“How are you feeling?” I said, my eyes running over her discolored skin.
The burns she endured were mostly healed, but it left her skin looking like it was put together in patchwork.
“I feel better than I look,” she said.
I wiped off the look of horror she probably saw on my face.
“Arie, I…” I had no idea what to say to her.
I didn’t want to say sorry and make her feel like she had to explain that nothing was my fault. I didn’t want to ask how she felt and have her think about any pain she was going through.
Viper sensed my dilemma and stepped forward. “Arie was telling me yesterday that she heard some guys talking about you.”
“About me?” I said, welcoming the change of subject.
“They were,” Arie said, nodding her head. “They said they saw you fly over the border on your return trip from the South. They claim that your wings were the biggest, most beautiful they’d ever imagined.”
I let myself smile. “It was hell trying to keep those things together.”
“Apparently they were a sight to see,” said Viper.
We talked for an hour before the doctors shooed Viper and me out of the room to examine and attend to Arie.
“Emma,” she said before I was out the door.
I turned to look at her.
“Thank you for noticing so fast that I was gone and going back for me.”
I smiled at her. I would have given her a hug if I hadn’t been so sure it would cause extreme pain.
“Arie,” I said, “I’ll always go back for you.”
* * *
We walked down the stone hallway, back to the bedroom that would have been mine. She told me that’s where Ms. Riley had hidden it. If no one had moved it, it should be in the wardrobe in the far corner of the room.
“Why is it in my room?” I said to Mom.
She laughed. “You know, I’ve been asking myself that same question. I never had a chance to ask her why she put it in there.” She looked down at her cup of tea. “Maybe she knew it wouldn’t be disturbed there. Since you weren’t here to occupy the room she knew your father wouldn’t allow it to be used for anything else so it would remain safe.”
“Did she know I’d want to find it at some point?”
“That may have been another part of why she put it in there,” Mom said. “I think deep down she knew you’d want to find it one day. Maybe she figured that when it was time for you to use the room you’d come across it on your own if she didn’t have a chance to tell someone where it was. She knew one day you would want to return it to where it belongs.”
“Well, that day is today,” I said. “I think it’s time that hole was filled in.”
She looked at me. “Are you going to return … all of it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I am.”
I pulled the door open a crack and peeked inside. I looked across the room to the towering object sitting on the other side.
“Ahem,” Viper cleared his throat behind me. “Are we going to wait out here all day?”
I looked over my shoulder and saw Dresden shoot him a dirty look.
“Will you let her do this on her own?” Dresden snapped at him. “She could have told you no when you asked to come along, so shut up and let her do this at her own pace.”
Viper glared at him. “You know, she didn’t exactly invite you, either.”
“I’m trying to spend some time with her before I head out with some of the troops. You’re the one who butted in.”
I shook my head.
“A thousand apologizes,” Viper said with a slight bow. “Please take all the time you need.”
Dresden gave him a threatening look. “Okay, now you’re just being an ass—”
I swung the door open wide and they both looked at me.
“Let’s just do this, okay?” I said to them.
“Certainly,” Viper said, striding past me into the room.
Dresden gestured for me to go in and he followed.
“This place is kind of creepy,” Viper said, looking around the dark room.
“Get used to it,” I said. “You’re going to be living here with Arie one day.
“True,” he said with a frown. “So where is it?”
“My mom said Ms. Riley put it in the wardrobe over there,” I nodded to a huge wooden object covered in fabric.
Dresden walked to it and whipped the fabric over the top so we could see the front. The wardrobe was made from the same wood as the rest of the furniture in the room. It was intricately carved with the same flower and vine design on the arch of the door. I put my hands on the handles of the double doors. The tarnished metal was cold. I pulled the doors open a crack and a faint light was emitted from the inside.
“It’s still here,” I said, fully opening the doors.
We looked inside. There was a chunk of pale blue stone sitting at the back of the wardrobe. I leaned in and pick it up. It was small enough for me to hold in my hands, but it was quite heavy. I shuddered remembering the weight of my wings. There was a small, missing piece in one of the corners of the stone.
“This is good timing,” Viper said. “It looks like it’s almost dead.”
“Well,” I said, watching him and Dresden close the doors and drape the fabric back over the wood. “Let’s get it back down there.”
We took a back staircase down to the first floor.
“Ms. Riley said my mom took it from the walkway between the dining hall and the back entrance,” I said.
We exited the stairs and looked around a large room.
There was a long table in the center surrounded by chairs. My mouth fell open at the sight of it. There had to be room at the table for at least thirty people. Everything in the room was draped in fabric like my room.
“Well, this is the dining hall,” Dresden said, leading us around toward the back of the room.
There was a small, dark hallway at the other end of the massive room. I walked to it and looked down it. It was lined with stone walls that dead-ended at a wooden door.
“It has to have come from here,” I said.
My eyes wandered over the walls. Every now and then the gray stones were interrupted with a glowing blue stone.
There was a hole in the wall immediately before it ended at the back door. I walked to the pale blue stone and looked inside the gash. It was the right size for the stone I held. I looked at the other pieces of Star Stone in the hall. They all shined a significantly brighter blue than the one in front of me.
“Hello?” I said into the void.
I looked down at my necklace immediately. Nothing happened.
I glanced at Dresden and Viper. They were both staring at me like I was crazy.
“I wanted to see if it would still work here,” I said, turning a little pink.
They just smiled.
I turned back to the wall and twisted the stone in my hands to match the shape. Once I was sure I was holding it the right way I lifted the stone and pushed it back into the wall. The stone’s color brightened.
I frowned. “It’s still not as bright as the others.”
Dresden leaned over and looked at the stone. He put his fingertip in a small hole at the edge of it.
“There’s still that small piece missing.”
“I know,” I sighed, looking down at my necklace.
I picked up the charm and touched the stone with my finger. After a moment’s hesitation I pulled the stone out of the silver vine that circled around it. I was alarmed by how easy it was to do. My hand stretched toward the wall, but Viper put his hand on mine to stop it.
“You’re not going to keep that piece?” he said.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think I’m going to need it anymore.”
“You’re still the Dragonfly,” he said. “I know you haven’t decided if you’re going back or not, but what if they need to call you again when you’re not here?”
I looked at the small piece of stone. “I don’t think my father is going to have to talk into a wall to call me anymore.”
He took his hand off mine and I slid the missing piece into the wall, but it stopped halfway in. After a slight rotation between my fingers it slid in the rest of the way. The stone shined bright white for a second then turned to just as brilliant a blue as all the other chunks of Star Stone. I touched the place where it was broken. I could no longer see the crack. The fracture had melted back into the rest of the stone and disappeared. It looked like it never had been damaged.
“Just as it should be,” I said with a smile.
* * *
We gathered at the border between North and South Aetheria. It took a couple of weeks to get everyone on both sides to realize that the fighting had to end. There were a few groups of people that weren’t happy with the decisions made and felt like they should keep fighting until someone won and someone lost. But my father and the military made their rounds. They visited all the places they had troops stationed and all the places there had been rumors of civilians still taking up arms.
There had been many casualties from the war, most of which had resulted from the escalated tensions of knowing it was all coming to an end. It was like once they knew the war was being stopped, the more they felt they had to fight and prove something. The sad thing was, now that there wasn’t any animosity between the North and the South it felt like those people had died for nothing.
Dresden joined my father on a lot of the trips so I spent a lot of time with Viper and Arie in the hospital. I gave Dresden what was left of my necklace on his last departure when he asked me if he could take it with him. He said that way he could have a little piece of me with him while he was away.
It was strange being around a hospital for so long and not seeing Dr. Zaira anywhere. But over the weeks Arie had been coming along nicely. The doctors took as much care of her as they had me. It was a daunting task having to make sure a person’s body was aligned correctly while they put themselves together. Viper was constantly tempted to move one of her arms from its rightful position and see if he could get her to heal at an odd angle. I kept telling him that to do something so grotesque he’d have to go through me and that it wouldn’t go unnoticed by the doctors that filtered in on a regular basis to examine her.
Arie was always in good spirits. She never mentioned anything being my fault, but she could always see the guilt in my eyes. She kept explaining that it was her fault for freezing when she saw the guy was about to explode. I still felt horrible about it every time I saw her, but she looked better with every passing day and I grew more comfortable with the situation.
It was hard sitting around and doing nothing while Father, Dresden, and the others had so much to do. The weeks rolled on and I was able to see the straps come off Arie and watch her stretch her newly mended body. She wasn’t allowed to spend too much time out of bed yet, but she welcomed any time she was able to make use of her legs.
After almost two weeks of Father’s group traveling around to make sure the fighting was coming to an end, the war was declared to be officially over and everyone came back home. Dresden gave my necklace back to me with a shiny new green stone glittering from where the Star Stone had been. He admitted that he hadn’t really kept the necklace with him while they were traveling. He had dropped it off at a jeweler along the way and had a new stone put in the Star Stone’s place. He also assured me that I would have a much harder time getting the new stone out of it, which I was very happy to hear after how effortlessly I had taken out the Star Stone. Though now that I thought about it, maybe it knew it had been time to let go.
I stood by and watched my father and his group of military personnel shake hands with the Southern Council members. They look as tired as my father’s group looked.
The gathering was called by both sides as a sign of good faith. It was open to the general public of Aetheria and anyone who wished to attend was welcome.
We walked away from the Southern Council and Father indicated a spot for me to stand once things got started.
“Emma,” Oak said, walking up to me.
“Hi, Oak,” I said to him. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. I’m just…”
Silence had become second nature to me. I stood quietly, waiting for him to finish his thought.
“I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to go through,” he said.
I smiled at him. It had been weird eating my meals with the others in the main tent. I missed hanging out with Oak at his stand. But it was only fitting that he moved on to bigger and better things. From the short time I’d known him, I knew it was only right that he finally had everything he’d earned.
“All of it had to be done,” I said in a manner I hoped explained that there weren’t any hard feelings toward him or anyone else from the South. “But I do miss you being around.”
Oak laughed. “I’m sure I’m going to miss you guys, too. There’s a lot of work ahead of us.”
“It won’t be anything you can’t handle,” I said, patting him on the arm.
I looked past him and saw Kaia talking to another group of people. Something clicked in my head.
“She is something special, isn’t she?” I said.
“Who is?” he said, turning around and seeing her behind him. He laughed again. “More than you know.” He looked at me and I gave him a meaningful look. “Though, that may not be the case anymore.”
“It isn’t,” I said.
“I keep thinking that one day she’ll be comfortable enough to tell me the truth.”
“Please don’t be too surprised if that doesn’t happen,” I said.
“Believe me,” he said, “I won’t be. But I will always give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“At least it says a lot about her and the absolutely wonderful person she is.”
“That is a very good way of looking at it,” he said with a nod.
Father’s group and the members of the Council started gathering together. Oak took that as a cue for him to join and gave me a quick hug and walked over to them. I walked to the spot my father had indicated earlier but got sidetracked when I saw Professor Elias standing at the front of the crowd. He smiled when he saw me approaching him.
“Emmeline,” he said with a nod.
“Professor,” I said. “I’m sorry I had to cut our lessons short. As thoroughly as I enjoyed them there were a few things I had to take care of.”
“So I hear. To tell the truth, I now feel that we’ve accomplished more than we would have if we’d had fifty lessons. I’m very proud of you, Emma.”