Nina Redfeather's Arc

Chapter 7 of 12

For a week Nina walked between her two prisons. She fed the fire bird golden apples in the cold store. She told the shadow demon to stay by the shed. Both grew restless. Both watched her with hungry eyes. She could not keep this up. So one gray morning she asked each of them one question. "What do you want?" The demon answered first. Umbral Nightshade peeled off the shed wall and stood in the snow. He was smaller than Nina had expected, no taller than her, with two white eyes burning in a black face. He had refused to leave her side ever since she tried to banish him. His grin never fell. "Free," he said. His voice was smoke. "Let me go. I want to be free." Nina crossed the trees to the store and asked the bird. The fire bird spread its wings against the dark wall. Flames rose along each feather. Its blue eyes met hers, older than fire. It did not speak in words, but she heard it anyway, deep in her chest. "A home. I want a home." Nina stood between the two places and understood. She had been holding them like prisoners. That was the trap. In her dreams the shadow had always pointed one way. Not at the hut. Not at her town. Past both, toward the mountains. She had followed its finger halfway and then stopped. Now she knew where it led. She took the apple basket from the shelf. She coaxed the fire bird out through the broken board. It hopped into the snow, wings tucked, glowing. Then she walked back and stood before the demon. "Come," she said. "Both of you. I'm done keeping you." The demon slid behind her like spilled ink. The bird flew low above the trees, hissing whenever its shadow fell near Umbral Nightshade. Nina kept them apart with her own body, one hand out to each side. They climbed through the woods all day. Snow soaked her boots. The apples dwindled in the basket. At dusk the trees opened. Before them rose a great stone mountain, its peak white with snow. A river poured out from a dark mouth at its base. The fire bird screamed, not in rage but in longing. It beat its wings and rose toward the high rocks. The demon shivered and pulled at the edge of Nina's shadow, straining toward the dark cave. Nina dropped the empty basket. "Go," she said. "Both of you. Go home." The bird climbed to the peak and settled there, a spark of orange on the snow. But the demon did not leave. He slid back to her heel and held fast. "Not yet," he said. "They are the same place, girl. Fire above. Dark below. And they want you to open the door between them." Nina stared at the mountain. She had freed nothing. She had only brought both creatures to the one spot where they belonged together, and now she stood at the door they needed her to open.