A Breath of Sunlight Read online

  Not wanting to intrude on his memory of Nyana any longer, Skaja set it down and watched the next one. Perhaps she should have left them alone, but her curiosity got the better of her. Besides, Calle wasn’t trying to stop her.

  In this moving image, younger Calle knelt on the ground with his arms and head resting against the arm of a chair. In the chair sat a winged woman with light hair. She couldn’t tell what the color was when only different shades of gold twisted the image into movement. Young Calle smiled, and the image shifted slightly to show that the winged woman held a baby in her arms.

  “What did you name her?” older Calle murmured beside her in sync with younger Calle’s soundless lips. Then the woman spoke, and Calle recited, “Scarlett Ebony Svera.”

  A gasp escaped her. She pointed to the sheet. “This is me?” When he nodded, she peered closer for a better look at her mother’s face, but the angle was wrong, and mostly rested on the sleeping child in Avonia’s arms.

  “If all of the sheets are there,” he said, motioning to the rest of the stack, “then I believe there might be one or two more memories of you. Or at least, you would be in them. Of course, you’re very young still.”

  She cursed her trembling fingers as she moved to the next in the stack. The last thing she wanted was to show weakness. But Calle didn’t seem to care.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when the next didn’t depict her. Rather, it showed Calle at about age fifteen sitting in a tree with another boy. Golden streams of magic escaped the boy’s flute and created detailed illusions of men battling sword against sword.

  Young Calle bit through an apple as if he were a carefree child enjoying spending time with his friend.

  “Joel,” Calle said beside her, motioning to the other boy. A smile grew across his face and chased the shadows of the earlier memory away. “Growing up, we were inseparable.”

  “I think I can count on one, maybe two hands how many friends I have,” she said, giving him a sideways glance. “How many do you have?”

  He shrugged and gave her a charming half-smile. Her stomach reacted by tying itself in knots. “I might need a few more hands to help me count.”

  “A few dozen,” she corrected, which earned her a laugh. She couldn’t help but smile.

  And then a thought struck her.

  “If I want to be released from this blood oath, would I have to appear before a council?”

  He shook his head, though the tilt of his head indicated his curiosity. “There is nothing formal about us. Our setting. Our friendship. Our history. If you want to be released, all you have to do is ask me.”

  Her mouth opened to ask, but the words halted on her tongue. This blood oath had brought them together in the first place. If she lost it now, how much more would she lose? What would happen to her future? “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said instead as she pulled out another silver sheet.

  The next memory caused her heart to stick in her throat. Calle didn’t explain it to her, and he didn’t need to. Two harpies stood in the sunshine, both with smiles on their faces. The man held a little girl above his head and repeatedly tossed her into the air while she flapped her wings.

  “My parents.” She swallowed and ran a finger over each of their wings. “They’re teaching me how to fly.”

  “Is that what they were doing?” he murmured before he pointed to the young boy perched in the tree above them, reaching out to touch her wings each time they flapped. “You never did fly. You were probably still too young.”

  “Probably...”

  The letter in her pocket burned hotter and hotter as if in tune with her emotions. Her parents had cared about her. From what it looked like, they’d loved her. Very much. They hadn’t abandoned her. Calle had told the truth.

  Without a word, she gathered up the memories and sought refuge on the bed, where the smallest sliver of a dresser gave her some privacy. In the gathering darkness, she lit the lantern on the bed side table and slowly pulled the letter from her pocket. The envelope was addressed to C.E. which must have stood for Calle Everdon. But as she unfolded the letter, the words staring back on the page knocked the air out of her.

  The opening of the letter had Scarlett crossed out and Skaja printed just above it. The paper rattled in her trembling fingers. Tears gathered in her eyes, and for a moment, she wondered if she had the strength to read it.

  She swiped the moisture away and read.

  My dearest Skaja,

  I am at a loss for words. When I’d heard of C.E.’s survival, my knees buckled. When I learned you were still alive, and he knew where you were, I felt as if I drew my first breath since you were taken from us.

  We searched for you for years. My heart shattered. It still hurts that I was not able to watch you grow up. Something absolutely precious was taken from me. From your father. Something we can never get back.

  But this wonderful news brings me so much joy, and I hope more than anything C.E. will be able to deliver this letter to you. We would like to meet you if you would allow it. Please consider writing back. It would make me the happiest person in the world.

  Your loving mother,

  Avonia

  Skaja stared at the page for seconds, minutes, hours—she wasn’t sure. When exhaustion finally bore its weight on her shoulders, she laid down on the bed and stared at the wall. Her parents wanted to meet her. But did she want to meet them? She feared they would be nothing but strangers when she longed for love and connection.

  And her father...

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. He was a man. How was she supposed to face him? The only man she felt comfortable around was Calle. The rest she preferred to meet an untimely end at the tip of her blade.

  In the lantern light, the beautiful golden swirls of each memory on the silver sheets caught her eye. Her heart grew heavy as she watched her mother smile down at her as a baby, and then as both her parents taught her to fly.

  Weight continued to pile on after she switched the silver sheet. A deep, aching, foreign desire entered her heart as she gazed at the scene of Calle and Nyana. The beauty of it. The love. It was wrong to wish it were her instead. So very wrong.

  She twisted the golden band around her finger, the one that always reminded her of Calle. No matter what way she angled the silver sheet, she couldn’t envision her own face in Nyana’s place. She and Calle were very different people. She was a valkyrie in this life, and in another life, she would have been his servant.

  She blew out the lantern and turned on her side in resignation as darkness bathed this part of the cottage. Flames still continued to flicker on the other side, popping and crackling and spreading the warm scent of hearth. Rain pattered against the roof, and she listened for small plops of rainwater hitting bowls but didn’t find any.

  When she started to turn over again, she paused. “I can feel you looking at me,” she called toward the sofa. “What do you want?”

  Calle’s voice answered back. “I’m curious. How do you sleep without crushing your wings?”

  “It’s not hard, fae prince.”

  A pause. “What is it like to fly?”

  She lifted her head, and an unexpected surge of warmth flooded her when she met his gaze. “Wouldn’t you know? I flew you out of the Pits.”

  “I don’t remember much of it.”

  Memories flashed across her mind’s eye. Calle being whipped. His bloodied back. His pale, gaunt face. How little he’d weighed when she’d picked him up. The nightmares in his eyes.

  “It’s...freedom.”

  Their conversation ended there. The long flight from her valkyrie home crashed on her, and she started drifting off far too quickly. She cradled both her ring and her mother’s letter to her heart. Very little made sense anymore. And for the first time in a while, she wasn’t sure what to do next.

  Darkness shrouded him like a thick, wool blanket. Suffocating and heavy. Shadows bounced and curled and clawed as they stalked toward him. Calle tried to outrun them, but his body refused to move. Not even a flicker of light pierced the thick shadows. No matter which way he looked, unending black pulled him into its depths.

  Dark.

  Dark.

  Dark.

  And then he was falling.

  He scrambled to find something to break his fall, but his fingers only raked across loose rocks and sand made of ebony nightmares. A scream escaped his mouth when suddenly, his throat opened up. He smashed hard into the ground.

  Dizziness climbed up his body and shook his limbs as he managed to shakily climb to his hands and knees, even though every bone in his body felt broken and bruised.

  “There you are,” a deep, chilling voice said.

  His heart leaped from his chest and wilted into dried petals as he turned his head, only to find the hard, unforgiving face of Arlo Stokes staring down at him.

  Arlo snarled menacingly. “You can never run far. You belong to me.”

  The slave master raised his whip, and it cracked so fast through the air that he couldn’t follow its movement. Another scream escaped him as it struck his back. His limbs collapsed beneath him, and before he attempted to crawl pathetically for refuge, a boot stepped on his neck and pinned him to the cold, sharp ground.

  Air refused to enter his lungs no matter how hard he tried to draw breath. A heavy weight dragged him underneath frigid waters. Cold. Dark. Hopeless—

  Calle gasped and shot up into a sitting position. He clawed at his throat to remove the boot, but instead of finding a rough leather boot, he touched soft, warm skin.

  “Shh,” Skaja soothed as she touched his hands, his face, his hair. “It was only a bad dream.”

  Her face finally came into focus in the darkness. Pinched, concerned brows. Pursed lips. Hair falling across her f
orehead.

  He shook his head, suddenly aware of the perspiration that clung to his skin. His back ached where he’d been whipped. His throat still burned for air. The slave brand on his forearm rippled with heat. “N-n-no. It w-w-wasn’t a d-d-dream.”

  “It was,” she said in a soothing tone, and for the first time since they’d met, her eyes were kind and gentle. Her fingers stroked either side of his hair. She was touching him... And not just an uncertain, awkward touch. A compassionate caring lingered in her caress, and he couldn’t help but lean into her hand.

  She stilled.

  “Please don’t stop,” he whispered.

  A pause. But then her fingers continued their exploration. Her light touch skimmed his hair, his eyebrows, his nose, his cheekbones. They hesitantly touched his earlobe before she more daringly traced the shape of his long, pointed ear.

  His heart slowed into something calmer. Something safer. The fear in his soul settled to the bottom of a clear, placid lake. The pain in his back and throat ebbed. The burn on his forearm died slowly like a waning fever.

  He breathed in Skaja’s scent of jasmine and cool midnight skies and breathed out a river of calm. She was right. It was only a dream.

  Yet, it had felt so real.

  A flash of darkness passed across his mind, and as if he once again found himself in the deep ravine of the Pits, his hands began trembling. Skaja’s gentle touch trailed from his ear, to his shoulder, down his arm, before she clasped his hand. Her touch felt so good. Like a breath of sunlight after being caged in the darkness for so long.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she murmured, and the gentle tone of her voice further coaxed him into the waters of safety. “The Pits?”

  He shook his head, even as darkness clouded his haunted expression.

  “I can handle it,” she insisted.

  “I know you can. But I can’t.” He placed his other hand on top of hers, closed his eyes, and released a long breath. “I wish I could forget.”

  They sat in the darkness for a few minutes, the safety of silence between him. He hung his head as her presence chased his shadows away. Her thumb circled the back of his hand, and as if emboldened by the way he drank it in, she picked up his left hand and smoothed the anxiety out of it as well.

  She flipped his hand over and stilled. He opened his eyes to find her staring at her stone tied around his wrist. “You still have it.”

  He nodded, silently hoping she wouldn’t release him yet. He craved her touch. He wanted more. “I followed your counsel. I squeeze it in my hand throughout the day, for hours every day. It has helped strengthen my hand considerably.”

  “Let me see.”

  Like the first time, she threaded her fingers through his, but she didn’t twist his wrist until pain misted his eyes with tears. Instead, she waited.

  The inevitable pain didn’t scare him quite as much because he found it more bearable. He squeezed her hand. Harder. Harder. Harder. Until agony rippled through his wrist. He hissed and allowed his muscles to go limp.

  “Much better,” she commented. “You may be able to improve its condition a little further.”

  When she still didn’t release him, his heart leaped to the skies and burst to life in a shower of red and white fireworks. He didn’t stop the heat of fondness from coursing through him. He didn’t want to either. Instead, he breathed it in, the heat smoldering in his lungs.

  Don’t touch her, he warned himself, afraid she might scamper off like a frightened animal if he crossed any discomforting lines.

  Though, he would never deny her if she crossed those lines first.

  Like now.

  Her finger trailed across the sun star tattoo on his wrist, visible in the approaching light of dawn.

  “This is beautiful,” she murmured. “What does it mean?”

  He watched, transfixed as she touched him. It had been so long since he’d touched another, other than embracing Cian a couple of months ago, however fleeting. He craved the contact that made him feel alive again.

  “It’s tradition for Sun Fae to cover their scars with tattoos,” he explained. “Only, we do not get to choose the tattoo, nor the accompanying color. Gold is the highest honor. Next is silver. Then bronze. All the way to black, which is disgraceful. This...” He traced a part of the star but made sure not to brush against her as he did it. “...is a word repeated over and over to form the star. It says ‘sacrifice’ in our tongue.”

  Her lips parted as if she wished to ask another question, but she quickly closed her mouth and retracted her hand. All too quickly, she stood and put distance between them. It was as if her loss of touch blew out the candle in his heart, allowing ice to climb through the cracked window.

  “Your footwork is sloppy,” she said as she crossed the room to gaze out the window. Rain no longer fell from the sky, but the gray clouds from yesterday still lingered. “Your weakness in your left hand clearly shows, as you do not do a good job at hiding it. It’s obvious you have relied far too much on your magic. Your stance is more defensive than offensive, even when you are trying to attack an inanimate object. If you were faced with more than one opponent, you would surely lose.”

  He raised his eyebrows, surprised at the sudden conversation change. “Is there anything I’m decent at?”

  “No.” A wicked smile grew across her face. “But I will teach you.”

  “Again.”

  Skaja watched as Calle’s chest rose up and down with each labored breath. Perspiration dotted every inch of his skin and soaked his shirt. Strands of his damp hair clung to his face. His eyes blazed with determination as he jumped forward and struck his sword against her two daggers. Once. Twice. Three times. The power behind each attack took her by surprise, and she braced against it by planting her feet more firmly on the ground. He was certainly much stronger than he’d been in the Pits.

  He’d been right.

  Had he been at full strength in the Pits, combined with the element of surprise he’d possessed during their first fight, he would have won the battle.

  She ducked his swing, rolled across the grass, and kicked him in the back of the knee. He stumbled in the opposite direction, and by the time he faced her again, she was already back on her feet.

  “You are relying too much on strength,” she said, both her daggers poised to attack. “Anticipate where I’ll be before I get there. Move quicker when on the offensive and widen your stance when on the defensive.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She raised an eyebrow high. He was holding back? Exactly what would the enemy be dealing with if he had no reservations at all?

  “You have no idea what I endured during training as a valkyrie. Fighting you is nothing in comparison.”

  Not giving him a chance to respond, she charged forward with both daggers. He managed to block her swing but moved too slowly and gave her the opportunity to stab him with her other dagger. The tip of the blade hovered above his belly button. He jumped backward and knocked it away with his weapon.

  “Your left side was open again,” she commented.

  He ran a hand over his face and groaned. “I don’t know how to cater to my weakness.”

  Several feet separated them as she met his eye, and then glanced toward the left side of his body. She tapped her lips with her fingers. “That’s what shields are for. But I know for a fact you can’t hold a shield. You’d be too busy dropping it all the time. Someone would kill you in your distraction.”

  He frowned, but otherwise said nothing.

  “Hypothetically...” She met his gaze again, and a sliver of warmth snaked down her spine. The fae prince was handsome. Even more so since he’d first walked out of the barber shop in Oddwaran. “If you still had your magic, what could you do with it? Could you create a shield you could hold?”

  Slowly, he nodded as if contemplating the feat. “It doesn’t have to weigh much, but as long as my magic held, so would the shield.”

  “And you could summon it at will.”

  “Except I don’t have my magic. And I’m not sure if I ever will.” The feat to restore his magic seemed hopeless.

  She attacked again. Right side, shoulder, throat.

  Block. Block. Block.

  Left side.

  Stumble. Pause.

  She tapped her lips again. “You would benefit from wearing armor on the left side of your body. But then again, you are already slow. The armor would only weigh you down.”