasion.
I draw my lungs full of sweet, smoky air and cast my stare across the city, a certainty settling within me. An energy ripe to pop.
To deflate.
This is it. The pin that’s finally going to burst the bubble of imagination I’ve lost myself in. Found myself in, if I’m honest with myself.
Not that it changes anything.
But what a spectacular way to go out? A goodbye fit for everything we used to be. The quiet acknowledgment I now see that I owe … us.
Him.
Before I erase it all.
This aurora fall, there was no carving, no meal. Just a half-folded parchment lark and a strange rusted key.
I folded the final activation line, and the lark took flight, soaring down the stairs that led to Slátra’s hutch, then taking to the back where it flapped down a shadowed tunnel I hadn’t noticed before. I followed it for a long way, the key opening a different door that shot out on the pebbled shore that cradles the glistening turquoise Loff that was ruffled by an approaching storm.
That poor lark … It was getting too soggy, struggling to maintain flight, so I cupped it in my hands, cradling the frantic thing like a caged sowmoth.
I tried to discern its desired direction based on the way it nudged against my fingers—weaving a crooked, confusing path through the jungle.
I began to get nervous, wondering if it was an ambush. If someone wanted to slaughter me to steal the Aether Stone, thinking it some priceless treasure and not the soul-sapping curse it is. But then I came to a dwelling carved into the cliff. A home so hidden away from the world that I suspect it would be impossible for anyone else to find.
Kaan was inside, sitting at a stone table he’d set for us, the air flush with the smell of colk and canit root stew.
He told me this place was his gift to me but that he didn’t have to come with it. That one word from me and he’d step out into the jungle and never return.
I was upon him before the sentence fully left his lips.
He’s fire and brimstone. I’m shattered ice. Our collision is steam and destruction, destined to dissipate, but I’ll gladly burn beneath him until the world comes crumbling down.
There’s a familiar male leaning against the stone wall with his back to me, a blaze of rebellious locks dashed around his shoulders.
“You look like you were dragged backward through a bush,” I say, striding toward Pyrok, the gifted mask upon my face like an elegant shield.
He spins, flashing me a teeth-glinting smile. “All part of my charm. Females love it. They tug on it like reins.”
“This one won’t be.”
His eyes widen. “Fucking hope not. I quite like my head. And my cock. And living.”
Clearing my throat, I pretend I don’t know exactly what he means, taking in the red leather tunic cut to emphasize his broad chest. The top half of his face is hidden behind a mask fashioned from the orange and red down feathers of a Moltenmaw, and he’s even replaced his piercings with ruddy ones to match. “So. Guessing you’re my escort?”
“Strictly platonic.”
“If you had more platonic relationships, perhaps your hair wouldn’t look like a bird’s nest.”
He smiles, digging his fingers into a small sack of something lumped in his hand. “Nice to see the hushling didn’t suck out your brain through your nostrils.”
“Shocking, I know.” I pause before the wall and set my slippers on the ground so I can readjust the material draped across my bust, making sure it’s keeping me well contained. “Who finger painted the warnings on the wall?”