Page 192 of Death of a Mortal

“Alright.” Her voice grew stronger and more stern. “Dray was all for giving you as much time as you needed to process what happened in Ashthorn, but not me. Damn it, I need you up there.Weneed you. You’re part of this family, and frankly, none of us stand a chance without you. I know you fear becoming what she wants, what the prophecy said could happen, but Iknowyou. And I know that won’t happen. You care too much; you love too deeply. Your fire burns too damned bright for your shadows to consume you. Just…come have a meal with us and let us be there for you.”

I fiddled with the ring on my middle finger, a habit I’d grown into since…that day.

“Dray and Noxie are driving me nuts up there, worried sick over you, losing their minds. If not for your own sake, do this for our sake. For Dray’s and Noxie’s sakes.”

She reached for my hand, and the contact sent a blossom of warmth spreading through my cold fingers, her glowing blue tattoos facing me.

She looked at them, then at me, and said, “Hey, I have an idea!” Suddenly, she was very excited. “Do you trust me?”

I swallowed and gave a slight nod. I wasn’t sure I even had a voice anymore.

Still holding onto my hand, she led me up the stairs and out of the Arcanum house, where I squinted at the bright sun. As soon as we emerged from the dark house, Noxie was there, flying in our wake.

“Thought you’d turned into a vampire. Good to see you out, kid,” he said.

It was the beginning of summer now, and the weather had grown hot and sticky. It had been nearly a year since Nella and I left Briarstead.

How had it only been a year? How had it not been fifty or a hundred?

Aerie walked me to male barracks I had never been in.

“Hey, Masocae! C’mere!”

The barracks was about half full, and the males and men present each turned to look at Aerie, then me. I was immune to the uneasy stares at this point.

A burly male walked over to us, his short sleeves revealing tattoos of all colors in various patterns, shapes, pictures, and words all the way up both arms.

He eyed me for a moment before responding to Aerie. “Yeah?”

“I think Naci here might be interested in some ink. What do you say, Naci?”

I blinked in surprise, glancing between the two in front of me. I contemplated for a few moments before my eyes fell on Aerie’s tattoo for her fallen avian family.

A smile spread across my face as I spoke my first words in over a month. “I think I would like that very much.”

Aerie lifted me off my feet in a hug and spun me around in circles with the biggest grin I may have ever seen on her face. She was clearly so happy to have me speaking and functioning above ground that I couldn’t help but feel a little bad about my time in seclusion.

Masocae—I assumed a tattoo artist—looked confused but followed us out of the barracks when Aerie finally put me down. Noxie followed too.

He led us to the healer’s house and into a small room off the back where he had bottles of ink in every color and a menacing-looking tool with a needle-sharp point.

“What do you want, and where do you want it?” he asked me.

I already knew I wanted something on my forearm, close and visible to serve as a constant reminder, but I wasn’t sure what. I looked around at all his art covering the walls in the small room, thinking.

When I spied the single black flame on a card he had stuck to the wall, I recalled what Bramick had said in the throne room. “Gods…the black flame.”

I had produced black flames because of my duality—Iwasthe black flame.

I knew then exactly what I wanted on my arm, and I smiled through every sting of the needle as Masocae tattooed it on me before my eyes. The prickling pain anchored me to my body in a way I hadn’t felt since Ashthorn—sharp, present, real.

When Masocae was done, I let Aerie lead me to Drayce’s house, Noxie landing on my shoulder on the way and giving it an affectionate squeeze. He stayed there as I entered the house.

Drayce, Bramick, and Kellan were seated at the table, Drayce subtly removing his hand from where it had covered the scorch marks I’d left there so long ago in his absence.

He stood up from the table, looking from me to Aerie.

I cleared my throat. “I hear you guys are starving and miserable without me,” I said to break the palpable tension in the room.