Sartaq warmed only a fraction to the shape-shifter. He watched Falkan as carefully as Kadara did, but at least attempted to make conversation now and then.
Borte, on the other hand, peppered Falkan with an endless stream of questions while they combed through ruins that were little more than rubble. What does it feel like to be a duck, paddling beneath water but gliding so smoothly over the surface?
When you eat as an animal, does the meat all fit in your human stomach?
Do you have to wait between eating as an animal and shifting back into a human because of it?
Do you defecate as an animal?
The last one earned a sharp laugh from Sartaq at least. Even if Falkan had gone red and avoided answering the question.
But after visiting two watchtowers, they had found nothing on why they had been built and who those long-ago guardians had battled—or how they had defeated them.
And with one tower left … Nesryn had done a tally of the days and realized that the three weeks she had promised Chaol were over.
Sartaq had known, too. Had sought her out as she stood in one of the ruk nests, admiring the birds resting or preening or sailing out. She often came here during quieter afternoons, just to observe the birds: their sharp-eyed intelligence, their loving bonds.
She was leaning against the wall beside the door when he emerged. For several minutes, they stood watching a mated pair nuzzle each other before one hopped to the edge of the massive cave mouth and dropped into the void below.
“That one over there,” the prince said at last, pointing to a reddish-brown ruk sitting by the opposite wall. She’d seen the ruk often—mostly noting that he was alone, never visited by a rider, unlike some of the others. “His rider died a few months back. Clutched at his chest in a meal and died. The rider was old, but the ruk …” Sartaq smiled sadly at the bird. “He’s young—not yet four.”
“What happens to the ones whose riders die?”
“We offer them freedom. Some fly off to the wilds. Some remain.” Sartaq crossed his arms. “He remained.”
“Do they ever get new riders?”
“Some do. If they accept them. It is the ruk’s choice.”
Nesryn heard the invitation in his voice. Read it in the prince’s eyes.
Her throat tightened. “Our three weeks are up.”
“Indeed they are.”
She faced the prince fully, tilting her head back to see his face. “We need more time.”
“So what did you say?”
A simple question.
But she’d taken hours to figure out how to word her letter to Chaol, then given it to Sartaq’s fastest messenger. “I asked for another three weeks.”
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.”