Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(2)
I pushed through the snow to follow the face of the cliff, tracing my hand along the stone until it grew hot under my palm, and then I blew on the warmest spot until a crevice opened in the wake of my breath. Heat enveloped me as I sidestepped through the fissure into a hidden cave. A spring gurgled in the back, filling the air with haze. Weak light filtered in from holes and cracks high above, and all around me, fire flowers grew thick and wild in every color, alive with magic, the heart of every blossom a spark in the dim.
The flowers reached for me as I paced through the cave. I trod carefully so as not to crush any blossoms beneath my boots and ran my fingers gently over their petals, feeling the life pulsing in each one. My Sight allowed me as a demigod to sense the life force and magic in everything on the mountain when I chose to look. The red blossoms burned my fingers a little, and the orange and yellow blooms tickled like summer sunlight. The blue was cool to the touch as the snow outside. But I always harvested the purple first. There were the fewest of them, all clustered at the edge of the spring.
I knelt before a purple flower in full bloom and whispered a request of it, telling it of the tincture it would become if it sacrificed itself to me. I took out my silver knife and asked permission to cut it free, but it turned its sparkling face away.
I nodded in respect and turned to the next, and when I asked, it bent its stem into my hand. The touch of the purple petals against my arm made my head spin a little, helping me temporarily forget the hollow ache of loneliness deep in my stomach.
“Thank you,” I said, and sliced the stem. As soon as the stalk was cut, the spark in the center of the flower fizzled out. Even without the flame at its heart, the blossom remained more vibrant than anything that bloomed outside the cave—the purple as rich as the indigo sky just after a summer sunset. I tucked the flower into my basket and smeared a bit of balm over the severed stem.
I asked for a few blossoms of each color, harvesting them and then tucking them into the narrow wooden boxes in my satchel. I took my time, making sure all the plants were healthy and strong. A soft peace came over me with the ritual. Sometimes I felt more kinship with the fire flowers than people. Like me, these flowers lived in seclusion, hidden away from the world. To help mortals, their lives ended sooner—as would mine if I used my true gift.
After emerging from the cave, I shivered in the cooler air and whispered the crack in the mountain closed again. I should have taken advantage of the warmer weather to go to the lake for the water I needed to complete my tinctures, but I still had time. Waiting a few more days or even a week would ensure that the ice had begun to melt. Instead, I hiked back to the south. I couldn’t resist checking for signs that the path to the village had begun to clear.
Farther down the mountain, the trees grew closer together and the snow deeper in the shadows beneath them. I slogged through until I reached the vista, a rocky outcropping that ended in a cliff. Thin clouds hung in the trees like veils on either side of the valley. I froze at the tree line, caught between hope and fear.
A person stood with their back to me, looking down at the valley, waiting.
CHAPTER 2
NO ONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MAKE IT UP THE mountain so early. Last time I checked, the path had been buried in snow so thick as to make it invisible, the bridge near the waterfall still encased in ice. But one sole person might have tried to reach me, and this was where I’d told her to meet me when spring came.
“Ina?” I asked.
She turned as I emerged from the trees, pulling down the hood of an indigo cloak that fluttered around her boots in the breeze.
“Asra,” she said, her face lighting up.
Feelings that had lain dormant in me all winter rose as though they had wings.
“You’re back!” I rushed over to throw my arms around her.
We hugged and laughed breathlessly for a few moments, and when we pulled apart, I finally let myself look at her. Ina had changed since last summer. She was taller and a little more chiseled in the cheekbones, even more beautiful. The memories of her I’d held close for moons didn’t do justice to the sight of her straight nose, long flat eyebrows, and the barest hint of a cleft in her chin—the place I used to sometimes put my thumb before I pulled her in for a kiss. Her eyes were the same bottomless blue I remembered, and I never wanted to come up for air.
“Hello, you,” she said. The gentle tone of her voice made a flush rise into my cheeks.
Before I could speak, she pressed a kiss to my lips. Suddenly my insides were in my toes and my head was lost among the stars, all the words I’d saved for her through the dark nights of winter forgotten.
“I came as soon as I could,” she said. “I’ve hardly been able to think of anything else.”
“Me either,” I said, and fell into her arms again. My stomach fluttered like the wings of a butterfly. With the way she made me feel, sometimes I thought she was as magical as the fire flowers. All winter I’d been incomplete, and now I was whole. She gave me hope that I didn’t have to be alone forever, that maybe I could have a place in the community by her side now that Miriel was no longer here to forbid it.
“Why did you come so early? It can’t have been safe.” I examined her for any signs of harm, but she looked as radiant as ever.
“It was a hard winter.” She gestured to the valley.
Far below us, dozens of snow-covered A-frame rooftops poked up on either side of the river, barely visible but for the wisps of smoke rising from their chimneys. On the opposite side of the valley, where the hills were gentler than the sheer cliffs we stood upon, spots of scorched earth dotted the hillside like a disease.