Flame and Sparrow (Flame and Sparrow Duology Book 1)

by S.M. Gaither

“The Marr has most of the say in how much power the ascendant in question receives—partly because it requires giving up some of their own power to make the ascension happen. So it’s a much deeper bond than master and slave…more like, the Miratar becomes an extension of them. It’s kind of hard to explain, and it’s not an exact magic.”

“You wanted to know about my ascension. Why I did it, and what happened in the days following it. And the truth is not far from whatever terrible stories you’ve heard, I imagine. Because the truth…” He finally lifted his gaze and met mine. “Is that I became the God of Fire because I wanted to burn it all down. The ones who had sent those assassins after my family. Every person those killers loved, every home they had ever had—all of it.” His fists clenched and his eyes flashed briefly with their wild, fiery glow. “And so I did.”

“So the garden, those markers…” “There are two-hundred and thirty-two graves marked by the glass in that garden,” he said, confirming my worst fear. “Those are the ones whose bodies were actually found—the ones who didn’t burn entirely to ash.” His gaze still held mine. We couldn’t seem to look away from one another. “Ederis,” he said. “That was the largest of the towns I destroyed beyond repair. The rumors said the assassins who targeted my family had hailed from there, so that was where I went first.” After a brief struggle, I finally found my voice. “Ederis was once a…a…” “A predominantly elvish town.”

“Nothing about you fits the mold I had in my mind,” I said after a long pause. “And I just…I struggle when I can’t map things out in a way that makes sense. When I can’t follow a clean line from one point to another.” He considered this, then quietly said, “Fire rarely follows a clean line.”

“You’re welcome to the clothing, of course.” His gaze slowly traveled the length of my body. “Even if part of me wants to demand you strip it off.”

He was beautiful in the dim light, stretched out with all his muscular lines on full display, his head tipped back and the strands of his hair more red than blond in the fire’s glow. Vulnerable, yet powerful. As I stared at him, a thought struck me—that what I’d told him was true. I really had been surrounded by fighting my entire life. But I’d rarely experienced someone fighting for me the way he kept doing.

How strange that this god I once hated would be the one to remind me of my existence.

“Karys? Are you all right?” Karys. Not Sparrow. I was me, not my sister, not a rebel with a mission, not just a piece of something, but a whole something that he was willing to fight for—to protect—for some reason. “I’m fine. And I don’t want to go anywhere,” I said softly. “I’d rather stay with…I mean…I want to be in here. With you.” He sat up, studying me closer, the weariness in his eyes giving way to brightness as he repeated my words on a breath. “With me.”

“Stay the night with me?” was all he asked. “Just in case we have more uninvited company.” Just in case I need to protect you. I nodded, another clench of desire tightening my stomach as his fingers swept from my cheek down to the hollow of my throat. “Though I still don’t need you to burn the world down for me,” I said, “just so we’re clear. The divine world or otherwise. Nothing has changed regarding that.” He smiled, his other hand finding its way to my lower back, pulling me more fully into his lap. “You can do it yourself, as I recall.”

“So perhaps I’ll just stand among the ashes with you,” he said, “and admire your work.” “I could allow that.”

🤗🤗🤗🤗

His nose brushed mine. His warm breath fanned over my skin, making my lips tingle. The hand against my back moved, trailing up my spine, while the other closed lightly around my throat. “I find myself suddenly curious,” he said. “Curious?” “About what else you would allow.” His lips hovered over mine. Waiting. Wanting. A god powerful enough to forge suns and level entire towns…was asking my permission. I couldn’t deny I wanted him, even though I now realized—more than ever—what I was getting myself into. What he’d done. What he was capable of. He was so beautiful, but so dangerous, so wrong, and everything I had ever believed felt like it was in danger of catching fire, disintegrating from the heat of his touch. But gods how I wanted to burn with him. I draped my arms around his neck, balancing myself more fully against him. Slowly, I brought my mouth to his, parting my lips, giving him permission, inviting him in. As his tongue pushed its way into my mouth, I felt his arousal stirring underneath me. The throbbing hardness made me inhale sharply, and he responded by deepening the kiss, devouring me so completely I could barely breathe. One hand stayed against my back, holding me in place, while the one at my throat fell, slipping between my legs. I’d had nothing to put underneath the clothing I’d borrowed from him, so it was bare skin that his fingertips found when they slid under the hem of his shirt and rubbed their way up my thighs to the aching center of me. A low note...

“You know, gods have little need for sleep…but I could get used to doing it if it means waking up beside you like this.”

“You were the one praying at my altar last night, if I recall correctly.” “Very true.” He buried his face into my neck, breathing me in, pressing his mouth against my skin and flicking his tongue against my pulse. “And now I would love to perform my morning rituals, if you don’t mind.”

I should have protested. Then his fingers reached around my front and slipped between my legs, and I no longer wanted to do anything except surrender to him, just as I had yesterday. His touch was lazy, almost, compared to last night, but he still knew precisely what he was doing; even half-asleep, he was still talented with his fingers, alternating between feather-light taps and deliberate, massaging touches until I was slick and pulsing with need. He urged my legs apart. As I spread open for him, he stretched me even wider with one of his large hands, slipping just the tip of a finger inside as he did. He teased with that tip, dipping it in and out, playing at my most sensitive nerve endings for a minute before pushing deeper. I arched my back and clenched my legs around his hand, and his hips lifted in response, pressing his hard length between my thighs. Feeling it twitch and throb drew a needy little cry from my lips. My head tilted back, and his lips fell upon my exposed throat, kissing even harder than before, his tongue lashing and teeth nipping hard enough that it would likely leave a mark. And Gods help me, I wanted it to leave a mark. He rolled me onto my back, and his eyes never left mine as he slid his pants down and freed himself. It looked as massive as it had felt, and as I watched him stroke the length of it, every part of me buzzed with need. “Did you dream about me last night, my Sparrow?” He leaned over me, bringing his lips to mine, supporting himself ...

“If you and I were to truly lay together, and we were to fully, well, finish, and you were to…” He glanced over at me mid-stretch, the trace of a smirk on his lips. “You’re wondering if I can put a child in you.” “It’s a fair question, isn’t it?” “It is.” His smirk became more pronounced as he added, “And I do love that you’re already imagining me coming inside of you.” “I like to be prepared for any and all potential disasters.” He chuckled. “Would it be disastrous? You truly think so?” He leaned back over the bed, bringing his lips to mine, and I couldn’t resist meeting his kiss. “I can think of far more disastrous things,” he mused when he finally dragged his lips away from mine. “But to answer your question, we’re…incompatible in that way, as far as I’m aware.” I fiddled with my hair, twisting it into a messy braid only to untwist it again. “Good to know.” “I’d be happy to demonstrate things further, if you’d like. We can always test—”

“The failed ascendant was your sister.”

Oh shit

“You look terrible, by the way. For a god.” I offered him a small smile. “Your kind have little need for sleep, you told me, but your face suggests otherwise.” He shrugged. “No rest takes its toll, eventually. Even on me.” After a pause, he added, “And I haven’t slept since the night I had you beside me.” It sounded like a confession, soft and intimate.

running his thumb along my palm as he said, “I fell asleep with you in my arms, woke up the same way, and now everything else feels unbalanced in comparison. You’ve ruined me, I’m afraid, and it’s obvious to anyone paying attention—Valas won’t shut the fuck up about it. He’s been even more insufferable than usual.”

“Can we go for a walk?” He smiled as he rose to his feet—the roguish, almost playful smile that I so rarely got to see. “We can go anywhere you like.”

“What is it?” “It’s still strange to not see stars when I look up.” I pulled my gaze back down to his. “I’m not complaining, of course. You gave me a kind of sun, after all—the forgelight is more than enough.” He considered my words for a moment before slipping his hand from mine, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He stayed on the peak of the hill but put some space between us, summoning fire into his palms as he walked away. As I watched, huddling against the cold, he started to hurl handfuls of flame into the sky. The fireballs scattered as they flew upwards, breaking into droplets that moved more like liquid than fire until they were mere dots against the vast sky—about the size of distant stars—at which point they fixed in place. Over and over he did this, until there were more fiery stars hanging in the sky than I could count. Then he lifted his hand, made a sweeping gesture, and all at once the points flared brighter, bursting into bright shades of orange and red and white. They stayed in place and continued to sparkle even after he lowered his hand and turned his attention back to me. “Not exactly stars,” he mused, strolling to my side. “But the best I could do on short notice.”

I’d wanted to burn with him before. Now I realized I wanted to build with him, too. I wanted to melt the broken pieces of both our worlds and all our wars down and shape them into something new.

“I’ve been thinking about the question you asked,” he finally said. “How does it end? And I still don’t know the answer, but I just…I need you to know that I’m not the same as I was in the beginning of this. When I realized you were truly unaware of what your sister had done—that your kind were using you in hopes of completing whatever rebellious plans she’d started—something inside of me…broke. Because you are more than a pawn. I realized that within moments of meeting you, and I cannot understand how the ones you consider your allies don’t see the same thing.”

He threaded his fingers through my hair, holding me still as he leaned in again, almost touching his forehead to mine. “I’ve missed you these past days. I’ve worried about you every damn second. Everything around us feels like it’s moving toward chaos, and I should be focused on keeping order and solving problems, but for some reason all I can think about most of the time is you. It’s maddening.” His grip in my hair tightened, sending a bite of pain and a tremble of pleasure through my scalp. “So fucking maddening.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated in a whisper, lips sweeping over mine. “Just tell me you’ll stay. Tell me you’re mine. At least for tonight.” I reached up and traced the strong line of his jaw, my hand and voice both trembling with anticipation. “I will. I am. And after tonight…” “We’ll figure that out when we come to it.”

“I love your mind.” His laugh was low and rough, as though he was using it to suppress a growl. “Your endless wondering and interrogating.” Another brush of teeth against my lips. “But right now I need you to stop asking so many damn questions and just let me kiss you.”

His mouth crashed back to mine. I let go of all my questions as he sank deeper into me, his tongue pushing in and dancing against mine, his hands tangling in my hair and clothing. My touches soon mirrored his—eager and desperate to unravel him, to touch every inch of skin I could. As I unbuttoned his shirt, he slipped a hand around to the small of my back, cradling me as he dropped to his knees and eased me down along with him. The grass was luxuriously soft, crushing easily beneath me, but he still slipped the cloak from my shoulders and spread it out behind me like a blanket. There was no need for the garment’s warmth anymore; the air teemed with his aroused power, heated to the point of near-sweltering. There was a fire building in my blood at the same time, blazing so intensely that I encouraged him to keep going until he had stripped away all but my thin undergarments. I had a brief moment of self-consciousness reclining there, almost fully naked, on the hilltop; any of the gods or their servants might have stumbled upon us. Then Dravyn shrugged his shirt off and tossed it aside, and I decided I didn’t care who saw us—I only cared about digging my nails into the ridges of his muscles and feeling his warm, hard flesh pressed flush against my own. I pulled my camisole over my head and added it to the pile of our discarded clothing. He watched me moving in the light of the fire-dotted sky, and I couldn’t help feeling beautiful beneath his admiring gaze, all my scars and ...

“When did this happen?” I wondered in a whisper. “This?” “You and me. How did we get from where we started to…this?” He yawned, unraveling from me and sitting up and stretching. “Forever trying to map things out, aren’t you?” “You know I can’t help myself.” I sat up as well so that I could look him in the eyes. “Where did it start for you?” He considered the question for several moments, taking my hand and absently threading his fingers in and out of mine. “The day we met. The first time we spoke.” “Really?” Another long pause, then, “That day…I could smell the fear on you. The blood. You could have given in—most in your position would have, I think—yet you stood in the rising flames like you still intended to set the world on fire, rather than letting it burn you down.” “And that was it for you, hm?” My smile was skeptical. “You really fell for that?” “Wildfire…” He lifted my hand and planted a soft kiss on my knuckles. “I don’t think I ever stood a chance.”

Valas studied me for a few beats, then let out a long-suffering sigh. “Fine. Just don’t die, please. I’ve grown fond of you, and grief is not a good look on me. I’m an ugly crier.” “I’ll do my best to survive,” I promised with a small, nervous smile. “If only for the sake of your good looks.”

“I felt you, even among this chaos. Something in my blood, in my bones, calling for my attention in spite of it all. And I couldn’t get away from the God of Storms to answer right away, but I…” He trailed off, shaking his head at himself, as though he’d just realized something that he should have known all along.

“I felt you reach for me,” he said, “and it seems as though something inside of me couldn’t help but reach back.”

“The flowers died,” I said, surprise making me voice the thought aloud even though I was alone in the room. Rieta was within earshot, however—carrying yet another bowl of some sort of food my way—and she answered me with a frown as she came closer. “He stopped tending them after you left, I suppose.”

“So the gods are capable of bleeding after all,” I mumbled, kneeling beside him and dabbing away some of the blood. It was darker than human blood. Thicker. “At least in this form,” he said. “There’s a price to pay for holding on to your humanity, I suppose.”

“I tried not to care about you, either,” he continued, “but it still happened. And when things started to unravel—when I wasn’t sure I could protect you any longer—I thought it would be easier to send you away.”

“But as soon as you left, I only felt worse,” he said. “Because there is no place that’s safe for you, as you said earlier.” “No. There isn’t,” I agreed, voice thick with emotion. “But I feel safest here. And I know I said I don’t care if you send me away, but that isn’t true, I…” “Sending you away once nearly broke me,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t think I could do it a second time.” “So you’re stuck with me until the end, it seems.” “There are worse fates, I’m sure.”

“Well, you’ve managed it,” she told me with a wry grin. “Managed what?” “To burn so brightly the gods could not ignore you.”

“As long as you’re close, I find it easier to think,” he explained. “And I believe I’d rather face what lies ahead of us with a calm, clear mind, so I’m glad you’re back.”

“The blood on your arm…” he said after a moment. “Who did that to you?” “I did it to myself,” I said, quietly. “When I was trying to get your attention near the mortal-side veil.” I could only see part of his face in the mirror, but it was enough; he looked clearly horrified at the thought of being even indirectly responsible for any of the marks on my skin. It occurred to me then that I’d never actually shown him my claws—though I was certain I’d mentioned them at least once during all our time spent together. And I wanted to distract him from whatever horrible thoughts were rushing through his head, so I turned to him and held up my hand, letting my nails extend, flexing the sharp black tips for him to see. He stared at them for a long moment, a bemused little smile on his lips. “Unpredictable,” he mused. “Like a wildfire,” I finished. “A more fitting nickname than Sparrow, I’m beginning to think.”

“This bruise on your back…you didn’t do that to yourself.” It wasn’t a question this time. I didn’t tell him who had done it. I didn’t have to. “I never should have sent you away,” he said, quietly, pressing his face into my hair and breathing deeply.

I’d once told him I didn’t need him to burn the world down for me, but in that moment, I had no doubt that he would have done it—that he would have set fire to anything I asked, but never let the flames touch me. And it was a strange thing, to feel so safe in the arms of someone capable of such destruction.

“There isn’t an easy, direct translation into any other language…because it’s more like an idea. A feeling. We have a story in my old kingdom, that when the one you’re meant to be with enters the world, they steal a part of your soul with their first breath. “And you exist, missing that part, until they find you and breathe it back into you. Miran-achth refers to the breath—the part that is missing. You can survive without it. Plenty do. But to have the missing piece is to breathe easier, more deeply. The first time the term left my lips, I wasn’t thinking of that story, really; I was only thinking of how relieved I was to have you back with me. How you had survived the trial, so I could inhale again.”

“Are you all right?” he asked, after my silence had stretched on for nearly a full minute. I shifted so we were facing one another; I needed to see him. I couldn’t speak, so I simply nodded before leaning up to kiss him. It felt like the first time I’d ever done it—softly at first, my lips just barely brushing his, my breaths spilling warm and slow into his mouth, his chest rising and falling with deep, deliberate inhales. His hands gripped my hips, steadying me. His knees rose up, further pinning me in place before he took my face in his hands and pulled me deeper into the kiss. The tub quickly felt too small, too confining, for the way I needed to kiss him, to touch him, to press myself against him. He shared the same thoughts, apparently, because after a moment he stood and stepped out of the water, carrying me with him. He wrapped a towel around himself and grabbed a second one for me. He placed me on the polished countertop—warming the stone with a touch of his hand—and trailed the plush towel over my damp skin while his lips and tongue continued to tangle with mine, drying me until only a few droplets of the bath still clung to my body. He tossed the towel aside and drank these last beads of water away himself, his warm mouth pressing in and his tongue licking at the curve of my shoulder, the valley between my breasts, along the edge of my hip. Soon the only dampness that remained was what was pooling between my legs; he drank of that too before straightening, planti...

“A truth for a truth?” I suggested. He smiled at the familiar words. “Okay.” I took a deep breath and whispered, “I love you.” He went very still in my grip. I let go of him, clutching a fist to my pounding, exposed and vulnerable heart. “And you…” He caught my hand, brought it up to his lips, and answered before I even had an instant to doubt it. “Yes,” he whispered back, brushing a kiss across my knuckles, his eyes never leaving mine. “And there is the missing piece.”

Malaphar. The God of the Shade. As soon as he realized I was looking at him, his smile curved in an intrigued sort of way, and he began to change. His hair turned silver, his pale blue eyes became glowing white orbs with unsettling black centers…and he still looked familiar. The Tower Keeper. They were the same being.

“We take a great risk, allowing any of it to transfer to her—much less such a large amount.” “Yes, but with what he offers, she will be as much a goddess as an elf—and perhaps her two halves might help make the worlds she has walked between more whole,”

Whatever happened now, I didn’t care, so long as I could face it with him at my side. He had started to heal parts of me that I didn’t even realize were broken, and now I would return to him, and together we could forge something new.

I was standing on the first floor of the Tower of Ascension—a place I remembered as dark, even to my elvish vision—but now it appeared to be cast in the brightest daylight, all the ancient symbols upon its obsidian walls alight. I could have spent hours studying and taking notes on those symbols, had my eyes not been drawn to the figure standing by the front door. Dravyn. A soft gasp fell from my lips. He turned to face me, and I saw him as I never had before. He was in his familiar, mortal-like form, yet all the edges of him seemed to glow. I felt as though my elven eyes had not been capable of seeing him for what he truly was—a being that was somehow even more breathtakingly beautiful than I remembered. I managed a few steps toward him before I slowed, overwhelmed and in disbelief over what was happening. He closed the rest of the distance between us with long, confident strides, reaching for my hand as he approached. I took it, and as our palms touched, a warmth unlike anything I’d ever felt flared in the depths of my very soul. A warmth that felt like home. “Hello, Wildfire,” he said with a smile.