Night Shine Page 23

  Shine’s heart skipped, and she felt like she’d forgotten how much she’d enjoyed the sorceress’s company until that moment. She missed her.

  She licked her lips.

  The Scale crouched in front of her, balanced on the balls of their feet, and held out two shallow cups of tea, equally balanced on either of their palms. One cup was delicate ceramic, painted with waves and gilded fish; one was carved of smoky quartz so thinly and perfect it seemed to be made of sunlight.

  Shine took the ceramic, and as the sorcerer drank, so did she.

  The tea restored her confidence like magic. She blinked and finished every drop.

  The Scale tipped theirs back too, then set the quartz cup on the floor and said, “What would you have of me?”

  “Um.”

  They waited, as still as a statue but for the slow-drifting clouds in their eyes. Still crouched in perfect balance.

  Shine gathered herself and said, “I need my things back, what I was taken with. And then I need to be returned to Kirin Dark-Smile.”

  “I will see to it. But that is not what I meant, little star.”

  “What… did you mean?”

  The Scale did not answer, but waited.

  Shine thought for a moment, of stars spilling from her guts, of patience and fire balsam. She asked, “Can you tell me what I am?”

  They smiled again. “You are good. You are compassionate, clever, and loyal.”

  Shine snorted and repeated their words. “That is not what I meant, old man.”

  “Am I?”

  “Are you what? Old?”

  “A man?”

  Shame flushed her cheeks, and she felt the echoing heat in her chest. “I’m sorry.”

  “I forgive you.” They put two fingers under her chin, lifting her face. Their touch was neither cold nor hot, but both, like sunlight and a breeze.

  “It’s a balance scale,” Shine said. “Not like armor or a fish.”

  The Scale nodded. “That’s right.”

  “I’m not one thing, either,” she guessed.

  They nodded again.

  “Not demon or girl or spirit, but many things.”

  “When you named yourself, you were fully reborn. Did you know that? It rippled in the aether, and that is how they knew to look for you and how to find you.”

  Shine scowled. “Still Wind and A Dance of Stars.”

  “They are young too.”

  “What? They must be centuries old!”

  “Babies,” The Scale said, somehow both tenderly and annoyed.

  It made Shine laugh. But she sobered quickly, thinking of those other sorcerers. “They hurt me. They tried to dissect me.”

  “They don’t understand you.”

  “You didn’t need to hurt me to understand!” Agitated, Shine started to stand again, remembering the pain of cold, the drowning sensation when she’d swallowed that ocean of blood. She shuddered, bile crawling up.

  The Scale said, “I did my own experiment, when the others grew weary.”

  She scoffed.

  “You healed me,” the sorcerer said.

  Of course, Shine thought, furious. She shot to her feet. “It was a trick!” This sorcerer hadn’t been injured. They’d staged it, distracted her—delayed her! “Let me go. Give me my things and return me to Kirin. He must be out of his mind.”

  “He is, but you have some time,” The Scale said. “It has already been… five days since you were taken.”

  Gutted, Shine fell back to her knees. She covered her mouth.

  “Would you like to see him?”

  She nodded, and the sorcerer got smoothly to their feet. They wandered to the stone wall and touched one block. It rippled like water and became a window overlooking a vast valley of evergreen forest. The Scale murmured, and as the words left their lips, they became aether-sigils. Each pinged against the window with the soft ring of a bell, and the window shivered again.

  Kirin appeared, and Shine leapt to her feet.

  He was surrounded by warriors—imperial warriors in red armor with lacquered white moon chest pieces and demon-face helmets. Warriors of the Last Means. Kirin himself wore a chest piece of red scales, with two wide-bladed swords sheathed at his hips. He was arguing with Sky, whose own sword was strapped to his back over black leather armor. They both had their hair in topknots and wore gauntlets, and Shine saw warhorses and even two cannons in the crowd of warriors. Sky put a hand on Kirin’s chest to stop him from striding away, and the prince glared intensely at his bodyguard and covered Sky’s hand with his own. Shine saw the tenderness there, in public, damn them both! Then Kirin tore Sky’s hand away and stalked off.

  “Those idiots,” Shine hissed. She could see their relationship as plainly as if it were scrawled in the air with fire.

  “He wants to bring the army after you. He will attack the Living Mountains to get you back,” The Scale said.

  Shine shuddered, shaking her head in refusal. “You did this—you and the others made this mess!”

  “I wished to know your nature, Shine,” The Scale said kindly. The window faded back into plain gray granite. “A Dance of Stars and Still Wind do not understand that what you are has little to do with your bones or magma heart, your old names or old wives or what you used to say or do or be. It has everything to do with what you believe you are. What you believe is right. What you call yourself.”

  “What it feels like to be me,” Shine muttered.

  “Unicorns are preoccupied with feelings, but yes, that matters too. Feelings are closer to belief than thoughts.”

  Shine gasped. “Can you read my mind?”

  “Probably, but I did not need to. I know Esrithalan.”

  Bending over, Shine pressed her forehead to the cool stone floor. It felt good, soothing her hot skin. It felt right. She liked stone, the weight of it, the slow-growing strength of it.

  The Scale placed their hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. “You are still a mountain, Shine. You always were a mountain, even when you were only a tiny flower spirit.”

  “Lutha,” she whispered. Not a question, just the flavor of the name.

  “My friend.”

  “What did you learn about me? With your experiment?”

  They stroked Shine’s back and said, “Think of this: You began your existence as a single flower spirit, and from such a humble, small start gathered spirits to you, became a meadow, a family of flowers strong enough to become a great spirit. Eventually your roots wove into the stones of the mountain itself, and you became even more. You were strong enough that when your mountain erupted, you held on to those deep connections to life and aether, so instead of becoming a demon, you were a great demon, still able to draw upon aether. You were yourself—myriad flowers made of fire and stone and crystal. And consider this, too: I suspect that before you were even a flower, you were fire, born in the depths of that mountain, so eager to push out of the darkness you found a seedling to nurture in the cold black lava. I’ve known you in many forms, different iterations, but at your core you have been yourself. You still are. I was injured and you sought to help me, though it might’ve ruined your escape or your prince. Even when you were a demon you were too considerate to overlook a broken bird.” Something in the sorcerer’s voice tilted toward humor, and Shine lifted her head.

  The Scale smiled at her and said, “Your sorceress was a broken bird, and you gave her enough of yourself to make her more than whole—both of you were better for it.”

  “I don’t remember,” Shine whispered, wishing more than anything she could recall that moment when she decided to let the sorceress—a sixteen-year-old girl—into her mountain and give her magic.

  “Everyone can be bigger than they seem, hold more than their bodies are capable of holding. You have always chosen to grow.”

  Shine’s throat felt tight, her stomach hard with emotions. All the emotions. She squeezed her eyes closed. “How do I learn to be more again?”

  “That you have
n’t forgotten.” The Scale chuckled. “But if you need some practical advice: play with small magics before big ones. To take and give in a rhythm. Anything else is too volatile. Grow a seed.”

  Taking a deep breath, Shine nodded. She held the breath and stared into The Scale’s silver-blue eyes. The sorcerer was beautiful in an overwhelmingly perfect way, no distinguishing features to remember when she left this place. “I can do anything,” she said. “Be anything.”

  Their sky eyes widened. “Yes. You can.”

  Shine licked her lips, thinking. She could stay and blast those sorcerers who’d hurt her; she could return to the Fifth Mountain right away and heal the core, give its power back so the sorceress had no need to take hearts, get to know her old wife; she could wander the entire world and never be hungry or tired. She could discover how near to the moon she could fly. Or float in the clouds, watching stars and lives pass until she understood the patterns of life and death.

  But she wanted to go back to Kirin.

  And Sky. She wanted to tell them both what had happened to her and see Kirin through his investiture. Safely. That had been the start of this quest: rescuing the prince from the Sorceress Who Eats Girls.

  That would be the end of it too.

  A smile grew in her chest, warm and sweet, with infinite space to keep growing.

  She said, “Send me back, then.”

  The Scale held out a hand, and her mostly eaten pear appeared in it. They tossed it to her. Then they flicked their eyes again from her crown to her toes, and Shine found herself dressed in trousers and wrapped tunic, with a long vest and leather boots. Everything was shades of blue. She stood, and The Scale said, “My friend the great spirit of the First Mountain will take you,” as specks of aether lowered from the ceiling, growing into bird shapes until Shine was surrounded by a flock of silver-rainbow starlings.

  “Thank you,” she said, bowing, but her eyes were stuck on the spirits—spirit, for it was a single great spirit in many forms.

  “You are very welcome, little star,” The Scale said, and Shine lost sight of them as she was enveloped in a cocoon of starlings.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  TRAVELING WITHIN THE EMBRACE of a fluttering, chattering flock of spirit birds tickled Shine—she laughed in delight, eyes closed, giving over to the sensation of pricks and featherlight brushing wings. The magic tingled and popped and rushed like wind around her body, combing through her hair, kissing her lips and palms and the soles of her feet.

  She spread her arms like wings of her own and ruffled her fingers in their sparking aether. Her stomach dipped as they dove, and her heart burst with exhilaration when they lifted higher and higher into the sky. Shine couldn’t see anything, but she felt it; she knew the speed at which they flew and the distance to the rocks of the earth. She sensed how far to her mountain and that, if she asked, the great starling spirit would take her there, instead.

  The pear was a small, hard knot against her waist, tucked into the sash wrapping her tunic. She’d use it as soon as she was able, to tell the sorceress everything. The thought of it filled Shine with warmth.

  When the great starling spirit began to slow, Shine asked to see. The fluttering aether-wings parted for her. Dark, rolling rain-forest canopy spread below her, and valleys of wheat and redpop ready for harvest, smoke from nearby villages, and an army.

  She was grateful to have had some warning that Kirin and Sky had fallen in with the army, or the sight might’ve knocked her from the sky.

  Hundreds of warriors spread in undulating lines of red and black, camped in a decimated field of redpop. Horses, wagons, cannon everywhere, and steel glinted in the bright afternoon, off halberds and swords and moon-white shields.

  There was Kirin, a tiny figure pacing before a round red tent with a layered roof and marked at the fore with two tall poles hung with battered silver circles for the moon. With him were three warriors and Sky—easily recognizable too, for his size and his demon-kissed hair. They spoke beside what seemed to be a map spread across a plank of wood balanced on barrels. A witch sat on a camp stool, the glow of a familiar hunched on his shoulder.

  “Set me down away from the army, please,” she said to the rainbow starling spirit.

  It quickly flew her around to the south, hopefully without anyone in the camp noticing the flock of spirits in the bright sky.

  Shine thanked the great spirit when she was on her feet again, offering them a smile since they were not demons and had no use for blood. They took off, spiraling up through the trees, and Shine was alone.

  The forest breathed with birdsong and wind and the nearby chaos of the army camp.

  Perhaps she should have made a grand entrance, on the wings of the great spirit of the First Living Mountain.

  Shine leaned against a narrow hemlock tree, tilting her face to look up at the layers of fanning evergreen branches. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that she might’ve been aided by making a strong first impression on the army. She was so used to being unnoticed, even after learning that she was a mountain inside.

  Snorting at herself, she leaned away, patting the furrowed bark, and checked to feel the hard lump of the pear in her belt.

  Now that she’d made the choice, she’d see it through.

  Shine walked to the edge of the camp, studying the layout and what kinds of people besides Warriors of the Last Means attended. There were plenty. Regular soldiers, drivers and healers and cooks and servants, at least. She walked the entire perimeter before the sun set and decided she didn’t need a disguise to slip in; if challenged, Shine only had to say she was from the village down the road looking for her mother who’d come to take wash.

  But nobody challenged her. Night had fallen fully, and campfires glowed in regular rows. There was hardly a watch but for a few scouts out in the forest more interested in hunting deer than in finding enemies: this was the heart of the empire, after all. The army witches had set spirit lookouts, but they didn’t care about Shine. The one she’d encountered—a lovely long spider stringing spirit webs across the path—seemed to like her just fine. If she’d had time to spare, Shine would’ve asked how it viewed her, what it thought she was.

  She moved through the camp easily, avoiding firelight but trying not to skulk because she did belong here.

  Several times Shine overheard conversation as she skirted a gathering of warriors around a fire, but they only discussed weather and songs and people she didn’t know, until suddenly she heard the name Kirin, said in a hushed tone, and she froze in the shadow behind a small tent.

  “—we just don’t know,” one warrior was saying.

  Another said, “It isn’t for us to know.”

  “But it will hurt all of us if it’s true.”

  “You’re asking for trouble,” said a new, gruff voice.

  “Seems to me that’s what the prince is doing. Gallivanting around without priests for spiritual supervision.”

  “Quiet, Den. You’re—”

  “He needs to be home so the ritual isn’t deferred further. If it can still be done at all. He isn’t exactly behaving like—”

  “It’s loyal, the way he’s behaving,” the first warrior insisted.

  “His loyalty should be to the Moon above all, not to some girl. And Commander Sharp Star couldn’t calm him down today, but the demon-kissed could? That—”

  “Stop it. We have to trust in the Moon, and in her son.”

  Shine clenched her jaw and hurried away. Anger made her throat swell, but she knew these warriors were right. There was too much to question for them not to think of it. Kirin had been through too much, and so had the empire. His slightest misstep could spark a wildfire of doubt.

  And there he’d been, touching Sky in front of all of them and apparently making outrageous demands on behalf of an orphan.

  Thank the Queens of Heaven she’d returned before anybody said anything outright.

  Kirin’s royal tent was near the center, but more to the west. Shine knew it
by the beaten silver moons raised up on polished King-Tree wood poles. And by Sky himself sitting outside the tent at a small fire. He hunched with his elbows on his knees, the sword on his back like a single, mighty demon wing, tightly folded, and his eyes glinted with eerie blue light as he stared into the fire.

  Shine went around to the back of the tent, silently exploring the bottom and edges for a way to get in. This had been her original skill: sneaking into places she wasn’t supposed to.

  The base of the canvas tent was taut, but Shine was able to loosen a stake with slow, even pulls, just enough to peer under and see that it was dark within. Only the glow of fire through the canvas itself cast reddish light.

  She flattened herself to the earth and carefully rolled under the canvas, thinking Sky might not forgive himself when he learned Shine had accessed his prince while he sat on guard a dozen feet away.

  Shine rolled into something hard and froze, but before she could be too surprised, Kirin had crouched over her and put his hand around her throat, choking her.

  Her eyes shot open, and after a single jerk of struggle, Shine forced herself to go limp.

  Kirin held a dagger in his other hand, the blade red in the dim fire glow, and she was staring at his face so she saw the swift shock followed by naked relief blow across his expression before he dropped the dagger.

  Instead of letting her throat go, he slipped that hand under her head and pulled her up into his arms. He lowered his knees until he straddled her thighs, then hugged her impossibly tight, pressing her face to his bare chest.

  Shine put her arms around his ribs and clung to him, shaking as the surge of fear drained away like cold rain.

  “Shine,” he whispered, and then said her name again, and oh, she loved it: he’d remembered, and it sounded natural between them.

  “Hi, Kirin,” she whispered back, lips on his skin.

  Slowly they both calmed, and Kirin leaned away to look at her face. She pushed his chest gently to get him to back further off. He did, climbing to his feet and helping her, too. The tent was more than tall enough for Kirin to stand throughout most of it.