Chapter 7
They earned their swords.
And then, as every Sacred did, they set their sights on earning their wings.
For the next year, Arawn worked to secure his chance at becoming a Rider. Soraya worked alongside him, spurring him on when he faltered. Making him smile when the war became far too much for any one soul to carry.
They became friends.
Real friends, the kind a Crown Prince had never believed he would have a chance to earn.
Their training together shifted, no longer just the two of them on the sparring mat, the hope of a someday war held between them.
Now it was an everyday war.
And it became clearer than ever before, how much the Sacred needed the strength of their gods.
By day, they trained inside the Eagle’s Nest, with a crop of hopeful Riders and fledgling war eagles that were far too wild to be considered even remotely safe for war.
Before Arawn turned fifteen, he broke more bones than he could count on both hands. Only Soraya broke more, and together they often took their rest in the infirmary, while Alaris worked her healing magic on their bodies.
And as the next year of Arawn’s life went on, it became a pattern. A dance he’d come to know and expect, and it was this:
Wake up and pray, his soul connected to Vivorr as he brought flames to his hands and wondered, with every pull of power, when his body would finally show signs of it.
Attend morning meetings with the War Table. Be frowned at by his father the entire time.
Answer Kinlear’s questions through the Speaking Stone, and often, when Kinlear was in the middle of paying penance...then wonder if his brother would ever learn.
Climb the cliff to the Aviary to join the other hopeful Riders. Fight off Soraya for the final cinnamon roll. Lose, on purpose, even if it pained him. Feel better, when she offered up a victorious smile.
Pray to the Gods that maybe, just maybe...she would be Matched to him.
Enter the Eagle’s Nest. Attempt to find patience in his heart as he trained with the Eagleminders and the wild fledglings.
Feel as if he hated the oversized birds.
...and then be reminded by Soraya, through forbidden and callous words, as she so often did, that he was not a “little nomage bitch”, and if he did not adjust his sour mood, then he deserved to be eaten by said oversized birds.
Attend more meetings with his father. Be reminded that he wasn’t good enough, not yet, to be considered an honorable Crown Prince.
Head to battle with the ground forces. Keep a tally with the other Riders as to how many darksouls and shadow wolves he felled with his flaming sword.
Fight until the morning light. Fight with all he had, every inch of his soul and his magic and his mind, because the darkness was looming, and the light – the Five – had to win.
Leave the battlefield last. Thank the living for their service to the Five...and pray to the gods above that Soraya would not be among the dead.
Stand at the Sacred Tree and feel his heart harden as he lost track of how many Sacred were lost. Watch the tears fall down Soraya’s bloodstained face.
Deny the help of a servant. A Crown Prince cleaned his own blade.
Sleep for very few hours. Dream of a crown that was too heavy for his head.
Wake up exhausted, but alive, one day closer to his father’s end, and his beginning...and then do it all over again.
Arawn was eighteen when he made his Descent.
He was paired with a beautiful fledgling, a female hatched from the very same sire as his father’s. He called her Cyrra, for the tips of her feathers blazed a molten gold so bright that when they hit the sun, it looked as if she were on fire.
When his grandfather was a child, he’d completed the Rite, an ancient ceremony in which a Rider earned their wings.
They’d soar across the Expanse by night, alone, and gather a rock from the base of the Sawteeth mountains.
And if they made it back alive, not devoured by the wild raphons that flocked there?
They’d earn their saddle and their wings.
With the war and the shadowstorm, the new test of a Rider and war eagle’s bond was different: a harrowing drop along the Citadel’s northernmost cliff, where the ancient Aviary temple stood.
He’d watched it countless times as a youngling, standing in the training room to pray for each Rider by name. It felt like a dream, now that he was about to complete the Descent himself.
“Scared, Crown Prince?” Soraya asked.
Just as she had years ago, when they first joined the nomages in war. But now she sat to his right on a war eagle of her own. One that would be given to her to ride in war, if she survived today first.
“Of course I’m scared,” Arawn said.
It was true back then, and it was still true now.
He looked left, from where he sat on his own War Eagle’s back. The world around them was springtime and softness, emerald leaves and flowery vines snaking up trees. A little bird flitted past his vision.
Cyrra snapped at it, her enormous beak just barely missing.
Five other Riders were with them, all of them in a solid line where the training pen usually stood. They all rode on borrowed saddles. Ancient, simple leather things that were unmarked by runes...for today’s flight would be done the same way as the old Rite once was.
Without magic to help them stay in the saddle.
They would complete the Descent with their wits alone.
“We’ll make it a race,” Soraya said from her saddle.
Her eagle was the brother to his, feathers still tipped in white, for it was smaller than most. The runt of the hatching, but easily the fastest, thanks to its size. A perfect pairing, now that Arawn considered it, for someone like Soraya.
He frowned as he considered her offer. “The Descent is not a game.”
The head Eagleminder walked past, checking for any final adjustments to their positions. A final bit of hope that they would not be splattered upon the snow when the test was said and done.
“It could be,” Soraya whispered. “Winner gets two drinks at Absolution.”
“You’ll have two anyways,” he said, and smiled at her.
A true smile, the kind he often gave now when she was near. It had come on slowly, at first. As if joy was something he hadn’t learned how to attach to his own name, but as the years had gone on...Soraya brought it out of him.
The way Kinlear once did.
The head Eagleminder whistled, high and loud.
Somewhere behind them, a whip snapped. And then the Realmist Master was invocating, and the glass roof of the Eagle’s Nest began to open, so the snow danced in, kissing the tops of the trees.
“Do me a favor?” Soraya asked, as she gripped her reins, and leaned forward on her eagle’s neck, readying herself for the climb. He glanced at her just once, because Cyrra was already buzzing beneath him...her wings itching to soar.
“What?” Arawn asked.
His heart skipped a beat in his chest.
“Don’t die,” Soraya said. “But also...you should know that if you do get first place, I’ll kill you myself.”
“You’d have to catch me first,” Arawn said, taking the bait.
Her laughter was the last thing he heard before the whip cracked.
And he dug in his heels.
And Cyrra shot, like a runed arrow, into the grey Augaurdian sky.
He saw nothing but snow, nothing but white as Cyrra climbed and climbed...and climbed.
The wind screamed in his ears. Cyrra’s wingbeats thrummed in his chest, his arms, his legs. Snow poured into his vision, bitter and biting, until he had tears in his eyes. But he wouldn’t dare close them, because he wanted to remember this moment.
When he would become First Rider and claim a War Eagle Aerie as his own.
You must not fail.
To fail is to fall, and there is nothing but darkness below.
The mantra had shifted over time, but the voice was never his. It was always his father’s.
Arawn’s magic thrashed inside of him, as the ground faded beneath his feet. He risked a glance behind him, as the world grew smaller...until the trees were only a smudge of green in the snow.
He ground his teeth and leaned closer to Cyrra, ignoring the fear in his gut.
Don’t fall, don’t fall...
Cyrra screeched, sensing his urgency. From the corner of his eye, he could see another eagle fighting to climb past him, to get to the top first.
To be the highest in the sky, before they took the dive.
And that was the point of the Descent.
First, to survive.
But second...for the Riders to establish a rank before they ever landed. To climb to the heavens, even beyond the wards, until both War Eagle and Rider finally gave in. Until everyone fell into line, accepting their place if they were to survive the second half of the test.
Not the climb.
No, the worst part was the fall.
Arawn would not give in.
He would never give in, because if he earned anything other than First Rider...he didn’t want to imagine the penance he would pay for bringing shame upon his bloodline and his gods.
So, he climbed.
He climbed until he felt the wards closing in. Cyrra’s wings stuttered as the thrum of the gods’ power grew closer, closer, and her golden beak turned to the left. As if she would turn away from them.
No.
He squeezed his heels to her sides. He begged Vivorr for a burst of magic, and brought heat to his hands, reminding his eagle that he was the one in charge. If she denied him, she’d throw him from her back...
And he would surely die.
You must not fail.
You must never fail.
Somewhere behind him, a scream cut across the sky. But he couldn’t turn back, couldn’t check to see who it was, for suddenly, he burst through the wards. Cyrra had never been beyond them, and she opened her beak and screamed with sheer joy...
As Soraya blazed past him, her eagle a blur.
Arawn swore he heard her laughter on the biting wind.
Something in him fizzled at the challenge, and he pushed Cyrra to catch up.
He had no runes marked upon him to make it easier to see in the snow, for a Descent was done as boldly and beautifully – dangerously – as the Riders of long ago.