A shame that his heart was set on another.
And beyond that, he was forbidden.
Them being together couldneverbe … not that he was ever an option to begin with. Especially now that he was soon to be king, when his father passed.
He’d be Matched with someone powerful.
Never her.
She didn’t even know she was headed towards the Aviary again until she found herself back out in the snow, marching up the steps as sunset arrived, and the war raged to her left.
She made it to the cliffside, and stared out just in time to see the Eagles rise from the glass dome. One at a time, they tore into the sky. Magnificent, enormous beasts, their bodies like spears as they climbed up, up, up, riders poised in their saddles.
As soon as they reached their peak, they dipped downwards.
And soared straight down the cliffside, making the Descent.
She watched them fall, one by one. Like the tips of arrows, brave and brilliant and so far from what she could ever be.
Her hands trembled.
What if she died?
What if Six was a terrible flier, not at all like Kinlear hoped she would be, and she killed them both?
It didn’t matter to Kinlear. His fate was sealed, his death imminent. But Ezer … Ezer could live.
She could turn and run, right now.
She spun and looked back behind her at Augaurde. A world of white. The war tents spat smoke into the sky, and far below the garrison was alive with activity. Soldiers who had either signed up or been drafted, never wanting to be here in the first place.
But they werehere.
They didn’t run away from battle.
They marched straight in to protect people just like her.
‘You’re a coward,’ Ezer told herself.
Because when she turned back around, she imagined every single one of those riders had fallen, splattered against the snow, and then she saw herself among them, and Six’s body broken.
Gasping for breath that would not come, she closed her eyes and tried to push the vision away.
‘Ezer,’ said the wind. ‘Look.’
She opened her eyes as a War Eagle soared past her.
It was glorious, so fast a flight that it sent a gust of wind pushing her backwards.
It screeched, and the sound went through her. It set her soul ablaze.
You could be that way,Ezer told herself.If you weren’t so afraid.
All her life she’d been nothing, and no one.
Forgotten.
Left behind.
