“My brother is not going to die,” I say. “Not while I’m still breathing. One of my animal forms is a goshawk. Let us go now, and I’ll scout out the building and tell you what I find.”
The man with the shaved hair quirks his head, considering. “If you go, you will not return.”
I grasp the straps of my pack tighter. “I will.”
“I can help as well,” Wes offers at once.
“No,” says my original captor, shoving Wes’s injured arm hard. I lurch toward her, but she has an arrow nocked and pointed in an instant. “We do not treat with humans. Not since their kind forced us from our home.”
“Peace, Yena,” the youngest one says, earning a few scowls from his companions before turning to me. “Your friend can stay with us while we wait for you.”
Reluctantly, I urge my clawed hands to return to fingers. Wes folds his arms, but I nod.
“Will you walk with me back to the tree line?”
I agree after a brief hesitation, catching Wes’s frown out of the corner of my eye. The bird on the boy’s shoulder squawks at my approach, its ruffling feathers clicking together like metal, but it falls silent when the boy tilts his head. He gestures for me to lead the way, his streaked hair glimmering in the sun.
“My name is Peridon,” he says quietly, falling into step beside me. “And yours?”
I eye him warily. “Rora.”
He nods. “My cousin is small, with brown skin and long, curly hair.” He worries his bottom lip. “Her name is Andie. Will you look for her?”
This boy really doesn’t look any older than I am. Than Finley.
“I will,” I say, and the set of his mouth relaxes.
The tree line comes into view before long. When we reach it, the whisperers murmur a few parting words of luck, then retreat a bit into the woods. They seem to be intentionally giving Wes and me space.
To say goodbye, I realize. They clearly don’t expect us to see each other again. The knot in my chest tightens.
Wes steps closer when we’re more or less alone. “You know, I think you might be getting better at negotiating.” I knock his good arm lightly. “What did that one with the bird say?”
“He wants me to look for his cousin.”
Wes gazes at the sky a short while, then back at me. “What if they’re right, and you don’t come back?”
“I will.”
“And if you don’t?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Do you have any better ideas?”
He tugs his hair with both hands, then sighs loudly. “No,” he admits, sounding defeated.
“All right then. Watch my stuff.”
“You’re going now?”
“My brother could be dying for all I know!” I exclaim, not willing to admit the other, even more terrible possibility. “Of course I’m going now!” In truth, my sleepless night is beginning to drag me under; my head aches, my limbs hang like rocks, and mild nausea coats my throat.
“Okay, you’re right, I’m sorry,” he says quickly, as I stow my pack behind a tree. I look again toward the low-lying hills, trying to gauge the distance.
“It would take me forever to cross that as a mouse,” I muse, half to myself. “I’ll fly over, then find a place to shift again.”
He appears as if he’s going to caution me with another warning, so I cut him off before he can shape the words.
“Wes.”
“Rora.”
A small light dances in my chest at the sound of my name, but I can’t let that distract me. “I spent nearly a decade learning to survive. This is what I do. And I’m good at it.” I realize it’s true, now that I’ve said it aloud—the past may have weakened me, but it also made me strong. “If you’re going to keep objecting, I’ll just tie you to a tree and be done with it.”
He smirks. “Using what rope?”
I take a step toward him. “Then I’ll knock you out instead.”
“Fine. Don’t let me stop you. This is the part where you strip, I take it?”
I can’t help it. I’m still not used to this side of Weslyn, the one that calls me by my name and makes wry jokes. I smile wickedly. “Feel free to look away if it embarrasses you.”
He folds his arms and leans against a tree. “Not at all.”
Well. I actually do need to strip, and he’s not looking away. Rather than ask him to turn around, I try determinedly to remember the ambivalence with which I regarded nudity for my entire life up until the past few days. Just another form, I tell myself over and over as I shed my boots.
Doesn’t work.
I fix him with a look, and he raises his palms and turns around.
I wrap my underthings in my dress and shift to hawk within a handful of heartbeats. Then I’m rising into the air, the wind buffeting my outstretched wings, racing toward the mountains and, with any luck, Helos.
TWENTY-ONE
I gain a decent amount of altitude before sweeping over the low hills, trying to ensure that my presence goes unnoticed. Far below, I can make out a few remaining tree trunks cut close to the ground, stragglers that their killers couldn’t be bothered to remove entirely. I don’t understand the purpose of such destruction, but the lack of coverage will make liberating Helos even more difficult, if he really is there. After spotting a couple pairs of soldiers patrolling the open expanse, I can only hope Wes and those whisperers have enough sense to remain hidden.
I soon realize the site is more extensive than I first believed. Up close, the building I saw before is a forbidding, rectangular block that stands a couple of stories high, with dark gray walls that match the mountains behind them and no windows save for a handful set in a row just below the roofline, narrowed to hardly more than slits. Looming behind that is a tall, circular, wooden tower, and an ugly, squatter building with a chimney poking out of the roof. Three long, walled-in rows stretch to the right of these monstrosities, gleaming unnaturally in the sunlight.
I maintain my height as I fly closer, knowing I’ve only got one chance to pass over. At most, two. Any more than that, and onlookers might find my behavior suspicious. Well, more suspicious than a goshawk that has left the refuge of the forest to explore this barren domain. But there’s no help for that now.
I keep my flight speed slow to the point of casualness. Only a bird searching the sky. It works to my advantage that I have a lot of experience with committing quick observations to memory; one pass over the silver rows is enough to tell me what’s down there, and the realization makes me so ill I nearly lose control and abandon my avian form.
Instead, I fly straight ahead, beyond the compound and toward the nearest mountain. There’s a deep fissure carved into the rock face, where a flood of mismatched stones has caved in and settled like an empty riverbed, widening in its descent and spilling all the way down to the ground. I alight near the top of an enormous fir tree shadowed at the base of the range—and nearly lose my purchase on the bark.
My blood, my beak, my veins, my very bones feel strange. Mismatched. At once chafed and soothed, kindled and doused. As if something is rubbing them raw one instant and healing them the next. The cool air sits unnaturally heavy in my lungs, and I take a few moments to steady myself and ensure that I’m still breathing. There is something wrong about this place.
I force my attention back to the walled rows below.
They’re cages. Rows of cages, all out in the open to the side of the rectangular building. And they’re occupied.
From the safety of my lofty perch a short distance away, I examine the enclosures in greater detail. Many of the magical people and creatures I kept expecting to see in the Vale are here. There are more caegars, some pacing their cages with taut whiskers and tails brushed out, others merely lying there. One keeps pawing at its eyes; I wish I knew why. There are birds, beautiful birds with red breasts and multicolored wings. Loropins. The bird whose feathers have cast a pall over my existence at the hands of the humans who wield them. In all my time living in the Vale, I
only ever saw two. Here there are five.
What exactly is this place? A cruel menagerie? The conditions are terrible: slick stone floors enclosed in double-layered walls, the interior one made from crosshatched wire, the outer lined with thick, vertical black bars. Farther down the rows, there are more captives: marrow sheep and widow bats; nightwings splayed out on the floor as if sedated; an indeterminate number of two-headed snakes, curled up in an impossible knot of bodies with neither beginning nor end; caribran whose hooves normally draw grass from the ground, regrowing the blades they eat, except that beneath their feet here, there’s only concrete. There are changeling wolves and gemstone beavers, even a couple of timber bears whose limbs have been bound so tightly, they must be in total agony.
My pulsing dread deepens when I take in the people. In the row nearest to me, there are six whisperers with silver-and gold-streaked hair, and four people who might be shifters given their entirely human appearance. Across the aisle from them, three forest walkers in adjacent cages rub at their bark-like, birch-patterned skin, ghostly in the sunlight. The farther they get from their home trees, the more their bodies fade, and one of these is nearly transparent. And at the end—
My heart speeds into overtime. A short-statured whisperer with brown skin and dark curls tumbling down to her waist. Andie, I’m guessing. And in a cage near hers—
Helos.
He’s alive! At least, I think he is. I’m fairly certain. He must be. He looks terrible, though, even from here. He’s wearing some sort of rags, his eyes are closed, and he’s slumped in a corner of his prison at the end of the row nearest to me. Not moving.
I need to get a closer look.
I drop to the ground, hop a few steps toward the plateau, and shift to deer mouse. At once, my vision weakens dramatically, blurry enough that it’s far easier to detect movement than any real details around me. But this is the stealthiest form I’ve got, so I really don’t have a choice. As quickly as my tiny legs will carry me, I scurry up the rest of the slope, using my whiskers to navigate through blades of grass more than twice my height. Soon enough, the land levels out, and then I’m hurrying toward the metal cages as if my life depends on it. It probably does.
Helos doesn’t stir when I crawl between the bars and the crosshatched wires forming the cage’s outer walls, the gaps so tiny that escape would be impossible for any of the creatures I have seen imprisoned here. I walk directly over to him, hesitate, then brush my whiskers against one of his bare feet.
Nothing happens.
A wisp of anger spirals through my limbs, settling over my bones. You’re not leaving me, I think. Not you, too. Never you. I abandon all pretense of gentleness and slam my body into his foot with all my might.
Helos flinches awake and withdraws his outstretched leg at once. There are a few moments of sleepiness and confusion, and then he reaches a hand down. I crawl onto it and let him lift me toward his face, which is filthy with smears of grime and dried blood.
Rora?
He doesn’t speak the word aloud, just mouths the syllables. I squeak a little in response.
How did you find me?
I have no way of answering in this form, and there’s no chance I can risk shifting to human, so I simply tap his fingers with my tail.
He rotates his head in either direction, checking for threats, then brings his face even closer.
“Look, Rora,” he whispers, so quietly it’s amazing any sound comes out at all. “This is a bad place. I don’t know what exactly they’re up to, but I can tell it doesn’t end well for the prisoners. The caegars—they blinded them. And they—”
He hesitates, teeth skimming his bottom lip.
A chill fingers the length of my spine. Eyes with the power to hypnotize prey—gone. A magical species robbed of its greatest asset.
“Listen,” he says at last. “I know you wanted to investigate this further, but please. Don’t risk your life to save me. Go with Weslyn. You have to save Finley.”
I bite his hand.
“Finley,” he repeats. “You already have what he needs. Please. It’s … important to me.”
And what about what’s important to me? I want to ask. What about your own life? His selflessness is going to get him killed. If he were any other shifter, no doubt his imprisonment would trigger his third and final animal form. But it’s my brother, whose instinct is always to protect others. His moments of greatest need will never be to save himself.
I think of his fingers smoothing the wrinkles in Finley’s portrait. Of Finley himself telling me “the answer is no” to a question I never heard, when his expression suggested anything but. That Helos might never see that face again, that he might die here, alone, so far away from everyone he loves, is completely unacceptable.
I bite harder, causing him to nearly drop me. He doesn’t, of course.
We stare at each other for the span of several heartbeats. I can tell he’s trying to convince me that he’s not worth it, and I’m trying to convey to him that he’s always worth it, that we’re a pair, that we don’t separate. We just don’t. We go together, always.
“We have an understanding, then,” he whispers. We certainly do not, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. I signal that I want to be let down.
He lowers his hand, then wavers a little. I know he’s about to attempt some sort of goodbye, and I won’t have that, so I dash out of the cage before he can speak to me again.
Now to make a plan.
Sticking as close to the bars as possible, I make my way down the evil line of cages. With my limited vision, it’s difficult to tell if any of the imprisoned notice my passing. The air reeks of sweat, filth, and a horrid odor I can’t quite place. Even more disturbing is the quiet constricting them all. None of them are trying to communicate or force the doors to their cages. It’s as if they’ve already given up hope.
I wonder how long they held on to it.
And just like that, I realize the implications of rescuing Helos but leaving the rest of them caged. The notion makes my stomach turn.
One thing at a time.
I’m almost at the end of the row when the screeching of metal doors fractures the silence. Desperately, I press my body into the dirt as footsteps thunder across the earth. Two people, soldiers maybe, approach the place where I’m hidden.
They halt, by my estimate, two cages away. Relief quickly fades to dismay as the sounds of a struggle reach my ears. That’s a forest walker’s prison.
From what I can hear, she’s putting up a good resistance. Then there’s the scratch of a match being lit, and the smell of smoke wafts toward me. I can’t see what’s happening, but there’s an anguished cry, then another, then nothing as the party—now three instead of two—leaves the relative safety of the cage.
Fighting to control the panic creeping in, I flit toward them, keeping as close to their heels as I dare. The scent of sweeter smoke lingers in the air; one of the soldiers might be carrying a cigar. We reach the end of the aisle and turn left, walking past the two other rows until we come to the side of the building. The ashen wall towers high above me, an impassive giant shadowing my tiny features. Before I can pause to consider what may be inside, a set of double-doors swings open.
I don’t waste time deliberating. The soldiers pull the forest walker inside, and I take my chance, squeezing through just as the doors slam shut behind me. The impact is so loud it’s nearly deafening.
A long, wide corridor stretches into the distance, little more than a harshly lit blur to my mouse eyes. The soldiers move right, so I make straight for the opposite wall and hope my brown fur blends in well enough with the cold floor. There’s movement behind me, to the left of the double doors.
My whiskers pick up the vibrations in the air; one of the soldiers has opened an object mounted on the wall next to the doors. I can’t see what she’s doing, but a distinctive rattle rings through the air.
Keys! Rows of them, judging by the chimes. With any luck, they’
re the keys to the cages.
Straining my ears, I hear a small latch click shut and metal grating against a lock. So one needs a key to access the box of keys.
I keep still as stone as the soldiers stomp past, their prisoner positioned between them. Since it’s the only lead I have, I trail behind as best I can until we stop before an open doorway—the second room on the right.
“Mohr!” barks one of the soldiers.
In a matter of moments, someone emerges from the room.
“Take this downstairs while I lock up.”
This, I soon learn, is the forest walker. Mohr joins the soldier with the cigar, and the two of them shunt their prisoner down the hall while the remaining soldier enters the room. I dart in behind her, and my heart fires through my chest.
There are several figures here, some sprawled around a circular table, some on a couch, some pacing the room. A hornets’ nest. The stench of pipe smoke taints the air, along with the thuds of darts hitting their mark. My nose and whiskers assemble the rough picture, moving frantically even as the rest of me remains desperately still. Though I listen hard for the sound of keys, it’s difficult to hear over the raucous voices. Where did that soldier go?
Moving as quickly as I dare, I skirt the edges of the crowded room, sticking to as many shadows as I can find. A table leg here, a crack in the floorboard there. As it had when I met Ambassador Kelner, the Eradain accent prods the corners of my mind, like there’s a familiarity to it whose origins I’ve forgotten. My nose sifts through the cloud of smells, suddenly latching on to one that curls my spine. Earth and ash, concentrated in a figure nearby.
Magic in the midst of Eradain soldiers.
The realization is nearly enough to send me off-course. The Fallow Throes, or are they keeping one of the prisoners in here for some reason? Focus, I remind myself, peeling my thoughts away from the distraction, searching for …
There! I creep toward the soldier who opened the key box. She’s standing in front of another mounted object, scratching notes in something on the counter before her. So where’s the—
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