Wren
Tavrin appeared between me and the balcony doors, wings flared wide enough to block my view of the drake entirely, his whole body shaking.
“Tavrin.” I touched his arm. The heat coming off him could have lit kindling. “I need to see.”
A sound from deep in his chest. Not agreement. Warning.
“I know who it is. I need to face him.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t stand down. But he didn’t attack either.
“Please.”
The heavy thump of the landing drake, a cough from behind him.
“Tavrin.” I didn’t look away. Couldn’t.
Slowly, he shifted. Not stepping aside. Just angling his wing enough that I could see past him while he remained between me and the door.
Uncle Aldric looked exactly the same. Gray hair oiled back from his forehead. Expensive coat, slightly too tight across the middle. The calculating eyes that had watched me work for years, always measuring my value against my cost.
Behind him stood a hired guard. Big. Armed. Already calculating whether his pay was worth dying for. I watched him look at Tavrin, look at the distance to the drake, and take one small step backward.
“Wren.” Uncle spread his hands, palms up. The concerned guardian. “Thank the gods you’re alive.”
I cataloged his tells without meaning to. The sweat at his temples despite the mountain cold. The way his eyes kept flicking past me to Tavrin, measuring, calculating. The slight tremor in his voice that could read as worry but I knew was fear.
He was terrified. And he was here anyway.
That meant he was desperate.
My hand found the compass in my pocket. The one Tavrin had carved my name into, letter by shaky letter. I wrapped my fingers around it and held on.
“I’m fine,” I said. “You wasted a trip.”
“Fine?” He gestured at Tavrin. “Look at him, little scribe. Look at what he’s become. That’s not the man you married.”
Little scribe. A life of hearing that. Of being reduced to my usefulness.
“I didn’t marry a man. I married a Roc.”
“A monster.” He shook his head, performing sorrow. “You married a monster, and now look at you.”
He took a step forward. Tavrin’s wings snapped wider, a wall of bronze and black feathers, and uncle froze. The guard took another step back.
“You see? He’s territorial. Aggressive. He can barely control himself.”
“He’s controlling himself right now.” I kept my voice even. “If he wasn’t, you’d already be dead.”
Uncle’s mask slipped for just a moment. I saw the flash of genuine fear before he smoothed it away.
“Come home, Wren. We can void the marriage. The 30-day clause exists for exactly this situation. You made a mistake. You were desperate and frightened and you chose wrong. No one will blame you.”
“I didn’t choose wrong.”
“What kind of life is this?” Uncle’s voice sharpened with frustration. “Trapped on a mountain with a creature who looks at you like prey?”
“He looks at me like I matter.” I kept my voice flat. “You never did.”
Uncle made a disgusted sound. “You’ve lost your mind. The isolation, the altitude, his... influence. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’m thinking more clearly than I have in years.”
“Then think about this.” His tone changed. Harder now. The performance of concern falling away. “You’re my ward until you’re twenty-five. I have legal authority over your decisions. I could challenge this marriage. Claim you weren’t competent to choose.”
“You’d lose. The Bride Market’s authority supersedes guardian rights. I chose. It’s binding.”
His eyes narrowed. I’d surprised him. He hadn’t expected me to know the law.
“You’ve been doing research,” he said. “Good. Then you know I’m right about the 30-day clause. You can still walk away. Return the payment value and come home.”
“I don’t want to walk away.”
“What you want doesn’t matter!” The mask cracked completely.
His face flushed red, spit flecking his lips.
“You were supposed to marry Sorley. Clear my debts. Be useful for once in your miserable life. Instead you humiliated me. Made me look like a fool in front of everyone. And now Sorley wants his money. Do you understand? He wants what I owe him and I don’t HAVE it. ”
So that was it. Not just greed. Fear. Someone was coming to collect.
“I’m not coming home,” I said.
“Then you’re choosing a monster over your own family.”
“You’re not my family.” The words came out flat. Final. “You’re my employer who stopped paying me. All those years of service and you tried to sell me to cover your gambling debts. That’s not family. That’s not even good business.”
Something shifted in his expression. The calculation returning. He’d tried guilt, fear, legal threats. None of it had worked. Which meant he was about to play his real card.
I felt it coming before he said it. The way his shoulders settled. The way his breathing evened out. The look of a man who’d found his leverage.
“Then I’ll find someone who does value family,” he said. “Your sister, perhaps.”
Elspeth. Fifteen years old. Ink-stained fingers and a quiet voice and absolute trust that I would always come back for her.
I’d left her behind.
“Elspeth turns sixteen in ten days.” Uncle’s voice was pleasant now. Almost conversational. “Old enough for the Temple. And if the Temple won’t take her, well. The Bride Market doesn’t require DNA matching. Just a willing seller.”
“She’s too young for the Market. The minimum age is sixteen.”
“Which she’ll be. In ten days.” He smiled. “The timing works out perfectly, actually. You have the rest of the 30 days to void this marriage and come home. She goes on the block five days after that.”
“You can’t.”
“I can. I’m her legal guardian. Just like I was yours.” He spread his hands again, but this time there was nothing conciliatory in the gesture. “Your sister or your monster, Wren.”
Tavrin made a sound. Low and terrible, more growl than anything human. I felt him coiling behind me, every muscle preparing to launch.
“Tavrin. No.”
Uncle looked at him with something like satisfaction. “Make your decision. Then your sister pays for your selfishness.”
He turned and walked back to the drake. The guard followed, moving fast, not looking back. They mounted. Lifted off. The wingbeats faded until there was nothing but silence and the wind.
I stood frozen.
I’d escaped and I’d left her behind. I’d been so relieved to be free that I hadn’t let myself think about what that meant. The cost.
“Wren.”
The word came out broken. More breath than sound. I turned.
Tavrin was on his knees. All that tension, all that restraint, and now he was shaking so hard his feathers rattled. His hands were braced on the stone, talons gouging grooves in the rock.
I dropped down beside him. Pulled his head against my chest. Wrapped my arms around as much of him as I could reach.
“I’ve got you,” I said. “I’ve got you.”
His wings folded around us. Not protective this time. Just holding on.
I held him and I calculated. The days. The hours. Not enough time to find a legal solution. Not enough time for anything but watching the deadline approach.
Elspeth or Tavrin.
My sister or my husband.
I held him tighter and didn’t have an answer.