Chapter 25
He dreamt of her again, and it was enough to carry him through to the next day.
He woke rested...though feeling strangely empty inside, without the feeling of Ezer’s kiss on his lips. He’d awoken again just seconds before he drove in the Acolyte’s blade.
He dressed himself in his runed cloak, shivering despite the warmth it offered, and met Ezer in the catacombs, his heart in his throat, uncertain of what he’d find when he looked her in the eyes.
But... she did not look like she’d spent the night with his brother.
Don’t ask her, Kinlear told himself. Don’t ask a godsdamned thing, or you’ll look jealous, and desperate, and no woman will put up with that.
Still, it was the hardest thing he’d done since meeting her.
Not asking about Arawn.
Especially because today, Ezer was beautiful. She always was, but she looked stronger, less broken than she had before, when she’d first arrived at Augaurde.
The set of her jaw was more determined. There was far less fear, far more determination, from the way she held her shoulders back to the very words that left her lips.
She was made for this, his Raphonminder.
Made for Six.
For me, he added. She has saved me, by giving me a reason to live when all I thought of before was how I was destined to die.
Together, they journeyed away from the cliffside, and down into the snowy woods, both on Six’s back. Years ago, he’d have thought someone crazy, if they said he’d ever be riding one. Let alone, inside the Citadel’s embrace.
It was a true feat that they should have celebrated... especially when they made it off the main cliff and to the woods below. Because though Six was built for the snow and the harsh terrain...he swore the raphon was negative amounts of graceful.
And now that Six knew the snow wasn’t going to kill her, she loved it. She ran into tree branches, knocking snow down upon their shoulders. Ezer yelped in joy, and Kinlear laughed despite the onslaught of cold, and it was the best day he’d had in ages.
The best time he could remember having, perhaps ever, in his miserable life, since Soraya left.
Six leapt off boulders and scratched at the snow every few feet, reminding him of an overgrown chicken.
“It’s good we did this,” Kinlear said, breathless as he held onto Ezer. As he reveled in the press of her back against him. The fact that they were riding a raphon, and it hadn’t eaten them. “She’s become unhinged.”
“She’s just curious,” Ezer corrected him. “Ravens are like that. It’s best she works it out now.”
She laughed as Six continued her antics, as if the beast were playing.
Let her play, Kinlear told himself. Because here in the snow, with Six beneath them...Ezer was happy. Truly happy.
So Kinlear was, too.
The snow poured down harder, and they’d made it to the Sacred Circle when Ezer finally spoke again.
Not about the enormous ring of stones, which revealed the dark lines across Lordach’s own.
..a reminder of how little time they had before the stone cracked in full, and the Acolyte won this war entirely.
No, it was about...beyond the wards. The place where, just months ago, Six’s mother was captured.
They passed through the wards together. The magic was cold on Kinlear’s skin, tickling his cheeks and nose. It felt like a bubble popping, and Kinlear could breathe again, without the kiss of the gods’ magic.
He wasn’t normal. He’d always known it, even since he was a boy.
But since Magus had revealed to him what he really was, since he slayed the monster in his mind...he felt like he was carrying a terrible secret. A difference that was more than his cough or his limp.
It was him, soul deep, who was not the same. Not who the Citadel wanted him to be.
He hadn’t realized how much he needed to get away from the other Sacred, with their perfect, pillared magic, until it was just him and Ezer and Six.
Three creatures that were so unlike anything else inside the wards.
“You were here,” Ezer said gently, as they stepped into the ancient graveyard that marked the edge of Augaurde. So many ancients were buried here, ones that Kinlear had marched past, just months ago, to find a captured raphon.
“How do you know that?” Kinlear asked.
Because there was no way she’d have been able to pick up on that. Not even the servants knew exactly what had gone on that night in the woods when Six’s mother was taken down by runes and magic and might.
But Ezer only shrugged. “Six remembers. Sometimes...she shows me things.”
Like what? He wanted to ask. There was more to their connection than just tail twitches, he knew. But he wouldn’t press.
Not with her.
Ezer slid down from Six’s back, leaving him cold.
And as she walked about the ancient graveyard, he longed to have her near him again. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he could feel his own strength waning. He needed her steadiness just to help him stay upright.
Just hang on a little longer, he told himself.
He sucked in a wavering breath, and stifled a cough, despite how bad it ached.
Snow danced lazily down around them, and Kinlear told Ezer tale of Six’s mother. But as the minutes went on, the wind shifted. It had an icy bite to it once more, and the snow poured down a bit harder as the daylight waned.
The storms were always worse by night.
Kinlear longed to stay here, outside the wards, for somehow it felt more private. A taste of freedom, perhaps.
Ezer and Six felt the same, it seemed, for they’d stopped above the grave of Wrenwyn the Wrong. It was an ancient tale, from a royal line before the Laroux family, and one the younglings were often told as a warning for those who stepped out of line.
No one knew quite how Wrenwyn’s life had ended.
Much like, Kinlear realized, no one knew how Ezer’s life began.
He hadn’t visited the cells beneath the Citadel since she first arrived. But he had kept up his research on her parents in his time alone, still seeking answers for Ezer.
Nothing came up, though he certainly wanted to be able to offer her that gift.
He wanted it for himself, too: the answer to the question he’d had since Magus first brought up the term Veilborne.
Where had his magic come from...if it wasn’t from his own parents?
He’d not stopped searching for those answers, either, but deep down, something Magus said had always bothered him.
He’d had to go south...where ancient magic still lived and thrived. The southern continent, a place Kinlear would never go.
Not until they slayed the Acolyte. But then, once the war was over...
Perhaps he and Ezer could get their answers together. Perhaps, he dared to dream as the snow danced between them...perhaps they could see places far beyond the Sundered Sea.
Something cracked in the woods, drawing Kinlear back to attention.
“We need to go,” he said, even as Ezer still stared down at Wrenwyn’s grave, and he sensed...it meant something to her. The story. The truth that no one would ever discover, for Wrenwyn’s story was long, long buried in its own grave.
He coughed suddenly and reached for the vial around his neck. It had only a drop left, the liquid only offering a tiny wetness to his lips.
“We’ll go,” Ezer said, noticing.
The wind howled, and Six lifted her beak, letting it roll over her. In the woods, a raven cawed. Ezer smiled, as if she’d heard the cry of the omen, and Kinlear knew how much she loved them, how much—
The raven’s sound cut off with a strange, choking sort of screech.
“What was that?” Kinlear whispered.
A strange feeling slithered up and down his spine. It felt like a warning...a wrongness in his bones.
It only intensified when a low growl came from Six.
“Ezer,” Kinlear breathed, because the wind had picked up again. Because he sensed, upon it...the smell of something terrible. Something rotting. “Let’s go.”
Ezer climbed back onto Six, her warmth against him once more.
Kinlear had just wrapped his arms around her when two figures emerged from the treeline. Not in front of them...but behind them. Blocking the way to the Gates.
Shadow wolves.
Death.
“Ezer,” Kinlear breathed.
His hand dropped to his Veilblade. It had slayed a monster in his mind. It had given him the ability to walk beyond the Veil, to see into the future...
But it wouldn’t be enough against the shadow wolves.
He could sense the terror in Ezer the second she laid eyes on them, for they were the ones that had marred her, that had nearly stolen her life as a child. He never should have let them leave the safety of the wards, never should have put her in danger like this.
“Fly,” Ezer whispered. “Six. You have to fly.”
The wolves stepped closer. Dark ichor dripped from their snouts, and a low growl came from each of their throats. Kinlear could feel Ezer tense in his grip, and suddenly he felt like a child again.
Cast right back to a dying wood, a hooded monster playing a deadly game of chase.
A growl from the wolves, and Six skittered backwards, as if she were afraid. How could the Acolyte’s mighty beast, queen of the skies, be afraid of a shadow wolf? They were supposed to be on the same damned side, both born from the darkness.
But the raphon was so scared, it was a true effort to stay on her back.
“Ezer,” Kinlear said. “Get her airborne or we die.”
Not like this! his mind screamed. He couldn’t draw his eyes from the shadow wolves’ claws. How they curled, how they were so sharp, even the snow seemed to split beneath them, as they left a dragging path behind.
And if they died tonight?
Then it meant Kinlear’s dreams were lies. Their future would be gone in an instant and Lordach...would it cease to exist, without them? They were the only ones who could sink beyond the Acolyte’s shadowstorm.
“Six,” Ezer said. “Fly.”
The trees were at their back now. They were skittering towards the cliffside, where death, sure as the grave, was ready to welcome them home.
Kinlear wasn’t sure what would be worse: to die by shadow wolves or to fall from great heights, the way he had so many times in his dreams.
To fall and to keep falling, only this time...
It would end in true death.
No sooner had thought it that something in Ezer’s posture shifted. Six inhaled beneath them, deep and steady, as if...
Something has passed between raphon and rider.
Something had clicked.
“Fly,” Ezer commanded Six.
The beast turned towards the cliffside, her paws rooted deep against the snowy ground.
Kinlear had no time to prepare, no choice but to hang on as Six pushed off, taking three bounding steps...
Before she leapt into the open sky.
She flew.
She was flying.
The wolves chased after them. For a moment, Kinlear feared that they would catch up, but then Six flapped her wings, and they were so much larger than the wolves’, so much stronger. They burst into the sky until the wolves were but a speck on the oncoming snow.
Kinlear screamed in victory.
For a moment...
It was exactly as he’d dreamt it would be.
Six was glorious, and she was rising higher, higher, and he howled with laughter as he realized he had never needed to doubt their future for a second. Because Six was made for this, Ezer was made for this, as they tore across the snowy sky together.
Together, they were—
The shadows erupted.
Across the Expanse, a boom split the night as the wolves turned back and the war began. A gust of wind crashed against them, a cold and biting surge that felt like it had come straight from that shadowstorm itself.
Six dipped in the wrong direction, like she didn’t quite know how to recover yet, or how to glide instead of fall.
And fall, they did.
“Higher!” Kinlear said in Ezer’s ear, as the ground began to take shape beneath them. As the treetops closed in, and he knew, oh gods, he knew they were going to crash. “She’s got to go higher, or she’ll clip the trees!”
It was too late.
Panic had overtaken Six, had overtaken Ezer, too, and she yelped a warning as Six’s wing clipped a tall tree.
They careened sideways.
Everything blurred.
The last thing Kinlear heard was Six’s screech. He tried to hold on to Ezer, but his arms were so damned weak. And as she was torn from his grasp, he begged the gods to take his body, not hers, before they crashed against the snow.
And the world went utterly black.