Girl of Glass and Fury: A Portal Fantasy: Tara's Necklace, #2

By C.K. Beggan

Save the world. Lose yourself.

 

They call me a true wisp, as if that's all there is to me. But when I find the secrets to our ancestors' magic, they'll wish they never doubted me.

I'm going to save this good-for-nothing world.

Finchoa isn't like the other girls. Thanks to her ghost-like body she can't be with the boy she cares for, can't help her best friend and—most frustratingly of all—she can't cross the gate linking her world to that of the shadows.

But Finchoa longs for magic, just as she burns for every wisp to be treated fairly. As her determination morphs into rage, she will stop at nothing to uncover the ancestors' lost sorcery and change her world. And if that means exploring the ruined ancient cities to find it, so be it. The only trouble?

Magic has a cost, and what Finchoa finds in the mountains will change her life forever.

I can't lose the people I love.

Note: Girl of Glass and Fury (Tara's Necklace Book Two) can be read before Girl of Shadow and Glass (Tara's Necklace Book One).

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.K. Beggan
• Release date: Aug 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201878818

Book preview

Prologue

I remember the first time I saw them. The shadows.

I'm six years old, and trailing after Kith like I always do. The willows dance over us, promising zephyrs and bullies and other wisp-punishing winds. But beneath their umbrellas, the world is peaceful. Calm. It makes the Gate at the bottom of the slope that much more terrifying.

I'm not a skittish child. I have my fair share of fights—with words, when my fists are too wispy to connect and once, when I was lucky, a rock. They’re fights about Kith. I don't understand what's wrong with the other kids. Each Seti body is different, all of us wisps, semi-wisps, half-wisps, and all those more solid types, too, not a one of us entirely the same. Kith's body is another type of solid. Sure, there's more to her, but she isn't that different from the rest of us.

She's just a kid, too.

As I float beside and a little behind her on the slope, a crooked willow root stretches between us. Kith hugs herself tight, and frowns at the swirling light that peeks through the branches.

I hate the way it feels, she says.

Maybe you'll be good at shadow school. I'm trying to be helpful. Really, I'm so grateful we're together, now that Caerwan's had a talk with my mum. I only wish Kith could come back to normal school.

"I wish I was going to our school," Kith echoes my thought, shaking her head.

"You want to get scolded by Sir Lodin?"

"Nobody wants that. Kith pulls a face, then loosens it. Her eyes are still on the shifting triangle of light through the willow branches. I wish I was still going to school because I wanted to."

You never wanted to.

I never wanted to get up early. S'different.

It doesn't seem all that different to me. Unless she’s blaming her sleeping arrangements; her bed is so different from mine, raised above the floor and covered in weaving. She sleeps in it with all those heavy blankets on top of her. If I had a blanket like hers over me, I wouldn't be able to move no matter how badly I wanted. My body, lighter than dust, would be pinned.

Though she lacks a wisps problems, Kith is trapped by those blankets, too. If she gets too cold, everyone thinks she’ll get a fever again. Her bed is piled high with woven fabric.

I wish I was in school with you, I say instead of all that—instead of sympathy—because I think it's noble, getting taught by the shadows. With all the stories I've heard around the valley—and none of them quite agree—a girl has to be brave to face them, let alone eat their food and take their lessons. I could be that brave.

"I want to be in school with you," Kith replies, flashing a smile at me before that distant look overtakes her eyes. It's almost like she's already gone.

You can skip, I suggest, folding into a willow trunk as the wind ruffles the branches. It’s only one day.

Shocked, Kith bursts out, eyes wide and voice almost stricken. I can't do that!

'Course you can.

For a moment, Kith looks like the friend I remember from before the fever and the Gate's awakening. Then she's gone. I don't understand where she goes.

I've gotta hold the treaty, she says, looking like the loneliest girl in Sundown as she hangs from a swaying branch.

'Uphold.'

What?

You've gotta 'uphold' the treaty. I shrug, unconcerned. You can still skip. One day won't hurt. A half day, even.

That's not what the Elders say.

"Oh, the Elders." I stick out my tongue.

Kith giggles. My pater says you're going to make me disobedient like you.

Well my mum says you're going to poison me with Other World vapors and strange magic. So there!

Watching Kith dissolve into a belly laugh that bends her in two makes me grin. I feel like I've done something good, making her forget all the trouble that's been following her. And all that sadness. I remember the day my mum pried me away from Kith before she could finish telling me about her shadow teachers—and Kith does, too. Because when she straightens and wipes tears from her cheeks, I see the trouble’s still there.

That purely solid body of hers may mean she’s a shade-child, but I can't see her for it. I can't see the problems it's brought her, because even at six, I think I understand most things—and that I understand them better than the grownups know. Sometimes it's true. Like how I know that Kith has a spirit-light inside like everybody else, and that beneath those bones and fragile lungs she's a regular Seti, no different from the rest of us. And all of us are no different from the ancestors whose spirits dance as sky-lights above us, keeping our World bathed in that warm, endless light that gives Sundown its name. Whether a person's born a shade-child, a sorcerer or wisp, once we're gone, we all look the same: just another glowing ball of light on the wind. That makes us the same where it counts, no matter what we like look or how we live while we're still on the ground.

Today, though, something real comes between Kith and me, for the first time since we were babies.

Ginoa's Gate.

Swirling at the base of the slope, full of soft colors like the succulent hens and chicks, the Gate my mum’s so afraid of beckons. Patches of pink or dewy green converge, creating a still screen between this World and its neighbor, clear as a pane of glass. Through it, I can see the frontier of that other World Kith goes to. The Open World.

I can even see who lives there.

Don't be afraid, Kith says as we approach, her perfectly opaque hand reaching back for me, though it's almost impossible for her to take my translucent one.

I'm not scared, I insist, my head trembling rather than shaking no. My whole body is tensed into a gently glowing and rigid line. When I look down, the light from Ginoa's appears to be a part of me. They're just—

Weird. Yeah. Pater says they must think I'm weird, too. She shrugs. "And anyway, they're not mean. They don't yell like Sir Lodin."

So what are they? I wonder.

How long do you have to keep going? I ask.

"Till I don't have to hold the treaty—uphold it. If your Uncle Hamlich can grow those sprouts—"

My shoulders fall. They've already withered. Since the drought came, everything does. But I don't tell her that. I don't need to. With this much light on me, Kith can read it clearly on my face.

When will you be back? I ask instead.

When they say I can go. Kith shrugs again, trying to make light. It's usually by early afternoon. So far, I always finish school before you do.

I squint through the swirling colors. There's no school on the other side, no sign of buildings or farm houses or anything. Just shadows and grass. She takes her lessons outside, sitting on the ground with all those Other World folk watching. How can anyone learn like that?

You can wait outside our school for me, I suggest. I'll look for you.

Deal. Kith sniffs. I'm glad you're back, Finchoa.

Me too.

I hope your mum won't change her mind.

Me too.

"I've gotta go. My shadow teachers are so strict," Kith complains. But her voice is peculiarly bright.

That's when I realize Kith likes them. She actually looks forward to seeing the shadows. A shock of fear runs through me. Does she like them better than she likes me? What if she becomes best friends with a shadow and then she leaves me here, alone?

At the schoolhouse, Kith says. She slides one foot forward until it's almost touching the Gate, then turns and waves at me one last time. I'll see you then!

Then she steps backward.

Show-off. But it makes me laugh anyway. That's more like the Kith I know.

So I tell myself we're still best friends. Kith's just looking forward to the meals they give her, and all the things she can't get in Sundown. Fruits and vegetables with colors so bright and wild she had to learn the names of them, and I've had to learn them from her. But it's hard to find the right color in a world of rocks and dust; colors like mustard yellow, I know only as kind of like ocher and citrine, but lighter. No matter how often I help her look, she can't find anything in Sundown that matches those colors.

A misty version of Kith reappear on the other side of the Gate. She walks through the Open World, toward the swaying grasses, like she's already used to it. And I can see the shadow coming toward her, the one she said is called Teacher Imila, and the bushel of food that's part of the treaty, and all the impossibly bright colors spilling over the top. Even when muted by the Gate, they're like nothing I've ever seen.

Without thinking I skim forward, then realize how close I am to the Gate, to all that lost magic of our ancestors that used to carry them between Worlds. The Old Sorcery, which no one understands. I pull up in front of Ginoa's ore-like frame, marveling at how life-like the leaves are. Some are even green. Did the Gate always look like that?

Ginoa’s is surrounded by willow branches, cast in some unknowable metal. Every kid in Sundown knows the shape of those leaves.

I use that thought to make myself braver, to push my hand forward toward that swirling light. Just because the other wisps can't cross doesn't mean I can't. In my child's heart, for a brief second, I actually believe that could be true.

The colors collect around my palm, then rebound. It happens so fast I'm not sure I've seen it. One blink and the Gate is how it was before, its light idly swirling as it casts soft colors on and through me.

I feel nothing. No warmth of ancestral sorcery, or tingling or—anything. I might as well be touching a wall. Miserable, I gaze longingly at Kith's clouded shape as she settled onto the Open World's ground. I'd give anything to follow her in that moment. Anything.

The last thing I see, before the colors turn solid, is the shadow Imila's head snapping up, her triangular ears high and strange as she looks toward Ginoa's Gate. Her piercing black eyes linger in the Gate's surface as dim patches, then vanish like all the rest.

I let myself believe she’s looking at me.

One

The first thing she should understand is that I'm awake now. I've got plans. I'm not the same girl she was friends with all her life. I'm not content to stay here in the valley any longer, and I won't listen to Sundown's lies. I'm here to change everything.

So why can't I just say that?

You know I can't do that, Kith replies to my plan. And she should tell me no. I couldn't have said it in a weaker, less convincing way. Me and a couple of my friends are going into the mountains. We're going to try to reach the closest city—the white city of our ancestors. Like it's nothing but a fun day out or a silly adventure. Like we're still ten years old instead of seventeen.

Of course you can, I tell her, my fists balled—but at the same time, something in me crumples. Even as I insist that it's not so hard—ugh, I wouldn't go with me, either—I'm deeply, hideously aware of how hard this is. Stupidly so. How is it possible to be one person everywhere else in Sundown and this dumb little twelve year old with a temper whenever I'm next to Kith?

Then what do you need me for? Kith asks me.

What do I need her for?

What do I need her for?

Here it comes. I can feel my temper building, that hot feeling I get in my core. But I force a smile over my lips, even as the wind pushes me. The cool clay of the schoolhouse matches the breeze, but it doesn't make me cold. Not now, or ever.

I don't need you, Kith, I grind out. We're not kids anymore. Just 'cause I'm a wisp doesn't mean I can't find my own way around. I just thought you'd want to be there when we reach it. The old cities—well, the one we're trying to get to—who wouldn't want to see that?

Everyone. That's why nobody goes there.

I picture everyone else, always grinning like they're daft, but my expression still falters. Smiles are harder to stick to than any mountain climb. You're not everyone.

Yes. The wind knocks a clutch of Kith's tight, dark curls across her face, and she bats them away like it's nothing. Which is why I'll never be able to go.

The gust is too strong for me to even raise my arm. Strands of my own, translucent hair wrap around me when the wind curls against the side of the school. I can't do anything about it. Not like Kith.

She's not like everyone else—that's an understatement. But I'm not like everyone, either. "Don't be daft. You mean you don't want to go."

It's too dangerous for a shade-child. Kith laughs. Ask anyone. Or they'll tell you first.

"Anyone can stuff it."

I know what she's going to say. You don't know what it's like. But Machel and Lille are watching from the side of the school, and I can't let them down. Not when Machel's got that hopeful look in his eyes. So I barrel on. The wind's stiff up there, but if it's you it won't be a problem. You're better suited for it than anyone. You know you can keep your footing on the slopes—

She snorts. You shouted at me last week for going into the ravine.

'Cause you know better! You could crack your head.

I told you, I saw a piece of gold ore—

You could've left that for other people to fetch.

Kith's eyes widen. But she doesn't speak, letting the silence grow between us.

Oh. I only now realize my mistake. And then I also realize, I've ruined it. I can't believe myself.

But that's Kith. That's what I get—what I somehow knew I'd get. She'll either be the strongest of us or the weakest. She won't attempt anything in between.

Look, we're going to the white city, I say, floating up so I'll appear taller than her, with or without you. If you'd just come to the foothills, you'd see it. You'd know why it's so important to go.

Kith eyes me sidelong. My shadow-teachers say our World is mostly dead.

Then they're daft. What do they know?

More than we do.

My temper is bubbling. I can feel my mouth getting ahead of me again, and there's not a thing I can do to stop it.

Not possible, I say. They can't even cross Ginoa's—

Their knowledge is older than ours, Finchoa. Kith sighs like she's had this argument a hundred times. She hasn't. Not with me, anyway. It's better. They don't forget things like Seti do, and their libraries aren't half-dust. They know about all the Worlds, right down to the plants.

We're not talking plants here.

Yeah, Kith says, the light dulling in her eyes. We are.

She knows. I didn't think she would. She's gotten smarter—savvier. I wish, not for the first time, that I could go to shadow school instead of the one here in our World. I knew she was learning more in the Open World than she let on.

Look, I say, jabbing a finger toward the cracked ground. My anger is curdling into something slippery and unfamiliar. Our ancestors knew things. Not just the Old Sorcery, but all kinds of things we've forgotten. We don't have a library full of faded ink 'cause they had nothing to say. We owe it to them—

Teacher Gongol says those cities are necropolises—cities of the dead. You won't find anything there, Finchoa.

There would be things left behind—

Nothing valuable. Gongol says it's the same in every World. First comes battle, then comes looting. If whoever destroyed the cities left anything behind, our folk would've taken it centuries ago. Kith shrugs. And the wind would've taken the rest.

Gongol. Imila. Shadow-teachers this and that, my shadow teachers. I shiver out my disgust. That new feeling in me, I can feel it slithering out from all my edges. Like I'm not even Seti-shaped anymore.

Glancing at my hands, I can see my body through them. I'm as clear and iridescent as ever, yet Kith can see it, this change in me. Like I'm taking on a new color. I point a finger at her because I'm angry, and also because I think it'll distract her. From the fact that I'm unraveling, exactly the way I have since we were kids. Or the fact that she's gotten smarter and I just haven't.

I punch my finger through a lesser gust that nonetheless threatens to push it back. At least it would be a bit of variety, going to the mountains, I snap. "You do the same thing every day, like the shadows and your meal are all that matters. And if I'm not around, you just go home and do nothing."

Kith can prattle on till the dimming time telling me it's not like that, but I know better. She's never seen a pebble of the old cities our ancestors made—what's left of them. And she probably never will. She doesn't get that it's important, doesn't care that she could leave something valuable behind. Something of our own. She trusts that the knowledge she passes on from the shadows is enough. That being alive is enough. Like the two of us have nothing to prove.

I don't get her at all. If I knew my life would be that short, I'd do all kinds of things. I'd tell everybody to save their breath—to stuff it, like I said—and climb to the top of the waterfall, where the winds are too strong for the wispy folk. From there, I'd be able to look down on all of the valley. I'd do everything, and see everything, that I could.

Not Kith. Never the fragile shade-child. My thoughts grow more mutinous, more wicked, from there.

I don't care how many times she's heard it in her life, that she's weak. She's made herself weak. She's become fragile because she wants to be. Because she wants to be special. She loves being a dinha-blisi, a sorha-blisi. A shade child. A miracle child. She loves that everybody watches her wherever she goes.

Those words are on my lips, threatening to tumble out, when out of nowhere the wind howls up the slope.

I knock against the clay wall, pinned until my anger drains out of me and the words are wrenched from my mouth. Trying to speak, I make a sick sort of squeak instead. My eyes are so wide even Machel can see them. He looks like he wants to help me, and I'm scared that he will.

For one, daft moment, my eyes land on Kith and narrow.

I think she's done it. That she's actually beaten me with the wind. Like Kith has the Old Sorcery and can command it.

Only a lucky gust saves me from saying the most hurtful thing I could. My stomach twists, thinking of how unforgivable each of those things would be. How I had a whole passel of them perched on my tongue, ready to roll off.

Kith hasn't even noticed. She knows it doesn't hurt, that a wisp feels no pain. But she doesn't know how unpleasant it is, how terrifying. That I hate having no control over my own movements, that it's more frightening than I can show. That I'd give anything be free from Sundown's bullying winds.

She's so used to seeing me this way.

Well? I peel my back from the schoolhouse, shifting toward the corner to grasp a useless drain spout. I try to make the movement casual, like I've meant to do it all along. Like I'm not scared. I know Machel's watching. Are you coming, I ask, or not? Last chance.

Finchoa. You know I'm not.

I won't ask you again. Ever.

Promise? Kith laughs again. It's all nothing to her. It's not for me. Shade-children get tired too easy. Here it comes. You don't know what it's like.

And there they are: the words that will end our friendship. Because in the seventeen years we've had together, have I ever once asked her for anything? She didn't even think about it. She owed me at least that—even a moment of consideration would've been right. Would've been kind. Does she care that this is important to me?

As upset as I am, there's a part of me that's relieved. I'm glad it was her that said the friendship-ending thing and not me. I've come close so many times.

I'm going to miss my meal, Kith says. Are you coming or not?

Not, I almost say, watching the wind toss my straight, colorless hair. And then I say something stupid. Fine.

Nobody's forcing you—

"I said it's fine."

So I leave Machel and Lille behind me with a nod. They look like over-eager students without me, like they're so excited to learn they've come to school before the teachers.

They look as foolish as I feel.

I skim after Kith, ducking behind houses and the first of the willows when the wind grows too strong. It would be so easy to hang on to her—to do the very thing I wanted. But I wanted that to happen in the mountains. I won't lose my dignity here and for nothing.

It's also true that I'm up too early for anyone but the farmers to see. I could hold onto Kith—onto her jumper, anyway—instead of stopping and hiding. But it isn't worth it. I'm done hanging onto her hem.

I linger under the willows, saying a meaningless goodbye. Like it means anything to Kith that she's going into another World full of shadows. She hasn't been nervous in years, except when it's about missing her meal.

Kith scurries toward the Gate—a little too quickly to be careful, over all these roots—and turns. She actually walks into Ginoa’s backward, smiling and waving the whole time, until even her fingertips are no more than a ripple.

The murky colors of Ginoa's Gate swallow her.

For a few precious seconds afterward, I have a clear view of the World I'll never visit. The bare earth of the Open World is the same brown as Sundown's, if a little redder. Beyond that is a shimmer of tall grasses, stirring as the hairy, triangular ears of the shadows peek over the blades.

It's lush and green and perfect beyond the Gate—even the sky is pristine. That part makes me shudder, the lack of ancestor lights above them. It's the worst possible reminder that the Open World is different, that the shadows aren't like us. That our ancestors watch over none of us there.

I see one of the shadows trundle forward—it must be Teacher Gongol—but he doesn't