Sometimes it seems as if all of Novus is gathering to the bridge and the island. Each time she moves through the crowds they seem to press in harder against the edges of her skin. Even the sky feels weighted, pregnant with something that makes her skin itch even though she cannot name it. The birds flying overhead are moving in a pattern she wants to learn, all sharp beaks and colors brighter than the fury still blooming, and growing in her heart.
And Isra is still looking at each set of eyes that snag and pause on the dragon flying lazy loops between the birds and the clouds. She's looking for the shine of evil, of a stain that no fresh skin or monstrous shape can hide. Part of her thinks that her soul will always know the shape of Raum's. That something deep in her will look at something deep and in and always recognize the thing that made it. Maybe then they will not look at each other as a queen to a ghost, but as a monster to a monster, war to war, hate to hate.
Even now she can still taste blood and poison on her tongue. It makes the brine of the sea taste wrong. She swallows it down anyway-- down, down, down.
Isra is still swallowing down everything when she looks up across the bridge she's pacing and spots that sheen of gold and the gleam of light on bone-white horns. She smiles, and that beast of fury withers a little inside her chest. Each of her steps feels lighter than the last and Fable starts to hum softly as he flies lower and lower. Soon she's moving faster than anything else on the bridge, even the birds overhead seem caught on the current of her.
Each place she touches the black rock turns to quartz. It reflects the sun until everything is bright light, golden light, light bright enough to sting her eyes when she looks down and slides to a stop. Her smile reflects the sun a little too and she tosses her head up like a challenge for that nameless itch crawling across her skin. The sea in her eyes churns with it when she calls, “Noctiilucent.”.
But she can see the uncertainty in her friends body, as surely as she knows the way her body isn't soft anymore. She's sharp and strong, a fresh forged sword. So she waits, because she'll fight any battle, tear down any god for those she loves. Some battles, though, she cannot fight.
And in her eyes there is still that flashing challenge that seems to say, hurry up, we have hunting to do.
