Six tossed her head twice, for it became easier for her to argue with Ezer that way, when she couldn’t see the twitching of her tail.
No.
‘Yes,’ Ezer said.
The raphon flapped her wings.
But not to fly.
She flapped them to throw Ezer off balance, and before she realized it, she was face-down in the snow.
She came up cursing, sputtering through the wet and the cold.
‘Anything broken?’ Kinlear asked.
Ezer glared up at him as she swiped snow from her cloak.
‘No?’
‘No,’ she growled, glaring at Six. ‘Only my pride.’
‘Pride,’ he said with a smile, ‘Is not something death cares about. Now start again.’
Another two days of riding lessons, and the raphon still wouldn’t use her wings. Six just wanted to run.
‘You’re not a cat right now,’ Ezer spat. ‘You’re a raphon. Meant for thesky!’
She sent Ezer a vision.
A cat, lazing in the sun, purring and perfectly content to be on the ground.
‘She’s done great work, but she’s hit a plateau,’ Kinlear said from the edge of the circle, where he rested on one of the boulders. He often sat more than he stood, these past few days.
‘It’s because she doesn’t know who she is,’ Ezer said. ‘Whatshe is.’
How strange, that the sentiment hit close to home.
She was more like the raphon than she thought.
‘We have only a few days until the War Table will request the Demonstration,’ Kinlear said. ‘A leader for every pillar of magic will attend. And if she isn’t ready …’
‘I know,’ Ezer cut him off.
The wind whipped up the cliffside, sending a flurry of snowflakes into Ezer’s vision. A fine morning to test out flying, for at least there was mild visibility. Ezer stared out at the Expanse as she slid down, patting Six on her sweaty neck, where feathers turned into fur.
And then Ezer felt the raphon’s beak weigh heavy upon her shoulder as they stood and stared out at the world beneath them.
‘You have to fly,’ she told her. ‘Please.’
Six only sighed.
‘The war is getting worse,’ Kinlear said. ‘We needed three carts yesterday to bring them all back.’
Ezer’s stomach turned, thinking of that.
They came piled high, corpses shredded by battle the night before.
And as she turned, Ezer could see them now: the body collectors out there in the Expanse, far away beneath them. It was the only time, in daylight, that they could safely collect their dead. When the darksouls and wolves were hidden away inside the Sawteeth … biding their time to kill again.
