Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(33)

“You loved Garen?” I asked, my voice weak. “You were intimate with him?

“Only once, the night of the midwinter festival. But you know what the truth is, Asra? I never loved either of you.” Never once had her voice sounded so cold or cruel. “You were both supposed to help me become an elder, and instead both of you ruined that for me. If I live a thousand years I will never, ever forgive you.” She turned and ran, then leaped into the air, her transformation almost instant. The white dragon screamed, something between a keen and a roar, then a burst of flame erupted from her jaws, blindingly bright even against the afternoon sky.

I cowered behind the boulders, waiting for the flames to hit, sure she was about to destroy me, but nothing came. I opened my eyes a few breaths later as she vanished into the clouds, carrying the shredded remains of my heart.





CHAPTER 14


I STARED AFTER INA, CHOKING ON MY OWN TEARS AND a rising tide of anger. Never had I thought she could betray me this deeply. It would have broken my heart if she had told me the truth when she first came up from the village, but not like this—not the kind of heartbreak my body couldn’t contain. She had seduced me already knowing Garen’s baby was growing inside her. She had played with me like a toy, like it didn’t matter that she knew she was already destined to have a family with someone else. She had left my cave after that first visit this spring and walked right back into his arms.

The thought made my stomach heave.

She was still going after the king, and now I had nothing left: no way to stop her, no home, no love, no idea who my parents were.

I had no purpose at all.

In the wake of Ina’s flight, the wind picked up again. It was even stronger this time, blinding me with dirt swept from the ground and splattering me with droplets lifted from the stream. I needed to find somewhere to take shelter until I was collected enough to return to Hal and the Tamers. After that, I could figure out what to do next.

I forced myself to my feet and kept a hand on the side of the boulder, inching my way between the two largest ones in hopes of finding some protection from the wind. Instead I discovered a stone archway leading into a cave. It had to be the Sanctum Mukira had mentioned. Surely inside I would be safe from the curse of the cliff.

Moss had filled in cracks around the mouth of the cavern, but they deepened into intricate carvings farther in. I ran my fingers over the swirling grooves. Whoever had created them had had the luxury of time. The deeper I went, the more the outside world seemed like a nightmare I didn’t have to face just yet. I used my Sight to navigate the tunnel, hoping it would be enough to see by once the entrance disappeared from view.

I needn’t have worried. At the bottom of a spiraling set of stairs carved into the floor, the path opened into a breathtaking room with archways leading into others. I looked around with curiosity and wonder. Natural light streamed through windows embedded in the cliff side, the glass so clear it must have been crafted with magic. My Sight indicated that the other sides of the windows were enchanted to blend in with the face of the cliff; it would look like ordinary rock from outside.

Still, something about the space made me uneasy. The silence was thick enough to cut. I paced through the interconnected rooms. Every surface had been chiseled into something spectacular. Patterns of leaves twisted into animals so lifelike it seemed as though they might spring from the walls. Stone columns stretched from floor to ceiling, narrowing in the middle, some in the likenesses of creatures and others in the shapes of humans.

At the back of the cave closest to the entrance lay the pool Mukira had spoken of, the water an inky blue-black in the slanting light from outside. Beneath the water, old magic swirled and eddied, pulsing underground farther than my Sight could reach. I peered into the pool for only a moment, recoiling when my reflection gleamed back at me clearer than any looking glass I’d ever seen. It was hard enough to carry my sorrow inside, much less see it in my eyes.

A wave of emotion struck as I stepped back. I had tried so fiercely to hold together the pieces of my heart that had broken when Amalska burned, and I’d thought Ina was the only one who might help me stitch them back together. Now she was gone forever, leaving me with even deeper wounds—ones she’d salted well.

I slumped against a wall and hugged my knees to my chest as my throat tightened and tears spilled over again.

A baby. How could she not tell me she was going to have a baby? It changed everything. Her lie of omission made me question everything we’d ever had. Had I ever meant anything to her, or was the love we had no more than a fleeting summer romance? When she came to see me at winter’s end, had it truly been for the village and because she missed me, or had she been using me all along? I never should have used my gift to help her. I never would have if I’d known it would turn out like this.

I sobbed into the folds of my cloak. What would I do now?

My grief swallowed me so completely that I failed to notice the breezes eddying through the cave with increasing strength until a gust hit me so hard my head smacked against the wall. I coughed and wiped my eyes, looking around in confusion for the source of the wind. When the stars cleared from my vision, a man was shuffling toward me, still partially obscured in the shadows.

“You trespass,” his voice hissed through the cave. The chill in the words cut through me like jagged edges of broken ice.

He came into the light at a deliberate pace, his tattered robes rippling in the wind that swirled around him. In my Sight he glowed bright as a demigod, but dark tendrils laced through his aura like some kind of rot. What little hair he had left was white as fresh snow, his face lined with centuries of age. He hissed at me again in an inhuman way that froze me to the core.