Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,96

trees or clumps of bushes, cows or horses grazing behind wire fences, stretching as far as he could see beneath a lacquered blue autumn sky.

But it seemed wrong somehow, that quiet. He didn’t feel peaceful. Anxiety thrummed beneath his skin. He was frightened of where they were going, yet at the same time he felt like there were invisible threads tied to his bones, tugging him forward.

For a few months now, he and everyone else at Havenfall had been tracking down the soul-silver, and one by one, freeing the Solarians bound inside. It was an enormous project, and sometimes Nahteran had to push away his frustration at the slow, careful nature of it. It was a multistep process of finding a trader, learning everything there was to know about them, and only then making a move to recapture the soul-silver.

There were moments when Nahteran edged uncomfortably close to nostalgia for his time in Byrn, a servant to the Silver Prince. When the Prince wanted something, he wasn’t furtive about it. Thunder and lightning would shake the city. People would fall over themselves to bring him what he wanted. Even though Nahteran hated and feared him, being in close proximity to that power was like touching his finger to a live wire and feeling the electricity shoot through. Painful but exhilarating at the same time. Not this slow, careful, gradual work.

He knew if he brought this up to Taya, she would remind him of everything they had accomplished already. The Solarians back at the inn that they had freed from the soul-silver. Some were still healing up in the infirmary, some opted to return to Solaria, some decided to join with Havenfall and were going out on their own missions. Some had been trapped in the silver so long they didn’t even understand English. These Graylin took in and tried to figure out a way to communicate through some new, shared language.

As Havenfall’s resident Solarians, Nahteran and Taya were the ones responsible for actually freeing the souls from their spellbound prisons. Nahteran still couldn’t quite explain what it was they were doing. When he held one of the silver objects in his hands, it wasn’t like he could articulate anything about the soul inside. Yet sometimes it was like he could feel a pull, some invisible tether tugging him toward another silver object. When the two pieces were close enough, something happened—a rush of energy, a blinding white light, and then there was a person where there wasn’t one before.

A soul, put back together.

But the soul-silver trade had split many Solarians into more than two pieces. Bringing two together would cause the person’s body to reappear, but that didn’t mean they were whole again. For that to happen, to bring them fully back to themselves, someone had to track down and hunt and bring back each splinter of soul, wherever it was in all the worlds.

Sometimes—often, though it hurt to think about—they couldn’t find all the pieces at all. The Solarian would never be whole.

Would that be his own fate? Walking around for the rest of his life with a missing piece, a hollow place, an emptiness that would never go away?

It didn’t have to be, he told himself. Not if he and Taya succeeded today.

As if she had heard her name in his thoughts, she glanced over at him from the driver’s seat. “Don’t look so worried,” she said with a light smile. “You’ll jinx us.”

Nahteran tried to return the smile but it felt forced, and Taya had already turned her gaze back to the road. Around them, only occasional vehicles trundled by: truckers and pickups and minivans. “Of course,” he said, trying to keep his voice similarly light. “Nothing to worry about. Not like we’re trying to stake out an infamous silver trader or anything.”

Sarcasm was not employed in the Silver Prince’s court. It was a new skill to Nahteran. But he was learning. Between Taya and Maddie, he had plenty of material.

“Anyway, I’m taking it as a compliment,” Taya said. “It means Marcus finally trusts us to do important stuff.”

“Or we’re just the next best option since Maddie and Brekken are in Fiordenkill.” Marcus had been kind and welcoming to Taya and Nahteran, but there was a trace of wariness in how he had kept them so far from many missions outside Havenfall. Taya wasn’t part of Marcus’s family, and Nahteran was still regaining everyone’s trust after abetting the Prince in his effort to get Mom back. For