A gilded cage.
The finch tweeted as if it agreed.
“I bet it’s nice to have wings,” Kinlear said. “Go anywhere you want. Do anything, without fear of falling.”
Or failing,he thought. It was his greatest accomplishment, if you asked his mother.
The finch was gold, its tiny feathers a perfect little echo of the war eagles back home. Gods, he missed hearing their cries as they dove from the cliffside each night, fearless Riders on their backs. He’d dreamt, long ago, of becoming one. Riders were never seen as weak.
They were unstoppable...like the heroes in his favorite books.
But at this rate, he doubted he’d ever be allowed tolookata war eagle again, especially if his mother had anything to do with it.
Kinlear sighed. “I suppose you’re the closest I’ll get to the war eagles, now, aren’t you?”
The finch chirruped and flew away.
“You weren’t good company anyhow!”
A chuckle sounded from behind him, along with the rapping of a cane.
“Yelling at the birds now are we, Little Prince?”
He glanced up to find his tutor, Magus, standing over him.
“It’s called passionately conversing,” Kinlear said. “I used to sneak into the war eagles’ domain and speak to them. They understand things, you know.” He ignored his dark curls as they fell into his eyes. “A finch is as close as I’ll ever get to the war eagles now, if I’m never to return north.”
“Never?” Magus cocked his head, his milky white eyes catching the sunlight. The old man was blind, but it didn’t mean he could notsee.“Neverseems like quite a long time, if you ask me.”
He chuckled as a finch landed on his bald head, as if the bird mistook it for a stone. Gods, the man was strange. He wasperhaps the most interesting creature Kinlear had ever come across...and they lived in a land ofshadow wolves.
Magus smiled knowingly. “It also seems to me that you’ve given up, Little Prince...whenright heremay beexactlywhere you’re supposed to be.”
Kinlear glowered. “I don’t want any more of your sage wisdom, Magus,” he said, rapping his cane on the cracked stones beneath his boots. His had a war eagle for the handle. Magus’ was made with twisting trails of stars. “I just want to gohome.”
“Ah, yes. Back to that frigid wasteland in the north, where you can freeze your underweight ass off and be overlooked by the heroic twin,” Magus said, and chuckled as yet another finch joined the first one atop his head.
A few servant children giggled as they passed by. But Magus paid them no mind. He’d never given a damn what people thought of him.
“I take offense to that,” Kinlear said. “And besides, Arawn is?—"
“I don’t give a war bear’s breath what your brother is,” Magus cut him off. “I care aboutyouseeing the value in yourself. And if that means — oh!” He paused, chuckling. “It seems you’ve been shat on. What a day.”
A ripple of anger went through Kinlear. “I wasn’t going to point it out, but thank you, Magus, for being so attentive, as usual.”
“Clean yourself up, then.”
The old Scribe tossed him a worn handkerchief. The stitching on the edges was that of strangely shaped leaves in brilliant oranges and reds and yellows, backed by smooth, rolling mountains.
It was nothing at all like the jagged cliffs of north Lordach, nor the towering Sawteeth far beyond.
The rumor was, Magus was Unconsecrated. A rare thing, to be born beyond the Citadel, but it meant he was a Sacred...
Who’d spent his life somewhereelse.
Where that elsewhere was, exactly, Kinlear couldn’t be certain.
But Magus knew strange things. Distant things...as if he’d come from far,faraway.
