I hurried across the roof to snatch up my bow, nocking an arrow and aiming it at the prince. “Leave.”
“Thia—”
“Be thankful I’m allowing you to go unharmed,” I said, ignoring Kiva’s sidelong gaze that asked why in the Saints’ name I was doing just that. But I couldn’t explain it to her. I barely understood it myself.
Despite everything that’d happened, I couldn’t bring myself to think of Ericen as my enemy again.
Ericen grabbed Shearen’s arm, forcing him toward the door. Even up against a crow, Shearen looked loath to surrender. But as Ericen shoved him through the door, the prince glanced back at me, and I swore he looked relieved. Then they were through the door and down the stairs.
I leaned over the building edge. Two massive black Illucian warhorses waited at the mouth of the alley below. Shearen and Ericen emerged, swiftly mounting and kicking their horses into a canter.
Make sure they clear town, I told Res.
He leapt into the air, circling us once before taking off after the horses as they made for the boulevard that curved out onto the traveling road.
“Come on,” I said to Kiva. “Let’s go check on the others.”
* * *
With the help of the town’s leader, Samra had seen to the townspeople. By the time we returned, they’d already organized cleanup crews and started guiding the remaining crowd back to their homes.
As Kiva left me to get a report from a nearby soldier, Samra stepped up, blocking my path. She’d yet to remove her mask. “You let him go.”
I frowned. “Malkin? What did you want me to do, kill him?”
Her gaze cut toward me. “You’re at war. You’re forging an alliance against one of the greatest military mights this world has ever seen. You can’t scare it with a little rain and wind. Eventually, you and that crow are going to have to spill blood.” She didn’t wait for me to respond before pushing on through the dispersing crowd.
I let her go, unsettled. My mother probably would have captured them and had them executed or killed them before they could escape. I hadn’t wanted to risk Res when forcing them out was an option, but it was more than that.
This was the first time I’d ever asked him to hurt someone. The first time we might have killed or seriously injured someone. But Samra was right. Eventually, we would have to.
I continued through the crowd, seeking Caylus. I didn’t make it far. It seemed every single person wanted to speak to me. They bowed and thanked me, pressing tokens of thanks and luck into my hands that I respectfully returned, promising them their safety was enough.
Then a curvaceous, thick-muscled woman stepped into my path, a broad smile on her kind face. I let out an involuntary gasp of recognition. “Jenara!”
The retired rider wrapped me in a hug so warm and tight, I never wanted her to let go. It’d been months since I’d seen her, first the day of the town festival, when I’d watched her crow make animals out of water, and then again in the capital for each yearly hatch night. She’d been there on Ronoch, and she bore the tiny speck-like scars of falling embers.
“Thia,” she said in a voice of warm honey. She pulled back, holding me at arm’s length. “Saints keep me, it’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too,” I said with a grin.
“That was some impressive work by your crow.” She nodded to where Res had just landed on a nearby building, his bright silver eyes searching the crowd with a familiar hunger. The connection between us prickled with a feeling I knew well:food food food.
“Even for a storm crow, the directional control of the water and the transition to ice was incredible. Especially at his age.”
“I’m starting to think there might be a reason behind that,” I replied. She lifted a brow, and I hurried to explain the odd occurrences with Res’s powers, ending with my theory that somehow, he might have access to the other crow powers.
“Fascinating,” she said, rubbing her chin. “Why don’t you and I put it to the test in the morning? I’ll help you train him as if he were a water crow, and we’ll see what he can do.”
I grinned. “That’d be perfect.” We shook hands, and I scanned the crowd. “You haven’t seen a tall Ambriellan boy anywhere, have you?”
“The one that viper pulled in front of the crowd? He’s in the town hall building.” She gestured at the structure behind her.
“Thanks.”
We parted ways and I made for the hall, asking Res to keep an eye on things outside.
There was something familiar about the building, its layers rising up toward a point, the edges carved in delicate swirling designs. One of the big double doors had been pinned open, but the other bore the proud, massive shape of an aizel, its coat carved about it like melting clouds of mist.
