Wren
Icouldn’t sleep.
The nest was warm. Tavrin’s arm was heavy across my waist, his breath slow and even against my hair. He’d finally stopped shaking an hour after my uncle had left, but the day ground on, unsettled, exhaustion pulling him under despite everything.
I lay in the dark and calculated.
Thirty days. Uncle had said thirty days, but nearly two weeks had already passed. Sixteen days remaining.
And even if I voided the marriage, even if I went back, there was no guarantee he’d keep his word about Elspeth. He was a gambler. Gamblers lied.
I needed another option.
Slowly, carefully, I slid out from under Tavrin’s arm. He made a sound in his sleep, reaching for the space where I’d been, but he didn’t wake
Then I went to find the cloak.
It hung in the entrance hall where he’d left it after our flight up the mountain. Days ago. A lifetime ago. The bronze and black feathers caught the moonlight, iridescent, beautiful.
I touched it.
The feathers shivered under my hand, the same way they’d shivered when he touched them at the cliff’s edge. It is an artifact. Very old. It carries me when I need to travel.
Could it carry me?
I pulled the cloak off its hook. Heavier than I expected. The feathers rippled as I held it, almost liquid in the way they moved. I swung it around my shoulders and waited.
Nothing.
I closed my eyes. Concentrated. Tried to will it to spread, to unfurl, to become wings the way it had for him.
Nothing.
“It will not work.”
I spun. Tavrin stood in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame. His eyes were gold in the darkness, pupils slit, watching me with something I couldn’t read.
“I had to try.”
He nodded. Not angry. Just sad.
“It answers. To me.” The words came slowly, each one a small victory. “It does not know you yet. It has. Always been. This way.”
I let the cloak fall from my shoulders. It pooled on the floor, feathers settling with a soft sound.
“Then I have no way down the mountain.”
“No.”
“And no way to get to Elspeth.”
Silence. He pushed off from the doorframe and walked toward me. Unsteady. The effort of getting here had cost him. I could see it in the tremor of his legs, the way he listed slightly to one side.
“Why.” He stopped in front of me. “Why not. Ask me.”
“Because I’ve seen what the transformation is doing to you. Because you can barely walk to the entrance hall without losing your balance. Because flying all the way down the mountain and back, carrying two people...” I shook my head. “It could kill you.”
“Could.”
“Tavrin.”
“Could.” He said it again, more firmly. “Not. Will.”
“You don’t know that.”
He reached out. His hand found my face, burning hot, trembling. I leaned into it despite myself.
“Yours,” he said. “She is. Yours. So.” He pressed his other hand to his chest. “Mine. Protect.”
“She’s not your responsibility.”
His lips twisted into something dangerously close to a pout.
“You are. Mine.” Each word deliberate. Certain. “What is. Yours. Is mine. Same thing.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Is now.”
I caught his hand. Held it against my face. Felt the heat of him searing into my palm.
“You’d really do that? Risk everything for my sister?”
He made a soft sound. Reached up and touched my face with his other hand, cupping my jaw.
“Already. Risk. Everything.” His thumb traced my cheekbone. “For you. Already decided. Long ago.” A pause. “This is. Just. More of you. To protect.”
I stared at him. This creature who could barely speak, barely stand, who had shed a trail of feathers just walking down a hallway. Who was offering to fly into danger for a girl he’d never met, because she mattered to me.
“We’d need a plan,” I said slowly. “Uncle’s house has guards at night. Not many, but enough. He drinks after dinner and passes out around midnight. Elspeth’s room is on the second floor, east corner. The window sticks but I could get it open from outside if you could get me up there.”
He was watching me with something like wonder. Like he hadn’t expected me to pivot so fast.
“I know that house. I know which floorboards creak. I know where the servants sleep. I know how to get in and out without being seen.” Those years of honing my survival instincts, watching. Waiting. “You can’t go inside. You’re too big, too obvious, and if you lose control in there...”
He nodded. He understood.
“You get me to the window. I go in, get Elspeth, bring her out. You carry us both back.” The plan taking shape. “If something goes wrong, if uncle wakes up or the guards come, you’re the backup. Only if I need you. Only if there’s no other way.”
Another nod. He swayed on his feet and I grabbed his arm, steadying him.
“When?” he managed.
“You need to rest.” I said it before he could argue. “You can barely stand. If we leave now, you’ll drop us both into the mountains.”
He wanted to fight me. I could see it in his face. But his legs were shaking, and we both knew I was right.
“Tomorrow night,” I said. “We fly down slow, save your strength. I go in quiet, get Elspeth, get out. No confrontation. No walls coming down.”
“How. Long.”
“Inside? Twenty minutes. Maybe less if she’s awake.”
He shook his head. Held up ten fingers.
“Ten minutes isn’t enough. I need time to explain, to get her dressed, to make sure she doesn’t scream when she sees you waiting outside.”
He considered this. Held up ten fingers again, then five more.
“Fifteen,” I agreed. “If I’m not out in fifteen minutes, something’s wrong.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Almost a smile.
“Then. I come in.”
“Then you come in. But only then. Only if there’s no other choice.”
Silence. Moonlight on the floor. The cloak a dark pool of feathers at our feet.
“I was trying to find a way to do this alone,” I said quietly. “I didn’t want to ask you to risk yourself. Not for this. Not for me.”
He was still for a long moment. Then he stepped closer, pulling me against his chest. His wings came up and around us, feathers settling like a blanket.
“Never. Alone.” His voice was rough against my hair. “Not anymore.”
I pressed my face into his shoulder. Let myself lean into him. Let myself, for just a moment, stop worrying.
“Tomorrow night,” I said. “Tomorrow night.”
His arm tightened around me. His voice came out barely louder than a breath.
“We get. Our sister.”
I didn’t correct him.