Sunkissed Feathers & Severed Ties

by Kellie Doherty

  “All right,” Dylori replied slowly. She crossed her legs and leaned forward, lips settling into a frown. “What do you need to tell me about them?”

  A wave of nausea hit Misti, and she wanted to run away instead of doing this, telling Dylori the truth. How could I have let it go on for so long? Her muscles tensed, and she rubbed the back of her neck to give her hands something to do. Glancing at Arias, who gave her an encouraging nod, Misti tried again. Bluntness had worked well the night before.

  “My parents are sun goddess worshipers,” Misti’s words slipped over each other in their haste. A bubble of nerves seemed to burst inside her when she said it, spreading cold tendrils out to the tips of her fingers and toes. In response, the pendant pulsed, pushing warmth through her chest. Oh no. Not now. She drew the power into herself, just like before, and relief spread through her until she saw the look of horror on Dylori’s face. At first she thought it was because of the pendant. That they could somehow see what it was doing.

  Dylori spit her words out like poison, stinging with each syllable. “Ponuriah’s ass, Misti!” she yelled. “How long have you known? Wait, I don’t really care how long you’ve known. Why haven’t you ever told me?”

  “I didn’t want to tell anyone.” Misti stepped back, as if the extra space would protect her from Dylori’s rage. Tears sprang to her eyes, blurring her vision. “I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone, because then my parents would go to jail and…and…”

  “They should go to jail!” Dylori pushed herself off the ground. Her dark eyes glinted with fury, and a deep orange blush tinted the very tips of her ears. “They’re sun goddess worshippers, Misti! What else could we do with them?”

  “Misti was afraid they’d face the Aluriahian Law and be punished to its full extent,” Arias said, standing.

  “The…full extent?” Dylori’s gaze swung back and forth between them. She finally landed on Misti, face contorting into a scowl, but hurt shimmered in her eyes. “What did they do to deserve death?”

  Misti had never seen Dylori so angry, so hurt, and it made her heart ache. But she knew she owed Dylori the whole truth. “They performed rituals on animals, killed them for the sun goddess to be closer to her, to honor her, killed their own vulnixes. They even tried to do it to Zora before I took her away and ran.”

  “They…rituals…their…” Dylori grabbed her horns and turned away, stalking a circle around Dis and kicking up sand as she did. “They killed their own companion animals?” she finally cried out before turning on Misti, shoving a finger against her chest. “How could you let them do that? Were you raised as a sun goddess worshipper?”

  Misti was stunned into silence. Dylori actually thinks I could do something so horrible? Her heart cracked right down the middle, and her throat tightened so that she couldn’t speak. Helplessly, she looked to Arias.

  “She was young when she found out, Dylori. A child, really.” Arias gently guided Dylori’s hand away from Misti. “She couldn’t do anything about it.”

  But it felt wrong to have Arias tell her story. She had to make Dylori see, to understand what she had gone through. “They swore me to secrecy, said they’d kill Char and Danill’s vulnixes if I told anyone. That they’d kill Zora if I told anyone.” Tears ran down her cheeks in hot rivers. She hadn’t even told Arias this part. But facing Dylori, the words tumbled out. “When the time came that I could finally leave my parents’ house without rousing suspicion, I ran. I took Zora and I left my siblings behind and I ran away. I was a coward.”

  “You did what you thought was best at the time,” Arias replied, putting her hand on Misti’s arm.

  The pendant throbbed again and Misti drew the searing-hot power in, feeling the wave of tiredness seep through her, the frustration and anger rising. The orb hadn’t pulsed this quickly before and made her worry, but she nudged those feelings away and tried to focus on Dylori.

  “I’m sorry for lying to you, Dylori. Just like I was a coward for running away, I was a coward for not telling you the truth. And I’m sorry.”

  “I…I can’t believe it,” Dylori muttered. It seemed like all of the anger had dissipated from her, but she didn’t look at Misti. She stared at Arias, eyes shimmering with tears now. “And you knew?”

  “Just since last night,” Arias replied gently, squeezing Misti’s arm then stepping back, giving Misti and Dylori more space. “Not before.”

  Dylori’s lip quivered and the tears spilled over, coursing down her cheeks. She swiped at them with the back of her hand, gave Misti another furious glare, and then turned away. She ordered Dis up with a sharp command, and then stalked into the salttrees, not quite disappearing from view but clearly distancing herself. Dis gave them both a sad stare before following after her.

  Misti hugged herself, fearing that if she didn’t her trembling would shake her apart. How could I have lied to Dylori for so long? She’d be lucky to have her come back as her friend, to say nothing of a lover. Anything down that road seemed long gone, trampled under the weight of her betrayal. She felt terrible, and not just for lying to Dylori. The pendant’s effects seemed to have intensified since the last time she had absorbed the power. Sick to her stomach and tired, Misti’s head began to throb.

  Zora fluttered over and landed on her shoulders, nudging Misti’s cheek. What if the pendant lashed out now? But Misti couldn’t bring herself to push Zora away, desperately needing the comfort she provided. She stroked Zora’s tails and nudged her face against her vulnix’s. The familiar scent of fresh air and dust filled her senses. A sense of calmness came, too, as it always did when Zora was close by.

  Arias had quietly watched Dylori and Dis shuffle away, but now she turned to face Misti. “Well, that could’ve gone better, but it could have gone worse. She didn’t turn around and go back to the Moon Knights, anyway. We should give her some time to process things and then continue on.”

  “Yes, we should. I absorbed two pulses during that conversation alone, and I don’t think it’s sitting well with me,” Misti muttered.

  Arias’ gaze flitted down to the pendant then back up to Misti’s face. Worry clouded her pale-green eyes. “You should sit down then. I’ll make you something to soothe your stomach.”

  After a short rest and a few cups of herbal tea, Misti felt well enough to move. She kept her eyes on the salttrees, watching Dylori go from stalking back and forth to looking at the sky to finally sitting down facing Dis, eyes glowing orange. She was talking to him, maybe discussing what to do. Nerves ate Misti. What will Dylori say when she came back to them? What will I say?

  When Arias went over to say they were ready to leave, Dylori and Dis shuffled back. Dis even allowed them to ride him, though he seemed a bit more subdued than usual and Dylori walked ahead of them. But when Misti scratched his back in thanks, he gave her a small shake in return, huffing a little. It seemed he considered her a friend.

  They rode and walked for a long while, mostly in silence, with Arias commenting every once in a while on an unusual flower or the fact that the salttrees were now far behind them now that they skirted the edge of immense woods of Dara Grove. Many different trees now towered on their righthand side—darkwood, fyrewid, makka, and others Misti didn’t recognize. The Dara Grove Nemora didn’t come out to meet them, for they were shy folk who liked to keep to the treetops if they weren’t needed. Misti enjoyed craning her neck to look at the trees, to hear the familiar rustle through the leaves, to smell the fresh scents of sap and bark and dirt.

  Misti gasped. She had spotted an yruni, a narrow tree with purple berries growing on its trunk like bark. Rushing over to it, she left a small wedge of cheese at the base of the yruni as a thank you to the Nemora who tended it, and then plucked a handful of the sweet berries off the tree, revealing the shiny white inner bark underneath. Yruni berries were a rare treat up north, and she couldn’t wait to share them with her siblings.

  A soft croak caught her attention. Just behind the tree, a tiny pip lolled to one side, its gre
en and brown bulbous body all but limp against the roots and its eight legs curled underneath it. Misti crouched down next to it, lifting it gently in the palm of her hand and staring into its glazed-over white eyes. A gash ran down its side. It was blind and elderly, by the looks of the many brown stripes running down its slimy belly. Her friends called to her, but Misti dipped into her crafting, found its broken rib, and healed it. She couldn’t fix the blindness, as she discovered that was a defect of the pip’s birth, but the female pip sent gratitude over their connection at her attempt anyway. Grinning, Misti set the pip down and watched as she hopped away, croaking.

  They stopped to rest once the sun had fully set. The woods were quiet tonight, and moonlight drifted through the treetops, ribbons of pale light in the darkness. Her gaze shifted from the forest to her friends sleeping nearby to Zora curled up under the daygem. Her vulnix looked peaceful, and a calm spread through Misti.

  Misti needed this downtime. She had offered to take first watch mainly to be by herself for a little while. This area was a resting place on the edge of the Grove, a sanctuary marked by the dagger embedded in the tree and the glowing ruins surrounding it. It was murmured that a traveler had once entered these woods and, unknowing the Nemora laws, buried a dagger deep into a byriuu tree when they stopped to rest. The Nemora didn’t take too kindly to the traveler harming the tree unnecessarily but crafted the protective ruins around the dagger and left it in place, forming a safe place for travelers to rest. No evil could pass through this section of their woods.

  Misti had hung a daygem off it, and even though Arias had since fallen asleep, she hadn’t deactivated the daygem. The soft white glow illuminated the darkness, washing over Zora’s fur and feathers, dappling yellow flowers, brightening the vibrant red canopy around them.

  Zora cracked her bright-orange eye open and flicked one of her ears. I know, I know, get back to work. Misti smiled and turned to the dark forest once more. She ran her fingers over the dagger in her lap, hoping she wouldn’t need to use it. The forest seemed quiet. Maybe too quiet? Stray leaves fell to the ground, catching the moonlight or the ruins or the daygem’s glow and flashing bright red, and a shiver traced its way down Misti’s spine. The leaves almost looked like eyes. Come on, girl, don’t panic. Nothing evil can pass through here. We’re safe. Nothing happened for the rest of her watch, but unease had worked its way into Misti’s core, tingling just under her skin.

  It took them a crescent and a half to get around the Laidly Grove, skirting by Dara Grove and wading the Elir River, and they had a crescent more to go before getting to Rok. Nerves tingled through Misti. She grew desperate looking for banished Divus, hoping to find at least one. Yes, they were nomadic, but to see none felt off to Misti. What they would do when they found a crafter, Misti hardly knew, but at this moment she didn’t care. Petty annoyances like how loud Dis was and how Dylori kept sighing and how Arias chewed overly loud pierced through her as well, but she tried her best to ignore them.

  ***

  After a few more nights had passed, she knew she couldn’t keep it up. Dylori hadn’t spoken to her since the outburst, hadn’t even really talked to Arias, either, preferring to eat and sleep by Dis. It made Misti worried and angry and hurt all at the same time, and it made those petty annoyances from before seem tenfold. Three nights and all she got was an angry silence. They hadn’t come across any banished folk, even though they were far away from the cities and the Moon Knights and guards who protected them.

  That purple Nemora had told them to try to find Blood crafters on the way down, but they hadn’t seen any Divus, banished or worshipper or otherwise, since the healers in Amiin. They hadn’t come across any suncreatures, either, and their absence concerned Misti. Logically, she knew she should be happy about the lack of threats, but it meant she had to keep containing the pendant’s power within herself to keep her friends safe. She’d absorbed three more pulses since the fight with Dylori, each one compounding the last, and now not even Arias’ special tea could stave off the sickness within her. She wanted to lash out at everybody, and finally she couldn’t take it any longer.

  “Dylori, I have something else to tell you,” Misti said, her voice tinged with annoyance. Why hasn’t the idiot spoken to me? They could fix it if they talked, and yet Dylori stubbornly stayed away.

  Dylori glared up at her from where she was walking next to Dis. “Oh really? More family secrets?” she asked with an edge that could cut steel.

  Misti bit her lip. “I fought a suncreature.” She hopped off Dis, Arias landing on the ground next to her. “And I used the pendant’s power to fight the creature. I let the pulses go outward instead of drawing them inside me.”

  “You fought a suncreature?” Dylori stopped short, an odd expression on her face. “When?”

  “A crescent ago,” Misti replied. “You four were sleeping and I had to deal with it.”

  “You did more than deal with it. You killed it!” Arias exclaimed, grabbing her shoulder and giving her a small shake. “Don’t downplay that, Misti.”

  But dread filled Misti now, knowing how Dylori would take being told such an important detail last.

  Sure enough, Dylori looked crestfallen as she stared at Arias. “You…you knew?”

  “I…I…” Arias stumbled over her words. “Only because Misti told me. It’s not like we were keeping things from you. She needed to talk and—”

  “And you went to her instead of me.” Dylori’s gaze shifted to Misti now, hurt lowering her voice.

  Suddenly Misti understood what it must feel like to be in Dylori’s position. They’d been friends for seasons, and yet this new friend knew more of Misti’s secrets than Dylori did. Seemed to hold more trust with Misti than she did. And in some horrible way, that was true. She’d gone to Arias first, chosen her over Dylori because she felt like Arias would handle the confession better. What kind of a friend am I? Anger coursed through her, fury from the pendant but exasperation at herself, too.

  Misti rushed to Dylori’s side, gripping her arm tight. “I did. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t trust you, Dylori. We’ve known each other for so long, I just didn’t know how to tell you. How to start.”

  Dylori started to move away, but then she stopped. Tears glistened in her dark eyes, and suddenly Misti’s anger left her like it had never been there in the first place. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

  “Yes,” Misti said, before she could overthink it. She glanced at Zora, who sat on Dis’ head and stared at her. Misti continued in a rush. “Zora was hurt by something or someone when I told her to deliver that letter to Char last crescent. Something erased her memory, made her really confused and panicked. I thought my parents did it, but maybe they didn’t. I’m not sure anymore.”

  Shock and confusion registered on Dylori’s face and she glanced at Zora as well. “Is she—”

  “She’s okay. Right now, she’s okay,” Misti interrupted, and even though she wasn’t quite sure why, she blurted this out: “And that yellow jaho was for my parents, because Char said they have the mayla fever and I thought I wanted to help them, but I actually don’t. They’re horrible people and they don’t deserve it. But I do want to be a better sister to my siblings and I’m not sure how to do that. I gave the herbs to you three instead.”

  “But—” Dylori said.

  “And when I killed that suncreature, I felt amazing. Happy. Elated, even, and I don’t know why. It felt good to kill it. And it felt good when the pendant killed those men back at the Moon Knight base, too.”

  “Well, that’s troubling—” Arias said.

  Misti was on a roll and she knew if she stopped now, she’d never say what she’d been wanting to say for such a long time. Her heart skipped and her chest tightened from nerves, but she kept going. “And after I killed the suncreature, I kissed you on the cheek. I kissed you, Dylori. And that felt wonderful, too, but in a completely different way. The pendant had nothing to do with the way I felt after that kiss.
”

  A dark orange blush tinted Dylori’s ears, and her eyes widened.

  Misti continued. She had to, or she never would. “I’m sorry I kissed you without your permission, but I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time and I just haven’t because I was scared. But I’m going to tell you now.” She took a deep breath, nerves stretching to the breaking point, her fingers and toes tingling, her stomach filling with firegnats. “I like you, Dylori. More than a comrade in arms probably should. Certainly more than a friend should.”

  The silence that followed seemed to stretch for an eternity. Misti waited, feeling more vulnerable than she had ever felt. Arias gave Misti a thumbs-up and silently walked around to Dis’ other side, giving them some privacy. Dylori was seemingly dumbfounded, a look of pure shock on her face. She seemed rooted there, the sunlight glittering off her armor and glinting in her dark eyes.

  Finally, Dylori moved. But she didn’t scoff or roll her eyes or back away like Misti had worried she would. Ever so slowly, her look of shock melted into a frown, and then Dylori took Misti in her arms and kissed her. The kiss seemed angry at first as Dylori’s body crushed against hers, but then it calmed. The world seemed to slow. Soften. Nothing else mattered except the salt on Dylori’s lips, the familiar scent of dirt and sweat clinging to her skin, the way her arms felt around Misti’s shoulders.

  When they broke apart, Dylori tucked a lock of hair behind Misti’s ear. “You really are a sunbaked idiot. And I’m still angry with you, by the way. I just wanted to see how it felt first.”

  Misti wanted to kiss her again, but the pendant had started to burn on her skin. She shoved Dylori away and wrapped her hands around it. The pendant throbbed once, and she contained the power, though not as easily as before. Nausea swept through her, quickly replacing the thrill of her first real kiss with Dylori, and she closed her eyes. “We should keep going.”