He remembered every moment of his hands on its golden feathers and beak. He remembered when they’d shifted from soft, delicate fluff to a sleek, shimmering gold that resembled the sunset on a warm summer night. He remembered every moment of teaching he’d spent with it, his own murmured words, the patience he’d used as he’d taught it to bend and bow and accept a saddle as if it were only the sigh of the wind.
The eagle was glorious now, older and stronger, and on its back was Arawn—flying faster than he’d thought a Sacred able to hang on against the wind, as he chased after a tiny, winged shadow in the distance.
“COME BACK!” Arawn screamed.
There was desperation all over his face. His voice was ragged as he wept, the wind pushing his tears into the sky. “COME BACK!”
Kinlear wanted to help him.
It was urgent, he sensed.
He looked far away, following the other Rider, and wondered who it was. Why it was so important that Arawn had chased after it alone, before the battle was about to begin.
But his brother faded before he could make sense of it.
The vision fell dark again, until the wind pushed against Kinlear, and his path of falling changed.
Suddenly, he was headed towards the cliffs of Augaurde, and there in the snow, in the shadow of the Aviary...
He saw his mother.
His father stood beside her, sick and dying, as all powerful Sacred would do.
Beside the king stood the Lordachian Masters and Arawn, and... Kinlear gasped.
A raphon.
It was the Acolyte’s favored beast, winged and powerful and so, so dangerous, and it was standing alive and freeinsidethe Citadel’s wards.
It made no move to harm anyone, and no blade was pointed at it, as if the beast belonged there.
As if it was chosen.
As if it was...
“Six,” Kinlear whispered.
He swore the beast heard him, as it tilted its head upwards, its scarred beak and dark eyes facing the wind.
...And therehewas, standing just beyond its two dark wings. In the vision, Kinlear was even taller than he was now, which told him he had room to grow. He smiled as he noted that he was devilishly handsome, even with his vial and his cane, and...
The image shifted.
Until he was no longer falling. Now, he saw through his own future eyes.
Now, he was in that body, on that cliff, staring down at his own mother. The skin around her eyes was far more wrinkled at the corners, as she glared at him, no love left to give, and said, “I will never know why the gods willed you for this. But if it must be so...do not fail. Do not squander your only chance at greatness.”
He turned his back on his mother and went to stand beside the raphon. He could smell its wet fur and feathers, a perfect mix of two beasts within. And standing there, her hand upon its neck, was Soraya, who looked unafraid as she--
No, Kinlear realized.
It wasn’t Soraya.
His betrothed was nowhere to be seen on the snowy cliff.
It was, instead, a peculiar woman. A stranger.
She was small, and wearing all black, like him. Her wild hair was dark and braided back into a Sacred warrior’s braid. Her face...he gasped.
