You left Jeru because you were afraid. But you aren’t afraid anymore?
“I became everything I feared. Now I am fear. And no one can stop me.”
He stared down at Jeru City and flexed his huge wings.
“My son . . . he is a Changer too. An eagle. But he can’t control the change. Now he is gone, Jeru needs a king, and you are alone. I will let you live if you do as I say.”
And what of Lady Firi? She thinks she’s going to be queen.
He cackled. “She will make a good pet.”
For a moment all was quiet in the city below, the distance creating an illusion of serenity. Then flames begin to gyrate and lick the sky, and Jeru came alive. The stench of pitch and smoke rose in the wind, and screams and shouts began to swell and find me across the distance. Hide, the people said. Run, the women screamed. Volgar, the men shouted. The word mother pierced the air along with the others, and I covered my ears in horror, not wanting to hear, not able to prevent it. The birdmen are here. The Volgar are here. Run. Hide. Help me. The words trembled and burst, only to swell again like the blisters the Volgar Liege had raised on my skin.
Tiras, I cried, Tiras, your city. Your city is burning.
“Call him, Lark of Corvyn. Call your eagle king. Call my son, so he will know his father has returned. The birdmen will kill and feed, and when the people are begging for mercy, I will extend it. I will call them off. And I will take what’s mine.”
Fire burning Jeru’s streets,
Find the birdmen, make them flee.
Arrows in the archer’s bow,
Find the birdmen, e’er they go.
Zoltev laughed, incredulous. “The city burns, and you spin rhymes?”
Volgar birdmen, hear my cry,
Jeru’s burning, you will die.
Close your wings and bow your heads,
Every living birdman, dead.
“Do you really think they can hear you? That your words are so powerful across such a distance?” Zoltev mocked.
Rocks upon which Zoltev stands,
Tumble now beneath the man.
Open up and swallow him,
That Jeru will be safe again.
Zoltev bared his teeth and swung his arm, striking me across the face. For a heartbeat I was weightless, teetering between falling and flailing, my arms wide, searching for something to hold on to. Then I was part of the sky, a fluttering poppet in the wind, words rushing through my head.
I was falling.
It sounded like an eagle’s cry, piercing and long, vibrating in my head even as the wind tore at my hair and cloak, grasping hands that dragged me toward the earth. But I felt sound leave my throat, felt it stream behind me as I plummeted. Then the greedy hands of gravity became powerful arms, the roar of the wind morphed into the clapping of wings, and I was snatched from the air by the Volgar King.
My body bucked, and my cloak came loose, continuing the path of my descent, flapping like a crimson bird caught in a gale. For a moment we spun wildly, wings and arms and bodies colliding in mid-air, careening toward the ground, and I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see the end. Then the wings that carried me caught the wind and tamed it, pounding it into submission, and we rose again, climbing the sky, seeking the moonlight and the stars, leaving death behind.
I screamed again, the cry billowing from my throat and into the night, and the king pressed his lips to my ear and spoke my name.
“Shh, my queen. It is me.”
And I realized that the arms that wrapped around me were not scaled. The wings above me were not shot with green, and the man who’d plucked me from the air was not a beast.
Tiras.
Tiras?
I began to weep, locked in his impossible embrace, crying in horror and hope, disbelief and elation, watching the world stream below us, magical and hushed, a piece of a dream. I wanted to keep flying and never return, but the voices of Jeru rose from the ground.
Smoke and ash and billowing flames began to dot the landscape in every direction, and suddenly we were surrounded by a flock of Volgar beasts, screeching and diving in chaotic frenzy. They paid us no heed; Tiras was simply one of them, a birdman claiming his spoils, and I began to chant and cast my spells.
Spun from vultures, made to kill.
Volgar birdmen, stripped of will.
Born of fear and hate and shame,
Return to hell from whence ye came.
“It must end,” Tiras spoke into my ear. “Jeru burns, my father lives, and this all must end.”
The Volgar had to die. I couldn’t send them away, couldn’t urge them to fly. I had to destroy them, or it would continue.
In the sky and on the ground,
Volgar hearts will cease to pound.
Slower, slower, heed my cry,
One by one, you all must die.
Like flies, the birdmen began to fall, their wings stuttering, their bodies writhing. We fell with them, breaching the city walls and drawing the arrows of desperate men who couldn’t differentiate between the Volgar swarm and a winged king. I abandoned the Volgar spells and hurled words of protection around us as Tiras circled the castle and came to graceful rest on the roof of the palace, folding his wings and releasing me only to bellow instructions at the open-mouthed archers.
“Majesty?” one shouted, and another lowered his bow and rubbed his hand across his eyes. Tiras wore breeches and boots but his upper body was bare, accommodating the wings. They protruded from his back, black as soot and tinged in red—identical to his eagle wings, but much bigger. The rounded tops eclipsed his broad shoulders, and the tips reached his heels. Hair, eyes, talons, and now . . . wings.
“Find me a sword!” Tiras roared, and he leaped over the edge, half-jumping, half-flying to the parapets below, running with his wings extended, shouting to his men and refocusing their attention to the task at hand.
Two guards lay in the bailey below, swords still clutched in their hands, their bellies laid open by Volgar talons. I didn’t hesitate, calling on the weapons to rise and find the king.
One for his left hand, one for his right,
The king has need of you tonight.
I heard the marvel and the fear of the warriors watching as the swords levitated and flew toward the king. I called to him in warning, and he turned and swept them up, his teeth flashing and his newly-acquired swords clashing. Then he took to the air like an avenging angel.
He flew to the crier’s tower overlooking the city square, and he called out to the people below.
“Women and children inside the keep!” Tiras roared. “Drop the bridge!” The guards along the entrance parapets rushed to obey, and the gates were lowered and the portcullis raised, allowing the Jeruvians outside the castle walls to find shelter within. They ran, hundreds of them, children clinging to their hands, eyes on the heavens, waiting for an attack that didn’t come.
For a moment, the skies were clear, the last wave of birdmen decimated by failing hearts and slings and arrows. A wave of hope washed over the castle—a lull in the storm—and the people looked from one to the other, wide-eyed and expectant, even as they rushed for cover.
“Are they gone?” The murmur swept over the ramparts and the parapets. “Is it over?” the king’s guard dared suggest.
The air was murky, the smoke obscuring the sky, and the darkness merciful. Hope became listening ears and bated breath, and atop the wall, Tiras’s voice rang out again. His people turned their faces from the sky to the winged king standing above them, seeing what he’d been so desperate to hide. He was glorious and terrifying—black wings beating, white hair flying—causing awe and a strange reverence to ripple over the shell-shocked crowd.
“Citizens of Jeru, for too long we have persecuted those among us with gifts. Healers, Changers, Spinners and Tellers have hidden themselves in our midst, fearful of what would happen if their abilities were discovered.
“I stand before you, King of Jeru, one who has lived with the very same burden and the v
ery same fear, and I ask you to come forward, out of the shadows, all who are Gifted, all who are not, and fight for your families. Fight for your city. For each other. The battle is just beginning. The Volgar King will destroy Jeru. He will set his beasts upon you, and there will be no distinction between those who are Gifted and those who are not. We will all die or be enslaved.”
The courtyard was hushed for a heartbeat, then excited chatter and fearful questions filled the air. But there was little time for talk.
“Women and children, old and infirm, inside the keep,” Tiras shouted. “All who are Gifted or skilled, lend your talents this night, and you will be welcomed and protected in Jeru from this day on by order of your king.”
“They come, Majesty! The sky is filled with Volgar!” the watchman shouted.
Tiras abandoned the crier’s turret and flew toward me, tossing one sword aside as he touched down on the roof of the keep, and with one arm swept me up against him, lifting off once more.
Take me to the watchtower.
He ignored my command, his eyes on the flustered guard and the panicked citizens that raced toward the keep in droves. He took me to the entrance of the keep instead.
“Stay with them. Keep them safe . . . Keep yourself safe within the castle,” he instructed. His mouth took mine, hard and fast, and he was gone again, taking three running steps across the bailey before he was airborne once more. Closing my eyes, I called the Gifted, asking them to trust and obey. I’d seen the Volgar Liege. The battle was just beginning, and Jeru wouldn’t survive him without help.
Gifted men and women come
To the aid of Jeru’s throne.
The women and children crowded into the Great Hall, the windows shuttered and the doors barred to keep the birdmen from preying on them. I saw my father huddled with the other lords, eyes manic, calling for his attendants, who were nowhere to be found. I hoped they were on the wall with the rest of Jeru’s men.
The glass on the long rectangular windows shattered, spraying the crowd below, and an enormous ball of fire pirouetted through the air. My mind stuttered, conjuring words to change its trajectory, but I was too slow. Lord Bin Dar, his cape and his terror billowing around him, flung out his hands. The fire met his palms and became water, drenching everyone around him.
A momentous silence swept the room, and Lord Bin Dar stumbled back, aghast. Exposed.
“He’s a Spinner,” someone cried.
“Praise the Creator,” a woman added. “We are wet instead of dead.”
One by one, the Gifted began to reveal themselves. Mistress Lorena spun spoons into swords and the bristles from her broom into hundreds of arrows. A child commanded the broken glass to be whole, and it rose in a million jagged pieces fitting itself together until the windows were covered once more. An old man became an elephant dragging the heavy thrones in front of the garden doors to reinforce them from outside attack, and a heavy-set woman became a dainty bird, flitting in and out of the castle, updating the huddled townspeople on the battle beyond the keep.
The wounded were dragged from the courtyard into the castle’s entrance hall, and women scurried between the broken bodies of the guard stemming blood and separating the living from the dead. Lord Quondoon was among the caregivers, and as I watched he began pressing his hands to wounded limbs and torsos, humming as he moved in and out of the suffering soldiers.
I positioned myself at the entrance to the keep with a thin view of the bailey beyond and did my best to cast words without standing out in the open. There was no safety in the courtyard. The castle walls were high and strong, but the Volgar flew over them, dropping and devouring the outnumbered guard, talons dripping and wings flapping, and for every spell I wrung from my weary mind, another swell would come.
The words seemed to settle on some of the Volgar beasts and glance off others, as if the cacophony of swords and shrieks, of wailing and warrior death, created walls my words had to penetrate. We’d fought the Volgar in open fields, man against beast, but the castle keep and the towering walls put us at a disadvantage. The skies above were filled with smoke, and we couldn’t see what was coming until a wave descended upon us.
“Kjell is at the gates of the city with two-hundred men.” The cry rose, tinging the air with relief as if salvation had arrived, but judging by the number of wounded and dead in the hall, I could not remain where I was, throwing words through the cracks in the doors and the fissures in the walls. I had to get out in the open.
I ducked out the entrance hall and ran through the courtyard toward the upper bailey, hugging the walls until I reached the stairs that led to the siege tower above the town gate. The siege tower was the highest point on the castle’s south wall, and once there, I would have a clear view of the battle and the skies.
Tiras was everywhere at once, a warrior turned lethal weapon. Ferocious and fleet-footed, his wings gave him lift as he scaled walls and flew from one battle to the next, thrusting and swinging, slaying one birdman after another, until his bare chest was coated in Volgar blood.
“Lark!” I heard my name slice through the air like a whip. I turned, still wielding words, and saw my father reach the top of the turret stairs that led to the siege tower, breathless and staggering, dragging a sword that I was certain he didn’t know how to use.
He had followed me, and Lady Firi had followed him.
He said my name again, but my gaze was riveted on the woman moving toward me, her eyes flat and her jaw tight. She didn’t greet me, didn’t speak, and there was no question as to her intentions. One moment she was a woman in a blood-spattered dress, the next she was a black panther on the parapets, sleek and muscular, stalking me on silent paws.
My father cried out in shock, and the sword he carried clattered to the ground.
“Meshara. Oh, Meshara . . . help us,” he gasped.
I could command beasts, but I could not compel the Gifted. In a battle of words versus might, Lady Firi would be the victor. I commanded the parapet to tumble, but she easily avoided falling, leaping from section to section, trusting that I wouldn’t demolish the entire wall. Then there was nowhere to turn, my back against the turret, the stairs beyond reach. She swiped at me, her claws raking my side and leaving a trail of fire in their wake. From the corner of my eye, I saw my father clutch his abdomen and fall to his knees.
An arrow sliced the air, a deadly whisper, and sank into the cat’s side. A young archer stood on the parapets, his eyes enormous, his bow still drawn. The panther yowled, and the air shimmered, the black cat blurring and blending into something new.
The arrow clattered to the stones, expunged, and I began to run, my hand pressed to my side, taking the only opportunity I might get. I took three steps before I was plucked off my feet and drawn up into the sky, rescued from the clutches of one beast by the hands of another.
Liege had entered the fray.
Nothing remained of the man. He was all beast—scales and feathers, talons and wings—breathing fire and sweeping his spiked tail behind him, impaling anyone who came within striking distance.
“Tiras!” The word boomed and echoed, a lion’s roar, released from the cavernous chest cavity of a monster. It undulated in the air, and for a moment the battle around us ceased, the birdmen rose, and all heads turned.
Tiras rose into the air, wings caressing the sky, a sword in each hand, and Zoltev’s scaled arm tightened around my ribs. He didn’t retreat or dart away, but allowed Tiras to take a parallel position, a stand-off above the earth, birds and men, kings and conquerors.
“My son, I have your queen,” Zoltev bellowed. “She bleeds, and I am not a Healer. Join me, and I will let you keep her.”
Tiras’s eyes shot to mine, and his regret was eclipsed only by his resolve. “Even you do not have that power, father,” he murmured.
“But I do! We can have anything we want. We are Gifted. We are kings. You are exactly like me,” Zoltev urged.
“You are a beast. And I have spent my whole life tryin
g to be a man,” Tiras said.
“Then you have failed. You are a bird. Your kingdom conspires against you, your city burns, and your queen . . . bleeds,” Zoltev hissed, and he flung me aside. He shot upward, wings spread, even as Tiras swooped, catching me up against him.
“I build my own armies, I don’t need lords and councils. I don’t need knights and guards,” Zoltev bellowed, commanding the attention of every man, woman, and child. With infinite care, Tiras descended and laid me on the cobblestones, shouting for Boojohni and retrieving his swords, preparing for battle as Zoltev called down his minions.
The Volgar Liege extended his arms, and his creations swarmed around him, falling from the haze and the darkness like he was the God of Words. Zoltev had not stopped with vultures. These new creatures had wings, but they were various shapes and sizes with differing colors and characteristics. Some breathed fire and others sprayed venom, some were the size of small children, others as large as three men, as if Zoltev had attempted to turn flying lizards and poisonous serpents into giants.
I closed my eyes and bid them adieu.
Zoltev roared in stunned outrage, and I clamped my hands over my ears, gasping in pain at the head-splitting volume, as the creatures began to writhe and die, falling to the courtyard like overripe fruit and spilling their juices over the cobblestones.
Tiras shot from the ground, swords drawn back, and thrust upward into Zoltev’s belly. Zoltev’s wings jerked and seized in stunned agony, and he dropped from the sky, hitting the ground with a sickening thud. In an instant he shifted, becoming Zoltev the man before transforming into the Volgar Liege once again, healed.