He followed. I stepped again, and he tensed, eyeing the edge nervously. “This isn’t funny, Thia.”
“Now who can’t flirt?” I asked.
“Threatening to jump off a hundred-foot-high platform isn’t flirting.”
I took another step. The strain in Ericen’s face grew tauter.
“Thia.”
I stepped back again.
“You said you’d follow me anywhere,” I said with a grin.
“Don’t you dare.”
I stepped off the edge.
“Thia!” His scream followed me as I plummeted through the air. The bond between Res and me came alive, and the next moment, he was above me, his wings tucked tight in a perfect dive.
I spread out my arms, slowing my fall, and he shot past me in a blur of feathers. Then he was beneath me, and I rolled, seizing the edge of the saddle. With a heave, I pulled myself in, sliding my feet into the stirrups.
Res’s wings snapped open. He cut sharply upward, pumping his wings harder and harder until he caught a rising wind.
We spiraled upward, past the landing platform, past Ericen grinning up at us, and up through the clouds.
Up and up and up.
Together, we rose.
Epilogue
I was a storm.
It was a feeling I’d chased my entire life. From as far back as I could remember, I longed for the brush of the wind in my hair and the rush of the sky splitting open before me.
Not long ago, I’d thought it would never be possible again.
Today, a new future waited.
Res tilted into a broad bank, swinging back around toward the rising sun. I leaned close and we dove, spiraling through the morning clouds with wild abandon. When we pulled up, Res’s wings flared wide, and we fell in alongside Ericen and his shadow crow, Zara.
Ericen might ride a horse like he’d been born to it, but even with five months in the sky, he still clung to Zara’s back as if she might flip upside down at any moment.
We soared low over sprawling streets thick with vines and trees laden with fruit. The Rynthene Canal traced a glimmering line through a city slowly waking, early preparations for the evening’s festivities already underway. Those few awake waved up to us as we passed.
The whole scene felt like an afterimage, left behind in the wake of a lightning bolt’s flash. Slowly, it melded with a new reality.
We passed Jenara and her crow, Sen, setting out to water the expansive fields that had been reseeded. She flew alongside Esos, the earth crow rider who’d trained Res on our way to Trendell. Near the center of the city, smoke rose from the central forge, lit once more by a fire crow’s power. Laz had been hard at work in it for weeks crafting new black gold weapons. Apparently, they’d been the blacksmith who made Sinvarra and my bow.
At my prompting, the riders who’d aided me had returned to Aris to fill the vacant Corvé positions. We’d hatched one crow of each type, which was the most the restored levels of the royal rookery could handle. The rest had had to wait until the remaining rookeries could be repaired—a process that had been completed only days ago.
Just in time for Negnoch.
Already, the reopened Kalestel riding school had been flooded with applications from old riding families and new alike. Rhodaire had come together, ready to rebuild what had been lost. Soon, they would have their chance.
Res and I led Ericen and Zara back to the castle, where we alighted on one of the landing platforms. Auma, Kiva, and Elko were waiting for us. As we dismounted, we shook hands with Auma before Elko pulled each of us into a massive bear hug. My arms curled awkwardly around the moonblades at her back. They’d once belonged to her mother, and she’d recovered them from Razel after the battle.
When she released me, I realized delicate gold and green lines covered the scars on her face and neck, marking her as the new queen of Jindae, a position she’d filled when her sister abdicated. Auma loved her kingdom, enough so that she recognized the people knew and loved Elko, not the distant princess who’d spent her life in foreign places. She was content knowing what she’d done for them.
