Chapter 12 #3
He smiled. ‘Runes, my fellow Minder, can do a lot more than people think. People love to overlook the Scribes, to think of them as less than the Knights. But I find they are bolder, braver than anyone who wields magic or a sword, for there is little limitation when you have knowledge. Did you know, before I was chosen as an Eagleminder, I trained as a Scribe?’ He held out a hand.
‘I’ve never been able to wield like my brother.
This is my battleground, the library. My weapons cache, the books, and with them …
myself, and countless others, have discovered a way to capture raphons, hold them in stasis, so we can study their behaviors.
See what makes them tick. To know one’s enemy … it is the true art of war.’
She had a feeling this information was not common knowledge, beyond the confines of the Citadel.
‘A few months ago, we discovered one of the raphons we’d captured – a female, wounded in battle after her darksoul rider was rightfully slayed – was pregnant with a litter of pups.
None of the books cover a raphon’s birth.
We found they don’t lay eggs, not like the raven half of them.
They birth them warm and wailing, like panthers.
The mother perished. But we managed to save a litter of six.
Small, screaming things, thirsty not for milk but for blood.
’ His jaw quirked. ‘A traitor – a monster – disagreed with our plans, broke into the catacombs, and slaughtered five of the pups before we managed to stop him. There was only one to survive.’
It felt wrong.
It felt dark, to know that all this time, raphons had been held prisoner here.
A servant arrived to add another few logs to the fire.
Kinlear kept silent, watching Ezer as they waited. He looked so much like Arawn in the face … and yet so different. Even their postures were unique, the way he carried himself so calmly, when it seemed like every part of Arawn was always tense.
He coughed again, and quickly uncapped the vial at his throat, taking a small sip of the liquid.
It smelled overly sweet.
As he wiped his lips and recorked the vial, he said, ‘The raphon that broke out of its cage in the catacombs three nights ago, that managed to break through an iron portcullis and a sealed back door into the Eagle’s Nest …
it was the final pup from that litter. The last survivor, and only a fledgling, six months old.
’ She remembered the scar on its beak, a jagged white streak to break apart the darkness.
‘It was due to be put down days ago, for my father’s belief is that the research on them, the risk, outweighs the minimal chance of reward.
’ He released another small cough, then smiled as he recovered.
‘And yet … there is a chance for reward. I’ve fought for years to maintain control over the Black Wing Battalion: a code word for our studies, for we don’t need the kingdom catching wind of it. ’
The realm would be in uproar.
They’d done a fine job of keeping the secret thus far.
‘Despite the pup’s size now … it will grow quickly. Enough time to be fully grown, by the time Realmbreak comes around. And by then, we hope to have it tamed.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ Ezer said.
It was well known that the raphons were wild beasts, as fearsome as dragons in her children’s stories. They were cold-blooded killers who hungered for human flesh. Some even believed that like the ravens they called omens, the raphons had been a rejected creation of the gods, long ago.
Which was why the Acolyte probably found them the perfect mounts for his darksoul warriors. Raphons feared nothing. Not even the war eagles that were double their size.
‘This is a feat previously thought impossible,’ Kinlear said.
‘Myself and several other Eagleminders have all applied our best efforts. Our strongest Scribes have applied their greatest runic combinations to try and tame the pup.’ He sighed.
‘Alas, the raphon’s trust has been quite hard to gain.
Everyone that’s tried has failed, and I am no fool.
I’m willing to admit when I’ve met my match, to bow out when it will most certainly end in defeat.
And I was defeated.’ His grey eyes met hers. ‘Until I met you.’
She wanted to shake her head. No.
Instead, she just sat there frozen, staring at him as he stared at her, his lithe body outlined by a halo of flames from the nearby fire.
‘What happened the other day wasn’t part of the plan. I apologize for the trauma you have been put through in the north thus far. It isn’t how we want to treat our recruits.’
She wasn’t sure he was being sincere, but she listened as he continued.
‘I believe the gods knew otherwise and disagreed with my father’s hope to shut down the Black Wing Battalion.
They are the only beasts that can fly to and from the Sawteeth, untouched by the shadowstorm.
They hold an immunity to it, and by proxy, so do the riders upon their backs.
I believe, along with a majority of the War Table … that the raphon pup is our answer.’
‘The answer to what?’ Ezer asked.
Kinlear was deadly still. ‘To assassinating the Acolyte.’
‘You’re mad,’ Ezer said, shaking her head. ‘You can’t ride a raphon! Certainly not that raphon.’
‘Why not?’
She blinked at him. ‘Because …’ Gods, she couldn’t believe she was arguing with the prince of Lordach, and about a raphon, no less. ‘Because it’s not even trained, for starters. Has it ever even seen the sky?’
‘No,’ said the prince. ‘But that isn’t my problem. It’s yours.’
A spike of cold went through her. ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Your Highness.’
‘Raphons don’t hesitate,’ he said. ‘But in the woods, when it was faced with you, the perfect victim, small and scarred and alone … it hesitated.’
She could still remember the feel of that moment. The racing of her heart, the wind telling her not to run, but to stay. The feeling of the raphon’s warm beak on her hand, its breath hot as it swam across her skin.
And a vision that brought sadness.
A single black feather, floating alone in an endless, dark sea.
‘Now, I’ll be quite clear,’ Kinlear continued.
‘Some furious deliberation has gone on in the days you’ve been at rest. A runed rest, I might add, for it was necessary to keep you subdued in case it was decided that you are to be treated as a threat.
The jury is still out on that one, as there is no birth record in Touvre for an Ezer that matches anyone near your age. ’
Of course they’d looked into her.
Of course they would see her as dangerous, because she was different.
She certainly hadn’t chosen that fate.
And by no means was she a threat to Lordach.
‘It’s probably because my parents never had a chance to report my birth or take me to the census themselves,’ Ezer said.
‘When I was old enough, I showed up every year for it. I dropped my name in the box, the same as all the others, so you could call upon us. The weak and magicless ones, when you needed more to use as cannon fodder in your war.’
He took the insult with ease, the same way she would have.
‘And why would your parents have skipped out on such a joyous occasion?’ the prince asked. ‘They would have been compensated finely for ensuring the kingdom knew your year of birth and your name.’
Every citizen that reported their newborn children was given rations.
A sack of coins for each child, if only because when they reported them, their names all went down in the kingdom’s registrar. And when they turned eighteen … they could be called upon for the war.
‘They didn’t report me,’ she said, curling a fist around her mother’s ring, ‘because shadow wolves razed our town a few days after I was born. I was the only one left. My uncle found me, raised me as his own. And when your father called him away, when he ripped him from my grasp, the prison master of Rendegard forced me to fill his position as Ravenminder. Without pay.’
He paused, and for the first time, his eyes slid to her scars.
‘I am truly sorry for your loss,’ he said. And it sounded like he meant it. ‘Your part in this war is vital, Ezer, and if you lean into it … it may well give you the chance for vengeance.’
‘I … didn’t say anything about vengeance,’ Ezer said.
It was a word she hadn’t heard in the mouth of a Sacred before.
He only smiled knowingly. ‘You didn’t have to. I can see it in your eyes. It’s the same look every survivor has. You were a victim. You were the weak one. And now you have a chance not to be seen as such anymore.’
His eyes went to his cane and narrowed.
She had the feeling he wasn’t just speaking about her.
He cleared his throat. ‘The War Table took a vote. And it was voted that we give you a chance to mind the raphon pup. To train it, teach it how to behave as any good mount should. Teach it to trust you. So that, in two months’ time …
we can assign it a rider. And take the beast to the skies.
That rider will journey across to the Sawteeth on Realmbreak, using the sunlight of the Long Day to go behind the shadowstorm unbothered by darksouls …
and assassinate the Acolyte. Before it’s too late. ’
She couldn’t hide the fury on her face.
‘I train ravens!’ she yelped. ‘Ravens to fly from one tower to another. Not raphons! Pick an Eagleminder! Pick …’ A furious blonde woman appeared like a haze in her mind. ‘Pick Zey. She clearly wants to prove her worth. She might be the perfect fit for the pup’s wrath.’
But Kinlear only shook his head. ‘They have all tried. The Citadel’s best, the Citadel’s brightest, every Eagleminder and Bearminder we have in our ranks. And all have failed to get close to the beast. But you …’ His eyes were practically glowing. ‘You are different.’
She just stared at him, frozen in horror.
‘I’ll die,’ she said.
‘Death is coming for us all eventually, and sooner than later in times of war. You’re the only one who’s made it close enough to touch the pup. To live to tell the tale. It may learn to trust you yet.’
Slowly, he grabbed his ivory cane and pushed back his chair. When he stood, for a moment she swore she saw him wince. His fingertips shook as they gripped the eagle handle.
‘You will feed it. Clean up after it. Mind it, as if it were your own. And each day you survive, you will be compensated handsomely. Upon completion of the job, you’ll be granted a full pardon from your service, free to carry on about your life as you please. No more summons. No more war.’
‘And if I die?’ she asked as he turned to go.
He shrugged. ‘I suggest you work on your relationship with the Five. Would be a shame, Raphonminder, if you missed out on the Ehver. You begin tonight. I’ll send for you.’
And with that, he turned and left her behind, alone in the library with her stomach in knots.
No one could save her now. Not the wind, not the ravens …
Perhaps this was how she would truly die.