Her brow rose, but she leaned forward, her hand outstretched. Res waited until she was a split second from contact before snapping his beak. She hissed, drawing back.
“Res!” I snapped, and he huffed loudly. “I’m so sorry. He’s still mad at you for the fight.”
Elkona stared at Res for a moment, her lips parted, one hand clutched in the other. Then she tipped her head back and laughed. The sound was so uproarious, I couldn’t help joining.
“Guild Mother save me, he is remarkable,” she said as her laughter quieted.
“He is,” I agreed.
The light faded from the princess’s eyes, her mouth forming a firm line. “When Illucia attacked, I looked for them in the skies. Every day, I thought I would see them. I told my parents to wait. I told them Rhodaire would not forget us, that the crows would blanket the skies and our enemies would know only night.”
My hand curled into Res’s feathers.
“But they never came. Not when Illucia first struck, and not when they burned the Kovan Forest. Not when they landed at Glass Bay, forcing us to fight a war on two fronts. And not when they marched straight into the royal palace at Shalron and butchered my family, burning everything to ash.”
An apology rose and died on my tongue. There were no words big enough for this. Jindae had been our closest ally, and my mother had abandoned them.
“I was at Glass Bay when they landed,” Elkona continued. She set her forearm on the table, leaning over it. “I’d begged my father to let me fight, but he refused. So I snuck into a company heading west in response to reports of an impending naval attack. It is the only reason I was not killed with my family when they broke through our lines and marched into the capital.
“We were forced to surrender. I was taken as a prisoner of war, one of so many others.” Her voice turned rough, but her eyes betrayed nothing of her pain. “They had no idea who I was, or I have no doubt they would have killed me immediately. Instead, they tortured me for information that I refused to give, carving into my skin a mockery of my people’s traditions with a hot blade.”
Her fingers strayed to the scars on her face and neck, and a gasp escaped before I could stop it. The marks were a crude representation of tama. She’d never gotten hers because she hadn’t been sixteen when Illucia attacked.
“I gave them nothing,” she said, her voice a stony growl. “With all the focus on Shalron, a group of soldiers from my battalion who knew I had been among them managed to free me.” She sank back into her casual posture, her gaze settling on Res, empty once more. “And now here we are, and I have finally seen a crow.”
It took effort for me to keep the burning tears at bay. I relished the sting along with the throbbing in my cheek and wrist and back where my shoulder had only begun to heal. They felt well deserved.
Several moments passed before I could respond. “I won’t apologize on my mother’s behalf, because no apology is enough. I don’t know why she didn’t send aid, and I’m ashamed to say that I never asked. My whole life, I thought of nothing but becoming a rider. I woke up with my lessons on my lips and went to sleep dreaming of them.”
Those days felt so far away, though it had been only months since Ronoch.
“I thought that dream was dead until I found Res’s egg,” I told her. “Even now, it hangs in the balance, because hidden away inside Razel’s castle are more eggs that she stole the night the crows were killed.”
Elkona sat up. “There are more?”
I nodded. “I will stop Razel. I will rebuild my people’s way of life. And I will do what my mother should have done from the start: I will be there for Jindae and the Ambriels and Trendell if they need it.” I leaned across the table. “I cannot give you your life back, Elkona, but together, we can build a new one.”
She regarded me silently, her fingers absently tracing the lines of scars on her face. Then a smile spread slowly across her lips, and she said, “My friends call me Elko.”
I grinned, and she matched it.
“I like you, crow girl,” she began. “But even if the Ambriellans are still interested and Trendell will reconsider, Jindae allying with you is not up to me.”
“What?”
She rose, eyes set somewhere over my head. “Come with me.”
Having been hoping to stay slumped in my chair for the foreseeable future, I reluctantly tossed my bag of ice on the table and stood. Elko led Res and me up to the main corridor, following it past the massive dining table laden with dinnerware and vases of colorful flowers in preparation for tonight’s feast and around the corner to an expansive deck.
Auma and Kiva stood side by side, leaning on the railing and looking out over the city. Kiva said something under her breath that drew a silent laugh from Auma, the only indication the gentle shake of her shoulders.
Confusion warred with curiosity as Elko marched up behind them with as much finesse as a Korovi ice bear. “Eena,” she said, and I started.
That term. It was an honorific in the Jin language.
Used to address an older sister.
Auma turned, her expression inscrutable. Beside her, Kiva’s brow furrowed, uncertainty spreading like a growing fire. Auma said something back in quick, concise Jin too fast for me to follow, to which Elko shrugged and replied, her response hot and rough.
