Page 58 of Mother of Death and Dawn

Sammerin’s stare settled on my left hand. “Did Ishqa know what it is? Why they want it so much?”

“He did not get the chance to tell me.”

But I needed that information desperately.

I reached into my pocket and closed my fingers around the single feather left in my pocket. Where was Ishqa right now? Was he helping to defend the village? Or did he leave it to burn while he came to find me?

The thought made it difficult to breathe.

Serel. Filias. Riasha. So many key members of rebellion leadership—so many of my friends. How many of them had been killed or captured?

I swallowed my panic.

“I can’t go back. The Fey will keep trying to find me. Hopefully they already are, now that they know I left, instead of…”

I didn’t want to give voice to my worst fears.

How much time did we have before I was found? What if the Feycouldtrack the thing on my hand, as Ishqa seemed to suspect? It took them less than twenty-four hours to get to the village. But at least here, I was alone. We were surrounded by trees. Logistically, it would be harder to reach me.

I turned to Sammerin. He was buttoning his sleeve, looking so put-together I almost hated him for it.

“You can still leave,” I said.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because half the Zorokovs’ army, and the Fey, are probably on their way here.”

He lifted one shoulder in a delicate shrug. “I have nowhere more interesting to be.”

Maybe it was selfish of me to feel so relieved. And yet, to say that I was grateful to have Sammerin with me was an understatement.

I pulled the feather from my pocket.

“Alright,” I said. “Then we walk. I call for Ishqa. And we hope he comes here with some answers before the Fey and the Zorokovs do.”

* * *

Ishqa did,thankfully, reach us before the Zorokovs did. Sunrise was encroaching upon the night by then, the sky a mingling of dusky red with remnants of dark blue. When Ishqa arrived, he cut through that beautiful sun-stained sky like a streak of light, careening through the canopy of leaves in a flash of gold. Even at his most approachable, Ishqa never quite seemed human. But now, I wondered if perhaps ancient encounters between Fey and humans inspired the stories we told of gods and monsters. Ishqa, backlit by the sun, golden wings spread, looked like a god.

He pulled his wings in, surveyed us, and said, “It was foolish of you not to run when I told you to.”

“The village,” I said. “Did you stay to help? Did they…”

How could I even word the question?

Something softened in Ishqa’s expression. “Many of your people were able to escape.”

Many. Notmost. Notall. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved.

“So long as you don’t return to them, the Fey will let them go,” he said. “You are far more important.”

Ishqa had a strange way of comforting people. He reached into his robes and placed a glass vial in my hand. “Drink.”

I blinked at the vial. It was perhaps the length of my palm, filled with a shimmery silver liquid.

“What is it?”

“It will help mask you—it—from them. Imperfectly, but we will need to settle for imperfection.”

---