Are you hurt?I demanded. I wanted to urge Tempest on, but Talon needed to know we were flying into a trap.
We need to circle here,I told Tempest.There are men waiting to attack us when we land. I need to tell Talon and Neo.
Tempest immediately did as I asked, without hesitation. Neo and Talon quickly caught up, and Talon shot me a questioning look.
“Shazeera said there’s a trap,” I told him when he flew close enough to hear me, the eagles’ wings slicing through the air as we hovered high above the earth.
His expression tightened. “Find out all the details you can.”
I relayed this to Shazeera.
They have me chained,Shazeera admitted.I tried to break free, but the stake’s been driven into rock. Fifty of the emperor’s guards are stationed around me.
I let out my breath in a rush. Fifty! So many.
Talon’s eyes turned flinty when I told him. “Ask if there are any Eagle Riders.”
I looked at him in stunned silence. Surely they wouldn’t turn against their own commander, but then again, if the emperor himself had ordered it…
Shazeera was quiet for so long, I was afraid something had happened to her.
Falcon tried to stop them,she said haltingly, and the sorrow in her voice made my eyes fill with tears before she even finished.
No,I whispered, recoiling from the thought.
They killed him and his eagle. To my knowledge, there are no other Eagle Riders here.
I met Talon’s gaze through blurry eyes, my throat thick. Hemust have known what I would say, because he swallowed hard and bowed his head. “She said there are no other Eagle Riders, but the guards killed Falcon and his eagle when he tried to defend her.” My voice broke on the last word. Falcon had been so young—only a year or two older than me. And he had died trying to save my heart’s sister. It only made me think of Baz, Zamir, and Kestrel dying such horrible, agonizing deaths, and my vision blurred with unshed tears. I let the wind dry them from my eyes before they could fall.
“That’s four I have sent to their deaths now,” Talon said, expression anguished.
I couldn’t even say anything to comfort him, because now I felt the same. I had defied the emperor and the treaty by confronting the Devourer and using my wind power, and it had already had very real consequences.
It would destroy me if Shazeera was one of those consequences.
We’re coming—
Don’t! Just leave me. They’ll overpower you, Talon, and Neo.
Just the thought of leaving her to her fate was so abhorrent I recoiled mentally.I will never leave you, and you should know…it’s not just the three of us.
A flutter of nerves filled me. I hadn’t given much thought to how Shazeera would react to this news. I closed my eyes tight as I opened my mind to her, allowing her to see everything that had transpired since we last parted.
The moment Shazeera watched my memories of bonding with Tempest, a stunned silence descended upon her. A deep, pervasive hurt followed rapidly on the heels of her shock, and though she tried to hide it from me, I still felt it reverberate through my heart.
So, you’re an Eagle Rider now,she said, and the tears burned in my throat.
No, I’m a Daughter of Earth, bonded to my horse sister, and now that part of me that has always known the wind has somehow bonded with a wild eagle, too.
I understand now, why it felt different when you came into range and we could talk again,she said.I sensed another presence, and I wondered if it was the wind.
I take that as a compliment,Tempest said, barging in on our conversation. Before I could even respond, he added,But we must focus on the task at hand—introductions and feelings can come later.
Talon must have been of the same mind because he said, “Neo and I will fly in first, draw them away, and then you can rescue Shazeera.”
I nodded. “We’ll give you a head start.”
Neo took off then like an arrow, wings in an M shape to cut through the wind like knives. I watched them go, an ill feeling of dread gripping me.
