He angled his head, watching her with that unrelenting intensity. “A great deal can happen in three weeks.”
Nesryn made herself keep her shoulders squared, chin high. “Even so, at the end of it, I must return to Antica.”
Sartaq nodded, though something like disappointment guttered his eyes. “Then I suppose the ruk in the aerie will have to wait for another rider to come along.”
That had been a day ago. The conversation that left her unable to look too long in the prince’s direction.
And during the hours-long flight this morning, she’d snuck a glance or two over to where Kadara sailed, Sartaq and Falkan on her back.
Now Kadara swung wide, spying the final tower far below, located on a rare plain amid the hills and peaks of the Tavan Mountains. This late in the summer, it was awash with emerald grasses and sapphire streams—the ruin little more than a heap of stone.
Borte steered Arcas with a whistle through her teeth and a tug on the reins, the ruk banking left before leveling out. She was a skilled rider, bolder than Sartaq, mostly thanks to her ruk’s smaller size and agility. She’d won the past three annual racing contests between all the clans—competitions of agility, speed, and quick thinking.
“Did you pick Arcas,” Nesryn asked over the wind, “or did she pick you?”
Borte leaned forward to pat the ruk’s neck. “It was mutual. I saw that fuzzy head pop out of the nest, and I was done. Everyone told me to pick a bigger chick; my mother herself scolded me.” A sad smile at that. “But I knew Arcas was mine. I saw her, and I knew.”
Nesryn fell silent while they aimed for the pretty plain and ruin, the sunlight dancing on Kadara’s wings.
“You should take that ruk in the aerie for a flight sometime,” Borte said, letting Arcas descend into a smooth landing. “Test him out.”
“I’m leaving soon. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”
“I know. But perhaps you should, anyway.”
Borte loved finding the traps hidden by the Fae.
Which was fine by Nesryn, since the girl was far better at sussing them out.
This tower, to Borte’s disappointment, had suffered a collapse at some point, blocking the lower levels. And above them, only a chamber open to the sky remained.
Which was where Falkan came in.
As the shifter’s form blended and shrank, Sartaq did not bother to hide his shudder. And he shuddered once more when the fallen block of stone Falkan had been sitting on now revealed a millipede. Who promptly stood up and waved to them with its countless little legs.
Nesryn cringed with distaste, even as Borte laughed and waved back.
But off Falkan went, slithering between the fallen stones, to glean what might remain below.
“I don’t know why it bothers you so,” Borte said to Sartaq, clicking her tongue. “I think it’s delightful.”
“It’s not what he is,” Sartaq admitted, watching the pile of rock for the millipede’s return. “It’s the idea of bone melting, flesh flowing like water …” He shivered and turned to Nesryn. “Your friend—the shifter. It never bothered you?”
“No,” Nesryn answered plainly. “I didn’t even see her shift until that day your scouts reported on.”
“The Impossible Shot,” Sartaq murmured. “So it truly was a shifter that you saved.”
Nesryn nodded. “Her name is Lysandra.”
Borte nudged Sartaq with an elbow. “Don’t you wish to go north, brother? To meet all these people Nesryn talks of? Shifters and fire-breathing queens and Fae Princes …”
“I’m beginning to think your obsession with anything related to the Fae might be unhealthy,” Sartaq grumbled.
“I only took a dagger or two,” Borte insisted.
“You carried so many back from the last watchtower that poor Arcas could barely get off the ground.”
“It’s for my trading business,” Borte huffed. “Whenever our people get their heads out of their asses and remember that we can have a profitable one.”
“No wonder you’ve taken so much to Falkan,” Nesryn said, earning a jab in the ribs from Borte. Nesryn batted her away, chuckling.
Borte put her hands on her hips. “I will have you both know—”
The words were cut off by a scream.
Not from Falkan below.
But from outside. From Kadara.
Nesryn had an arrow drawn and aimed before they rushed out onto the field.
Only to find it filled with ruks. And grim-faced riders.
Sartaq sighed, shoulders slumping. But Borte shoved past them, cursing filthily as she kept her sword out—indeed an Asterion-forged blade from the arsenal at the last watchtower.
A young man of around Nesryn’s age had dismounted from his ruk, the bird a brown so dark it was nearly black, and he now swaggered toward them, a smirk on his handsome face. It was to him that Borte stormed, practically stomping through the high grasses.
The unit of rukhin looked on, imperious and cold. None bowed to Sartaq.
“What in hell are you doing here?” Borte demanded, a hand on her hip as she stopped a healthy distance from the young man.
He wore leathers like hers, but the colors of the band around his arm … The Berlad. The least welcoming of all the aeries they’d visited, and one of the more powerful. Its riders had been meticulously trained, their caves immaculately clean.
The young man ignored Borte and called to Sartaq, “We spotted your ruks while flying overhead. You are far from your aerie, Captain.”
Careful questions.
Borte hissed, “Be gone, Yeran. No one invited you here.”
Yeran lifted a cool brow. “Still yapping, I see.”
Borte spat at his feet. The other riders tensed, but she glared at them.
They all lowered their stares.
Behind them, stone crunched, and Yeran’s eyes flared, his knees bending as if he’d lunge for Borte—to hurl her behind him as Falkan emerged from the ruin.
In wolf form.
But Borte stepped out of Yeran’s reach and declared sweetly, “My new pet.”
Yeran gaped between girl and wolf as Falkan sat beside Nesryn. She couldn’t resist scratching his fuzzy ears.
To his credit, the shape-shifter let her, even turning his head into her palm.
“Strange company you keep these days, Captain,” Yeran managed to say to Sartaq.
Borte snapped her fingers in his face. “You cannot address me?”
Yeran gave her a lazy smile. “Do you finally have something worth hearing?”
Borte bristled. But Sartaq, smiling faintly, strolled to his hearth-sister’s side. “We have business in these parts and stopped for refreshment. What brings you so far south?”
Yeran wrapped a hand around the hilt of a long knife at his side. “Three hatchlings went missing. We thought to track them, but have found nothing.”
Nesryn’s stomach tightened, imagining those spiders scuttling through the aeries, between the ruks, to the fuzzy chicks so fiercely guarded. To the human families sleeping so close by.
“When were they taken?” Sartaq’s face was hard as stone.
“Two nights ago.” Yeran rubbed his jaw. “We suspected poachers, but there was no human scent, no tracks or camp.”
Look up. The bloody warning at the Watchtower of Eidolon rang through her mind.
Through Sartaq’s, if the tightening of his jaw was any indication.
“Go back to your aerie, Captain,” Sartaq said to Yeran, pointing to the wall of mountains beyond the plain, the gray rock so bare compared to the life humming around them. Always—the Dagul Fells always seemed to be watching. Waiting. “Do not track any farther than here.”
Wariness flooded Yeran’s brown eyes as he glanced between Borte and Sartaq, then over to Nesryn and Falkan. “The kharankui.”
The riders stirred. Even the ruks rustled their wings at the name, as if they, too, knew it.
But Borte declared, loud for all to hear, “You hear
d my brother. Crawl back to your aerie.”
Yeran gave her a mocking bow. “Go back to yours, and I will return to mine, Borte.”
She bared her teeth at him.
But Yeran mounted his ruk with easy, powerful grace, the others flapping away at a jerk of his chin. He waited until they had all soared into the skies before saying to Sartaq, “If the kharankui have begun to stir, we need to muster a host to drive them back. Before it is too late.”
A wind tugged at Sartaq’s braid, blowing it toward those mountains. Nesryn wished she could see his face, what might be on it at the mention of a host.