Chapter 13 #2
And she was trapped.
‘Let me out.’
‘Best to keep calm,’ he said. ‘And never turn your back on a predator. Just a little tip.’
At that, she spun.
Her entire body was trembling, head to toe.
For even though the raphon had not moved, even though the dark lump of fur and feathers was still facing the wall opposite her … she knew it was fully aware of her presence. And fast enough to attack, the second it wished.
‘Let me out,’ Ezer begged Kinlear, without turning around. ‘Please.’
‘No,’ he said to her back. ‘Because I believe in the gods. I believe in fate. A little trust in the process, Ezer, and I think you’ll believe, too.’
She hated him.
She hated him so much she wanted to take the blade from his hip, the blade that was to end her … and thrust it into his chest.
Let him be the one who died, again and again and again.
That would turn her nightmare into a dream.
‘Please,’ she said one more time.
‘Kinlear,’ Arawn tried. She didn’t turn to face him, but she could hear the rage in his voice. Careful, controlled. ‘This is madness! Let her out. Try another way.’
She was going to die.
And both men were going to stand back and watch it happen.
‘Trust me,’ Kinlear said.
Arawn practically snarled. ‘The way I trusted you with Soraya?’
That name again.
She risked a glance back as he actually moved to try and open the gate, but Kinlear lifted his cane and placed it on Arawn’s chest.
‘Leave her,’ he said, his voice a low, menacing purr, ‘or defy a direct order from Father. Defy the gods again, Arawn, and see what becomes of you.’
Ezer locked eyes with Arawn, all her desperation hopefully passed to him.
But his face was pained and broken. His gaze fell from hers as he backed down. As he left her there to die.
No.
This was cruel, this was wrong, this was …
Behind her, the raphon shifted.
She wouldn't have heard it, were it not for the sound of clinking chains. A sound she knew all too well.
And she saw, then, how the beast’s ankles were covered in shackles.
Thick black bands above its paws, almost blending in with its fur.
The chains were tied to anchor points upon the back wall, embedded deep in the stone. They were runed, glowing a gentle gold she hadn’t been able to see until the beast moved. And the chains were short.
Certainly, not long enough to allow the raphon to reach her if it lunged.
‘I’m not going to get my last hope killed, Arawn,’ Kinlear said. ‘If you had any trust in me at all, you’d never have doubted for a second.’
Chains or not …
She was far from safe.
With her back up against the bars, Ezer watched the beast. It had turned, just enough that it could watch her with one lazy eye.
Its enormous curved raven’s beak was large enough to bite her head off in one snip. The white scar on it was awful. Like the blade used to kill the raphon’s siblings had just barely missed. Strange how seamlessly its birdlike head turned into a panther’s body.
Its giant wings were pressed flat to its back, its body curled up the way a cat would laze in the sun, the tail twitching with each second that passed.
She didn’t know whether to speak or move or scream, whether to hold out her hand and try to reach for it. No, she thought. There was no way she’d try that.
But then she saw the stain on its scarred beak. Her own handprint, still there, as if she’d left it on the raphon like a brand. For three days, it had breathed in her scent, carried a part of her with it.
She prayed – gods, she hoped – that today would not be her last.
She still had too much of her story to write, too many questions to answer. She would not die unsure of who she was.
What do I do?
She’d never been so desperate for a lifeline. For the whisper of the wind.
She could scarcely stand for how hard her legs shook. Slowly, she sat, lowering her body to the shavings.
But she did not dare take her eyes off the raphon.
What she had told Arawn had been wrong. She had read plenty about them in the hours she’d spent leading up to this, and one thing was a common theme in the texts she’d found.
They were bloodthirsty predators. They killed swiftly. They preferred to attack at night, under cover of darkness, when they could blend in with the sky and the black mountains from which they came. And, like ravens, they were far too clever for their own good.
But they could also go for a full week without feasting.
And Kinlear himself had said the pup ate last three days ago. What that meal entailed, she shuddered to think, because they only wanted blood.
But if luck was on her side, it wasn’t hungry … yet.
She didn't know how long she sat staring at the raphon. It stared back at her, breathing steadily, only moving to stretch its wings or scratch at its head with those enormous black paws.
In many ways, it acted like a cat.
Each paw was easily the size of her face and could certainly shred the skin from her with a single swipe.
So why hadn’t it even tried?
At some point, Arawn left.
And returned with a plate of steaming food and a jug of water, which he promptly passed through the bars.
She’d never felt more like a prisoner, like the people who’d slept and died beneath her tower in Rendegard all those years she spent locked away in Ervos’s place.
‘Thank you,’ she said to Arawn. Their gazes met, and something silent passed between them.
He would not leave her again.
He sat down beside Kinlear, and the two muttered quiet conversation with one another.
Curt, short phrases, stiffness in their voices.
How is Father doing?
Fine.
How is Mother?
An angry huff from Kinlear.
Hell if I know, you’re the one she fawns over like a newborn babe.
And then it fell silent. Like they couldn’t be trusted to speak another word without fighting, the tension between them so palpable.
Whatever history was between them had scarred deep.
Ezer didn’t know what time it was, but eventually her legs grew numb, so she stood slowly again, expecting the beast to attack.
It watched her with unblinking, dark eyes, in the way that only birds could. As if she were merely a strange little mouse visiting its cage.
At some point, she began to pace, watching the way the raphon’s eyes trailed her. But it never lifted its beak from the shavings, never moved to spring itself upon her.
When she grew hungry enough, she sat back down and ate from her dish of food.
The raphon’s nostrils flared at the smell, but when she tossed a piece of meat before it, it did not even flinch.
Not hungry, she told herself.
‘What do you feed it?’ Ezer asked as she cut into the meat. Arawn had brought her a fancy cut of steak, delicious and fragrant. A scent a predator should have adored.
But still the raphon did not move.
‘Grains and meat, like the war eagles,’ Kinlear said.
‘And does he eat it all?’ Ezer asked.
‘She,’ Kinlear said.
So, the raphon was a female.
For some reason, that surprised her.
‘And no,’ Kinlear said. ‘She does not.’
‘Does she have a name?’
He chuckled at that. ‘Call her Six,’ he said.
‘A number is not a name,’ Ezer said.
He shrugged. ‘And a raphon is not a pet.’
‘It is, if you’re to make me tame her.’ Ezer sighed and took another bite of meat, her head leaning against the bars.
‘Two minutes,’ Kinlear said. ‘That’s how long the last person to enter her cell survived.’ And then he smiled. ‘You’ve been in there for five hours.’
Interesting, indeed.
And the longer she sat, the more she looked at the raphon, and the raphon at her …
the less she was afraid. She could see the physical signs that the beast was a pup.
Her neck was still a bit downy, like she hadn’t yet lost those first hatchling feathers.
Her cat paws were far too large for her frame.
And Ezer hadn’t seen her fly.
For in the Aviary … the raphon was crawling in the trees. Stalking her, like a cat.
Like she didn’t even know she was meant for the sky.
Ezer was nearly done with her food now. ‘Does she just lie here all day?’
‘No,’ Kinlear said. ‘The past many months, she has spent her time wearing holes in the floor with her pacing. We had to replace the bars from how much she’d slammed her body against them, before we finally resorted to the chains to keep her from hurting herself.’
‘As would you, when placed in a cage,’ Ezer said.
The prince yawned and lifted a dark brow. He looked tired, but his eyes still lit up when he spoke to her. ‘Do you always speak to royalty in such a way?’
‘Yes,’ Arawn said beneath his breath.
Ezer lifted her chin. ‘Do you always lock women inside cages?’
‘Fair enough.’ Kinlear chuckled. ‘Six didn’t stop moving until she met you. She’s been this way, a lump of feathers and fur, ever since.’
‘Perhaps because she tasted freedom for the first time since her birth. I’d be depressed as well,’ Ezer said, and shook her head.
She sliced back into her meat with the kitchen blade.
‘And now, after her first glimpse of the outside beyond these cursed walls … you’ve tossed her right back into – damn it. ’
She winced and looked down as a sudden stab of pain went through her finger. She’d sliced her thumb, deep enough to draw an instant swelling of blood. Deep enough to need stitches, for certain.
‘I don’t suppose you’d let me out of my prison for this?’ Ezer asked and lifted her bleeding thumb.
The prince never answered.
Because suddenly the chains clinked from the corner of the cell.
And she turned to find that the raphon had sat up.
‘Kinlear.’ She could sense the tension in Arawn’s voice. ‘Let her out.’
‘Not yet,’ Kinlear answered.
The raphon’s wings were flat against its back, and even as it stood, as it crouched and lowered before her across the cell … the slits on its beak flared.
In the same way they had before in the Eagle’s Nest.
Slowly, so slowly, it moved towards her. The chains clinked with the first step.
Ezer’s heart roared in her ears.
Gods, she prayed. If you can hear me, if you’re there at all … don’t let it harm me.
The raphon took another step. She lifted the small knife in front of her with trembling hands.
She hated how her legs shook again, how she felt like she was going to soil herself in the monster’s gaze.
It took another step. Then another.
Perhaps it was the fact that she trusted the memory of their first meeting, and how she couldn’t look away from the dried, bloody handprint still marking the raphon’s beak. How its scar marked it as a survivor … just like her.
But on instinct, she lowered the blade and stuck out her hand instead. Just as she had before. She took a step closer, bridging the gap.
‘Come on.’
She held her breath as the raphon leaned, breathing in the scent of her blood.
It dripped on that glimmering black beak and ran down the white scar like a delicate rain.
She swore the beast began to purr.
Like her blood was a balm to a worn and weary soul.
‘Hello,’ Ezer whispered, her voice a trembling thing as the raphon leaned ever closer.
And pressed her beak to her bleeding hand.
The shift was instantaneous. Ezer’s vision went dark at its edges, like a black cloud of oil had overcome her.
And there it was again: the image of a single dark feather, floating alone.
Lost in an endless sea. She gasped, for she could still feel the raphon’s beak, still feel its hot breath on her skin, and when the vision broke, she realized she was crying.
The raphon pulled away.
The chains clinked as she went back to her corner, circled a few times, and slumped back down on the worn shavings.
This time, it closed its eyes, and she was certain the beast fell asleep.
The gate behind her opened. So loud it made Ezer jump, for she was still standing there, frozen, with tear tracks on her cheeks and her bleeding hand dripping into the shavings.
‘Well done,’ Kinlear said. ‘Raphonminder.’
Arawn was staring at her like he had in the woods. Like he was slowly unpeeling the layers of her, breaking down her walls … and some part of that made her feel bare.
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand.
She was cold and tired and feeling like her insides had twisted up in a knot …
But beyond that.
She felt, for the first time in ages … alive.
She settled her gaze on Kinlear.
‘If you ever lock me in a cage again,’ she said, ‘I don’t care that you’re a prince. I will skin you alive. And I will feed your bleeding corpse to my raphon.’
She was surprised at how much she meant it.
And even more surprised at how his only response was to smile.