Chapter 8
She stood at the entrance to an enchanted forest.
The moment she entered, she felt the buzz of magic.
A free and wild sort of thing, like the whispering of the wind.
It felt as if the trees were alive with secrets, from the lush, emerald pines to the aspens that had not been stripped bare of their leaves, like the ones in the forest beyond Augaurde.
Rather, the aspen leaves danced in a delicate rogue wind, a soft, lovely green that made them look like they were made of silk.
The forest floor was covered with a blanket of rolling moss and worn boulders, with fresh fallen needles and pinecones. Flowers bloomed amongst the moss, some nestled atop the boulders, while others ran in delicate vines along the trees.
The smell was like springtime, cool and fresh with a bit of earthy wetness, and undertones of flora and pine. She could hear birdsong, and the chittering of chipmunks as they scurried across the rocks and climbed up into the trees.
It couldn’t be real.
It was said nothing could survive in the endless cold of Augaurde, and certainly not up this high on the cliffside, with the howling wind and the storms that constantly raged.
Ezer looked skyward.
Perhaps it wasn’t magic at all, then.
The Aviary was domed. Like a giant greenhouse made of tempered glass.
Far over her head, a glistening rounded ceiling protected them from the elements, creating a world of its own inside this space.
She walked deeper inside the trees, following a worn path until it spat her out into a large clearing.
And before her stood a large fortress.
Where the rest of the Citadel had been hewn of white marble, this looked like it had sprouted right out of the magic of the forest. Tall cedar logs formed walls, but the gates at its entrance were unguarded, left open as if this space was always welcome for those who’d been granted the gift of being in the war eagles’ presence.
Flags with wing emblems hung from each gate, waving slightly as the Scribes passed between them.
No one seemed to pay her any mind as she entered, her head down and her wheelbarrow like a safety net.
She kept going, deeper into the sanctuary, and discovered the center of it all was an enormous, lofted wooden barn. The doors were open at each end, letting the wind dance through the rows of stalls.
‘Ezer,’ it whispered, beckoning her.
She’d made it this far already.
So she ducked inside, passing a row of hooks on the wooden wall that held extra servant’s robes. She quickly swapped her tattered prison cloak, the better to blend in, for she could already see several servants cleaning out stalls.
She resumed pushing her wheelbarrow as she headed deeper inside. And instead of horses whinnying, crunching on hay or swishing their tails to ward away the flies …
She heard the sound of birds.
Her heart did a little twirl.
She came upon the first stall, where a war eagle stood right inside, behind the iron bars.
Its breast was relaxed, its feathers a deep gold, with small streaks of white around the base of its neck.
A servant skirted past Ezer, head bent and eyes lowered as he carried a dented metal bucket.
It sloshed as he set it down and removed a hunk of bleeding, stinking meat from its depths.
A squeak of the hinges, and the servant opened the stall’s front window, and held the meat out on a metal gaffing hook. Much like the fishermen at the wharfs outside of Rendegard used to haul in the heavy fish.
‘Gentle, Suri,’ he warned.
An enormous golden beak appeared at the bars and made quick work of snatching the meat off the hook.
It was lovely, sharp and menacing, the tip of the beak dipped with gold that had been placed on like a permanent fixture.
Sharp enough to shred through darksoul skin, and it was covered in freshly glowing runes.
The eagle’s entire head was larger than the full length of Ezer’s body. Its beak, longer than her whole arm from shoulder to fingertips, and each of its golden eyes was as large as her hand.
They were so bright they looked like liquid sunlight.
She stood silently as she watched the eagle eat. His eyes flicked up, then narrowed upon her. Its head cocked to the side in question.
Like it sensed her, the very same as all the other birds. She smiled, wishing she could get a little closer.
‘What is it, Suri?’ the servant turned, noticing the eagle’s stare.
And so Ezer made quick work of disappearing again, deeper into the barn.
More servants in drab brown cloaks tended to them, scraping their stalls clean with mucking forks and wheelbarrows.
Some stood inside the stalls, grooming the mighty eagles with thick bristle brushes meant to get down to the root of their feathers, while others dabbed dark green salve onto fresh injuries.
Plaques marked the stall fronts – the eagle’s name, then its aerie color beneath it – and Ezer read each one, a familiar ease sidling up against her senses.
This place had the sounds and the smells that she knew and loved from her tower, the only part of Rendegard that had ever felt like home.
It filled her up, the click of beaks, the ruffle of feathers, the snap of wings as an eagle stretched and then settled itself down against fresh pine shavings.
Some scratched at the shavings with their talons, as if they were overgrown chickens searching for bugs, while others chittered to the eagles in neighboring stalls, deep in their own unique conversations.
They were, in every sense of the word, the perfect birds.
She’d pay anything, any amount of coin, to be inside one of those stalls.
She finally came to the other end of the enormous barn. A gate led back to the outside.
And there, in the middle of a massive round pen, was a war eagle in training.
A magnificent sight, to see the beast out in the open. A female Eagleminder stood before it, holding her hands out as she ran them across the beast’s golden feathers. A group of five others stood around the pen, their hoods colored to show their pillar of magic, one for each god.
They had golden bands on their arms.
And by the way they watched the Eagleminder inside the pen …
It seemed like a test.
Curiosity tugged at Ezer as she edged closer.
So easily, the war eagle could have lifted its wings and leapt right over the top railing of the pen, flown off to nest in one of the trees.
But it was utterly still, and silent.
And watching the Minder with an intense and present gaze, its head lowered in a show of respect.
It was a youngling, by the look of its still-white neck feathers, a bit of downy fluff clinging to its breast and sides. Beautiful, though its wings were still a bit too large for its body.
She smiled as she watched the Eagleminder run her hands across the beast’s neck. The woman was near Ezer’s age, tall and lovely, with a golden braid than ran halfway down her back.
She stood face to face with the eagle and lifted her left hand.
The eagle lifted its wing to match.
‘Good, Tyrn,’ said the Minder.
She had a lovely accent, thick and rich like everyone else born in the north. A lift of her right hand, and the beast lifted its other wing.
She tossed it something dark and bleeding – fresh meat – from a pouch that hung on her hip.
The eagle snatched it mid-air and ruffled its feathers as it swallowed the meat in one bite.
It wore a bridle, much like that of a horse. The Minder attached a chain-link lead and began to direct it around the ring. The fledgling followed with graceful steps, its wings tucked, its tailfeathers held in perfect position above the sandy floor.
The five important Sacred inclined their heads or clapped gently in admiration.
The woman led the eagle to the center of the ring next.
She had it bow for the crowd.
Then she directed it in a delicate circle, before it lowered itself to one side, dipping its wing as if to allow a rider to climb easily aboard. A lift of her hands, and it raised both wings.
The Minder removed the halter next and did the same motions. This time, fully free, not a tether upon the beast. It watched her intently the entire time, gold eyes blazing.
‘Incredible,’ Ezer breathed.
She knew she should go, but she couldn’t help the feeling that she was seeing true magic for the very first time. The kind of thing no one got to lay eyes on.
A gift.
When it seemed the display was done, and both Minder and war eagle had bowed in the center of the ring, Ezer realized they were heading her way, for she stood at the gate that allowed the eagle entrance back into the barn.
She backed away, trying to fade into the shadows. But the back of her heel landed on a mucking fork that was leaning against a stall door.
‘Gods be damned,’ Ezer hissed.
She tried to grab it, but her fingers missed by an inch, and before she could stop it, the rake slammed against a pile of empty metal pails in the stall aisles.
The racket was enough to wake the dead, so sudden she felt her own heart rocket into her throat. The Eagleminder’s head spun towards the noise.
They locked eyes for a breath of a second, before the war eagle reared up.
With a screech, it lifted its wings, opened its beak …
… and lunged towards the Eagleminder, like it was ready to kill.
The Minder dove out of the way.
The eagle lunged, beak snapping, and missed her by an inch.
She stood and scrambled for the end of the chain lead, trying to regain control, but it had already been lost.
The others jumped into the pen, a scramble of flurrying cloaks, and surrounded the beast.
In the end, it took magic to settle it.
With a surge of white light from one of their hands, the beast backed down.
The Eagleminder finally managed to halter it again and drag it, flapping and screeching, to the other end of the pen, where she tied it up.
And left it standing there, sides heaving, wings lowered to its sides.
The trainer turned, eyes narrowed, as if searching for Ezer.
But she’d already scurried into the shadows of a nearby storage space full of barrels and bags of shavings and enormous bins overflowing with grains.
Ezer slid behind a rack of blankets and saddles, crouching down to catch her breath. Her heart roared in her ears as the Eagleminder marched past, her cloak soaring behind her like wings.
‘I want to know who in the Ehverloving hell just ruined my display,’ she growled.
Ezer waited, motionless from her spot in the shadows. A spider scurried across her knee, but she didn’t dare move to sweep it away.
She blew out a breath, still stuck in her crouch as the Eagleminder’s voice faded.
She didn’t realize there was someone behind her until he chuckled softly.
‘A dangerous thing, to mess up Zey’s demonstration. And before the Masters, no less.’
Ezer yelped and spun to find a white-cloaked figure sprawled out across a bale of hay, a book in his lap. He looked at her with a lazy smile as he corked a small vial back in place.
A vial that hung from his neck on a gold chain.
‘Y-your Highness,’ Ezer sputtered.
It was Kinlear Laroux.
And they were completely alone.