Chapter 21 #2
She looked back at Six, who continued to flick her tail twice in a constant rhythm, pausing enough time in between for Ezer to get the message.
No.
No.
And another no.
Ezer closed a fist over her mother’s ring. ‘What will it take, Six? A gift?’
A pause.
Then a single twitch of Six’s tail.
Yes.
She blew her hair from her face and marched to the bars where Kinlear stood. ‘Your rings,’ she said. ‘May I borrow one, please?’
Kinlear looked like he’d been stabbed. ‘These are precious heirlooms! A true rarity from Lordach’s past.’
‘And your mission is about to be considered an heirloom, too,’ Ezer said, and reached her hand through the bars, ‘if you don’t give me something to use as an offering.’
She looked back over her shoulder, pointedly, at the pile of treasures in Six’s cell.
She could see his eyes narrow, then widen. ‘Are those …’
‘Hers,’ Ezer said, ‘and so is one of your rings. Now choose which one, or we’ll make no progress here today. She requires payment for what she’s to do for you.’
He blinked at her. ‘What in the Ehver happened while I was gone?’
‘A mutual understanding,’ Ezer said. ‘Ring, please.’
His face was pained as he placed a fat emerald with a gold band into her palm.
Even in the torchlight, it shone like a beacon, and Ezer could see at once that Six’s dark eyes slid towards it.
‘All right, Six,’ Ezer said, as she turned to face the pup. ‘A saddling for an emerald, and a royal one at that.’
Kinlear sighed. ‘I hardly think the beast can understand you.’
Ezer ignored him, reaching up to run her hands across the raphon’s feathered neck, until her fingertips touched fur. So soft, so seamless, the transition from raven to panther. Her wings were lovely, the feathers long and perfectly tapered. And so dark, they nearly looked purple in the torchlight.
‘Here we go,’ she breathed.
She could see the space on Six’s back where the saddle was to go. It was smaller, thinner than a horse’s saddle so it could fit between her wings, and was meant to buckle more like a harness, in front and behind, so it wouldn’t slide.
Carefully, so, so carefully, she touched the leather to Six’s back.
‘No chains,’ Ezer whispered. Six’s eyes flared at the touch of the leather on her feathers … but she did not move. ‘Good girl.’
She eased it over the raphon’s neck, allowing it to rest there.
‘Wrong,’ Kinlear said.
Six flinched and backed away.
Ezer huffed and let the saddle drop to the shavings. ‘What exactly, dear prince, is wrong?’
She glanced over her shoulder, to where he stood with his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. ‘Everything about your form. You’ve positioned yourself so that if she spooks, she’ll probably break your nose or your wrist. Again.’
Ezer glowered at him. Of course he knew about the visits to Alaris.
But she adjusted her position and tried again. Six stood well, even as Ezer held the saddle just above her back, skimming her smooth black fur. Her arms shook as she let it hover, and slowly, lowered it to rest in between her wings.
‘Wrong again,’ Kinlear said.
‘Out!’ Ezer yelped and spun towards him.
Six skittered backwards, and the entire saddle flung off her back, slamming against the bars with a loud clang.
And then Six lay down and curled herself into a ball, wings hiding her face.
Her tail twitched twice in a final hell no.
‘Out, please,’ Ezer said to Kinlear, breathing deeply. ‘And don’t come back until you’re called.’
He looked positively shocked, like he’d been slapped. ‘It’s unwise to speak to a prince as if he is a dog.’
‘I don’t particularly care what is wise,’ Ezer said. ‘You placed me in here, you put me in charge. When we work, we are silent. And that, Your Highness, is something you cannot seem to be.’
He just stared at her, open-mouthed.
So she curled her fingers around the bars and said, ‘I was perfectly fine, making progress the past many days without you. You could have left me for dead, and you wouldn’t have known. You wouldn’t have cared, until you came back to find your little project pet sitting over my corpse!’
She was mad at him, she realized. Furious, because it felt just like Ervos leaving her.
Why was she always the one left behind, waiting?
Why was she always left to struggle, to suffer, in the wake of men?
He started to speak, but she held up a hand.
‘To you, I am just another servant. Just as my uncle was.’ She let out a breath so deep it hurt.
‘You’ve no care for the fear I have encountered, the sleep I have lost, and have you thought for one second what it is like to be me?
To be ripped from a tower – where I spent two years alone behind a locked door just like this one.
And furthermore, if you’ve no respect for me, Prince, then consider what it is like to be Six.
To be born and raised in the confines of a cage. ’
He blinked at her, silent.
And with his face growing red.
‘No. I didn’t think so,’ Ezer said. ‘Because a prince cannot possibly understand the plight of a pauper like me.’ Another deep breath, as the wind suddenly rattled past her ears, and whispered, Stop.
And where have you been, Ezer thought to it, the past many days? You, too, left me for dead!
She glared at Kinlear.
‘If you’ve a problem with what I do, Prince Laroux, then I will gladly step aside and allow you to mind Six yourself.
Punish me if you wish. But there is nothing you can do to me.
Nothing you can take. Not magic or family or—’ She paused to swallow a sudden lump in her throat. ‘There is nothing left.’
She crossed her arms and turned to face him, even as she felt Six’s beak rest heavy upon her shoulder. A deep sigh came from the raphon – she felt it against her back, warm and soothing, like Six wanted to remind her.
She wasn’t alone.
The ice over her heart cracked. A little warmth poured in.
‘That is,’ Ezer added, reaching up to place her hand upon Six’s beak, just over the ridges of her scar, ‘if she allows you to keep your brains intact when you come for me.’
Kinlear’s eyes went from her to Six and back again.
He grabbed his cane and stood with a wince.
‘I apologize if I hurt you. That was never my intention,’ Kinlear said. ‘But for what it’s worth, Raphonminder, you have no clue what sort of confines I live within. What pain I live with. And what sort of fate awaits me, if this plan fails.’