Rosalind Emberheart's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Rosalind reached the fire tribe's border by dusk on the second day. The scouts took her weapons but left the guest-knife at her hip when she said Angel Frostborne's name. They walked her through a camp of red tents and low fires to a ring of stones where Blazen Emberwing waited. He was shorter than she expected, and his hair moved like it had its own heat. Two winged reptiles curled behind him, scales bright as coals. He did not stand when she entered. "You sent a scout ahead of you," Blazen said. "He told me a love fairy queen claims fire on her father's side. I don't accept claims. Show me proof or leave with your wings burned." She unstrapped the burnt journal from her back and set it on the stone between them. The leather was scarred along every edge. A cracked shield of hardened lava marked the front, ringed by ember etchings that had eaten into the binding four hundred years ago. "My father's," she said. "He carried it out of your camp the winter your grandfather burned the eastern line. His name is on the third page." Blazen did not touch it. His scouts leaned in and pulled back at once. "A journal is paper," Blazen said. "Anyone can burn a book." Rosalind put her palm flat on the cover. She let the fire come up from her wrist the way she had trained herself not to for four centuries. The lava crest brightened under her hand and answered her, ember to ember. The etchings glowed. One of the reptiles behind Blazen lifted its head and hissed low, recognizing the pull. A pair of small winged kittens drifted in from the tent's edge, heart-shaped and curious, and settled on the stone beside the book as if the love and the fire in her were one signal. Blazen watched all of it. She lifted her hand. The glow faded. The journal sat quiet again. Blazen leaned back. "Fire answers fire," he said. "And the kittens came for the other half. You are what you said." He did not smile, but something in his shoulders dropped. "Sit. My wife will want to hear this. She was a love fairy before she was mine." Rosalind sat. She drew the guest-knife and laid it beside the journal. "Angel Frostborne gave me this. He said to tell you it was given, not stolen. He named the two-headed fairy who carried it." Blazen picked up the knife. He turned it once and set it down. "Then we have a table," he said. "Not peace. A table. Talk fast, love queen. My wife's tribe once crowded her at a gathering and I burned the tent down. I don't like long meetings." Rosalind opened the journal to the third page. Blazen read the name written there and went still.