Though the shame and guilt has never left me, it’s been years since I thought of it. The curses have been a distraction from my own pain. My own emotions.
Now, I feel them all being dredged up, like a powerful current scraping the forgotten bottom of a sea and bringing everything to shore.
It’s dangerous
My feelings don’t matter. They shouldn’t.
As the Wildling walks into the room, my fists clench, thinking she is the one who started all this turmoil within me.
The Starling, Celeste, walks to the center of the hall. “My demonstration is a trial of fear. Whoever conquers their greatest fear first is the winner.”
Then, she unveils a towering mirror. Its glass seems to tremble. I’ve never seen a relic like it.
“Who would like to begin?”
A test of fear.
I take a step forward. My feelings are distractions ... and so are my fears.
I want it to tell me what I’m most afraid of, so I can kill it.
I press my palm against the mirror, and the glass ripples beneath my skin, like water. Then, it stills ...
And I fall through it.
I’m in a snowstorm. White blocks my vision. I make to create a fire, but I can’t. My powers are gone. I’m back to my Moonling training with Calder, unable to form a single ember.
Find your fire.
I try, but it’s no use. It’s not there, and it’s getting colder. I keep walking until I can’t anymore. I take one step—and I can’t move. My leg locks into place, the snow falling faster, burying me, reaching my ankle and then my calf, as if I could drown in it. I move my arm to propel me forward, and then it too locks in place.
I watch, stuck, as the blue on my skin spreads, piercing my bones, becomingice. Freezing me solid. I turn blue, until I become a statue. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t bellow. All I can do is watch as the world around me freezes—then shatters.
As the island fragments into a million pieces. As the sky falls, and the ocean rises, and everything in between is swallowed up.
And I can’t do anything to stop it.
Weak. Useless.
Just like my father foretold.
White wholly blocks my vision. My mother’s voice is in my head.Oro, it says.My golden boy. My sun. Find yourself.
Find your heart.
Your fire has never left you.
Find it.
Then I see green eyes.
I see them widen in fear. I see them narrow in anger. I see them fill with pride. I see them melt into the sea I haven’t visited in centuries, because why would I deserve to see anything beautiful? Why would the distraction be worth it?
No. Now, as my frozen heart begins to ignite, I realize it is not just a distraction. The beauty of that beach, the fierceness of her, is something greater.
That green is a beacon of hope—a world to look forward to, a world worth fighting for.
A sign of spring in the heart of winter.
