Indriya and Riven were lounging at wooden tables in the room, cleaning their blades from the battle in the woods.
“Crossbow!” Kinlear barked, as he practically skidded to a stop. The door was still held open by the tip of his cane.
“Since when areyouinterested in a weapon?” Indriya asked, as she twirled a dagger in her fingertips. She’d made snowflakes dance around it in midair. “Sit down, Kinlear. Stay a while.”
Riven nodded, setting down a bloodstained rag and picking up a stick of dried meat with the same hand. “We havesnacks.”
“Get itnowunless you want Arawn to die,” Kinlear hissed.
And of course, the mention of his brother’s name was all it took.
Indriya leapt for the weapons wall. The crossbow was in her hands in seconds.
“Sleep-runed arrows!” Kinlear barked to Riven, who’d ripped a sheath of arrows from the wall, hanging beside a mixture of knives. “No,that’s for instant death, you fool, I needparalysis!”Kinlear howled. “Move,Riven!”
Knives hit the floor with a clatter as Indriya grabbed the arrows herself.
A chair was knocked over by Riven’s enormous body as he scrambled towards the door and shoved the arrows into Kinlear’s hand.
“Get Alaris!” Kinlear yelled.
“Butsir!”Indriya’s blades were already in place. “Let us?—"
“Get. Alaris,” he ordered. “Crown or not, that’s an order from yourprince.”
He didn’t wait for her reaction.
He slung the crossbow over his shoulder and limped through the golden doors into the Eagle’s Nest, unsure of what he’d find.
He would save her, gods be damned, even if he wasn’t a warrior. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her, because the future depended on it, because...
He paused.
Because there she was...with Six.
It was only a few seconds that he stood there, watching, but it felt like an eternity. Like the entire world had stopped moving, like even thegodswere surprised by what they saw.
The Ravenminder was standing with her hand outstretched before her. Blood dripped from her nose, a brilliant crimson that rivaled the flowers inside the forest. It dripped from her hand, too...right onto Six’s beak.
It ran in rivulets down her jagged white scar, the mark of the crazed man who’d murdered her litter, months ago.
And both, the raphon and her future rider...
Their eyes were closed, almost peaceful as they touched.
The Ravenminder wascrying.
Kinlear wanted to let it go on, to stay and watch, because there was something holy about their union. Something...that he had never quite seen before, not even between Eagle and Rider.
The future,his mind whispered, and it sounded like Magus this time.It’s all coming true, Veilborne. Just as you foresaw in your dreams.
Some part of Kinlear, a part that had been broken for so long, lost in a dark sea without an anchor to hold him in place...it shifted at the sight of them.
It clicked back into place, and he felt like he washome.
No sooner had he thought it, that he saw a familiar figure barreling through the trees.
Arawn.
