He scrambled to the bed, breathless as he threw back the covers. Feathers danced through the air like living shadows.
But no Ezer.
‘Please,’ he begged. ‘Gods, please.’
And then he saw the blood smears on the trunk at the foot of the bed. A handprint, like Styerra had held on to it when the shadow wolves attacked. Like they’d dragged her away from the place she’d made her final stand.
Ervos gasped and pried open the lid.
… And there she was.
Ezer, bundled in a blood-soaked blanket, with three horrible gashes across her tiny face. She was silent, unmoving. As if she were already gone.
‘No,’ Ervos breathed.
But then the baby Ezer opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. She let out a squeak, painful and broken and so, so weak.
But she was alive.
And clutched in her tiny little fists were more black feathers.
‘It’s okay,’ Ervos whispered, as he lifted her into his arms, tear tracks staining his face. ‘I’m here, LittleBird. I’m here.’
Ezer woke with tears on her own face, safe and sound inside Six’s cage.
She was warm from Six’s wing, draped over her side.
But the rest of her wasn’t quite right.
It was a weariness. A burden to know what Ervos had done. To know that her mother had died so terribly … to finally remember what had happened that night in the dark.
With her last act, Styerra had placed her baby, bleeding and broken, inside that trunk … and led the wolves away.
Ervos had found her there, just as he always said. That part of the story was true.
But the rest …
The cottage filled with black feathers. She knew it was from her birds. That they had come for her, just as they had two months ago in the woods.
But … how?
Andwhy?
Everything before that night, and everything after.
Everything she thought Ervos was.
It wasalla lie.
She allowed herself a moment to mourn for her mother and her father.
For the life they could have shared, the three of them, if they’d run awaytogetherfrom the Citadel. But Erath had never known about the secret Styerra carried.
And he never would, because Ervos had stolen their connection away. He’d slid the Ring of Finding from Styerra’s finger in hatred, not in love. So Erath wouldneverfind her on the other side.
Ezer felt sick as she looked down at the ring and curled her hand into a fist.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered to the ghost of her parents. ‘I’m so sorry for what he did to you.’
