Page 79 of Wings of Starlight

Elvina,she thought. Her tone was guarded but held nowhere near the hostility she’d lobbed at him earlier this evening.

Clarion cracked open her eyes, just barely, to stare up at the candlelight thrown onto the ceiling. It wavered hypnotically as the flame danced atop the wick. How strange, to be shrouded in such complete darkness. Her wings were as transparent as darkened glass. Only the faintest motes of starlight glittered within them.

“I needed to know if she’ll be all right,” Milori replied, his voice hoarse.

Elvina made a sound, somewhere between admiration and disbelief. “You must leave now. Return to Winter before it’s too late.”

Neither of them spoke. For a moment, Clarion believed they had been nothing but figments her addled mind had conjured, now vanished.

But then, Elvina said, “Thank you.”

She did not need to clarify.

“She’d do the same for me,” Milori said.

Clarion scrabbled to cling to those words. But darkness crept in at the corners of her vision. The last thing she heard before she slipped under again was:

“She’s worth protecting.”

When Clarion awoke, the soft glow of lanterns filled the private recovery room with warm light, shining on the vials and jars lining the shelves. The skies outside her window were striated with bands of deep blue and orange as the sun peered out from the horizon line.

I’m alive,she thought hazily.

She’d lived to see daybreak after all.

Even beneath the covers, the cold lingered below her skin and coiled around her heart. Experimentally, she curled her fingers. Still attached, mercifully. Nothing had been lost to frostbite. She peeled back the blanket and breathed a sigh of relief to see her wings twinkling faintly in the predawn dark. The whorls of gold threaded through them had returned, even though the radiance they emitted had dimmed.

When she rolled onto her side, her gaze snagged on the cloak draped over the bedside chair.

Milori.

The very thought of him was an icicle lanced through her heart. When she closed her eyes, burned there was the memory of his wings wilting as they dripped onto the floorboards of the clinic. The devotion and agony knotted together in his voice when he told her,I can’t lose you.

Maybe Elvina was right.

If she cared for no one, if she’d kept herself removed as she ought, none of this would have happened. If Milori had left her on the border, the stars would have righted their mistake. Perhaps another star would have fallen that very night to replace her. Another fairy with golden wings, with a heart that matched her talent: one poised and practical, one who did not yearn for things she couldn’t have.

Instead, he’d ensured Pixie Hollow would have her, in all her imperfections, for the entirety of her long life. She wanted to scream. She wanted to swipe the vials from the shelves and listen to them shatter. She wanted to turn back time—to do everything in her power to save him from his own selflessness.

How could he have done this?

No, how couldshehave done this? If anyone was to blame for this, it was her alone. She’d been selfish enough to pull him into her orbit. A queen was not meant to live among her subjects. She could not mingle and embroil them in things beyond the scope of their talents. She had always been destined to be alone.

It was time she stopped fighting it.

“Clarion.”

She startled, blinking hard at the sound of her name. In her disorientation, it took her a moment to process that the room had brightened. Late-morning sunlight poured through the window, softened as it filtered through the leaves, and bathed her face gently in its warmth.

She must have fallen asleep again.

Blearily, she touched her cheek. Tears had dried on her skin, stinging her face with salt. She swiped at them with the back of her wrist. As her vision adjusted to the daylight, Elvina came into focus. She sat in the bedside chair with a deep exhaustion written into every line of her face. A pang of guilt dropped into Clarion’s stomach. Had she kept vigil over her all night?

“You’re awake,” Elvina said, her voice thick with relief. “Thank the stars.”

Clarion propped herself up on her pillows. “Where are Petra and Artemis?”

A small smile tugged at the corner of Elvina’s lips, as though she had expected such a question. It faded just as quickly as it arose, replaced with a queenly mask—the one she reserved for relaying bad news with calm detachment. “They’re both here. I saw the warden briefly before he left for Winter. He asked us to send healers to the border to collect them.”