“Why don’t you sleep in your bedroom?” I asked.
He stopped flipping through a book to look at me, green eyes slightly wide. In the yellow-orange light of the lamp, they looked hazel. He went to respond, then stopped. Looked away, then back. Finally, he said, “There’re no windows.”
When these words didn’t erase my confusion, he added, “I don’t like rooms without windows. They…” He trailed off. My gaze dropped to his hands; they’d started shaking. He clenched them into fists, and when the shaking didn’t stop, he pressed them flat on the workbench. The lamplight illuminated the jagged look of his scarred fingers.
I smoothed my right hand down my left, the skin bumpy from old burns. “When the crows were killed, I was outside the rookery. My mother came running. She told me to stay, and I did while she ran inside.”
Caylus’s eyes found mine, emboldening me. I kept talking. “The rookery was on fire. It was the middle of the night, but it was as bright as midday. I saw someone fall. I thought it was her, but it was my mother’s friend, Estrel. I didn’t think before I grabbed her. She was on fire, and the flames burned me too.”
I lifted my hand for him to see. He knew the scars were there, but I wanted him to really look at them. Under his gaze, they didn’t feel wrong. They felt like something else, like a symbol of my survival.
“For the longest time, I let these represent everything I lost, but I’m done. I won’t let my scars define me. Not anymore. From now on, they’re a symbol of what I have left to fight for. Of what I won’t let Illucia take from me.”
Caylus closed his eyes, his hands pressing harder into the wood. Slowly, as if afraid of spooking a wild animal, I stood and placed my hand over his. Gradually, his shaking stopped, and he collapsed into his chair. I pushed myself onto a clear space of the workbench and waited.
“My family’s in Seahalla,” he began softly. “My mother was a baker, and my father…” He clenched his jaw. “My parents were poor, so my siblings and I learned trades. I apprenticed with a blacksmith. That’s where I learned…” He trailed off again, gesturing at the workshop.
“When I was thirteen, my dad lost his job. He started drinking. Picked up gambling.” He pulled his hands into his lap, wrung them. “The Drexels run the gambling houses. He took me with him one day, and I figured out pretty fast if you kept track of the cards, you could cheat the game. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, but my dad did. He pulled me out of my apprenticeship and started bringing me to the gambling house whenever he went.”
My stomach churned. I’d heard stories of what the Drexels did to people they caught cheating.
“They found us out a few weeks later. Didn’t know how we were cheating, just that we were. We ran for it, and my dad… He said they’d go easier on me since I was a kid. He left me to be caught, but they asked who I’d been with. At first, I didn’t answer, but they…forced me to.” His left hand curled around his right. “Then they broke my hand for stealing.”
I swallowed hard, a quiet heat gathering in my stomach. I wanted to hurt whoever had hurt him.
Caylus seemed to have forgotten I was there, as if the only way he could tell this story was to pretend he was alone. “They went to my dad demanding he pay back his winnings. He said he couldn’t pay the debt, but he’d give them me instead. That I was good with numbers and fixing things. They agreed.”
“He sold you?” I asked weakly.
“He called it a job. I would be paid, and once I’d earned back my father’s debt, I’d be free to go,” he said. “I served Malkin Drexel. He started training me to fight. I didn’t want to, but… I kept thinking, especially with the fights I was winning, that I’d pay off my dad’s debt soon. But Malkin kept finding other things for me to owe him for. Food, clothes, lodging, lost fights. Years passed. My room, it didn’t have any windows. That’s why…” He trailed off again, flexing his hands in front of him.
“The punching nearly destroyed my hands. I broke my knuckles more times than I can count. Then just over two months ago, I got the news my mother had died. When Malkin told me—” He paused. “He told me my father had paid off his debt months ago, but Malkin said I still owed him. That I had my own debts now, and my father hadn’t used a bit of the money he’d made to help.” His fisted hands tightened. “It finally sunk in that no one was coming for me, and Malkin was never going to let me go.
“I’d been saving portions of my winnings without him knowing for some time. I had enough to convince a smuggler to get me out of the city to Sordell.”
My lips parted, and I stared at him, the words biting like acid eating through my skin. No wonder he jumped at every sound and flinched at every touch. Caylus had left the Drexels’ service without paying his debt; they’d be looking for him. It certainly explained the locks on his doors, not that they would do him any good against the Drexels.
I’m tired of fighting, he’d said the day I asked why he hadn’t joined the rebels. Tired, because he’d done so much of it. And yet when I’d asked for his help, he’d given it willingly, knowing each moment he spent with me embroiled him deeper and deeper in this conflict.
“Yet you’re still helping me,” I whispered.
He bowed his head. “A few weeks ago, a contact of mine said Malkin killed my younger sister. Because I left.” His breath came out in a shudder. “She was the only one who ever visited me. The only one who tried to help. And now—” His voice died.
My throat tightened. I didn’t know what to say.
“Malkin’s only in power because of what Illucia’s done to the Ambriels,” he said, voice low. “If they were free from Illucia, free from him…”
Then maybe no one else would have to go through what he did. Was that why he aided the rebels despite his hatred of fighting? To stop Malkin?
He lifted his gaze to mine, and I drew a sharp breath. That was it. The look I’d seen in Caylus’s eyes from the beginning. The look of someone who’d had a pit gouged so deep inside them, filling it again seemed impossible. Someone like me.
He wasn’t looking at me, but I could still see the pain in his eyes. I wanted to take it away.
Slowly, I reached out. My fingers brushed his cheek, then cupped it, and I let my thumb smooth along his warm skin. His eyes closed, and he leaned into my touch. My skin tingled where it met his, the feeling dancing up my arm like the hum of the egg’s magic. He was tall enough that even sitting, he wasn’t far, but the space between us was still too much. I wanted it gone.
I leaned forward and kissed him.
It was like being in a Rhodairen storm, thunder and rain all around, equal parts soothing and shocking. Heat flushed my face, my neck, my chest. He brought a hand to my head, entangling it in my still-damp hair. Then he stood, and I was looking up at him, our lips a breath apart. He leaned in, kissing me this time, and I slid my hands back onto the table to catch myself.
“Saints!” I jerked back and ripped my hand from the table to find my palm bleeding from a shallow cut. I looked around for the offending object, ready to condemn it to a vicious death, and found a piece of bloody glass.
“Are you all right?” It wasn’t until Caylus spoke that I realized he’d stepped closer. The concern on his face made me catch my breath. His first reaction had been to protect me.
All too aware of his closeness, I inspected my throbbing cut. “I need water.” He looked reluctant to put space between us, and I was reluctant to let him, but he nodded and crossed to another workbench.
I shook out my hand to ease the stinging, droplets of blood flying onto the workbench and—
“Saints!” I shouted again, leaping to my feet. Caylus whirled around, but my eyes were locked on my hand.
Lady Kerova had said only my family could hatch the crows, and there was only one thing we shared.
Our blood.
Twenty
Caylus and I stood side by s
ide. He’d brought me a cup of water and a cloth to wash and wrap my hand, and for the last few minutes, we’d both stared silently at the egg where we’d bundled it in blankets on the floor.
“Try it,” Caylus said at last.
I’d thought the same thing a hundred times in the last couple of minutes but hadn’t said it. What if it didn’t work?
What if it did?
My entire body seized at the idea, at the possibility of what was about to happen. It seemed so simple. Could my blood really be the key? Did that mean my family had some sort of magic line?
Slowly, I unwrapped my hand. Taking a deep breath, I pressed my wound against the egg.
It glowed.
My breath caught, my muscles going rigid as the humming doubled, the vibrations dancing up my hand and arm all the way to my chest until they became one with my heartbeat. My doubts vanished; the crow inside was still alive. Gio let out a low hiss and clambered up Caylus’s shoulder.
The iridescent colors in the shell lit up, the entire thing encased in a golden sheen as the humming became a vibration.
Then the shell cracked.
“Saints!” My hand flew to my mouth. I stumbled back, a hand seizing Caylus’s arm. It was working.
The crack lengthened, traveling along the side of the shell. A piece broke off, revealing the sharp black beak of a crow chick. Then it vanished, replaced by a length of feathers.
I laughed. Once and sharp. My heart felt as if it might leap from my chest, like something huge and growing inside me was trying to get out. Joy, I realized. It was joy, as wild and powerful as a storm, and it was hope, as tentative and newborn as the hatching crow.
I flung my arms around Caylus’s neck with a scream of delight, his own coming around to encircle me. He lifted me off my feet, a deep, breathy laugh rumbling in his broad chest. I laughed again and kept laughing until the laughter turned to tears, and even then, I couldn’t stop.
Caylus set me back on my feet, but he didn’t let me go. He held me close as we watched the crow struggle. It took all the strength I had not to help it. But it needed this. It needed to fight, to grow stronger. And it did. With each movement, it cleared away more shell, minutes longer than any I’d ever experienced stretching out one after the other as it fought to free itself.
I crouched beside it, my fingers itching to pull the shell away. My legs burned, but I didn’t move, barely breathing.
After what felt like hours, the egg finally broke apart, and the crow pushed its way out in a bundle of black feathers. It tumbled onto the blanket, wet, chirping, and looking nothing at all like a creature meant to save us all.
I laughed again, the sound bubbling over me in a wash of relief and happiness that made me feel as if I could float away.
We’d done it.
I threw my arms around Caylus, and he held me tight. At his back, the sun broke over the horizon, flooding us with warmth. Still chirping, the crow swayed unsteadily, its silver eyes falling on me as Caylus released me.
A storm crow.
The hum of the magic had vanished, replaced by a small, comforting feeling in the pit of my stomach I could describe as nothing but a connection, like a rope strung between us.
“It worked.” I barely dared to speak the words. They didn’t seem real. I repeated myself, dazed. “It worked.”
I crouched down, tracing a streak of pale yellow on the cracked shell. This was why the ceremony was always done in secret. If people knew our family’s blood was the key to hatching the eggs, our enemies may have tried to use us or even kill us.
But how did we have this power? It wasn’t the elemental magic of the crows. It was something different.
I let out a whoosh of breath, then sucked it back in greedily. But no amount of air seemed like enough. I felt empty and full all at once, like an hourglass of shifting sands.
“I’ve never seen you smile like that,” Caylus said softly.
I blinked; I hadn’t realized I was still smiling.
He blushed before saying, “It looks nice.”
My smile widened, and I stood, leaning into him, content never to move again.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I whispered, and he held me tighter. When at last I pulled away, I settled down beside the crow. The floor was hard and uncomfortable, the wool blankets itchy, but I didn’t care. I lay my head down beside his, taking in every detail of his small form, from the curve of his beak to the ridges of his feathers.
The connection between us emitted a faint humming, a quiet song I could listen to forever. I ran one finger over the curve of a talon, carefully, reverently. The sounds of Caylus returning to his work faded into the background until my world became enveloped by the gentle breathing of the creature before me.
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until I woke with a blanket over me. Panic rippled in my chest—I hadn’t meant to sleep, and I’d be missed at the castle. I nearly bolted upright until I realized the crow had shifted in his sleep, tucking his head into the crook of my arm.
As carefully as I could, I extricated myself from him, wrapping the blanket Caylus must have laid on me around him instead. The door opened, and Caylus entered, a cup of tea in hand.
“How is he?” he asked.
“Perfect,” I replied.
I needed to go. Kiva needed to know what had happened. Then I had to send a letter to Caliza, develop a training plan for the crow, and figure out how Kiva and I were going to escape. We’d have to wait at least a week for the crow to be strong enough to move, maybe longer.
But he was here. He was alive. And I couldn’t quite tear myself away just yet.
I knelt beside the crow, listening as he chirped gently. With every sound, the feeling in the pit of my stomach gave a little tug, as if someone were pulling from the other end of a long cord. I imagined myself tugging back, and he chirped again.
An indescribable happiness welled in my chest. This was what I’d waited for my entire life. This connection, this bond.
“What are you going to name it?” Caylus asked from beside me.
I smiled. “Resyries. It means stormbringer.”
* * *
Leaving the egg at Caylus’s had been difficult. Leaving a newborn crow had been practically impossible. I’d left him detailed written instructions on how to take care of it, including clearing a very wide space for it on the floor far away from any of the many things in his workshop that could hurt it.
With each second of growing space between Resyries and me, the cord strung between us grew thinner and weaker, until I could barely sense him as we pulled into the castle courtyard. The link was nothing more than a gentle pulling feeling now, but it would get stronger and more nuanced the more we trained together. Yet it still felt like I’d left a piece of myself behind that kept tugging me back.
Kiva was sitting at the breakfast table when I burst in wearing my dirt-stained gown from the previous night. Slamming the door behind me, I whirled to face her.
“We figured it out,” I said in a barely controlled whisper. “Caylus and I! We figured it out!”
Understanding dawned on her face. Her eyes flared wide, her hands flying back to brace herself. “Did it—?”
“Yes!”
Kiva shot to her feet, enveloping me in a hug as I flew to her. She let out a yell, and I laughed wildly. She laughed with me, her entire body shaking.
We pulled apart, Kiva’s face flushed with excitement and her eyes brighter than I’d seen them in months. I explained everything that had happened after I left the ball, leaving out only the things about Caylus’s past.
“You kissed him!” she half shouted.
“Did you miss the part where I told you my blood is the long-lost secret of crow hatching?”
She rolled her eyes. “How was it?”
I laughed, tried and failed to
explain how right it’d been, how happy I was, even now, when I hadn’t slept all night.
“I need to write Caliza,” I said, bolting to my room.
“And take a bath!” Kiva shouted. “You smell horrible.”
* * *
With the letter sent, I took a bath before climbing into bed. Despite the giddy energy sparking through me, my eyelids felt heavy, my body slow. When at last I fell asleep, I slept dreamlessly.
When I woke, the first thing I thought of was Res, and I scrambled to locate the connection between us. It hummed quietly, tugging gently in my chest. I let out an uneasy breath.
It would be days before he was strong enough to move, and he’d likely sleep all of today and that night. Come morning, he’d be all hunger and caws. Keeping up with his appetite would be a challenge; crows grew incredibly fast.
I’d slept most of the morning and afternoon away, and though I longed to see Res, I wouldn’t have enough time to get to Caylus’s and back again before dinner.
Needing something to occupy the nervous energy inside me, I dressed to train. I pulled my flying leathers out of my trunk, simply staring at them at first. They hadn’t left my drawer in months. When I’d shoved them in there so long ago, stained with soot and smelling of smoke, I’d thought I’d never wear them again. Now, it felt right. People would notice; they’d recognize the armor. But I wanted them to. I wanted them to know that the legacy they’d tried to stamp out still smoldered in the ashes.
I slipped on the upper piece of my leathers, which combined the pauldron, vambraces, and chest plate of normal armor into a single lightweight, flexible piece. The leather was a multitude of small pleats shaped like feathers, creating the illusion of two great wings draped protectively around my shoulders.
The belt fit securely around my waist, lined with two pouches, and the light leather pants were still flexible and strong. As I stared at myself in the mirror, I could almost imagine being a rider again.
The thought made my chest ache. Not because it hurt but because that dream was possible again.
The Storm Crow Page 19
