Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(38)

“This will be the true test of how far you’ve come,” her trainer says, dragging her by a leash across the misted, sloping meadows. “Prepare yourself.”

His warning rings low in her ears, and she wonders at it. It’s unlike the Vultures to caution her. There’s something almost protective in this one’s voice—almost, almost familiar—but when she scans his masked face, his eyes are dark and impenetrable.

At this altitude, the sun sets late—a slow, smeared fall. He pushes her into a copse of trees, the grass dappled in black splashes of shadow like a wildcat’s back. Miniature mushrooms and tiny flowers sprout everywhere in the grass, giving her the impression of a quaint picnic scene. He hands her a long sword.

She turns as he leaves her there, watching him retreat, bright lit with the shimmering-rust sun. She has the immediate impulse to run. But surely she’d be caught, or else he wouldn’t have left her.

She clutches the sword’s hilt. Or maybe he knows. Maybe he knows she will not run. She is tethered here. Not by her magic, but by the cage of her own need: to kill Malfleur.

Then she hears something strange. She swivels back toward the trees, suddenly alert. She scans the shadows and light. Sniffling. A feeble cry. She pushes past the undergrowth, thwacking it back with her sword, and sees . . .

“Wren.”

She is tied to one of the trees. Whimpering softly.

No. Aurora’s stomach falls, and she nearly sways. No. Not Wren.

But it is Wren—the tumult of black hair, the trembling chin, the big eyes. The stubborn mouth that Aurora wants, even now, to touch. Pinned and afraid, Wren still somehow exudes pride. Her throat catches a chance of sunlight.

The birds continue their ironic chatter, their song pricking Aurora’s mind like tinny darts.

The true test.

She is supposed to kill Wren.

Prepare yourself.

No. She won’t do it. She will free her, and they will both run, and—

“Aurora,” Wren whispers. She is not looking at the long sword in Aurora’s hand, but at her face, and Aurora suddenly wonders what she must look like—with some of her hair pulled out at the side, and claw marks along her cheek and neck and collarbone. Her lip still swollen, one eye still likely black-and-blue with an old bruise. Wren’s look of horror says it all. “Don’t do this,” she says, and Aurora hears it—the fear, not just of Malfleur, or of the situation, but of her.

The birdsong above and around them grows wild, becomes a chaotic crying. In the periphery of her vision, Aurora catches movement. She turns, her body at the ready. Squints through the trees. Across the clearing, there is a spot of darkness, a tiny spark in the distance . . . coming toward them at full speed.

It takes a moment for her to make out what it is—low to the ground and gray as a thundercloud. A wolf. Snarling, with spittle flying from the sides of its mouth. Now she understands: it is her or Wren. Even if she freed the girl, the wolf would come for them, and Aurora would not be able to defend them both.

Her mind seems stuck for a moment as she stares at the wild animal getting closer and closer. She remembers the wolf in Sommeil and wonders if somehow Malfleur has conjured up her fears—or Belcoeur’s fears.

But it doesn’t matter. The wolf is coming and there’s no time and the birds are now cawing frantically and fluttering about in the branches, and Wren is weeping and begging.

Aurora looks at her again as though through warbled glass. She remembers that she might love her, but only dimly, the feeling like a blade that’s too blunt to cut.

“I have no choice,” she hears herself saying.

Wren shakes her head, writhing violently against her bindings. “Yes, you do, Aurora. You do have a choice. You can—” Fear seems to halt her voice, and she hazards a glance at the wolf, now not more than a few hundred yards away. “You can stop this. This is not who you are.”

Aurora is moving slowly—too slow. Still uncertain. She can feel the dark magic leaping in her veins. She steps toward Wren, the sword slippery in her hot hand. She kneels and begins to cut one of Wren’s hands loose. Wren lets out a sob. She shakes her arm free and reaches out to touch Aurora’s cheek, singeing her with her fingertips.

Aurora lurches back, almost falling. The touch . . . any touch, but especially this. She can’t take the intensity of it. It makes Aurora want to burn. It’s too sudden and too much, unleashing a tornado of twisting emotions she can’t possibly contain. She is terrified, suddenly—afraid of herself, of what she can do and even what she wants to do and yet doesn’t want to do. She is warring with herself on the inside and doesn’t know which side will win, and Wren’s crying and the birds’ cawing are making her unable to think. She gasps for air, tries to focus, but she’s flooded by her senses and overwhelmed and needs it to stop.

The wolf is coming closer.

Wren is still caught, half bound to the tree, struggling with her free hand to undo the knots around her other arm.

Prepare yourself.

Wren is going to escape.

Aurora is going to fail the test. The true test.

No.

Aurora pulls out the sword and feels that horrible, feverish need for death surge up in her. She is hot—burning alive—and flying forward. Metal cuts the air.

Her blade slashes the girl’s chest—striking stone.

Aurora stares, uncomprehending, at Wren’s torn dress. There is stone, actual stone, where her breastbone should be. She looks at Wren’s horrified eyes with wonder and confusion. She feels numb.