Chapter 26
Another week had passed.
The sky was pink this morning.
Which meant another snowstorm was already well on its way.
Ezer adjusted her position on Six’s back and pulled her hood lower over her eyes.
She was grateful for the new runes Kinlear had ordered the Citadel’s seamstress to stitch upon the fabric.
They were meant to weigh the hood down, to keep snow from her eyes and prevent it from falling back in the biting wind.
‘Come on, Six,’ she said. ‘A little faster now.’
Her mind flooded with a sudden vision.
A beautiful black raven, nestling down inside a pile of sticks … a nest, filled with lovely little trinkets.
‘You can rest when Kinlear says we’re done,’ Ezer told her. ‘I know you’ve got more in you.’
She could have sworn she felt Six sigh beneath her.
But the raphon broke into a lope, and Ezer buried her fingers into the soft black feathers at the base of her neck and leaned in close, so the wind rolled over her.
They’d worn a pathway into the ground, a perfect ring of paw prints in the snow. Six’s movements were fluid, soundless as she loped. It was utterly fascinating how so large a beast could be so quiet.
But Ezer supposed that was the point of a predator.
To be able to sneak up on anyone at any time.
‘Good!’
Ezer glanced to the left, where Kinlear stood in the center of the ring, wearing his fur-lined cloak that glowed with delicate gold runes.
‘Now do the figure eight again, but don’t hit me, please.’ He pulled his cloak tighter around his middle. ‘I still haven’t recovered from the first time.’
Ezer rolled her eyes, because it wasn’t her fault that just yesterday, Six had thrown her off and sent her careening against the prince, where they both came up trembling, covered in snow.
It was because Six saw a bird.
And she’d wanted to chase after it, marveling at the tiny little winter robin that had soared past, curious at Ezer’s presence as they always were.
‘You’re being dramatic!’ Ezer called, as she imagined Six performing the figure eight. Herself, seated perfectly on her back, not falling, thanks to the base of Six’s wings also supporting her at the sides.
A vision of that tired raven flitted into her mind.
‘I’ll give you double lunch,’ Ezer said. ‘Come on.’
She received a vision of a large raphon paw, shoving a full bowl of food away.
‘Fine,’ Ezer said. ‘I’ll scrounge up another bauble from Kinlear’s supply of lavish royal jewelry. Will that suffice? You’ll need a new cage soon, if you’re to fit all your little prizes.’
At that, she could have sworn Six pranced into the shape of the figure eight, keeping Kinlear safely at its middle. Where Ezer pointedly realized his hands were now bare of all rings.
‘Now you’re just showing off,’ Kinlear said, when they had gone past him far too many times to count.
When even Ezer was tired, her legs aching, her mind focused on the bathhouse – fleetingly excited at the prospect of running into a half-naked Arawn again – instead of the snow all around.
‘Now try to get her to lift off just a few feet. Lean close. Don’t fall.
We don’t want to heal another broken leg so soon. ’
Not like two days ago, when Alaris had practically wrung Kinlear’s neck as he’d helped Ezer limp in. And Arawn had nearly beheaded him right after, in the hall.
Even the torches had blazed with a flash of brighter fire. Like his magic was coming back, when it came to her.
Ezer blew out a breath.
Her stomach turned as she thought of herself in the sky.
‘Now, flap your wings,’ Ezer said to Six. ‘Just a little bit.’
Six tossed her head twice, for it became easier for her to argue with Ezer that way, when she couldn’t see the twitching of her tail.
No.
‘Yes,’ Ezer said.
The raphon flapped her wings.
But not to fly.
She flapped them to throw Ezer off balance, and before she realized it, she was face-down in the snow.
She came up cursing, sputtering through the wet and the cold.
‘Anything broken?’ Kinlear asked.
Ezer glared up at him as she swiped snow from her cloak.
‘No?’
‘No,’ she growled, glaring at Six. ‘Only my pride.’
‘Pride,’ he said with a smile, ‘Is not something death cares about. Now start again.’
Another two days of riding lessons, and the raphon still wouldn’t use her wings. Six just wanted to run.
‘You’re not a cat right now,’ Ezer spat. ‘You’re a raphon. Meant for the sky!’
She sent Ezer a vision.
A cat, lazing in the sun, purring and perfectly content to be on the ground.
‘She’s done great work, but she’s hit a plateau,’ Kinlear said from the edge of the circle, where he rested on one of the boulders. He often sat more than he stood, these past few days.
‘It’s because she doesn’t know who she is,’ Ezer said. ‘What she is.’
How strange, that the sentiment hit close to home.
She was more like the raphon than she thought.
‘We have only a few days until the War Table will request the Demonstration,’ Kinlear said. ‘A leader for every pillar of magic will attend. And if she isn’t ready …’
‘I know,’ Ezer cut him off.
The wind whipped up the cliffside, sending a flurry of snowflakes into Ezer’s vision. A fine morning to test out flying, for at least there was mild visibility. Ezer stared out at the Expanse as she slid down, patting Six on her sweaty neck, where feathers turned into fur.
And then Ezer felt the raphon’s beak weigh heavy upon her shoulder as they stood and stared out at the world beneath them.
‘You have to fly,’ she told her. ‘Please.’
Six only sighed.
‘The war is getting worse,’ Kinlear said. ‘We needed three carts yesterday to bring them all back.’
Ezer’s stomach turned, thinking of that.
They came piled high, corpses shredded by battle the night before.
And as she turned, Ezer could see them now: the body collectors out there in the Expanse, far away beneath them. It was the only time, in daylight, that they could safely collect their dead. When the darksouls and wolves were hidden away inside the Sawteeth … biding their time to kill again.
A few armored war bears pulled heavy wooden carts meant to gather the fallen, while servants loaded them on to be burned.
The bodies were small as Ezer’s thumbnail from here … but still large enough to fill someone’s entire world, back home.
Death was strange. Because here, in the north, it became common.
It became a number instead of a name.
Ezer heard the whispers in the halls as she walked, following Arawn to the training room each night, where she failed to conjure any magic. But slowly, she began to block his advances with her sword. And once – only once – she’d landed a single hit to his side.
Though she suspected he’d allowed her to, if only to boost her confidence. Now that Kinlear wanted Ezer and Six to cross the Expanse, she was grateful Arawn had encouraged her physical training.
Grateful for every aching part of her body, because it meant he’d pushed her beyond the limits she’d initially thought for herself.
She was no longer weak.
No longer a shadow of what could be.
And though she’d come to love her days training with Six and Kinlear … it was her nights with Arawn that she craved.
His solid presence as he guided her, his impressive strength and swift movements.
And the look he had in his eyes each time he circled her in the training room, with nothing but a blade held between them.
You challenge me, Minder, he’d thought to her last night as he circled her, his voice like a caress against her mind. In more ways than one.
And why is that? she’d thought back. The moonlit swam across them, bathing them both in silver.
His breath tickled her ear as he’d leaned in and whispered aloud, ‘Win this fight, and I’ll tell you.’
She was so distracted he’d knocked the sword from her grasp, and his secrets had stayed safe with him.
‘What will it take?’ Kinlear asked Ezer now, and she was instantly colder as he pulled her back to the present. ‘An entire castle full of gold to convince Six to fly?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ezer said. ‘But she has to be the one to decide.’
‘It reminds me of someone,’ Kinlear said, chuckling as he looked at her.
She scooped up a snowball and tossed it at his feet.
He looked like he would repay the favor, until Six growled behind Ezer.
‘It’s haunting,’ Kinlear said, ‘the two of you together. The nightmares I have each night, when I see you in my dreams.’
She blinked at that. ‘You dream of me, Kinlear Laroux?’
He suddenly found the sky quite interesting.
‘Tomorrow,’ Kinlear said, ignoring her question with a grin. ‘We’ll try with her again.’
Six let out a soft growl, and a vision entered Ezer’s mind.
Kinlear’s white cane, left alone in the snow. Covered in blood.
She gasped and nudged the beast in the belly… and promptly felt Six’s paw stomp down over her boot.
‘Be nice,’ Ezer whispered.
The raphon’s tail twitched twice.
‘Well,’ Ezer said, glancing sidelong at the prince. ‘Tomorrow should be … fun.’
‘Speaking of fun,’ Kinlear said, and gave her a wicked grin. ‘Tonight is Absolution.’