Late afternoon. The light turning gold and heavy.
She came back to the nest. Lay down beside me. Pressed her forehead against my shoulder.
“I’m scared,” she said. So quiet I barely heard.
I wrapped my arm around her. Pulled her closer. Could not find words, so I pressed my mouth to her hair instead.
“Not of uncle.” Her voice was muffled against my skin. “Not of the plan. I’m scared of leaving you out there alone. Waiting.”
I understood. The waiting would be harder than the doing. For both of us.
“I will. Be there,” I managed. “When you. Come out. I will. Be there.”
She tilted her face up. Looked at me with wet eyes.
“Remember I need you,” she said. “Whatever happens. Come back to me.”
I held those words. Pressed them into my chest where I could keep them.
“Always.”
We lay tangled together and waited for dark.
Dusk.
She stood on the balcony in her dark clothes, rope coiled over her shoulder. The wind caught her hair. A thief. A hero. My wife.
The harness took longer than it should have. My hands shook as I fitted the straps around her, checking each buckle twice, three times. She let me. Did not rush me. Just watched my face with those knowing eyes while I made sure she was secured against my chest.
“Ready?” she asked.
I answered by pulling her against my chest and stepping off the edge.
The fall lasted a heartbeat. Then my wings caught the air and we were flying, the Aerie shrinking above us, the world spreading below.
Cold air numbed the fever. Cleared my head. Made thinking easier. I focused on the rhythm of my wings, the weight of her against me, the drum of her heart.
She was talking. Murmuring into my ear, her voice nearly lost in the wind. Garden wall. Third window. Fifteen minutes. I caught the fragments. Held them.
The flight was costing me. I felt it in the tremor building in my shoulders, the way each wingbeat required more effort than the last. The strength was still there. Just harder to reach.
I would have enough for the flight back. I would make sure of it.
We landed on the roof of a chandler’s shop, close enough to see her window.
The impact was harder than I wanted. My legs buckled before I caught myself. She felt it.
“Tavrin.”
“I’m. Fine.”
She did not argue. Just looked at me with eyes that said she knew I was lying and loved me anyway.
The town smelled wrong. Smoke and sweat and too many bodies pressed together. Horses and waste and old fear soaked into the stones. She had grown up breathing this air. Surviving in this place.
No more. After tonight, she would never have to smell this town again.
“I’ll be fast,” she said.
