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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Bitter ashes stuck in my throat, unfurling through the hidden pathways in my head, burning behind my eyes and in my sinuses. Heartless tears leaked down my cheeks, only to be whisked away by the suffocating heat, turned to short-lived vapor on the wind.
Throat constricting around a groan, I pried my gummy lashes apart, shielding my eyes against the glare. It was painfully bright, like staring into the midday sun, but the light was even more unbearable because it was sourceless. Ashes, flaky and white with hints of grey, spun through the air like dust motes. Urged by some childish instinct, I opened my mouth and caught one on my tongue.
It was awful. Like rotten eggs mashed into sand, nothing like the crisp, metallic kiss of snowflakes that occasionally deigned to grace the streets of the Blood Moon village. Screwing up my face, I rolled onto my side and spat out the foul taste as best I could, given that my saliva had turned to glue in my mouth.
Goddess, I would do anything for a skin of water, I thought, not entirely sure which of them I was praying to anymore. It used to be the Night Goddess I whispered to in my darkest hours, but Nya's morality was in question these days, given her lycans' penchant for kidnapping children. It had shocked me to my core to learn that I was ranked among the abducted; that my heart condition had been engineered by their healer to keep me weak and pliant, so that I wouldn't be able to access the power lying dormant in my veins. For twelve years, I'd taken their bitter tonic twice a day, only to learn to my recent chagrin that I'd been drinking poison all that time. Enough poison to kill a man several times over, Gretchen had claimed — and that had just been one dose.
I trusted her appraisal on two counts: Gretchen was a talented apothecary in her own right, but she was also the daughter of the Earth Mother, a Goddess I'd only learned of recently. The Earth Mother was a fickle character with many faces, who seesawed between childish fits of rage and the calculated poise of a wise crone. But She was the only Goddess to have ever answered my prayers, and that alone was deserving of my trust. She'd been whispering in my mind of late, warning me from danger and steering me towards new friends, but I could feel nothing of Her capricious presence in the scorched earth beneath my hands.
No, there was no life to be found here at all. The soil was bleached by years of unrelenting sun, cracked in so many places it resembled the scaled hide of a wyvern. The heat wrung me out like a wash cloth, squeezing every drop of sweat from my pores, every pocket of air from my lungs. When black spots started dancing before my eyes, I realised I was going to die if I stayed here. I had to move. I had to find water, shelter.
I climbed to my feet, swaying like a willow in a storm as I squinted against the glare of the white-washed sky. The hot wind whipped my hair into my face, red-gold strands lashing the blistering skin of my shoulders. My stomach dropped as a monstrous castle emerged from the flurries of ashes, seemingly out of nowhere. It sported eight magnificent turrets of white opal, capped with strange metal domes. They caught the light and amplified it, sending it spearing back into the white-washed sky.
I blundered towards the castle, eyes widening with every step. The moat was filled with sluggish molten rock, its fierce glow lapping at the walls of the keep, bringing out elusive hints of rainbow in the precious stone. I took a step towards the drawbridge, left open to friends and foes alike. Anyone's company, it seemed, was a welcome reprieve from the loneliness of this barren wasteland.
The pressure in the atmosphere increased until it felt like I was forcing my legs through treacle. I strained against the unseen force, sweat beading on my brow as I forged my way to the drawbridge. There was only one being that could live in a place like this, and I was intent on wrangling some answers out of Her. Every step dredged up another burning question that I sorted in a line from least to most important, though I was determined to ask them all.
Rana, the blue-haired wyvern I'd recently befriended, claimed that her people worshipped the Sun Goddess Rya. Their prayers had become increasingly desperate of late, as Nya's servants snatched eggs from their nests and spirited them away to the Hidden Vale, a dark trench cutting through the foothills in the west. Rana's own brother had been dragged into that inky abyss, never again to see the light of day. She was still hell-bent on her quest to save him, offering new prayers to Rya every day, morning, and night.
None of them were answered.
Rage boiled in my blood at the thought of all those stolen children, just as clueless and helpless as I'd been. I knew how ruthless the Blood Moon lycans could be; they would kill anyone who stood in their way. While I had no memory of the day I was taken, I was almost certain my parents were killed for daring to fight back. I'd arrived at the Blood Moon village soaked in someone's blood, and it certainly hadn't been mine.
There was also the heart-wrenching fact that my parents had never tried to come after me. It was only sensible to imagine the worst.
I stepped on the drawbridge. A great weight slammed down on the back of my neck, knocking the breath from my lungs. I dropped to all fours, shuddering with the effort of resisting that unnatural pressure. It wanted to hammer me into the ground; no, through it, until it beat me into the fiery heart of this barren planet, like a nail in a coffin. Sweat drenched my hair and soaked through my silver cloak, making a second skin of the enchanted fabric.
"Why?" I cried out, craning my head up to the tallest turret. "Why do you turn a blind eye to our suffering?"
The only response was the desolate wind, howling as it blew hot ashes into my face. I scowled as they stung my cheeks, scrunching my eyes shut against the searing wind. I refused to turn back. So I started crawling, back stooping beneath what felt like the weight of the world. Nay, the weight of the galaxy --
I was halfway across the bridge when an invisible boot planted firmly between my shoulders, shoving my face into the ground. My nose cracked, blood splattering and sizzling on the stonework. It was hot enough to blister the skin on my palms, burning through the callouses on my feet, hard earned from days of trekking through the Wylds. Sandwiched between the glaring sky and baking stones, I felt my mind melt like a slice of cheese.
"I will not be ignored," I rasped, slithering forward on my belly. I could smell my flesh cooking, but the rage within me burned even hotter. "You... owe me..."
The ashes swarmed like a cloud of wasps, rushing in all at once. It was a death of consciousness by a thousand stings, and it was by no means painless or swift.
