Page 18 of Wings of Starlight

He nodded, then turned his attention to the glade below. A few brave fast-flyers had stayed, trying to corral the beast away from their friends. They dodged and wove through its shadowy coils, pelting it with whatever they could get their hands on. This time, Rowan did not hesitate. He dove from the knoll, his wings snapping wide.

“Distract it,” he shouted. “I’ll move the wounded to safety.”

Clarion could not tear her eyes away from the handful of fast-flyers. They sliced through the air in wild streaks and flurries of pixie dust. With the beast distracted, Rowan landed and lifted one of the downed fairies into his arms. Just as he began carrying her toward the tree line, the monster rounded on him. Venom dripped from its bared fangs.

No.Clarion saw the moment he turned—and realized what was about to happen. Every second stretched into an eternity. On instinct, her hand shot out. As if she could reach him from this distance. As if she could do a thing. But fear had kindled a spark within her that tore through her like wildfire. She knew that feeling.

Magic.

She gasped as the golden light of her power flared at the center of her palm and launched itself at the beast. Her surprise had made her aim terrible, but the serpent reared back as if burned.

For a moment, Clarion could only stare down at her own hand in dumbstruck wonder. Magic still glimmered like stardust in her palm. It bathed her in its golden light and set Artemis’s wide-open eyes aglow. How had she…? No. Right now, it didn’t matter how she had done it—only that she could do it again. Scouts were on the way, but they wouldn’t be here in time. Besides, arrows had not done a thing against that monster.

But maybe magic would.

She had promised to be good. She had promised to be safe. But if it meant saving lives…“Please forgive me, Artemis.”

When Clarion took flight, she heard only the faint cry of “Your Highness! Wait!”

By the time she glided down, planting herself between the serpent and Rowan, it had reoriented itself. Where her magic had singed it, its flesh—if it could be called flesh at all—had begun sloughing off in gouts of black liquid.

Up close, it was even more horrifying than it had been at a distance. The nearness of it filled her skull with a droning buzz of fear. And then, it turned the full brunt of its gaze on her. Her mind went entirely blank. Her every muscle seized with some instinctual fear. She forced herself to lift her hands, but they were trembling. Her magic had never felt so far away. But now, of all times, she had to be perfect.

Control,she thought, through the rabbit scream of terror her thoughts had become.Focus.

Her magic sputtered weakly in her palm. The serpent poised itself to strike, its jaw hinging wide. In that moment, the stranglehold she’d exerted on her magic loosened. Two thoughts occurred to her at once.I am going to die.And, stronger yet:If you want to hurt them, you will have to go through me.

It was the second one that filled her, strangely, with serenity. Golden light poured from her. It flared brighter than the sun, cutting through the low-hanging mist in the clearing.

Then, something knocked Clarion to the ground.

She went sprawling, kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake. A heavy weight settled over her. When the spots cleared from her vision, Clarion was staring up at Artemis, her face streaked with dirt and wild with panic. She could hear nothing over the ringing in her ears and the sound of their ragged breathing. Motes of starlight still glimmered in the air when her vision cleared, drifting like snowflakes on the other side of the border.

But when she dared to lift herself onto one elbow, she saw nothing left of the serpent but a wisp of darkness, slithering frantically back into the shadow of the woods. Venom spattered the earth where Clarion had been standing just a moment before.

Artemis had saved her.

Her relief did not last long, however. Her gaze snagged on Rowan, lying very still amidst the scattered autumn leaves. They reminded her too much of blood.

“Minister!”

She scrabbled to her feet and flew to him. He did not stir at her approach, but his chest rose and fell.Alive.Clarion nearly wept with relief. She knelt at his side and shook him. His expression contorted—not with pain, exactly, but…fear? His eyes flickered behind their closed lids. It almost looked as though he was having a nightmare.

She shook him again, more frantically. “Wake up.”

He made no reply.

Clarion’s breaths came heavier. What was happening? Slowly, she stood and surveyed the wreckage around her. All of the fairies’ careful preparations were upended. Unconscious fairies lay in the clearing, a few letting out choked sobs as they slept. Panic rose within her. She fluttered to the next fairy beside Rowan and shook her. “Wake up.”

Nothing.

She fluttered to the next and the next and the next. None of them stirred.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

“Wake up,” she whispered to herself. “Please, please. Wake up.”

By the time she attempted to rouse a sixth from her slumber, a hand landed heavily on her shoulder.