For some reason, Ezer jumped.
‘But … it doesn’t make any sense,’ Ezer whispered. ‘The gods wouldn’t want it that way.’
‘Andwhat way would they have it be?’ Zey asked.
Ezer didn’t have an answer. But this felt dangerous. Utterly raw, and she suddenly felt the urge to look over her shoulder, because if she was caught speaking this way …
She feared finding marks upon the backs of her own hands.
She actually feared what would happen to Zey, who seemed to be sliding down an icy slope, with nothing but darkness at the end of her descent.
‘How do you train them?’ Ezer asked. ‘Surely a bond begins, after all the work.’
‘We lead them through the motions of haltering, saddling, mounting, following the pattern of Minders who came before. Eventually, we break through the fledgling’s desire to fight back.’
‘But what does itfeellike?’ Ezer pressed.
‘It’s not a feeling,’ Zey said, exasperated. ‘It’s a march. The result of time spent doing the same thing again and again.Repetition leads to success.’ She frowned. ‘Why are you asking me this?’
Ezer sat back, deflated. It couldn’t be true. She was eager to understand her own place in this, with Six, because she’d tapped into something.
And she thought maybe it was the way it always was, when a Minder found their match in a winged beast.
But now she only had more questions. About herself, about the raphon. About her magic.
‘And how do you get them to trust you when it really counts? To obey even when the war rages, and a Knight’s life depends upon their eagle?’
Zey’s green eyes met hers.
‘The same way a Sacred learns to obey the laws. We break them. We shatter every instinct they have to disobey our commands. Look closely at the war eagles, and you will see they are branded. Just as I am.’
A cold sweat formed on Ezer’s forehead, and she suddenly wanted to put out the fire. ‘Theeagles pay penance? That’s?—’
‘Cruel?’ Zey asked, with a dark laugh and another sip from herflask. ‘It’s the Citadel, in the midst of a twenty-year war with an enemy we cannot see nor understand. An enemy the War Table would do anything to defeat. Even if it means letting our King waste himself away.’
‘So, there is no bond,’ Ezer said softly. ‘No magic that connects a war eagle to its trainer, its rider, soul-deep.’
Nothing that would give reason to how Six and I share a bond.
Or how I can see the things she sees.
How I can feel her pain like it is my own.
‘Sometimes stories are just stories,’ Zey said, and stood. ‘And sometimes the truth is far worse. My best advice? Don’t get too close to the raphon. It will be gone soon, given to someone else to finish out its journey, just like all the eagles I have spent my life training. Give it your heart, Wolf Bait … and it will fly away with it. And once it reaches the other side of the wards … there’s a good chance it’s never coming back.’
Her eyes were red as she stood and left, her book discarded in her spot.
‘Wait,’ Ezer said, and scooped up the book. ‘You left your?—’
She frowned, pausing as the yellowed pages fluttered open, pushed as if by the wind.
Look,it whispered suddenly.See.
Ezer stared down at the pages, confused.
Because the book Zey had been reading, so intently …
Every page was blank.
