Kiva appeared with a grin above me. “I could have sworn the goal was to stay on the bird.”
Res swatted her with a wing, and she laughed, offering me a hand that I took. Caliza arrived in a panic, but upon finding me okay, she pressed a hand to her lips. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.
I grinned.
* * *
By sunset, Res and I were both sore and exhausted. We’d run through a series of exercises from varying heights, practicing takeoffs, landings, turns, and banks. Once, we’d narrowly avoided running into the drop wall, and another time, he’d flown so close to the trees outside the complex a branch had almost snagged the reins, but we made it through without any broken limbs or feathers.
The first time we dove, I nearly shrieked. Res barely snapped out his wings in time, and it unbalanced him, leading to another tumbling landing. The next time was better, and the next after that, almost passable. I guided him with my knees, helping him learn when to open his wings.
The retired wind crow rider Jenara had told me about joined us partway through the day, but with Res’s wind experience through his storm magic, there was little he could offer besides techniques for fine-tuning Res’s summoning and control when a storm wasn’t already present.
After, we gathered for a quiet dinner in the complex’s mess hall, Caylus tossing Res pieces of chicken while Kiva broke down our escape from Illucia for Caliza bit by harrowing bit until I pointed out that she’d turned as pale as her napkin.
The simple normalcy of dinner with my family and friends stood in stark contrast to the looming future. We were out of time. Come morning, we would leave for Trendell, and I wished so badly Caliza could go with me. But Rhodaire needed her in Aris. Even this trip down to see me had been a luxury we could hardly afford, though I couldn’t express how much I’d needed it.
My world had felt so very far away from me for so long. I was happy to have a piece of it back, if only for a little while.
As Caylus and Kiva cleared the table, Res hopping along beside them for any scraps, Caliza pulled me aside into the empty lobby.
“Are you ready for the alliance meeting?” she asked, fingers already seeking her hair. She wound the strands around and around.
“I have to be, don’t I?” I folded my arms, locking my anxiety inside. “If I can’t convince them, Rhodaire will fall.”
Caliza regarded me with assessing eyes. “You don’t believe you can do it, do you? Why not?”
I started to respond, then stopped. My fears had always felt like shadows waiting to be given shape. If I spoke them, they’d tear free from the darkness and suffocate me. It was so much easier to keep them close. To hold them tight.
But that had only ever made them stronger.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I said. “I’m not a leader, and I don’t have any experience with politics. I’m not you, Caliza.”
Her fingers stilled in her hair. Tentatively, she reached for me, sliding her hand into mine. I let her. Our relationship had always been a volatile thing. So often, we’d wanted the same thing—to excel at our chosen paths, to earn our mother’s respect, to protect Rhodaire—but we’d gone about it such different ways.
Where I had turned to the crows, Caliza had become the perfect princess, then queen, and we’d struggled to understand each other’s decisions. It wasn’t until after Ronoch, after our mother’s death, that we’d realized she was not what had held us together but what had forced us apart.
We’d had to learn to be sisters again. We were still learning.
“You walked into one of the most dangerous kingdoms in the world and faced one of the cruelest, most conniving people I’ve ever met, and you survived.” Her voice was the low rush of a river, gaining momentum. “You hatched a crow beneath her very nose, organized the beginnings of an alliance unlike anyone has ever seen, and turned the heart of the Illucian prince himself.”
Her hand tightened on mine, and I let her pull it to her chest, holding it as gently as a tiny bird.
“You might not be a politician, Thia, but you’ve proven you don’t need to be. I told you once before and I’ll tell you again: you are a tempest of lightning and thunder, and people cannot look away from you. There is a strength to you that lifts others up, and that’s what this world needs right now. Not another politician. You.”
She smiled, the action crinkling the corners of her eyes, and at once I saw our mother in that smile, and also someone else. I saw myself. I saw myself the way Caliza saw me. Powerful. Unyielding. Strong. Because I saw the same things in her.
“You give me strength, and you will do the same for them.” She pulled me close, and for a while, I just let her hold me, safe in the embrace of someone who I knew loved and believed in me.
Who made me believe in myself.
Her voice softened as she spoke again. “Be prepared when you see Estrel. Ronoch damaged her deeply. She lost everything that night too.” She hesitated. “Try to remember that if you can.”
* * *
We said goodbye to Caliza early the next morning with a promise to send a letter when we arrived in Eselin, then rejoined Samra and the crew on theAizel.
It was a fine Rhodairen autumn day, sunny with a fading chill, and it buoyed the rising hope inside me as we embarked amid a crowd of cheering people.
