Chapter 27 Theron
THERON
The farther north we fly, the worse the land gets.
At first the mountains look almost beautiful from a distance—jagged blue shapes stacked against the horizon, their peaks brushed with snow and silver clouds.
But beauty from afar doesn’t mean a damn thing when you get close enough to smell the ice and stone.
Close enough to feel the wind cutting at you like a blade…
close enough to see how sheer the cliffs really are and how little mercy there is in them.
I’ve never flown so far before. These aren’t hills or even proper mountains the way most folk think of them.
They’re fucking teeth.
Great broken fangs of rock thrusting up into the sky, with deep ravines and dark cracks between them where the sunlight barely reaches.
The wind screams through the gaps and races over the narrow ledges and tears at anything foolish enough to come too close—including my Drake’s wings.
Not much grows on these heights except patches of stubborn gray moss and a few twisted trees clinging to the stone as if they’re too mean to die.
My Drake doesn’t like the place and to be honest, neither do I.
Still, we keep going.
The curvy little priestess clings to my Drake’s back, tucked between his dorsal spines with the heavy bag of supplies strapped behind her.
I can feel every shift of her weight and every small tightening of her hands.
She’s frightened—I can smell it on her, sharp beneath the sweet scent that always seems to cling to her skin.
But she’s not panicking and she’s not trying to tell me to turn around.
She’s a brave little thing—I’ll give her that.
We circle one peak and then another, looking for the nest. The Emperor Hawk doesn’t build small—I know that much from the stories Kline used to tell me when I was a boy.
He said they make their homes where no sane creature could ever follow and line them with enough broken branches to house a family of mountain trolls.
He wasn’t exaggerating.
I spot the nest at last on the far side of a broken spire of stone—a massive tangle of weathered branches and mountain boughs wedged into a shelf of rock jutting out over open air.
The thing is fucking enormous—bigger than my bed at home by far.
Hell, it’s bigger than the forge where I work all day.
The branches woven into it are as thick around as my arm—some even thicker—and the inside is lined with pale, coarse fluff that looks almost like wool, though I know it’s the fiber from cloud-pine trees, which only grow high in the mountains where the air gets thin enough to choke most folk.
The nest is deserted or at least, it looks deserted. Thank the Goddess for small mercies.
I bank to the left and try to get closer, but the ledge beneath the nest is too damn narrow and the air around it is treacherous.
Wind whips upward from the ravine below in savage gusts, making the currents twist unexpectedly.
My Drake hisses in annoyance and beats his wings harder, trying to hold steady, but even he can’t get close enough to let Elowen reach the nest safely from his back.
Fuck.
I circle once more, scanning the cliff face until I spot a broader outcropping of rock some distance away. It isn’t exactly safe, but it’s wide enough for me to land and Shift back without pitching both of us into the void.
It will have to do.
I angle down toward it and land hard, my Drake’s claws scraping stone.
The impact jars through my whole body and I hear Elowen suck in a breath.
I crouch at once so she can climb down, which she does.
As soon as she does, I Shift. As with my clothing, the bag of supplies appears on my person—it’s part of my Drake’s magic that I can keep things with me that I’m wearing or touching when I go back and forth between my two forms.
The wind is vicious up here—it grabs Elowen’s long red curls and sends them streaming behind her like a banner of flame. I put an arm around her, trying to shield her from the worst of it and she steadies herself with one hand on my shoulder and looks up at the nest.
“Oh,” she breathes. “It’s huge.”
“No shit,” I mutter, already looking at the narrow path of stone leading from our ledge to the one where the nest sits. It’s less a path and more a shelf—barely wide enough for two careful feet placed one in front of the other. One good gust would send a person right off it.
My gut tightens at the thought as another gust of wind swirls around me.
The cold hits harder in human skin and the wind cuts right through my shirt, but I barely feel it.
I’m too busy looking at that fucking ledge and calculating how easy it would be for a slip…
a loose stone…even a strong gust of wind to take my curvy little priestess right over the side.
Elowen clutches her robe closed with one hand, her eyes wide.
“So…that’s it?” she asks, nodding toward the nest. Her pale blue eyes look enormous in her flushed face and her curls are whipping all around her. “That’s where the feather has to come from?”
“That’s the nest of an Emperor Hawk,” I say. “Must be—no other bird is that big or builds a nest that huge.”
She wets her lips, looking from the nest to the ledge and back again.
“Well…I guess there’s no choice then.”
I already know she’s going to try it…I also already know I’m not letting her go alone.
“I’m coming with you,” I tell her firmly.
She blinks in surprise and turns to look at me.
“Really? But the feather has to be plucked by my hand. The spell said only the one doing the weaving can touch the elements.”
“That’s fine.” I jerk my chin toward the ledge. “You can pluck the damn feather. I’m still going with you.”
Her expression softens a little—a mixture of gratitude and nerves flickering in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
I shrug, trying not to let on how much the thought of her crossing that death trap alone bothers me.
“You can thank me once we’re back in one piece.”
I sling the supplies bag over one shoulder and test the first stretch of the ledge with my boot.
The stone is hard but uneven, with loose grit skittering off into the drop below.
There’s a cliff wall to our right and open air to our left—nothing but a sheer fall into shadow and broken rock hundreds of feet below.
I turn to Elowen.
“Stay close to the wall. Put your hand on the stone when you can and don’t look down.”
“All right.” Her voice is steady enough, though I can see the fear she’s trying not to show.
She lifts her chin and steps onto the ledge after me. Gods, she’s brave. I feel a rush of admiration for her—I’ve never been with a woman so determined to get what she wants.
We go slowly, inch by inch. I move first, then help her place her feet where mine have just been.
The wind tears at us without mercy, rushing along the cliff face and trying to pry us loose.
It yanks at Elowen’s robe and snatches her hair, making those wild red curls lash around her face.
More than once, she has to stop and press herself flat against the rock while a particularly savage gust screams past.
“Doing all right?” I call over my shoulder, raising my voice to be heard over the wind.
“Yes,” she says, though she’s breathing hard. “I’m all right.”
But as the words leave her mouth, a sudden gust comes out of nowhere, stronger than the others, slamming into us sideways. Elowen gives a little cry as her feet skid on the grit-strewn stone. She pitches outward, arms flailing.
“Fuck!” I roar.
I move without thinking, catching her around the waist with one arm and slamming my other hand against a crag in the cliff wall.
My fingers latch onto it hard enough to scrape skin from my knuckles.
The muscles in my arm and shoulder jump and bunch as I hold both our weights for one terrible second while the wind tries to rip her out of my grip.
Elowen clutches at me, breathless and wide-eyed.
“I’ve got you,” I grunt. “Hold on, baby—I’ve fucking got you.”
I haul her back against the cliff, keeping her pinned there with my body until the worst of the gust passes.
She’s pale now, her breath coming in quick little pants and her eyes wide. I can feel her trembling where my hand is still locked around her waist.
“Are you hurt?” I demand.
She shakes her head.
“N-no. Just startled.”
“That was more than a fucking startle.” My own heart is pounding hard now, rage and fear boiling together inside me. “You nearly went over.”
“I know.” Her voice is tiny. “Thank you for catching me.”
She looks so shaken that for a moment I consider telling her we’re done—that we can come back later or try another way. But then her mouth firms into that stubborn little line of hers.
“I’m going on,” she says. “I need that feather.”
I stare at her for a second and then snort despite myself. Did I say she was brave? Maybe foolhardy is a better word. Still, I admire her nerve.
“All right, then. But stay right next to me,” I tell her.
This time I keep a hand on her whenever I can—at her elbow, at her wrist—once with my palm braced against the small of her back while she edges around a narrow jut of stone. The ledge feels a damn sight longer on the way to the nest than it looked from the air, but at last we make it.
Up close, the Emperor Hawk’s nest is even bigger than I thought.
It’s built into the rock itself, wedged between two sharp outcrops that give it some shelter from the worst of the wind.
The branches are twisted together so tightly they feel more like a basket than a pile, though one made by a giant.
They creak faintly under the force of the wind but hold firm.
“Careful,” I tell Elowen, taking both her hands as she steps from the stone ledge into the nest. The woven branches sink slightly under her weight but don’t give way. “Keep your footing.”
She nods and lets me guide her in. The inside of the nest is lined thickly with cloud-pine fluff—pale gray and coarse—with a few other plants and leaves scattered throughout.
Then Elowen spots the feather.
“There,” she says, pointing.
It’s lodged near the center of the nest—a single immense feather, longer than her forearm—gray-white with darker banding at the tip and a faint sheen that catches the light like polished metal. It looks almost too perfect to be real.
Elowen goes to it at once, crouching carefully among the woven branches.
“You see how it’s caught?” I ask, eyeing the way the quill has been wedged between two branches. “You may have to pull hard.”
“I can do it,” she says. There’s that stubborn little line around her mouth again.
I watch as she reaches down and wraps both hands around the thick base of the feather. She braces one foot against a branch and tugs. Nothing.
“Try again,” I tell her.
She pulls again—harder this time. I see the muscles in her arms strain and her teeth sink into her lower lip with effort. Then, with a sudden jerk, the feather comes free, and she almost falls backward into the soft lining of the nest.
A laugh bursts out of me before I can help it at the surprised expression on her face.
Elowen looks up, triumphant and flushed, clutching that enormous feather to her chest.
“I got it!”
“Yes, you did, little one.” I can’t seem to stop smiling at her. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here before the owner comes back.”
The words have barely left my mouth when the air splits with an angry shriek.
This isn’t the cry of any ordinary bird. The sound is sharp and savage and so loud it seems to shake the mountain itself.
Elowen goes still inside the nest, her face draining of color as both of us look up.
Out of the bright northern sky, a vast shadow drops toward us.
The Emperor Hawk is coming home.