She eased it over the raphon’s neck, allowing it to rest there.
‘Wrong,’ Kinlear said.
Six flinched and backed away.
Ezer huffed and let the saddle drop to the shavings. ‘What exactly, dear prince, is wrong?’
She glanced over her shoulder, to where he stood with his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. ‘Everything about your form. You’ve positioned yourself so that if she spooks, she’ll probably break your nose or your wrist.Again.’
Ezer glowered at him. Of course he knew about the visits to Alaris.
But she adjusted her position and tried again. Six stood well, even as Ezer held the saddle just above her back, skimming her smooth black fur. Her arms shook as she let it hover, and slowly, lowered it to rest in between her wings.
‘Wrong again,’ Kinlear said.
‘Out!’ Ezer yelped and spun towards him.
Six skittered backwards, and the entire saddle flung off her back, slamming against the bars with a loud clang.
And then Six lay down and curled herself into a ball, wings hiding her face.
Her tail twitched twice in a finalhell no.
‘Out,please,’ Ezer said to Kinlear, breathing deeply. ‘And don’t come back until you’re called.’
He looked positively shocked, like he’d been slapped. ‘It’s unwise to speak to a prince as if he is a dog.’
‘I don’t particularly care what iswise,’Ezer said. ‘Youplaced me in here,youput me in charge. When we work, we are silent. And that, Your Highness, is something you cannot seem to be.’
He just stared at her, open-mouthed.
So she curled her fingers around the bars and said, ‘I was perfectly fine, making progress the past many days without you. You could have left me for dead, and you wouldn’t have known. You wouldn’t have cared, until you came back to find your little project pet sitting over my corpse!’
She was mad at him, she realized.Furious, because it felt just like Ervos leaving her.
Why wasshealways the one left behind, waiting?
Why was she always left to struggle, to suffer, in the wake ofmen?
He started to speak, but she held up a hand.
‘To you, I am just another servant. Just as my uncle was.’ She let out a breath so deep it hurt. ‘You’ve no care for the fear I have encountered, the sleep I have lost, and have you thought for onesecondwhat it is like to be me? To be ripped from a tower – where I spent two years alone behind a locked door just like this one. And furthermore, if you’ve no respect for me, Prince, then consider what it is like to beSix. To be born and raised in the confines of a cage.’
He blinked at her, silent.
And with his face growing red.
‘No. I didn’t think so,’ Ezer said. ‘Because a prince cannot possibly understand the plight of a pauper like me.’ Another deep breath, as the wind suddenly rattled past her ears, and whispered,Stop.
And where have you been, Ezer thought to it,the past many days? You, too, left me for dead!
She glared at Kinlear.
‘If you’ve a problem with what I do, Prince Laroux, then I will gladly step aside and allow you to mind Six yourself. Punish me ifyou wish. But there is nothing you can do to me. Nothing you can take. Not magic or family or—’ She paused to swallow a sudden lump in her throat. ‘There isnothingleft.’
She crossed her arms and turned to face him, even as she felt Six’s beak rest heavy upon her shoulder. A deep sigh came from the raphon – she felt it against her back, warm and soothing, like Six wanted to remind her.
She wasn’t alone.
