Chapter 47: Beneath the Emberwings

The roofs went dark before the sky did. Grovekeepers on the surrounding buildings stood one after another, turning toward the forest. Conversations softened. Cups stopped clinking. One roof fell dark, then another as torches were smothered and lanterns covered. The singing broke off. The drum gave one final beat. The western forest became a dark wall beneath the last red strip of sky. For several breaths, nothing happened.

We gathered along the edge of the roof, looking out over Highbough. Cloth decorations rustled behind us, and someone’s chair creaked as they leaned too far forward. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing toward the gate, even though I could barely distinguish it from the walls surrounding it. Mom and Dad were going to miss this. I knew it was silly, but some part of me had expected them to arrive in the middle of the party. They would come through the gate triumphant, everyone would cheer, and they would climb onto the roof before the Emberwings appeared.

Olivander stepped up beside me and took my hand. Maybe he had noticed where I was looking. Maybe he had been looking there too. He squeezed my fingers once. I squeezed back.

Emma leaned forward on my other side. “Is it starting? Where do we look?”

“Anywhere there’s dead growth,” I whispered. “But the western patches usually catch first.”

As though answering me, a spark appeared between the trees. It was tiny from this distance, no brighter than a fire elemental seen through a far window. Then another appeared beside it. A line of orange crawled through the undergrowth. It vanished behind a trunk, reappeared farther along, then split in two directions. The Grovekeepers had started the burns. More lights appeared across the brown patches. Fire caught beneath the canopy in separate pockets, each contained within cleared rings of earth and healthy green growth.

A flame surged upward. A crack split through the forest, making everyone on the roof jump. Smoke climbed above the canopy as dry wood began snapping and breaking. Soon, the sound of thousands of knuckles cracking filled the square. Nobody spoke. Every roof remained still. The first fire brightened from orange to gold. A second burned deep red beneath a knot of fallen branches. Farther north, a line of pale blue appeared through the brush, so faint that I wondered whether I had imagined it. Then it moved.

I reached for Emma before I had decided to. My hand found hers. Our fingers interlaced. Emma looked down at them, then up at me. For one terrible moment, I thought she might pull away. She didn’t.

The nearest patch brightened. Flames rushed through a dead shrub, consuming its thin branches in moments. Fallen wood caught next. Smoke thickened above it, folding over itself as it rose. Tiny orange shapes stirred within the fire. At first, they could have been sparks. Then one moved against the wind. It lifted from the burning shrub, fluttered twice, and dropped back into the heat.

Emma pointed with her free hand. “Was that one?”

I smiled. The smoke swelled. A swarm burst through it, red and gold lights climbing in an unsteady spiral and scattering sparks behind them. A cheer rose from the rooftops.

Another group followed, blue and green against the smoke. Then several more rose together. Then too many to count. They poured above the canopy in glowing swarms, the colors gathering and separating as they climbed. Red lights twisted among white ones. Blue passed through gold. Green flickered between larger orange groups, while violet specks scattered along the edges.

The entire village erupted. We shouted. Adults clapped. Someone began beating the drum again, though nobody cared whether it matched anything now. Olivander released my hand so he could cup both around his mouth. “Come on!”

As though the Emberwings needed his encouragement. Reed struck his wooden spoons against the railing. Talla cheered beside him, one hand gripping Mira’s shoulder to keep her from leaning too far over the edge.

The Emberwings rose above Highbough in twisting columns. One swarm spiraled around another, red and blue flame crossing as both followed the same current of rising heat. At the top, the groups turned apart at once. Light burst outward across the sky, and the village shouted as the Emberwings scattered in every direction.

They were not performing for us. I knew that. They followed heat, smoke, and one another. Each Emberwing shifted when the one beside it turned, and the whole swarm changed with it. But knowing that did not stop them from looking like they were dancing.

A loose curve of golden Emberwings opened above the forest. Smaller blue ones streamed through its center, then divided as the wind bent their paths in different directions. For an instant, I thought the crossing trails looked like the petals of a flower around an empty center, though one side stretched farther than the other. the wind pulled the shape apart. Gold, blue, and green spread across the sky in an uneven wave of light.

Everyone shouted louder. As people began to dance.

Emma’s face turned with every burst of light. Blue flame crossed her eyes. Gold caught in her hair. When a violet swarm opened above us, the color spread across her white tunic and turned the gold trim nearly red.

The Emberwings spread across Highbough. Some remained above the smoke, circling wherever the rising heat carried them. Others dropped beneath the canopy.. Fire followed behind them racing through the rotted bark before the trunk collapsed into glowing pieces. Another group swept through a patch of dry ferns. Orange chased green through the dead growth, leaving only gray ash behind.

I knew the healthy plants would remain untouched. That didn’t change the fear I felt at the forest catching fire. A young tree stood in the middle of a burned patch, its trunk washed in gold light while everything dead around it crumbled. The forest itself seemed to glow and move.

Lines of colored fire traveled beneath the canopy. Red spread through fallen branches. Blue flickered along old roots exposed above the soil. White flashed where Emberwings gathered around the hollow remains of a diseased tree. The dead tree burned from the inside. Its trunk glowed through widening cracks, then collapsed into itself with a roar.

The Emberwings burst from its crown. For an instant, the hundreds of wings opening through the smoke suggested one enormous, many-winged bird rising from the tree. Before the shape separated into hundreds of smaller lights.

“They’re beautiful.” Emma said never taking her brilliant eyes from the sky.

Warm air rolled over the rooftops. It carried the scent of scorched bark and bitter smoke, but something sweet hid beneath both.

Emma drew in a breath. “It smells better than I expected.”

“That’s the malt berry bushes,” I said, folding my other hand over hers. My thumb traced little circles across the back of her hand. I didn’t think she noticed.

The swarm shifted again. A broad wall of light traveled from the forest toward Tillshade. They were following a stream of warm air carrying smoke over the rooftops.

People ducked along the nearest roofs. Mira dropped behind her chair and pulled Talla with her. Dain laughed until Mira grabbed a handful of berries from the nearest bowl. He stopped immediately.

The first Emberwings swept overhead. Their wings made a dry fluttering sound, soft individually but loud together. Heat brushed across my face. Sparks scattered over the roof and vanished against the planks.

The swarm divided above Tillshade. One stream curved around the church steeple before climbing into the dark. Another rushed low across the square, close enough that its light flashed across the knights’ abandoned cups beneath the awning. A third spread over the rooftops.

Red, blue, violet, and white fire crossed above us in trails too tangled to follow. Individual Emberwings vanished inside the movement, then appeared again somewhere else. One group folded through another, tightening until the light above us became almost solid. Then the wind caught the outer edge, and the whole swarm scattered across the sky.

The drum pounded faster. Reed struck his spoons against anything within reach: the railing, a crate, the side of Olivander’s cup. Talla started singing. She chose one of the songs from earlier, but the rooftops around us joined with several different ones.

A large Emberwing dipped low enough to pass between the church roof and ours. Its four wings opened wider than the tables beneath the general store’s awning, filling my vision with blue and gold.

Mira climbed onto her chair and raised both arms toward the Emberwings. Dain tossed a berry at her. It struck her shoulder and bounced away. Mira looked down at him. Dain grinned. She threw three berries back. He caught one in his mouth and raised both hands in triumph. The other two struck Reed. Reed slowly turned toward Mira.

“That was Dain’s fault,” she said.

“I threw one berry,” Dain protested.

Talla grabbed the bowl before either of them could reach it. She took a berry for herself. Then she handed the bowl to Jorren, who quietly moved it out of everyone’s reach.

The Emberwings circled above Tillshade, following the columns of smoke higher into the night. Their glow washed across the square and climbed the walls of every building. Then the largest swarm passed directly overhead. Light spilled down from every direction.

Emma moved to sit again. I sat next to her. Our shoulders touched when we leaned back.

“I understand why everyone comes up here,” she said.

I watched a green swarm divide around a column of smoke and join together again on the other side. “It’s probably better from Arbolive.”

She turned sharply. “Among the fire?”

“she’s taller than this, we would get a better view.”

The next wave of Emberwings rose from the southern forest. They climbed in several narrow streams, each one carrying a different color. Red, blue, green, violet, gold, and white crossed above the canopy.

The streams curved toward the same column of rising heat. They crowded together until I could no longer separate one swarm from another. For one breath, all the colors blurred inside a single point of white light.

Then the upper wind caught them.

The Emberwings burst apart in every direction. Red crossed through blue. Green and violet swept over the rooftops. Gold and white climbed higher, spreading until moving light filled half the sky.

The Emberwings descended across Highbough, each swarm breaking away toward another patch of dead growth. Colored fire traveled through the forest beneath them. I knew what was happening, old branches collapsed. Diseased trunks split apart. Dry brush disappeared beneath waves of red and blue flame. Wherever the Emberwings passed, black earth remained behind. Healthy trees stood within it, their leaves shining in the light.

By morning, the fires would be cold. When the rains came, green shoots would push through the ash. The forest would grow around the empty spaces again. For tonight, Highbough was letting go of everything it no longer needed.

Another swarm unfolded above us, blue at its center and violet along its edges. It spun into a wide circle, then broke into dozens of smaller lights that raced outward. Emma watched them with her face tilted toward the sky.

The Emberwings crossed above us in two bright streams, one gold and one green. They curled together, separated, then returned to one another. My heart struck painfully against my ribs. Emma glanced at me.

“Olive?”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I looked down at our hands.

I was Lumisiel’s next answer, her final answer, tasked with ending the war between our two species. I could do this! I turned toward her before I could decide to wait again.

“Emma, would you go on a date with me?”