Chapter 16
‘Good morning, Prince,’ Ezer said, breathless as she finally made her way through the outer doors of the Aviary.
She wiped sweat from her brow and kicked snow from her boots, feeling for all the world like a wet cat. That insufferable walk up to the Aviary cliff had nearly killed her, both from how difficult it was to breathe to the fear of falling that sent her anxiety into a spiral, time and again.
But she’d done it, and she was proud of herself at least for not turning back.
Kinlear stood past the saddle racks beside the black door, waiting for her as promised with a chained stopwatch in his hand.
‘You’re thirty-five minutes late,’ he said, and tucked the watch into his pocket.
Ezer shrugged. ‘My schedule should be of no concern to you.’
Kinlear raised a dark brow in challenge. ‘It is my mission. Therefore, it is my schedule. And I do not like to be kept waiting.’
‘Well, it is my life,’ Ezer said back. ‘For which you seem to have little concern.’
At that, he chuckled. ‘You challenge my patience. It’s a wonder you bond so well with Six.’
He looked handsome today, effortlessly disheveled to the naked eye, but Ezer wondered if perhaps it was only a part of his mask. A sort of shield he wore, so that no one really got to know the true prince beneath.
He had on his normal Eagleminder’s cloak, white with gold silk inside the hood, but today the front folds were open to reveal the tunic he had on was a cool, springtime blue. It was unbuttoned nearly halfway down his chest. He wasn’t muscular, like Arawn. He was tall and lithe and toned.
And he was pale, like he’d never left the confines of the Aviary.
Like he’d never seen the summer sun.
She supposed not many in the north had. It was another thing she missed about the south, those few and far between days when the sea glittered so bright, it ached to look upon it.
The birds had always loved those days.
‘Well?’ Kinlear asked. ‘What’s your excuse?’
Her eyes slid to the small corked vial nestled against his chest, the glass too dark to see what was inside. He’d added a few more rings to his fingers, which clacked as he held open the Aviary door for her.
Her fingers grazed the Speaking stone in her pocket.
‘I got lost,’ Ezer lied. ‘You spend enough time locked in a tower, and you’re likely to lose your bearings, too, in a place as large as this.’
‘It’s interesting, the tells people have,’ he said as he looked at her. ‘You squint when you lie.’
She could have sworn his eyes narrowed as they slid towards her pocket. But he couldn’t know. Surely not.
‘You can be honest with me. You are safe with me, despite what my brother may say.’ She didn’t realize she’d backed up against the door to the catacombs.
He reached around her, his hand barely skimming her waist as he grasped the handle.
‘I am not your enemy, Raphonminder.’ He swung open the door into darkness. ‘Not unless you want me to be.’
Six was in the same spot as before, so far in the shadows of her cage that it was hard to decipher her tail from her beak.
It reeked inside, far worse than a Ravenminder’s tower ever did.
‘Is she always there?’ Ezer asked, curling her fingers around the icy cold bars. Her heart did a little tremor at the sight of the raphon. It struck Ezer how beautiful Six was, in a darkly dangerous way.
Just like her ravens.
Kinlear stopped at her shoulder. ‘She’s a creature of habit, for certain,’ he said. He reached down to the vial on his neck and uncorked it, allowing the smell of black licorice to pour out. ‘But so am I, I suppose.’
And he took a small sip, plugging the vial up at once.
‘What is it?’ Ezer asked.
‘This?’ He shrugged. ‘A clever little tincture from Alaris. After the injury …’ He looked down at his leg and lifted his cane as if that explained it. ‘I wasn’t able to move around as much. I fell deathly ill, and it had its way with my lungs. This eases my symptoms.’
‘But what about magic?’ Ezer asked, looking at the vial.
He chuckled softly, as if he’d explained this a thousand times before. ‘It isn’t the magic that makes the final call, Raphonminder. It is the gods, and what invocations they are willing to grant.’
The look on his face told her not to question him further.
But now, she wondered … what had he done, what sins had he committed against them, that they’d refused to heal him? A prince.
A flash of her dreams crept up again, the image of his dagger in her chest after he broke a heated kiss.
She turned to Six to distract herself.
‘Is she always this tired?’ Ezer asked. ‘This … lazy?’
The raphon’s tail twitched, and Ezer could have sworn the beast huffed in annoyance. Happenstance, of course.
Kinlear shrugged. ‘Most birds are up and singing before the start of dawn. I suppose that’s the cat part of her.’
‘Unless they’re busy hunting for birds,’ Ezer said beneath her breath.
‘Not a fan of cats?’ He lifted a brow nearly hidden beneath his dark curls. ‘That may pose a problem, considering Six is half of one.’
‘I don’t need reminding,’ she said darkly.
‘You die … we all die,’ Kinlear said. ‘Her chains remain. And for what it’s worth … I’ll be here the whole time.’
He was different today.
More relaxed, less showy.
‘Such a relief,’ Ezer said beneath her breath. And motioned for him to open the gate before she could think better of it. ‘My warning from yesterday remains, Prince.’
‘I’ve thought of nothing else since,’ Kinlear said with a wink, as he gently shut the gate behind her. ‘No locks. You have my word.’
Ezer’s feet rustled the shavings as she edged inside the cage, eyes on the beast.
Six didn’t move.
But her breathing was certainly not deep enough to be true sleep.
‘Faker,’ Ezer said, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the cage.
She’d be a fool, as good as dead meat to think one shared touch last night meant the raphon had truly accepted her. But there was certainly less terror in her gut entering the cage a second time.
It felt a bit more like … anticipation.
A tremor in her heart, as she sat down against the bars and said, ‘Hello, Six.’
The beast didn’t move other than to twitch her long, catlike tail.
It clinked against the heavy chains that were anchored into the stones: four chains, one for each shackle still attached to Six’s ankles.
The sound sent a ripple running through Ezer; a mental flinch that reminded her of chains upon her own ankles, a heaviness she bore for two long, lonely years.
She glanced away, focusing on Six’s wings instead.
They were relaxed, spread out across the pup’s body. The tips of her long black feathers were coated in shavings. A messy sleeper, she supposed, but so was Ezer, always waking up tangled in her own sheets.
‘Are you going to greet me this morning, or shall I bleed for you again?’ Ezer asked.
Six lifted her head and blinked warily at the sound of Ezer’s voice.
The slits on her scarred beak flared, as if she were pulling in Ezer’s scent.
But when her large, dark eyes fell on Kinlear … they narrowed.
She twitched her tail twice and quickly tucked her head beneath her dark wing.
‘It’s you,’ Ezer said. ‘I think she’s afraid of you.’
Kinlear scoffed. ‘I hardly doubt that, considering I am the only one in this Citadel that has overseen her survival since her birth. If it weren’t for me, my father would have had his way, and the pup would be a pile of ashes on the wind. Here.’
He stood, reaching for something in one of the other empty cells.
A heavy clink of chains sounded, and something landed at her feet.
‘What is—’
‘If we’re to have her starting groundwork by the end of the week, she must be haltered today.’
Ezer looked down at the pile of black chains. It was like a halter for a horse, though much larger, and certainly stronger.
She hoped.
She’d never haltered anything before, but she’d seen it done. She didn’t think it could be all that difficult: just lacing it through Six’s beak, while avoiding her swiping paws and razor-sharp claws, and …
‘How in the hell,’ Ezer asked, as she lifted the chain-link halter, grunting beneath its heavy weight, ‘am I supposed to do this?’
The prince only shrugged and sat down on his stool like he was ready to witness a show. ‘That sounds like a ‘you problem’ to me.’
It very much was a problem. But it wasn’t Ezer’s.
It was Six’s.
The moment Ezer laced the halter over a shoulder and inched her way towards the raphon, something seemed to shift in the air.
‘Just ease it over,’ Kinlear said from outside.
‘I’ve got it,’ Ezer said as she adjusted her grip on the heavy chain-link.
Six turned and watched her with wary eyes. But she did not move to harm Ezer.
She didn’t even blink.
‘All right.’ Ezer kept her voice low. ‘Here we are, Six. Nice and easy.’
She held out the halter, the chains clinking at the motion.
‘Ezer,’ said the wind, a whisper that reminded her of a disappointed sigh. ‘No.’
And that was all it took.
Six screeched, her eyes going wild.
Ezer tried to move out of the way, but the beast leapt to her feet, her wings snapping out so fast that Ezer couldn’t avoid the hit.
And then she was in the air, thrown backwards from the impact.
Ezer landed with a bone-splitting crash against the water trough at the other end of the cell. Which promptly spilled on top of her, soaking her to the bone. She came up sputtering, gasping – so cold, that for a moment, she thought Six had broken her ribs. She thought she couldn’t breathe.
‘Ezer!’
A blink, and she came back to her senses.
‘Are you all right?’
Kinlear’s voice called out to her from the other side of the bars.
‘I’m … I’m fine,’ she gasped, as she sat up to find the raphon back in her curled-up position again. ‘Coward!’ she yelled. ‘You’re three times the size of me. How dare you—’
But then she realized what she’d held in her hands, what she’d carried towards the beast.
And it seemed to pop into her senses, like a rubber band snapping into place.
Her stomach dropped to her toes, regret filling her.