“On parchment,” he cut in, his arms tightening around her waist. “They are creatures of formality. Ritual. Law. Until their pride is challenged. Or their gods. When that boundary is crossed, they are fierce and territorial. Proud to a fault, so much that it often blinds their sense.”
The lamplight caught the sharp blue of his eyes, and for a heartbeat the shadow of memory loomed there—a secret untold. She reached up, brushing her fingers along the line of his jaw.
“All the more reason I need to understand why they came here. And why they came for me.”
“They knew of you,” he recalled, “before we even came to the city. One of them came to Stonewake. At the time, I brushed it off as curiosity. Their Matriarch often likes to dig her talons into the business of others.” His gaze held hers. “But they must have been following you. Keeping an eye on how you’ve changed. The things you’ve accomplished.”
“I haven’t done anything of note,” Auryn insisted.
“You have,” he kissed the back of her hand. “You’ve challenged laws and systems that have been in place for lifetimes.”
“Perhaps I’ve done some things that have made the Council sweat, but what does that have to do with the Gliders?” She frowned. “They’re on the Surface, so far from here that most living couldn’t even imagine the journey.”
“I’ve made the journey regularly,” he smirked.
She slapped his arm playfully. “You are the Resh’Agar. Your Campaigns are legend. Most in Krystopolis cannot even fathom leaving their District, let alone the city.”
They fell silent again, and Kailorien’s smile faded first. “Auryn, all humor aside, if the Gliders have come to the city, if they’ve stepped out of anonymity to attack you…then we are dealing with something I’ve never experienced before.”
“Does something feel different this time?”
He nodded.
“Our truce with them has always been half-hearted, but it commanded mutual respect. Krystopolis influences much of what happens on the Surface. All know the Resh’Agar. All know the Flaeme. And now—more and more are learning of the Sokâr.”
Auryn thought back to the letter from her contact in the Selen District. Of the warning there.
‘The whispers say they hunt alone, but when they gather, it is for bounty, glory, legend. And that they have marked you.’
She took a step forward, leaning into Kailorien, her hands tightening over the buckles of his armor. He sensed her need. Met it with a gentle touch to her back that transformed into steady languid circles of his hand there.
“I’ll be careful,” she said. “I promise. But I need to understand the new threat within our cage.”
Kailorien’s hand halted its soothing path, a faint furrow creasing his brow.
“They’re nightblind,” he said, hating that he had to give her weapons for a battle he didn’t want her to fight. “Most Gliders are, save for the Apexwings. It will be dark. You will have an advantage. Keep your hood up, and have Lu’ma braid your hair tight so it doesn’t catch the light.”
He smoothed his fingers down the golden braid on her shoulder.
“Apex,” Auryn echoed. “Zarrek mentioned them, too. Said they were even more dangerous than those that came for me.”
Kailorien nodded. “Apex do not leave the Nestings. They are an elite bloodline, bred for war. But with their endless conflict fighting the Shades, they have their hands too full to scout for rumors.”
Auryn paused, dark memories resurfacing as though from a long-lost dream. “The ones that attacked at Stonewake,” she said. “Were they Apex?”
Kailorien shook his head. “Talonstrides. Apexwings have tails and are much larger.”
She pressed in closer. “They attacked us in the dark.”
He took a few moments to sit in that memory with her. Relive it. Brace her against the pain haunting them both. “That was different,” he assured her. “Many Strides can see at night. But the Matriarch wouldn’t send them here, either. They are the bulk of their forces in war.”
“You know so much about them,” Auryn observed, cupping his face with her hands. “It frightens me, sometimes, how much of the world you’ve seen.”
“I spent some years with them,” Kailorien confirmed, his smile tired and full of memory. “They call me Skycleaver.”
“I remember,” she said. “They called it at Stonewake.”
A beat as she recovered, taking a breath.
