He locked eyes with her. ‘Raphons.’
For a second, she held his stormy gaze, remembering the last time she saw him. The blood on her hand, the raphon crumpled at her feet. Herself, caught in his long arms and his face melding with Arawn’s as if the two were one.
‘Many claim that raphons are poisonous,’ Kinlear said. ‘That to touch one is to die a terribly slow death. What do you make of that claim, Ravenminder?’
She looked down at her hand.
The one that had left a bloody imprint on the raphon’s beak.
‘I think I wouldn’t be here right now, if that were true,’ she said.
He looked like he was holding back a smile. ‘An excellent observation. I have something for you. A reassignment, signed and sealed by my father.’
He reached into his cloak pocket.
She tensed.
But he just tossed her a letter signed with the King’s five-starred stamp. She skimmed it, and indeed, she was no longer a Ravenminder.
She was, instead, a title she’d never seen before.
Raphonminder.
The blood drained from her face, and she dropped the letter as if it were on fire.
‘What is this?’ she breathed.
‘We’ll get to that.’ Kinlear leaned back in his chair, ignoring the shock on her face. He tapped the pages of his book with ringed fingers. ‘Many believe that to even lay eyes upon a raphon is to greet death. It is why no one settled in the Sawteeth before the Acolyte. Because too many explorers had become dinner for the feral flocks.’ He smiled and met her eyes. ‘I’m not surprised by your survival. Becausewe at the Citadel know that theory – that raphons are untamable – to be untrue.’
He said nothing, waiting for her to respond.
Like he was playing a game with her, and if she wanted answers, she’d have to oblige him with the right questions.
‘And why is that?’ Ezer asked.
Kinlear shrugged and swept dust from the book in front of him. ‘Because we have been capturing them for years now.’
At that, she raised her brows, truly surprised.
‘How?’ she asked. And then she added, ‘Why?’
He smiled. ‘Runes, my fellow Minder, can do a lot more than people think. People love to overlook the Scribes, to think of them as less than the Knights. But I find they are bolder, braver than anyone who wields magic or a sword, for there is little limitation when you have knowledge. Did you know, before I was chosen as an Eagleminder, I trained as a Scribe?’ He held out a hand. ‘I’ve never been able to wield like my brother.Thisis my battleground, the library. My weapons cache, the books, and with them … myself, and countless others, have discovered a way to capture raphons, hold them in stasis, so we can study their behaviors. See what makes them tick. To know one’s enemy … it is the true art of war.’
She had a feeling this information was not common knowledge, beyond the confines of the Citadel.
‘A few months ago, we discovered one of the raphons we’d captured – a female, wounded in battle after her darksoul rider was rightfully slayed – was pregnant with a litter of pups. None of the books cover a raphon’s birth. We found they don’t lay eggs, not like the raven half of them. They birth them warm and wailing, like panthers. The mother perished. But we managed to save a litter of six. Small, screaming things, thirsty not for milk but for blood.’ His jaw quirked. ‘A traitor – amonster– disagreed with our plans, broke into the catacombs, and slaughtered five of the pups before we managed to stop him. There was onlyoneto survive.’
It felt wrong.
It felt dark, to know that all this time, raphons had been held prisoner here.
A servant arrived to add another few logs to the fire.
Kinlear kept silent, watching Ezer as they waited. He looked so much like Arawn in the face … and yet so different. Even their postures were unique, the way he carried himself so calmly, when it seemed like every part of Arawn was always tense.
He coughed again, and quickly uncapped the vial at his throat, taking a small sip of the liquid.
It smelled overly sweet.
