WREN
Icouldn’t sleep.
The nest was warm. Tavrin’s arm was heavy across my waist, his breath slow and even against my hair. He’d finally stopped shaking an hour after my uncle had left, but the day ground on, unsettled, exhaustion pulling him under despite everything.
I lay in the dark and calculated.
Thirty days. Uncle had said thirty days, but nearly two weeks had already passed. Sixteen days remaining.
And even if I voided the marriage, even if I went back, there was no guarantee he’d keep his word about Elspeth. He was a gambler. Gamblers lied.
I needed another option.
Slowly, carefully, I slid out from under Tavrin’s arm. He made a sound in his sleep, reaching for the space where I’d been, but he didn’t wake
Then I went to find the cloak.
It hung in the entrance hall where he’d left it after our flight up the mountain. Days ago. A lifetime ago. The bronze and black feathers caught the moonlight, iridescent, beautiful.
I touched it.
The feathers shivered under my hand, the same way they’d shivered when he touched them at the cliff’s edge.It is an artifact. Very old. It carries me when I need to travel.
Could it carry me?
I pulled the cloak off its hook. Heavier than I expected. The feathers rippled as I held it, almost liquid in the way they moved. I swung it around my shoulders and waited.
Nothing.
I closed my eyes. Concentrated. Tried to will it to spread, to unfurl, to become wings the way it had for him.
Nothing.
“It will not work.”
I spun. Tavrin stood in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame. His eyes were gold in the darkness, pupils slit, watching me with something I couldn’t read.
“I had to try.”
He nodded. Not angry. Just sad.
“It answers. To me.” The words came slowly, each one a small victory. “It does not know you yet. It has. Always been. This way.”
I let the cloak fall from my shoulders. It pooled on the floor, feathers settling with a soft sound.
“Then I have no way down the mountain.”
“No.”
“And no way to get to Elspeth.”
Silence. He pushed off from the doorframe and walked toward me. Unsteady. The effort of getting here had cost him. I could see it in the tremor of his legs, the way he listed slightly to one side.
“Why.” He stopped in front of me. “Why not. Ask me.”
“Because I’ve seen what the transformation is doing to you. Because you can barely walk to the entrance hall without losingyour balance. Because flying all the way down the mountain and back, carrying two people...” I shook my head. “It could kill you.”
“Could.”
