Emptiness.
The birds shifted on their perches, uneasy, as Ezer knelt there in the shavings of her tower, the letter in her hands as she reread it.
Ervos was gone.
And she realized, as all hope died within her, that she was to replace him again.
The wind danced with the scent of salt and storms. The stars were so bright, the moon a delicate silver plate balanced in the sky.
Beautiful.
So, so beautiful, the time when death was closest.
She closed her eyes, tipped her head to the sky, and breathed it in.
Freedom,she thought.A pity, to feel it for a moment … only to have it ripped away again so soon.
The birds followed from above, wings drenched in fog as the Sacred led Ezer away.
After a harrowing, humiliating walk across the creaking rope bridge – a pity, for a Ravenminder’s biggest fear to be heights – they reached the front of Rendegard.
There, the prison’s steps unraveled down the cliffside like a dark spool of thread.
They ended at the towering prison gates. Beyond them, a thick span of woods separated the prison from the city. Distant smokestacks trailed into the night sky, stretching from spires and tiled rooftops, while candles flickered in second-story windows. Their color was changed depending on the godsday. Tonight, it was green for Aristra, god of realm.
Others had probably donned small carvings of bears on their windowsills to represent Aristra’s animal form.
It had been two years since Ezer had stood beside her uncle and lit a candle. Two years since she’d prayed to the Five, some part of her always doubting the words that tumbled from her own lips.
‘Hurry up,’ the Sacred grunted, drawing her attention back to him.
She turned to see a wagon awaiting her. And not simply any normal covered wagon, but an enormousprisonwagon, with reinforced iron sides meant for liars and thieves and murderers, all manner of people who’d broken countless of Lordach’s laws.
The worst thing Ezer had ever done was curse, and one time she’d kicked a cat in defense of her birds.
Gods, she hated cats.
They entered a room thinking everyoneblessedbecause of their presence.
Ezer glowered up at him. Gods, he was massive. ‘But you can’t mean to make me ride in there, with …’
Her voice trailed off as she glanced at the line of prisoners.
‘I can,’ the Sacred said. ‘And I will. It’s safer than what we’ll face traveling north. The open road is no place for a lady, especially at night.’
‘And neither is a prison wagon,’ Ezer snapped at him.
A muscle in his perfect jaw twitched. ‘You would be wise to watch your tongue, Minder, before you arrive in the north.’
Her eyes met his. ‘My tongue, Mage, is of no concern to you.’
She could have sworn his face reddened as he turned away. At least the rumors about the Sacred were true, then. They never laid with another until they were matched.
She watched him walk away as she waited in the rain, shivering like a sewer rat as the prisoners clambered aboard. When she climbed inside, she found herself shoved in the back corner, in the depths of darkness, amid the stink of sweat and piss and prisoners that had at best been petty thieves. At worst, cold-blooded killers.
And perhaps some were like her, with small, spoiled magic, useless to the kingdom but still capable of being feared for their differences, mistaken for someone loyal to the Acolyte.
There was no telling which of them she sat between.
