Chapter 18
She still hated him.
That much was clear, but Kinlear supposed if he had been shoved into a cell with a bloodthirsty raphon...he’d have felt the same.
But she hadn’t seen what he did, in the Eagle’s Nest, how it looked like the raphon and the Ravenminder had become one being. How they were connected through fate and through a Veilborne’s vision, and he trusted that she would not die that day.
And she wouldn’t die today, either.
“Kinlear,” Arawn growled.
He stood behind him in the catacombs, an unwelcome presence.
Arawn was only here because their father, long live the dying king, had forced him to be Ezer’s overseer. To check on her progress and report back, as was customary for a king in training.
But mostly, Kinlear knew, it was because his father wanted Arawn to spy on him. To ensure the mission was moving forward with swift timing, even though their father had voted no. And probably, just to spite Kinlear.
Bastard, Kinlear thought, for this wasn’t Arawn’s place.
And yet...here the Crown Prince stood, his hand on his sword as if he would draw it against his own twin, the way Soraya did for him. The rage in his voice was careful. Controlled. “This is madness! Let her out. Try another way.”
Kinlear trusted his vision for the future.
But even if his vision just so happened to fail, he’d placed chains upon the raphon’s ankles to make sure it wouldn’t be able to eat his very last hope. He’d runed them himself, with what Magus had taught him, though it had taken a great deal of his energy.
He’d had to sip from his vial three times, until the runes were glowing and set in place.
“Trust me,” Kinlear said now.
Arawn practically snarled. “The way I trusted you with Soraya?”
What the hell, Kinlear thought, as his hands curled into fists, is that supposed to mean? As if Soraya was Kinlear’s to manage? As if he could have done a damned thing to stop her from defecting? From dying?
She’d made her choices.
They all had to live with them now, with the ghost of her hanging between them.
He focused on Ezer, so he wouldn’t turn on his brother.
She was strong enough to handle this.
She would not die today.
He’d seen it.
He trusted it.
He had no other choice but to believe.
And there she stood, her entire body trembling, head to toe.
A part of him broke, at what he’d done to her.
How he’d scared her, how he’d given her a gentle shove towards their dual destiny.
Should he let her out?
He should let her out.
No.
He couldn’t let her out.
It had to happen before it was too late, for the clock was still ticking, the illness was still eating away at his bones, and...
He had to sit so he didn’t fall.
Arawn glared at him for what felt like hours, while she stood inside that cell. While she herself sat...and still, the raphon did not make a move to harm her. It shifted its body, stretched its wings or scratched at its head with its enormous black paws.
At some point, Arawn left. He returned with food for her, and Kinlear’s heart sank, because damn him, why hadn’t he thought to at least care for her?
He wasn’t good at these things. At feelings and understanding, because for so much of his life...he’d simply been numb.
He glared at his brother.
Arawn glared back.
After a while, they muttered short, awkward phrases to one another, as if they all couldn’t stand the slow passing of time.
“How is Father doing?” Kinlear asked.
“Fine,” Arawn said. “How is Mother doing?”
Kinlear huffed angrily. As if his bitch of a mother had tried to speak a word to him, since he’d left Touvre behind.
No ravens came. Once a year, she’d visited, but only to show her face to the people of the Citadel or vote on matters for the war.
Last time she’d arrived, she hadn’t even muttered so much as a hello to Kinlear.
“Hell if I know,” Kinlear grumbled. “You’re the one she fawns over like a newborn babe.”
He smiled when he thought he saw a hint of a snarl on Arawn’s lips.
He loved to make his hackles raise.
And then it was silent again. So awkwardly silent, but time passed without incident...and still, the raphon did not harm Ezer.
It’s fated, Kinlear thought, as he sat on his stool, his leg throbbing. She belongs with the beast.
At some point, Ezer began to pace. And then, blessedly, by her own choice...she turned her attention to him.
Gods, he loved the feel of her eyes on his face. He loved the darkness in her gaze, the insults she most certainly wanted to throw at him. She was a challenge, the greatest one he’d ever met, and he’d be damned if he didn’t win.
“Does she have a name?” Ezer asked.
He chuckled at that. “Call her Six.”
“A number is not a name,” Ezer said.
He shrugged, his heart soaring as those eyes remained on him and him alone. “And a raphon is not a pet.”
“It is, if you’re to make me tame her,” Ezer said. She sighed and took another bite of the meat Arawn brought her. She leaned her head against the bars.
And for a moment she looked so sad, so...resigned? That Kinlear hated himself all over again for this.
She needed hope.
She needed to believe in herself as much as he did, but how could she, without seeing what he’d seen?
“Two minutes,” he said. “That’s how long the last person to enter her cell survived.” And then he smiled, still amazed that his power had been so damned right about this. “You’ve been in there for five hours.”
Her dark brows raised.
But she gave no response to his statistic...even though he could see the spark, the light, come back to her gaze.
Perfection, he thought.
She wasn’t what he’d expected from his dreams.
She was better.
“Does she just lie here all day?” Ezer asked.
“No,” Kinlear said. He could almost pretend Arawn wasn’t with them anymore.
That it was just the two of them, alone in the darkness, talking about their raphon.
“The past many months, she has spent her time wearing holes in the floor with her pacing. We had to replace the bars, from how much she’d slammed her body against them, before we finally resorted to the chains to keep her from hurting herself. ”
“As would you, when placed in a cage,” Ezer said.
Gods, her words were sharp.
Her tongue cut like a knife.
He yawned, as if he hadn’t been affected at all by her ire, because again, she was a challenge, and he wouldn’t flinch.
He wouldn’t back down, wouldn’t ever be seen as weak to her.
Not the way he was to Soraya. Instead, he raised his dark brows and smiled.
“Do you always speak to royalty in such a way?”
“Yes,” Arawn said beneath his breath.
Kinlear’s back stiffened.
He didn’t like that his brother knew that.
He didn’t like that he had grown to know her at all, because deep down...Kinlear knew Arawn was the true handsome twin. The one with bulging muscles and the godsdamned abs.
He focused on Ezer.
He pretended Arawn was just the obnoxious sigh of the wind.
Ezer lifted her chin and snarled. “Do you always lock women inside cages?”
Gods, Kinlear could get used to this.
Sparring with wit and words.
“Fair enough,” he said, and chuckled. “Six didn’t stop moving until she met you. She’s been this way, a lump of feathers and fur, ever since.”
And then Ezer began talking, but it was an effort to listen as he watched her lift the kitchen knife.
Those hands, those fingertips...he could imagine the way they would curl over the blade he’d give her.
The one that he’d plucked from the dead darksoul, the night Six’s mother was captured. It belonged with her. It belonged with—
“Damn it,” she hissed.
She’d cut herself. Deeply.
Enough that blood welled out, that...
The sound of clinking chains caught his attention...and the raphon rose to its feet.
“Kinlear.” Arawn’s voice was urgent. “Let her out.”
“Not yet,” Kinlear said, the words leaving his lips before he’d even had the chance to consider the effects of them. Was he insane? Was he truly going to leave her there...bleeding...faced with the raphon?
Yes, his mind whispered. It sounded like his monster’s voice. It echoed like a memory, and suddenly he was a boy again, running through a skeletal wood for his life.
He was not afraid.
Not for himself, not for her, because she would not die today.
He’d seen it.
He trusted it.
And he watched as she transformed before him. From a trembling, terrified thing, into a warrior.
A woman who had seen death, not once, but twice, first with the shadow wolves and then with this very raphon.
A woman who was not afraid.
Arawn moved towards the cage, but Kinlear lifted his cane in warning.
Just as Ezer raised her hand, and whispered, “Come on.”
Six leaned forward. And just like before, just like in the Eagle’s Nest...the raphon placed her beak against Ezer’s bleeding hand.
It was like magic, the two of them together.
They both closed their eyes. He swore he was watching two souls entangle, watching something entirely new to this realm, this world, spring to life.
A raphon rider...who fought on the gods’ side.
She was stepping into her destiny, right before him, and she had no clue...no clue at all, at how great she would be someday.
When their connection broke, Six padded away and went to sleep.
Never, not once, had he seen the beast respond like that. With careful hands, Kinlear opened the cage. The hinges screamed, and Ezer flinched...as if a spell had been broken.
A bond.
The very same one that the darksouls had spoken of...a bond he couldn’t force, because it was the raphon that chose the rider.
And it had to happen in its own time.
“Well done,” Kinlear said, as Ezer left the cage behind. “Raphonminder.”
How desperately he wished he could tell her what he’d seen in his dreams. How desperately he wanted to move time forward and be in the skies with her now. When he was still well enough to do it.
Not yet, his mind whispered. Not yet.
Still, Kinlear smiled.
He felt, for the first time in ages...alive.
Ezer paused just before she passed him.
She settled her dark, scarred gaze on his, earning a thump from his chest.
“If you ever lock me in a cage again,” she said. “I don’t care that you’re a prince. I will skin you alive. And I will feed your bleeding corpse to my raphon.”
He was surprised at how much it looked like she meant it.
And even more surprised, at how his only response was to smile.