Her heart did a little twirl.
She came upon the first stall, where a war eagle stood rightinside, behind the iron bars. Its breast was relaxed, its feathers a deep gold, with small streaks of white around the base of its neck. A servant skirted past Ezer, head bent and eyes lowered as he carried a dented metal bucket. It sloshed as he set it down and removed a hunk of bleeding, stinking meat from its depths.
A squeak of the hinges, and the servant opened the stall’s front window, and held the meat out on a metal gaffing hook. Much like the fishermen at the wharfs outside of Rendegard used to haul in the heavy fish.
‘Gentle, Suri,’ he warned.
An enormous golden beak appeared at the bars and made quick work of snatching the meat off the hook. It was lovely, sharp and menacing, the tip of the beak dipped with gold that had been placed on like a permanent fixture. Sharp enough to shred through darksoul skin, and it was covered in freshly glowing runes.
The eagle’s entire head was larger than the full length of Ezer’s body. Its beak, longer than her whole arm from shoulder to fingertips, and each of its golden eyes was as large as her hand.
They were so bright they looked like liquid sunlight.
She stood silently as she watched the eagle eat. His eyes flicked up, then narrowed upon her. Its head cocked to the side in question.
Like it sensed her, the very same as all the other birds. She smiled, wishing she could get a little closer.
‘What is it, Suri?’ the servant turned, noticing the eagle’s stare.
And so Ezer made quick work of disappearing again, deeper into the barn.
More servants in drab brown cloaks tended to them, scraping their stalls clean with mucking forks and wheelbarrows. Some stoodinsidethe stalls, grooming the mighty eagles with thick bristle brushes meant to get down to the root of their feathers, while others dabbed dark green salve onto fresh injuries.
Plaques marked the stall fronts – the eagle’s name, then its aerie color beneath it – and Ezer read each one, a familiar ease sidling up against her senses. This place had the sounds and the smells that she knew and loved from her tower, the only part of Rendegard that hadever felt like home. It filled her up, the click of beaks, the ruffle of feathers, the snap of wings as an eagle stretched and then settled itself down against fresh pine shavings. Some scratched at the shavings with their talons, as if they were overgrown chickens searching for bugs, while others chittered to the eagles in neighboring stalls, deep in their own unique conversations.
They were, in every sense of the word, the perfect birds.
She’d pay anything, any amount of coin, to be inside one of those stalls.
She finally came to the other end of the enormous barn. A gate led back to the outside.
And there, in the middle of a massive round pen, was a war eagle in training.
A magnificent sight, to see the beast out in the open. A female Eagleminder stood before it, holding her hands out as she ran them across the beast’s golden feathers. A group of five others stood around the pen, their hoods colored to show their pillar of magic, one for each god.
They had golden bands on their arms.
And by the way they watched the Eagleminder inside the pen …
It seemed like a test.
Curiosity tugged at Ezer as she edged closer.
So easily, the war eagle could have lifted its wings and leapt right over the top railing of the pen, flown off to nest in one of the trees.
But it was utterly still, and silent.
And watching the Minder with an intense and present gaze, its head lowered in a show of respect.
It was a youngling, by the look of its still-white neck feathers, a bit of downy fluff clinging to its breast and sides. Beautiful, though its wings were still a bit too large for its body.
She smiled as she watched the Eagleminder run her hands across the beast’s neck. The woman was near Ezer’s age, tall and lovely, with a golden braid than ran halfway down her back.
She stood face to face with the eagle and lifted her left hand.
The eagle lifted its wing to match.
‘Good, Tyrn,’ said the Minder.
