“Not physically,” I muttered, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the thin press of his mouth was to hide a smile. I took a breath,trying not to notice how much bigger than Raheema the wyvern, Raya, was. I kept my muscles tense and loose in all the necessary places and took off at a run, following both Varidian’s and Mihrunnisa’s lessons and only slipping once before I flopped over the wyvern’s back and pulled myself up.
I made a surprised sound when her head swung around, bright, slit-pupiled eyes narrowed as she gave me an appraising look. “Hi,” I squeaked. “Ideally, don’t eat me.”
She snorted hot air, blowing the hair back from my face, then fixed her gaze on the guards again as Kamaal mounted, sitting behind me.
“Oh, for fuck’ssake,”he growled under his breath.
“What?” I breathed, a tremor going down my arms. Being in the open after hours of captivity made all my hairs stand on end, and the numbness of hearing Varidian had died begin to break. My heart took up a rapid sprint as I waited for something to go wrong. The guards had chained my hands for the walk from the dungeon to the aviary, but now my hands were free. Gloved, but unchained.
“Fucking Kaazhim,” Kamaal spat. “I was going to defy my father’s orders and fly you to the Red Star, but it’ll be damn near impossible to give this fucker the slip.”
I was still a little too numb for true amusement to form at his copious cursing, but it was a nice change to the stone-faced bastard who trained me.
“Surely the Scorpion of Warda can do it,” I said.
“Not without giving away my secrets.”
My heart clattered into my bones, and I whipped around to stare at Varidian’s brother. “What secrets?”
“Secret ones,” he muttered. “Face forward; we look suspicious.”
I turned back to face the aerie yard, and for the first time I got the sense that Kamaal was on my side. “I’m not the lightning soul,” I said.
“That’s disappointing. Not surprising if you’ve read Wyvara’s histories, though. Did you know, through time, whenever a lightning soul has been documented, a shadow wielder has risen, too? And I’m not talking about the Zalaam corruption.”
“I couldn’t find much about Wyvara in the library,” I said, admitting I’d been searching. Taking a risk in trusting him with at least that truth.
“Prick,” Kamaal seethed when Kaazhim raised his hand in greeting as a dark green wyvern was walked out of the large aviary doors for him to mount. And of course he came with an entourage of three other gentry. I didn’t recognise them, but their wyverns were large, impressive beasts covered in spikes and talons.
“What was it you said about walking a fine line back in Jamaa Square?” I muttered when he didn’t raise his hand to greet Kaazhim.
Kamaal grunted to acknowledge the point, then said, “Whatever they want today, we play along. See what information we can discover.”
“And then get thrown back in my cell?” I hissed, incredulous.
“We’ll get you out.”
“How? And who iswe?”
“My legion. And my brother’s legion the moment word reaches them that you’ve been convicted of treason.”
I tensed when Raya shifted her feet under us, wary of the bigger wyverns joining us in the yard. “The only treasonous thing I did was refusing to kill on command.”
Kamaal’s lack of reaction told me he’d guessed as much. “Trust me.”
“No fucking way.”
“Have I betrayed you once since we met?”
“Yes, if you count carrying my unconscious body into this cursed fucking capital against my will.”
“You swear far too much.”
“And you could afford to swear more,” I fired back. My temper was a bubbling vat, ready to overflow. At least I was no longer numb. “Do you know where we’re going?”
“There’s a window on the side of a lantern factory on the outer edge of Morysen. We’re to fly through it.”
I gave the words a second to make sense, keeping an eye on Kaazhim as the bastard’s green wyvern stepped up beside us. The gentry who tortured me gave me a critical stare that made me want to drive my bare fingers into his eyeballs. “Through it. Throughthe window.”
