Page 13 of Her Cruel Redemption

I pursed my lips, scanning her face. ‘I think you’re better at playing politics than you realise,’ I said finally, extracting my hand. ‘Fine. I’ll come with you. At least if I die for you, you won’t be able to keep using guilt to manipulate me.’

She smiled, seeming unphased by the resentment. ‘Thank you.’

‘When do we set out on this foolhardy journey?’

She stood, dusting sand from her skirt as she did. ‘I have an audience at Song tonight. If all goes well, we’ll leave within a few days.’

‘You’re speaking at one of their meetings? Why?’

‘Because I’m going to ask them to come with us.’

Of course she was. I frowned up at her. ‘I wish you’d told me that before I agreed to go,’ I grumbled. ‘I know you like them, but I don’t see how you’re going to convince them to follow you to Oceatold. This isn’t their war.’

‘Come to Song and you’ll hear it for yourself.’

‘And climb that infernal mountain?’ I’d seen them scurrying up that impossible walkway winding round and round the limestone mountain that stretched above the clouds. I never looked too closely at any of the mountains in the Living Valley. It made me feel sick and jumpy when I did, because some of them very clearly didn’t touch the ground and I had absolutely no way to understand how or why that was possible. ‘Can’t you just practice your speech for me now?’

‘You’ll be alright. Mae will help you get to the top,’ was her only reply, and she was already walking away now. I huffed a sigh, folding my arms as I stared out over the lake, watching the sunlight ripple on the water and feeling more frustrated with my lack of progress than ever. Because now I was going to have to take my faulty magic out into the world and face whatever might be waiting for me beyond the Living Valley.

Facewhoevermight be waiting for me.

Chapter Six

The nerves fluttering in my stomach made me feel sick. I tried to focus on breathing slowly, on the cool flow of air, but I couldn’t seem to get enough of it into my lungs. How could I think I had any right to go before an entire Song Circle and ask them for help? Though, the only person who knew my intention was Rhiandra, so perhaps I could still change my mind. I could graciously accept the Elder’s decision to allow me to stay indefinitely and hide here forever. Maybe one day I’d be so entrenched in the Living Valley that I’d forget that there had ever been a life before it.

‘You’ve gone pale as cream.’ Tanathil’s warm voice snapped me out of the tangle of my thoughts, and he chaffed a hand at my back, as though he thought some warmth would stop my trembling. ‘Don’t worry, they aren’t going to revoke your right to stay. This is all just ceremony.’

‘I’m alright. Just nerves,’ I said, glancing at where he sat next to me on one of the curving tiers that formed the Song Circle, a sunken amphitheatre carved into the ground in the centre of Faerendor. His ginger hair was tied back today instead of springing wildly around his face as it usually did, and his lanky form lounged casually against the back of the tier. He wore a cream-coloured tunic he’d embroidered with twists of vines and flowers along the sleeves and the gaping neckline, which was the sort of thing he did with most of his clothes.

‘We’re all here with you, dewdrop,’ he said, smiling brightly. And they were. On his other side sat Maelyn, with Goras beside her and Daethie on the end. Elias was speaking with the Elders before the Song, so he wasn’t here. Because despite Tan’s assurance, my acceptance as one of them instead of as a visitor could be contested. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been before I returned to Lee Helse. Before I brought Rhiandra back with me.

I glanced to my other side, where she sat with her arms folded tightly, frowning around at the slowly filling amphitheatre. It hadn’t been easy getting her up here. She’d balked at the base of the mountain, glaring at the walkway curving up the limestone cliff, and the flash of fear in her dark eyes had been disconcerting. I’d expected her to face the climb with the same grim determination with which I’d seen her challenge my father’s council, or wrangle Valoric into taking the both of us on his back when I’d been injured and barely conscious. Even when she’d taken to flying with so much cursing and moaning, it hadn’t seemed like fear, more like anger at being forced to endure something so uncomfortable. I’d never considered that shecouldbe afraid.

But she had definitely been afraid on the climb, her gait faltering and hesitant, breath panting, hand sliding up the railing in a white-knuckled grip. Still, she was here, and I was grateful to her for that. Her gaze turned my way, and her frown softened slightly.

‘There’s more of them than I’d realised,’ she muttered.

‘Some come from the surrounding villages,’ I said, referring to the other floating mountains in the Living Valley. Some supported other, smaller groups of Yoxvese homes, but Faerendor was the biggest, the place they all gathered. ‘There’s a lot of riders living on Etherpeak with their wyvern, too,’ I added. If I was accepted today, if I took the hand of belonging they might offer me, I’d be allowed to join them. To live on Etherpeak with Valoric and learn the ways of the wyvern riders. I’d learned the basics of flight and communication with Goras’s help, but there was so much more to know. The bond Goras shared with Ignis was deep, instinctual. They moved like they were one body when they flew together. It wasn’t the same yet with Valoric. There was affection and cooperation, and he was patient with me as I clumsily tried to use my feet and hands to steer like he was a horse. But I knew there was more.

To leave the Living Valley meant turning my back on all that.

Below, a line of Yoxvese were mounting the platform at the centre of the amphitheatre. They weren’t marked by any decoration of their appearance, all dressed in the same simple fabrics and colours, but they carried themselves in a way that made you want to sit up straighter and check your face was clean. These were the Elders, those whose wisdom was trusted to guide their society.

Elder Meira, a tall, commanding woman with long hair an impossible shade of blue, stepped forward. The crowd quietened down with no prompting, all eyes turning to her. She placed a hand over her heart. Around me, a soft hum began to rise, one pure note spreading outwards, finding resonance deep in my chest. The trees clustered around the amphitheatre shivered, leaves rustling. A dozen violet wishlights appeared in the shadowy spaced beneath their foliage, drifting over our heads in a lazy swirl. The magic in the air prickled against my skin, rising with their voices, and beside me Rhiandra shifted in her seat. When I glanced at her, I saw the mistrust in her face.

‘What are they doing?’ she asked in a hushed voice.

‘Singing,’ I replied.

Their voices began to rise and fall, becoming not just one note but many, the melody causing the hairs on my arms to rise. Beside me, my friends had joined them, eyes closed, singing a string of what sounded like a language I didn’t understand. Perhaps it was words, but they were twined so tightly with melody, so seamless in the way they wound around each other, that it was hard to tell. I felt lighter listening to them, like my burdens of worry and guilt were lifted. Like I could just be, one girl beneath the wide-open sky, connected to and accepted by those around me, grounded by the roots of my feet against the mountain beneath me. I wanted to join them in their song. My heart ached to do so. But I didn’t know the words, didn’t have the magic to contribute. So I sat and listened with a chest full of yearning.

The song reached a breathtaking crescendo, then began to die away again, growing quieter as the shiver of magic trickled out of the air.

‘Don’t ever ask me to come to one of these again,’ Rhi said, leaning in to speak. I was surprised to see she was speaking through her teeth, gripping her skirt tightly in her fists like she was holding on through some discomfort.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, but she only shook her head. Before I could press her further, Elder Miera began to speak.

‘Warmest welcome to you all. We are fortunate to be beginning our Song with an embrace today. Some turns of the moon ago, we received our friend Gwin into our community, and many of you will know of how she has immersed herself in our way of life. Her time with us has been marked by her kindness and her open-hearted exploration of our culture. And not only that, but she has been chosen by a wyvern, and with our acceptance she can be trained in the ways of a rider.’

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