Tavrin
Iwoke with her warmth against my chest.
The nest held us both, furs and cushions and the wall of books I had built without understanding why. Now I understood. I had been making a place for her. A place where she could be safe and warm and mine.
She was still asleep. Her breath came slow and even, her body curled against my side, one hand resting over my heart like she had been counting beats while she dreamed. I watched her fingers. Even in sleep they moved slightly, twitching against my skin.
I memorized that. The way her mind never rested. I wanted to remember everything about this morning in case it was our last.
The fever was worse. I could feel it in my bones, in the ache behind my eyes, in the way my skin felt too tight for my body. The transformation was accelerating. I had days left, maybe less, before I lost the ability to think in words at all.
Without a completed bond to anchor me, the transformation would take everything. Not just words. Me. But I would not make Wren make such a choice. She should have everything I could give her, including freedom.
I had tonight. I had enough left for tonight.
That would have to be enough.
She woke slowly. Stretched against me. Then went still as she remembered.
“Today,” she said.
“Today.”
She sat up. I watched her face shift into something sharper, more focused. The scribe taking over. Her eyes went distant and her fingers began to move, sketching invisible notes against the blanket.
“We should go over the plan again,” she said.
I listened. Let her voice wash over me. The words mattered less than the sound of her.
She kept talking. Floor plans. Timing. Contingencies. I watched her hands sketch invisible maps.
Underneath the calm, she smelled like fear. Not the sharp bright scent of panic. Something deeper. The muted tang of prey that knows the hunter is coming. She was terrified of what tonight might cost.
Not for herself. For me.
“Fifteen minutes,” she said. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, you come. Not before. Promise me.”
I reached for her hand. Pressed it flat against my chest, over my heart.
“Promise.”
The day was endless.
She gathered supplies while I watched from the nest. Rope. A small blade. Dark clothing. Every movement precise and purposeful.
I could not help. Could barely stand without swaying. So I watched her, and she let me watch, and sometimes she would look up and catch my eyes and neither of us would speak. We just looked. Held the moment. Let it stretch.
There was nothing left to say. We both knew what tonight might cost. We were going anyway.
The sun crawled across the sky. I dozed and woke and dozed again, each time checking that she was still there. Still real. Still mine.
I thought about finding her in the entrance hall. The cloak pooled at her feet. The desperate hope in her face when she asked if it would carry her.
She had been willing to try anything to save her sister. Would have flown down the mountain alone if she could.
And then I had offered her a different choice. Both. She could have both.
If it killed me, she would have both.
Late afternoon. The light turning gold and heavy.
She came back to the nest. Lay down beside me. Pressed her forehead against my shoulder.
“I’m scared,” she said. So quiet I barely heard.
I wrapped my arm around her. Pulled her closer. Could not find words, so I pressed my mouth to her hair instead.
“Not of uncle.” Her voice was muffled against my skin. “Not of the plan. I’m scared of leaving you out there alone. Waiting.”
I understood. The waiting would be harder than the doing. For both of us.
“I will. Be there,” I managed. “When you. Come out. I will. Be there.”
She tilted her face up. Looked at me with wet eyes.
“Remember I need you,” she said. “Whatever happens. Come back to me.”
I held those words. Pressed them into my chest where I could keep them.
“Always.”
We lay tangled together and waited for dark.
Dusk.
She stood on the balcony in her dark clothes, rope coiled over her shoulder. The wind caught her hair. A thief. A hero. My wife.
The harness took longer than it should have. My hands shook as I fitted the straps around her, checking each buckle twice, three times. She let me. Did not rush me. Just watched my face with those knowing eyes while I made sure she was secured against my chest.
“Ready?” she asked.
I answered by pulling her against my chest and stepping off the edge.
The fall lasted a heartbeat. Then my wings caught the air and we were flying, the Aerie shrinking above us, the world spreading below.
Cold air numbed the fever. Cleared my head. Made thinking easier. I focused on the rhythm of my wings, the weight of her against me, the drum of her heart.
She was talking. Murmuring into my ear, her voice nearly lost in the wind. Garden wall. Third window. Fifteen minutes. I caught the fragments. Held them.
The flight was costing me. I felt it in the tremor building in my shoulders, the way each wingbeat required more effort than the last. The strength was still there. Just harder to reach.
I would have enough for the flight back. I would make sure of it.
We landed on the roof of a chandler’s shop, close enough to see her window.
The impact was harder than I wanted. My legs buckled before I caught myself. She felt it.
“Tavrin.”
“I’m. Fine.”
She did not argue. Just looked at me with eyes that said she knew I was lying and loved me anyway.
The town smelled wrong. Smoke and sweat and too many bodies pressed together. Horses and waste and old fear soaked into the stones. She had grown up breathing this air. Surviving in this place.
No more. After tonight, she would never have to smell this town again.
“I’ll be fast,” she said.
My arms tightened around her. I could not make them let go.
She allowed it for a moment. Then she pulled back, took my face in her hands, made me look at her.
“Fifteen minutes. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.” Her thumbs traced my cheekbones. “And then we take my sister home and we never think about this place again.”
I tried to speak. Tried to say be careful or I love you or if anything happens to you I will burn this town to ash.
What came out was a sound. Low. Rough. Not words.
She understood anyway.
“Come back to me,” she whispered. The same words from the nest. A promise and a command. “Whatever happens.”
I pressed my forehead to hers. Breathed her in. Held her scent in my lungs like I could keep her there.
“Always.”
She kissed me. Quick and fierce. Then she slipped out of my arms and moved toward the house.
I watched her cross the alley. Watched her scale the garden wall and drop into the shadows on the other side.
She walked into the dark and I let her go.
Hardest thing I had ever done.
One minute.
Her scent still clung to my skin. Ink and soap and something warm underneath. I held it like a rope in a storm.
Around me the town breathed. Dogs barking in the distance. A drunk singing off-key somewhere to the south. Ordinary sounds. The world continuing like nothing was happening.
Two minutes.
She would be at the garden wall now. Climbing.
Three minutes.
The window. Wood sticking, then giving way. She was inside.
My wings wanted to extend. I pressed them flat until my joints ached.
Four minutes.
Close to the sister’s room now. Had to be.
Five minutes.
Whispered voices. I imagined them. Two sisters meeting in the dark. The smaller one’s fear turning to understanding.
Six minutes.
They would be moving. Toward the window. Almost out.
Seven minutes.
Shaking. The effort of staying still. The beast did not understand waiting. Did not understand plans. It only understood that she was in danger and I was not beside her.
Eight minutes.
Something felt wrong. They should be at the window by now.
Nine minutes.
A sound from the house. Faint. A door.
Someone was awake.
Ten minutes.
I was on my feet before I decided to stand.
Fifteen minutes. Promise me.
I had promised.
Eleven minutes.
One step toward town. Another. My hands were claws. My vision was red at the edges.
Fifteen minutes.
I stopped. Forced myself to stop.
Twelve minutes.
A cry. Small. Terrified. From somewhere inside the house.
He had found them.
Thirteen minutes.
A voice. Male. Sharp and angry. Even through walls and distance I caught the tone.
She could handle this. She was capable.
Come back to me.
Fourteen minutes.
I heard Wren’s breath catch. The small wounded sound she made before she smothered it.
That sound.
That small hurt sound.
Come back to me.
I stopped fighting.
The beast won.