In order to save the world from eternal night, Red must find a way to unlock the dormant power of the Sun Goddess running through her veins without killing herself and everyone she loves.
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The next day and night passed uneventfully, a long, slow trudge through ash and mud, while everyone checked their patience over my flagging pace. I'd been bedridden by a weak heart most of my life, and I was not used to trekking long distances, much less trekking up a hill that only seemed to grow steeper with every step.
Eventually the black land gave way to the forest, though none of its usual haunts dared to cross our strange party of five. We reeked of danger. Birds lost their voices when we passed, and all the game burrowed out of sight and held their breath.
It was clever, but it didn't stop Eddy from flushing them out and gobbling them whole. I tried to pretend their cracking spines were just hard candies giving way to the filly's teeth.
Of a night, I practiced meditating with Gretchen, who claimed it was a vital skill to hone before tackling magic of any kind. "Your concentration must not waver," she said, when my attention drifted to the woods again. Sebastian was taking longer than I'd expected to hunt our evening meal. "One stray thought could change your spell of healing to one of harm. You would not make a surgeon of a man with shaking hands."
I scowled, wrenching my gaze back to the fire. It was oddly mesmerising, the way it flickered and danced, like a thing alive.
As with most things alive, it was prone to jeering at me. Rana claimed that Rya's Blessed could walk through fire unscathed, but all I felt was prickling pain when I held out my hands to the flame, the heat so intense it started registering as cold. All I felt when I looked into its wild heart was inadequate.
When Sebastian returned, a bloodied deer carcass in tow, Gretchen seemed to realise it was time to throw in the towel. "We'll try again tomorrow," she said, but her forced kindness did not entirely mask the frustration in her tone. "Get some rest."
I wanted to help prep the meal, to be useful in some way, but she waved me away, claiming the salad would make itself, and she and Sebastian would make quick work of gutting and cleaning the corpse. Sebastian shrugged, which was practically a declaration of approval from the reticent man, and I had no choice but to step aside. Just as I had at the Blood Moon village, when my heart was too weak to handle the work.
Useless, chimed that old, ugly voice in the back of my head. It was so tempting to believe that I offered nothing to this group, that I was only slowing them down. Logically I knew that I was their only hope -- the only one who'd wielded Rya's Blessing in decades and lived to tell the tale, the only one who stood a chance of bringing Rana's brother home -- but it was still tough medicine to swallow after years of being told I was a burden.
Then put yourself to use, I thought ruthlessly, gritting my teeth and brushing the dirt from my palms. Turning my back on the lycan and the witch, I sought the company of our resident wyvern instead. Rana was still wearing her full suit of armour, though she'd taken off the helmet halfway through the exercises she was cycling through with Morgana's Fury. I lingered by the trunk of a shady oak, watching in wide-eyed awe as she wended her way through athletic feats with the ease of a stream bending around a fallen branch. The only sign of her efforts was a slight sheen of sweat on her brow.
