Page 71 of Beyond the Shadowed Earth

Anger hardened her. “And what has the god bid you?”

“To draw you to his Mountain.”

The wind tore past her, sending a cascade of pebbles skittering down the cliff. “He orchestrated all of this, didn’t he. The deal I made. Niren’s death. Ileem—Ileem’s betrayal.”

She felt, rather than saw, Rudion’s smile. “Do you want to know what became of your prince?”

She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood and didn’t answer.

“He’s dead. Does that please you?”

Her traitorous heart wrenched and she wheeled on the spirit. “Why are you here? I’m doing what you want. I’m going to the Mountain. Leave me—I have no use for shadows.”

Rudion lifted his hand and traced her cheek with one taloned finger. It bit into her skin. “I can take you to the god. I can bear you to the Mountain. Tonight. You need wait no longer to avenge yourself on him.” His wings rustled in the wind. His sword gleamed white.

“I’m not goinganywherewith you,” she spat.

He hissed, showing his teeth, jagged and broken. “You will be sorry. You are the only one Tuer needs. I will not ask so politely again.”

She took a breath and he was gone, nothing but the wind and the stars and her two sleeping companions with her on the mountain.

She woke to blinding sunlight pouring over the peaks, uncertain if her encounter with Rudion had been a dream. Morin and Tainir were already up, busy breaking camp, and Eda crawled hurriedly from her bedroll. Despite the sun, it was freezing.

On the edge of the cliff, where she had stood last night, rested a single black feather. She shuddered. “We should go,” she told Morin. “As quick as we can.”

He caught her apprehension and nodded, calling the ayrrah down from their trees. He showed Eda how to saddle Filah, which was not very different from saddling a horse, and she was surprised when he told her he’d made the saddle himself.

“Is there anything you don’t know how to do?”

“Rule an Empire—but I suppose that makes two of us.”

She scowled and punched his arm, belatedly realizing he was teasing her. Her cheeks warmed.

He rubbed his arm and laughed. “I suppose I had that coming.”

Minutes later, the other ayrrah saddled, they all launched into the air.

They flew into the wind that tasted like lightning, like freedom, but fear bit at Eda in a way it hadn’t yesterday. She couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder.

Behind them, the horizon glinted dark, and sometimes Eda thought she saw black wings and a fiery crown. But it must have been a trick of the light—every time she blinked, it was gone.

Tainir sang as they flew, her fingers busy hand-knitting something from a skein of bright blue yarn. Morin pulled parchment and charcoal from his pack, and somehow had the coordination to sketch the landscape below, unconcerned with the plummeting drop.

The ayrrah set them down in a high meadow a little before noon and flew off to hunt. Tainir left to do some hunting of her own, which surprised Eda, considering the face she’d made last night at the mention of it.

But Morin just smiled, shaking his head. “She’s prouder of her hunting ability than you would think.”

The two of them built a fire, or rather Morin did after Eda awkwardly told him she didn’t know how. He didn’t tease her about this, just explained everything as he was doing it, and assured her she’d be an expert in no time.

With the fire lit, there was nothing else to do besides wait for Tainir. Morin sprawled on his back in the grass and stared up at the sky. Eda watched him, unsure why she felt so uncomfortable being alone with him. Her glance flitted often to the patch of darkness on the horizon, her skin crawling at the memory of Rudion’s words.

“What is it like, to talk with the ayrrah?”

“It’s like talking to the wind and having it listen.”

“What do they say to you?”

Morin rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow so he could look at her. “Nothing in words. It’s more like … images. Emotions. Sometimes flashes of color.”

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