“It’s good we did this,” Kinlear said, breathless as he held onto Ezer. As he reveled in the press of her back against him. The fact that they were riding a raphon, and it hadn’t eaten them. “She’s become unhinged.”
“She’s justcurious,” Ezer corrected him. “Ravens are like that. It’s best she works it out now.”
She laughed as Six continued her antics, as if the beast wereplaying.
Let her play,Kinlear told himself. Because here in the snow, with Six beneath them...Ezer was happy. Truly happy.
So Kinlear was, too.
The snow poured down harder, and they’d made it to the Sacred Circle when Ezer finally spoke again. Not about the enormous ring of stones, which revealed the dark lines across Lordach’s own...a reminder of how little time they had before the stone cracked in full, and the Acolytewonthis war entirely.
No, it was about...beyond the wards. The place where, just months ago, Six’s mother was captured.
They passed through the wards together. The magic was cold on Kinlear’s skin, tickling his cheeks and nose. It felt like a bubblepopping, and Kinlear couldbreatheagain, without the kiss of the gods’ magic.
He wasn’t normal. He’d always known it, even since he was a boy.
But since Magus had revealed to him what hereallywas, since he slayed the monster in his mind...he felt like he was carrying a terrible secret. A difference that was more than his cough or his limp.
It washim,soul deep, who was not the same. Not who the Citadel wanted him to be.
He hadn’t realized how much he needed to get away from the other Sacred, with their perfect, pillared magic, until it was just him and Ezer and Six.
Three creatures that were so unlike anything else inside the wards.
“You were here,” Ezer said gently, as they stepped into the ancient graveyard that marked the edge of Augaurde. So many ancients were buried here, ones that Kinlear had marched past, just months ago, to find a captured raphon.
“How do you know that?” Kinlear asked.
Because there was nowayshe’d have been able to pick up on that. Not even the servants knew exactly what had gone on that night in the woods when Six’s mother was taken down by runes and magic and might.
But Ezer only shrugged. “Six remembers. Sometimes...she shows me things.”
Like what? He wanted to ask. There wasmoreto their connection than just tail twitches, he knew. But he wouldn’t press.
Not with her.
Ezer slid down from Six’s back, leaving him cold.
And as she walked about the ancient graveyard, he longed to have her near him again. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he could feel his own strength waning. He needed her steadiness just to help him stay upright.
Just hang on a little longer,he told himself.
He sucked in a wavering breath, and stifled a cough, despite how bad it ached.
Snow danced lazily down around them, and Kinlear told Ezer tale of Six’s mother. But as the minutes went on, the wind shifted. It had an icy bite to it once more, and the snow poured down a bit harder as the daylight waned.
The storms were always worse by night.
Kinlear longed to stay here, outside the wards, for somehow it felt moreprivate.A taste of freedom, perhaps.
Ezer and Six felt the same, it seemed, for they’d stopped above the grave of Wrenwyn the Wrong. It was an ancient tale, from a royal line before the Laroux family, and one the younglings were often told as a warning for those who stepped out of line.
No one knew quite how Wrenwyn’s life had ended.
Much like, Kinlear realized, no one knew howEzer’slife began.
He hadn’t visited the cells beneath the Citadel since she first arrived. But he had kept up his research on her parents in his time alone, still seeking answers for Ezer.
