Chapter 30
When she opened her eyes, she was back in the labyrinth, standing outside the doors that held Styerra’s memories.
She unlocked another door, unsurprised to find herself in the library again.
It was just after sunset, by the look of the light just barely filtering in through the windows.
She found Styerra in the same spot she’d last seen her.
But this time …
Uncle Ervos was there.
Ezer almost couldn’t believe it was him, for she’d trusted his word all her life. When she begged for answers about her mother, he swore he didn’t know who she was.
A stranger, murdered by shadow wolves.
A woman without a name or a face.
But seeing him now, it was impossible to deny that Ervos not only knew her mother …
They had a deep bond.
She could see it in his eyes, as Ervos looked down at Styerra. He was younger and leaner but a giant for his age, nonetheless. That shock of red hair, the emerald eyes and soft smile. There was no mistaking her uncle’s face.
Gods, she missed him terribly.
A fissure began in her heart, even as fury writhed inside her.
He lied.
All her life, Ervos had lied.
And yet here he was, before the shadow wolves had even arrived. Standing with Ezer’s mother. His hand rested on Styerra’s back, consoling her as she cried.
‘When did he give this to you?’ Styerra asked.
Her eyes were bloodshot and wet with tears. Her hands shook as he held out the small red notebook. The one she and Erath had passed love letters back and forth in.
There was a new entry, scribbled in black ink.
S,
The Masters know.
Leave this place, before it’s too late.
Forget about me.
Live your life.
E
‘He passed it to me just moments before the Masters came to our dorm,’ Ervos said. ‘They took him.’
‘Where?’ Styerra whispered.
Ervos frowned. ‘A cell. He’s committed treason against the Five, Styerra. You know what his fate will be.’
She gasped at his words.
‘And there’s little time before they come for you, too. The penance you’ll pay for this … it’s not the kind you can come back from.’
His voice was younger, but the sound of it was still so gentle, so purely Ervos that it made Ezer’s own heart twist.
He’d spoken to her that way so many times. It was a steady, consoling voice, the kind that took all her fears away.
Styerra wept in his arms.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ervos said. ‘I wish there was another way. I won’t let them do this to you.’
‘He promised me,’ Styerra cried. ‘He said he’d found a place, a power … a space we could be safe to be together, without the gods’ laws to keep us apart.’
‘There is no place the gods’ laws cannot reach,’ Ervos said. ‘Erath lied to you.’
But Ervos was a liar, too.
And now …
Now Ezer wondered what else he’d lied about.
‘He wouldn’t see reason,’ Ervos added. ‘I tried, but … he’s not well, Styerra.
His mind is lusting for things that cannot be.
And thank the gods I discovered it, because he almost took you down with him.
Just like Zeban and the others. It’s all a lie.
The blank book, the strange god. A test, a trap, meant to show the gods who the unbelievers are.
You must believe the truth and set Erath’s lies aside.
You must erase the poison he’s tried to place in your mind.
And you must run, before it’s too late.’
Styerra began to cry again.
She looked weak, not at all like the woman Ezer imagined her mother to be. A warrior, who’d fought bravely to fend away the shadow wolves so her newborn baby could survive.
But this woman, in this memory …
She was just a child.
A brokenhearted child.
‘I can’t,’ Styerra said. ‘I have to see him, speak to him—’
‘You have to run,’ Ervos said. ‘The Masters know everything now. Someone turned him in. They know about the book.’ He looked at Styerra’s stomach. ‘And the baby.’
Styerra gasped.
Ervos held up his hands. ‘I just want you safe.’
‘But if I could just explain it to them, make them see reason,’ Styerra started, her hands over her stomach.
‘You can’t,’ Ervos said. His voice was almost panicked now as he glanced over his shoulder.
Like someone would be rounding the corner at any moment.
‘It’s happened before, an unholy union. You’ve placed a stain in the line of the Sacred, you’ve messed with the purity of pillared magic by carrying Erath’s child.
A child not meant for your womb. You know what the penance will be. For both of you.’
Ezer didn’t have to hear him say it.
Death.
Death for Styerra … and her unborn child.
‘Where would I go?’ she asked.
‘South. As far as you can get, with a new name, a new story. I have a horse secured,’ Ervos said. ‘We’ll go together. Right now. There’s a storm on its way. It will cover our tracks.’
‘I can’t let you risk that.’
Ervos smiled sadly. ‘I’d risk anything for you, Styerra. You know that. I’ll get you settled somewhere safe. I’ll come back, throw them off your trail. No one will harm you or the child. I swore it to Erath. And I swear it to you.’
Styerra stooped to pick up her small bag of belongings, but Ervos lifted it for her, and placed a hand on her back, and guided her from the shelves.
‘I’ll protect you,’ Ervos said. ‘No matter what it takes.’
Ezer opened her eyes for a second time to find herself in a small cave, lit by a flickering orange fire.
She was on her side, a dark wing tucked over her like a blanket, with her head upon the pillow she’d come to know and love. Six’s paw.
Safe and sound, and with her once more.
Kinlear was fast asleep a few feet away, another cloak draped over his shoulders like a blanket. No blood pooled beneath him, but he coughed and it was a ragged thing, wet and deep from within his lungs. He fell back to sleep, folding in on himself.
Ezer groaned and sat up, this time her head wobbling a bit less. There was a rune on her hand, glowing softly. She frowned at it, trying to make sense of the shape.
It looked like … a healing rune, Ezer realized. The same crossed shape she’d seen Alaris use on her countless times.
‘Where are we?’ Ezer whispered as Six shifted and settled one large dark eye on her.
Another vision filled her mind.
Arawn, rushing through the snow on horseback. Hooves thundered as he followed Six through the dark woods beyond the wards. How she’d found him, Ezer didn’t know.
He fell before a pile of dark robes.
Ezer and Kinlear, asleep together in the snow.
With a circle of ravens around them, protecting them like tiny little sentries.
The vision shifted.
And there was Arawn again, tugging at Six’s halter in vain.
The raphon had refused to go back to the Citadel, back to the safety of the wards.
‘Please,’ Arawn begged, and his voice broke. ‘Please, or they’ll freeze to death.’
Six just huffed in his face and walked deeper into the woods … where the mouth of a cave awaited.
It shifted again, another little snapshot of the past.
They were in the cave now.
‘Come on,’ Arawn growled, kneeling in the darkness while Six lay with her wings draped over both Ezer and Kinlear, her breath forming before her in too-large clouds. Frost coated the walls. ‘Vivorr, please. I need you!’
He lifted his hands before him, whispering an invocation.
There were tears on his face, and he looked terrified, desperate …
‘Not again,’ he whispered. ‘Please, not again.’
He looked back at Ezer.
And his eyes were so full of concern, so full of … of what they’d held when he looked at her in her dreams.
And then a flame, bright and burning, surged to life in his hands.
The vision ended.
Ezer sat up, her head spinning.
‘You … went after Arawn for me?’ she asked Six. ‘For us?’
She’d reached out to him through the speaking stone. But there was no way he would have found them without Six.
The raphon twitched her tail once in confirmation. Her hot breath washed over Ezer’s face, and she lowered her head, nuzzling Ezer’s cheek with the tip of her beak. So gentle for an animal so large. ‘Thank you,’ Ezer whispered, and pressed a kiss to the raphon’s feathered head. ‘You saved us.’
Six began to purr and laid her beak back down against the cave floor. Almost as if she’d been waiting for Ezer to wake before she herself slept.
‘Kissing a raphon. That’s … certainly got to be a side effect of a concussion,’ said Arawn. ‘Not something you see every day.’
Ezer turned to find him standing at the edge of the firelight, a bundle of sticks in his arms. His eyes locked upon her, full of concern.
‘I couldn’t find you. The stone’s tracking ability doesn’t stretch beyond the wards.
If it wasn’t for Six thundering into camp …
’ Arawn said. ‘She’s lucky most of the garrison was out tonight.
I managed to get to her before anyone else did.
’ He looked at the raphon. ‘She saved you. A bond like that … it does not come often, Minder. Not even with the war eagles.’
He set down the sticks and walked slowly to the fire, careful to avoid Kinlear.
‘Tell me what happened.’
He dropped another stick on the fire and sat down beside her.
‘Shadow wolves,’ Ezer said. ‘It was my fault we went beyond the wards,’ Ezer said, when Arawn practically growled towards Kinlear. ‘Not his.’
He went quiet, listening.
‘Six flew. She carried us away; she outflew the wolves, and for a moment, it was wonderful. Until we crashed.’
And now they were here. In a dark cave somewhere outside the wards.
‘Six refused to go back to the wards, and now it’s far too dangerous to journey by night.
We can’t go back until daylight,’ Arawn said.
‘I’ve runed the front as best I can to shield our scent, but I’m no scribe.
’ He looked down at her hand. ‘I runed you, too. I hope it’s okay, I didn’t know what else to do… ’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
Behind them, Kinlear began to cough again. They both turned, watching him.
‘His vial is empty,’ Arawn said.
Ezer remembered, from before the crash.
‘It helps with the cough, the cold … a concoction Alaris made. I cannot replicate it.’