In the darkness and silence, Ezer whispered soft words to her, telling Six a slew of tales the way she used to with her ravens. She spoke of Ervos and showed Six her mother’s ring.A Ring of Finding,utterly useless now. She spoke of her fear of heights, the whisper upon the wind, and the shadow wolf that had nearly killed her in the woods.
She showed her the speaking stone, at which Six huffed in annoyance.
Like she didn’t want to share any part of Ezer, and she supposed that was fair.
‘It’s best here with you and I, anyway,’ Ezer said, and she meant it. ‘Girl time is good for the soul.’
She wasn’t even sure if Six could understand her, but each time she paused her talking, the pup would twitch its catlike tail and place its dark eyes upon her, as if to sayanother story, please.
‘All right,’ Ezer said, ‘Then I’ll continue the tale of?—’
It surprised her when Six rose to allfours.
And quietly, carefully, padded over to settle down with her head on Ezer’s lap.
The weight of her beak was enough to make Ezer grunt, but she found the warmth of Six instantly soothing. It washed the cold of the cell away.
Ezer relaxed back into the stones.
‘Hello there,’ she said. ‘I dare say we’re becoming friends.’
She kept her hands to herself, allowing Six to lay calmly across her.
She spoke for a time more, telling Six all the tales of her childhood, how Ervos had changed before her eyes, how he’d left her … and how she’d been alone, a floundering thing, ever since.
‘And now, if I don’t have you visiblygentledwithin the next two days,’ Ezer started, ‘I’m not certain what my fate will be. Nor yours.’
She often spoke with her hands, and when she lowered them back down to rest on Six’s scarred beak, her vision suddenly shifted.
It grew dark at the edges, and before she knew it, she was sucked into a vision.
No longer was it the single feather, floating alone.
Five others floated alongside it. All identical in shape and size, and Ezer watched as they began to sink. One by one, they faded beneath the dark waves, never to be seen again.
The vision lasted until Ezer pulled her hand away.
She had to push past the sadness she felt in her core. The sense of mourning that she’d had in her own heart since losing Ervos … and she knew it came from the raphon.
‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ she asked Six. ‘The dark feather in your visions? The only one left. The prince told me about what happened to the others in your litter. Your siblings.’
Six’s tail twitched, only once.
And then the beast sighed deeply, and Ezer could have sworn Six turned her head just so Ezer could study her scar.
‘You’re a survivor,’ Ezer said, and turned her own cheek. ‘Like me.’
Six’s breath washed across her face, as if she were studying the shadow wolf marks.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ezer said. ‘That you’ve been in here this whole time. You can leave, you know. You need only work with me. We’ve a mutual goal to get out of this awful cage.’
The vision hit again, just as sudden as before.
She felt her body rooted to the spot, but in her mind …
It was the same dark feather floating in the sea. But now another joined it, caught up in a current, only this one was white.
Like a delicate dove.
