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Chapter Fifteen: Between
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Ilyria looked closer at the shimmering feather in Thassa’s hand. It was at once like water and like mist, pale and dark. She felt that if she looked at it long enough, it could transport her away, perhaps even to Zarmej.
When she looked up, Thassa was watching her.
“It is from the Lightning Bird,” he said, confirming her fear.
“But you said it was from Vatra,” said Ilyria. He had made a mistake, surely?
“The place of fire, Vatra, it is the home of the Lightning Bird.”
“No,” she said. After all, she had seen his aerie, across the desert sands, a place of clouds and silence. Not fire. “That cannot be.”
“Whatever you have seen, Ilyria, it was what he—it—wants you to see. The Lightning Bird cannot stay long here. Whenever it retreats, it is to Vatra. That is where the companions are. I am sure of it.”
Ilyria grasped for a meaning but all that she could come up with was what she knew Thassa was thinking—the Lightning Bird had had a
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Ilyria froze. It could not be. Surely this was not her mother? The exquisite Daria Agrio? Ruin of souls. Torment of men and women. The old woman reached out a hand for the wall to steady herself. She looked up and Daria saw her eyes were pale and glassy. She seemed drugged, ill, dying even. She did not see Ilyria, or anything at all. Yet the lines of Daria’s beautiful face were still there, stark beneath the withered flesh but still recognizable. What had Dirk done to her mother? Say something, she told herself. This is your mother. But the nausea had returned, and she found herself unable to hold onto her thoughts. Something about a mother. Whose mother? My mother, this is my mother. Ilyria clutched the map to her chest as if it might still hold some of the protective magic from her father’s chambers. And maybe it did, because her head cleared a little. Her mother opened her mouth and Ilyria saw that all her pretty white teeth were gone, leaving only
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