Page 21 of When the Sky Burns

The woman had light grey eyes and wild white hair, like mine had been before it was glamoured brown. Earthworld magic sparkled like a halo around her, protecting her from the sprinkling of YuleMots starting to come through the veil from the Otherworld. Around me, each wagon was lit by a blazing fire, and hers was no different. Those fires could attract and then dissolve the Yuletide madness flitting about.

As I inched closer, the woman’s energy lifted the hairs on my arms, and my shoulder burned in a warning. She was probably one of the strongest witches I’d ever met. I hated the witches for their role in the Phoenix curse, so I avoided them whenever possible.

But right now I had to see what these people wanted with me, and my head was already spinning from the lack of food. So I sat on the small stool on the other side of the fire from the man and waited. Silence was always the best way to get people talking.

“I’m Morlan. That’s Patrik; he only grumbles, so ignore him. He talks to the Sky too much to say anything worth listening to.”

He snorted and continued to stir.

“He worships Skyworld?” It had been a long time since I had met a true worshiper from the temples and nunneries that were built near the Sky Towers.

She leaned closer and whispered. “He was one of the first to fall… Lost.”

I snapped my attention back to Patrik. He was once a Rider. His phoenix died and wasn’t reborn? He didn’t look Sky-crazed or Lost. Did he still have his WingMark? “But he’s… okay?” I murmured. My pulse picked up. I had never heard of a Rider being fine after their phoenix died. Was there hope for Lex? Was he somewhere and sane?

“My hearing’s still better than all yours. Some of us didn’t mind losing our birds or flock.” He tapped his forehead with one crooked finger. “We lost our memories but didn’t go mad.” He glared at Morlan. “Young’uns are all ignorant. Enough of the jabbering and sort out her look before the Master comes inspecting.”

“My brother was one… once… and he fell.” My throat tightened, and my fingers found my amulet under my dress. “I never saw him again…” I shifted so they couldn’t see my face until my eyes stopped stinging. It was just the lack of food and the residue of magic that was bringing everything to the surface.

Morlan tutted. “Give me your ankle, and I’ll change your appearance. Who do you want to be now you’re not stealing in the city?”

“But… You can just do that?” I shuffled my foot away. Ember and Thorn knew my face and my colouring, and if it were changed… But there was no other choice. The Elite Tracker Flock could track me no matter what I looked like… they would have my scent by now. But the Barren Guards couldn’t, so it was worth a shot.

“I was the one who made it.” She pointed to my ankle. “And for your cousins. Took me weeks to get the runes right. Complex work, but he did beg for it, so…”

“I don’t understand?”

“Aster. Known him all this life. That, there…” She picked up her staff and jabbed it in Patrik’s direction. “Is his uncle.”

“Don’t bring me into this, old crone. I don’t remember the boy or any of that life, and I don’t want nothing to do with it.” He ladled out the stew and walked towards us, glaring at Morlan. “Tell her why you dragged me over to the Master’s wagon and then rescued her. An Annatalian of all people! I never wanted to see my kind again, and wells you known it.”

Morlan scoffed. “Because as soon as Aster hears she’s not in that city, the sky will fall. And he’s unhinged after the mines.”

They knew where Aster was?

Patrik handed me a wooden bowl filled with stew and climbed back into the wagon.

I snapped around to Morlan. “He was in the mines. Did he get out?”

Morlan poked at the embers with the end of her staff. “I was told of the signal that you left in the city. I’ve made arrangements to get you to him. Seems safest if you go to him.” She coughed out a laugh. “I see the way your cheeks heat even with the night surrounding us. But you must be warned. He’s changed, morphed into someone else. What he went through in the prison mines … it changes everyone and everything. Even your childish love.” She raised an eyebrow at me.

How badly did they torture him? How badly was he hurt? Did he break? That’s what I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t face the images that would flood my mind of what they’d done to him. That pain would collar itself around my heart and constrict until there was nothing but a crippling, everlasting ache. I was a coward, and yet I couldn’t force the questions to come.

I shoved everything back down inside me and made myself focus on the flames engulfing the logs. Below it, embers glowed. Aster and I were like those embers. The hearth might have been long-extinguished, we might have changed, but I had to believe that it was still there. That no matter what, it was glowing steadily, waiting for a puff of air and a fresh log to ignite it once more.

Morlan’s words ran through my mind again, and I latched on to the only piece of hope I could find. “He… How did he get out?”

“Oh, that boy, he knows things about the mountains most people have forgotten. Paths long ago walked and now hidden. But that’s not my story to tell. Did you know that setting the sign meant that those of us close enough had to help you get to him if we were able? Did he tell you that?”

I shrugged instead of answering. It was a suspicion more than knowledge. Maybe it was hearing his voice on the Nomad that pushed me to it, or perhaps I feared we couldn’t escape on our own as we had thought. Or maybe I understood that fleeing Craven City meant returning home, and my home was not in Annatalia anymore—it was anywhere he was.

But when he told me to set the sign if I was ever on my way to Death’s Door, I believed it meant he would come, or it meant I could find my way to him.

She must have seen the truth written on my face, as she gave me a sad hum. “Then you should understand that he’s… not the same. Not one of us anymore. Come with us to Settlecent and be free of it all. Stay away from him. He is on a path that’ll only lead to his destruction.” She said it with her gaze lingering on me as if she were a Seer.

Shrugging, I gulped down the stew, which was warm and filled with spices.

“Do you know how Yule magic works?” Her glance slid to my ankle.