She held out a hand, and one of them fluttered towards her,landing on her wrist with sharp, dark talons. But she remained still, so as not to scare it. Not that a raven would ever spook around her.
Perhaps it had been there in the woods a month ago.
Perhaps, in that strange burst of magic that had yet to return, this was one of the ravens that had saved her.
‘I’ve never seen such an ability,’ Arawn said, looking at her from the doorway. ‘It’s like they know you. Like they trust you, just as Six does.’
Ezer shrugged and ran her fingertip across the raven’s chin. ‘It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. And yet, when I’m faced with a test of normal pillared magic …’ She blew out a breath, lifted her hand and sent the raven soaring back to its perch. ‘I get nothing. Only silence from the Five.’
‘If I were a god, I’d answer,’ Arawn said.
She raised a brow. ‘So now you think yourself a god, Arawn of Augaurde?’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, his eyes wide. ‘Not in the slightest. I know my place, I know my – you’re joking again. Aren’t you?’
‘Always,’ Ezer said.
He crossed his large arms. ‘I simply mean, it would be a fine gift, to give you the clarity you seek. Not to know your lineage, your background … it would frustrate me to my core.’
He motioned for her to cross to the window at the other side of the tower. Already, she could tell it would overlook the Expanse. And the Eagle’s Nest, from above, if she peered out of it.
‘I will rule all of this someday,’ Arawn said. He released a frustrated sigh. ‘A leader who cannot properly wield. I wonder how the people will respect me then.’
‘You will be respected,’ she said firmly. ‘You already are.’ She’d seen the way the soldiers looked at him in the halls. How they inclined their heads, not because theyhadto, but because they probably all knew of his pain. His loss. And still … he was here. Still, he would take up his father’s crown and lead. ‘I’ll find my magic, and you will recover yours. And if we don’t … there is always Realmbreak.’
‘Realmbreak,’ Arawn said. ‘It’s why I broughtyou here.’
He turned his gaze towards the view out the window.
Despite the twist in her stomach, she leaned against the stones and peered out with him.
The Eagle’s Nest was like a giant glass orb from up here. The tower itself, far up in the steeple, higher than the peak of the dome. She could see the golden runes swimming across the glass, alive with the gods’ magic.
‘Just in time,’ Arawn said. ‘Look.’
The domed roof beneath their tower suddenly opened wide.
And the first War Eagle soared out.
The climb was instantaneous, a burst of gold wings and feathers and a rider in white, soaring up into the sky, twisting once upside down before nose-diving, beak-first, over the cliff’s edge.
She watched that fall the way a child would, when tossing a coin into a fountain. Wide-eyed and waiting until it hit the bottom.
At the last moment, the rider tugged on the reins, and the War Eagle lifted its wings. It rose just enough to cross through the Snow Gates: those two towering black pillars that marked the opposite edge of Augaurde, and the golden wards.
Where the eagle’s wings took over, and they rose steadily back to the sky.
‘This looks far more terrifying from above,’ Ezer said as she watched the next one rise from the glass dome and make the nose-dive. ‘Why did you bring me here again?’
Arawn grinned. ‘Because this is the highest cliff face in all Augaurde. It’s the greatest challenge Lordach’s war eagles will ever face.’ He smiled. ‘But the raphons?’
He pointed at the Sawteeth, small from here, with that ever-furious shadowstorm.
‘Those mountains are made of nothingbutheights … the kind that would make this cliff face look like child’s play.’
Her stomach twisted.
‘That’s supposed to make me feel better?’
