A quiet whoosh stirred the cool morning air, slicing through the burn of her exertion. Mariah braced against the tree, tilting her chin to the sky.
She could’ve sworn she’d just heard wingbeats. Not the great, booming thuds of a dragon; she’d come to be all too familiar with those.
Mariah thought she’d heard the beats of an eagle. The same beats she used to hear on her balcony in Verith when the Attlehon eagles circled high above, their reflective feathers hiding them from view.
Perhaps Kreah had its own native bird related to her eagles. But as Mariah scanned the sky, she could see no sign of life or movement.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Okay, those weredefinitelywingbeats. Closer this time, so close she could just imagine the brush of displaced wind across her cheeks.
Mariah pushed away from the tree, shielding her eyes against the sun, still searching the empty skies.
Nothing.
Wait.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Perched on a branch a dozen yards away was no native desert raptor. The bird was formidable, curved sickle-like talons biting into smooth wood. Its feathers were a soft, shimmering gold laced with cloud white, eyes a sharp aureate yellow.
An Attlehon eagle.
But how? They were thousands of leagues from the coastal Onitan mountain range where the eagles roosted. Not much was known about the birds—mostly due to their camouflaged flight—other than that the Attlehon Mountains were their home, where they found their mates and made their nests.
Was it possible that when not nesting, the eagles ranged across the continent? That while the people of Onita were kept cloistered behind man-made boundaries, the eagles were free to see the world and all it had to offer?
Had this eagle followed her here, to Kreah? A symbol of Onitan royalty, following the only monarch it had left?
Mariah rubbed at her eyes, her head pounding in time with her heart. This was the lack of sleep and grief talking, nothing more. If there was an actual Attlehon eagle here, it certainly wasn’t here for her. She was no queen; not anymore. Queens protected. Queens saved.
Mariah was nothing but a fraud.
Yet when she cracked her eyes open and that eagle was still on the branch, just watching her…she wasn’t so sure.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, watching the bird as the bird gazed back. The breeze ruffled the eagle’s feathers and shifted Mariah’s hair, the sunlight painting the grove in shadows. The cool air heated quickly, the clear blue sky shimmering as the desert awoke from its slumber.
The eagle slowly spread its wings, gaze still locked on Mariah’s. A low, quiet thrill echoed through the hollowness of her stomach, a gentle tug toward something that wasn’t her despair or her hate or her rage.
A branch snapped. Mariah whirled, scanning the grove for movement. Seeing nothing, she returned to the eagle?—
It was gone.
Drawing in a deep, shaking breath, Mariah lurched down the path. She emerged from the grove, the sprawling estate of Amasis’sserekahopening before her.
It was a beautiful structure. Built from plaster and sandstone to fight off the heat. Its windows were recessed into the walls to allow light without the warmth. A carved door stood sentry at the entrance before an open space of packed sand and rock.
Mariah turned away from that entrance, heading instead for a hidden door to the side of theserekah. She brushed her sweat-dampened hair from her face, sweeping her ponytail off her shoulders.
The manor’s kitchens were quiet, as she’d expected. Yet, a familiar face glanced up at her from a butcher’s block. Three fresh loaves of bread steamed in front of him, his ginger hair pushed back by his usual strap of leather.
Gods, so much had gone wrong. But at least Mikael and her other palace friends had been pulled to safety by a quick-thinking Delaynie.
She still hadn’t thanked her friend for all she’d done. Hadn’t yet had the mind for it.
“Care for some breakfast, lassie?” Mikael’s question was soft and hesitant. As if he could see what she carried and was afraid she would break.
But he shouldn’t have worried. Something broken couldn’t be shattered again.
