“Can they fly?”
They will soon. For now, they can hover and glide very short distances.
I grin at Darrius, who has a look of utter astonishment when the naughtier of the two mischievous hatchlings hops into the air and blows a stream of frosty mist right at his head. The king conjures a blast of fire that snuffs out the ice before it can get anywhere near him.
“Cease that at once,” he says in a tone that demands obedience, and the tiny silver azdaha falters in her tracks. Big icy blue eyes widen, but a defiant plume of smoke curls from her nostrils as she sizes up her much bigger opponent. After a beat of tension, she thinks twice of it before belching up a puff of frost and hopping away with obvious disdain. The smile on Darrius’s face is worth everything.
I burst into laughter. “She’s going to be a handful, I see.”
Razulek sighs.You have no idea, little queen. Already causing trouble in the roost. There are a few older hatchlings, and she has already established herself as alpha.
“Like mother, like daughter. What are their names?”
The green is called Tiri, and she is Niloo.
“They’re beautiful. What do they mean?”
Tiri means “swift one,” and Niloo means “lotus flower.”
I crouch down, putting a hand out for the smaller male. After a moment of consideration, cocking his little red-nubbed head to the side, he hops over to me and nuzzles his snout against my palm. A spark of akasha flows between us, and for a second, I can feel his emotions crowding mine. No words yet, just a wild stream of thoughts and consciousness, mostly love for his sibling and his parents, curiosity over the newcomers, and that he might be hungry.
“What’s his ability?” I ask, scooping him up as he cuddles into my side.
Razulek leaps upright, huge wings flaring wide, and I go still, wondering what I’ve done wrong, which I realize the moment I look down. My hands, my arms, and the middle of my body have disappeared, including the tiny azdaha I’m holding. I can still feel Tiri in my hands, but I can’t see him. He chuffs as if pleased with himself.
Tiri hasn’t quite gotten used to wielding it yet,Razulek says.
“Invisibility is a rare power,” Darrius says, grinning at me and trying to contain his amusement. “Useful for both him and any rider.”
We play with the babies for a little while, and then we take our leave to go to the plains, as we don’t want to delay too much longer. I can already tell that Darrius feels much lighter of spirit, which was my intent.
Loss is hard, but time has a way of healing all wounds.
Time... and baby azdahas.
***
“HOW WERE THEburial services?” Roshan asks me the next day as I meet him in the private antechamber beside the Kaldarian throne room.
We are alone for the moment, but I know he is planning to speak with Aran, Clem, and Hamid, as well as most of the aldermen of the Oryndhrian houses. Like Darrius, I expect he intends to put new policies in place and make some changes.
“Interesting,” I reply. “The Aspacana bury their dead with their saddles and jewelry for them to take into their next lives. It’s quite an intriguing ritual. And the feasting... well, that went well into the dawn hours.”
“And the rot?”
I wrinkle my nose. “They’ve lost almost half their herds and a good number of their horses. Zahre confided to me that Ani had been the one to tell her father that the rot could only be cured by the Starkeeper and that Darrius had been keeping me from them on purpose.”
Roshan frowns as he tugs on the cuffs of his ceremonial robes. “Why would she do that?”
“She wanted to sow mistrust between the clans and the king to serve her end goal of dethroning him. She even convinced them to call for the Gauntlet of Mithral as a distraction from what she was doing with Fero,” I explain. “If she could create enough discord within Everlea, he would be less able to handle a simultaneous war on his borders with Oryndhr.”
“That’s very tactical,” Roshan says, brows raising.
“She was one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met,” I say. “Darrius is not taking her death well.”
“It’s hard to lose a sibling.” Roshan’s voice is quiet, and I wonder if he felt the same after Javed was killed. Then again, his brother had treated him terribly—there had never been any love lost between them. An eternity ago when we first met, Roshan had quoted an old book: “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”—meaning the people we choose to let in... they are the important ones.
To wipe the solemnity from his face, I let a tendril of my magic creep up his leg and wind around his thigh. He exhales sharply, pretty brown eyes widening. “We’ve missed our little intrigues,” I tell him.
