They didn’t have to wait long. Ghantal arrived within the hour, and Brandt knew her before she even landed. The particular rhythm of her wingbeats, slightly favoring the left because she had a painful second joint on the right. The way she held her tail rigid, a sign she was nervous. The scent of the expensive oil she used on her claws.
“Mother.”
Her composure shattered. She crashed into him, wings wrapping around them both, and he remembered being small, scared of thunder, hidden in the safety of her embrace.
“Never fear a storm,”she’d said.“It only means great things are coming. You were born during one such as this.”
More memories swamped his senses: learning to sharpen his claws on her whetting stones. His first flight ending in a spectacular crash through her laundry line. Her proud tears when he’d been promoted to commander.
“My son.” She pulled back, touching his face with shaking hands. “You know me.”
The shame of forgetting her burned through him. He hung his head so her hands were supporting it. “How could I forget my own mother?” he said into her palms. He could hear the uncomfortable shifting of the guards and masons in the doorway behind him.
“The war took many things.” Her thumb traced a new scar on his jaw, reminding him of what those scars meant. One for each fallen brother.
“How many others survived?” No one answered. All he could hear was the muttering of the moths around the lantern as they speculated on the number. “Must I count my scars and do the grim mathematics?How many!?”
“Stay calm,” Ghantal murmured. “Don’t give them any cause to cage you. You’re unlocking memories now. That’s the important thing, healing enough to come home. We can’t undo what has been done, but let’s not count you among the casualties.”
He nodded, focusing on the warmth in his chest, the breath in his lungs. He caught her examining his face with that particular focus that meant she was calculating something. “What?”
“Be frank with me, are you well enough to leave the masons’ hall?”
“I think so.” He glanced at the watching masons, whose expressions ranged from wary to baleful. “I want out of here.”
“That’s not the question.”
“I’m not as prone to fits of violence. I can remember things.” He spread his wings, hiding nothing as he spoke to the gargoyles assembled to gawk at him. “Your treatment is working, stone-butchers. What more do you want?”
Ghantal lifted her chin in the posture she used when she negotiated in the cliff markets. He remembered watching her haggle when he was a child, arguing over the price of leather or meat. She never paid full price for anything.
She addressed the head mason. “Clearly, he’s improved enough to be discharged. Healing can proceed just as well in his own nest, don’t you think?”
Aalis’s mouth flattened. “He still has many mind walls.”
“They’re coming down,” Brandt cut in. “You’ve seen it yourself.”
“You don’t want to lose momentum. Leaving prematurely, before your treatment concludes…”
Ghantal’s voice carried the authority of decades of social climbing. “He’ll return for treatments. Won’t you, Brandt?”
“Every night.” He’d agree to anything to escape the smells and sounds and faefuckedsupervision.
Aalis’s tail lashed twice, then stilled. “Fine. Nightly treatments, without fail. If you miss even one, we’ll reevaluate. If you have anotherepisode, you’ll be confined to the hall again.”
“Understood.” He kept his composure, but inside he was dancing.
He followed Ghantal into the night air. It was a short flight from the eastern eighth-tier roost to his own on the western fifth tier. He hadn’t known which roost was theirs, but once inside the eyrie, he recognized the rooms, the worn stone floors and dignified furnishings, though the knowledge felt thin, like ice over deep water.Don’t tread too hard or it’ll crack and you’ll fall through.
He moved through the space, touching things. An armor chest—empty now, the gear probably destroyed. A weapons rack, also empty. A carved stone bench where he used to—what? The memory dissolved into pain as he ran into a mind wall. He hissed through his teeth.
“Your nesting chamber is that one,” Ghantal said quickly, motioning to an arched door. She nodded to the other that stood open, a dozen colorful moths milling around the lantern just inside it. “That one is mine.”
“I knew that,” he said gruffly, embarrassed that he, in fact, hadn’t known. He moved toward the one she said was his.
“I apologize for the dust,” she added quickly. “When you left, I shut the door, and I haven’t let the keepers touch it. Superstitious, I suppose.”
“It’s fine.” And then he entered his nest, and it wasn’t fine. Not at all.
