WE PLAY BY THE RULES OF THE TOWER. WE TOOK SOMETHING FROM YOU. WE GIVE SOMETHING BACK.
What had they taken from me? My heart began to race.
WAIT AND YOU WILL SEE.
There was a glee to those words. My left wrist burned hot as the sun.
WE GIVE BACK YOUR DESIRES – TANGLED THOUGH THEY ARE.
I stumbled down the last step, feeling agony burst through my chest, so much pain that I couldn’t think, couldn’t talk, could only grasp Victore’s hand as the floor rose up in hundreds of vine-like tentacles and pushed me toward the wall of the tower. Pain. So much pain.
What had I said I wanted? I’d asked for Victore, hadn’t I? I reached for the sky and stars.
The floor shoved and I was pushed right through the wall, gasping, and half-sobbing as the pain began to fade. I clutched at my chest with one hand and at Victore with the other as the realization rippled through me. I might have asked for Victore but I’d never once stopped thinking of how desperate I was to get Osprey free. That desperate hope filled me even now. I didn’t think I could let it go even if I wanted to.
Someone gasped and I moaned, forcing myself from where I’d stumbled to my feet. My wrist hurt. My chest hurt. I felt bound up by unfulfilled desire and desperate hope and in that strange state I looked up straight into the blue eyes of Osprey.
Chapter Twenty
WHAT’S REALLY YOUR DESIRE?
The words echoed in my mind as I felt the blood rush out of my face just from looking at him.
His lips parted and the toothpick dropped from them. I reached out and caught it from the air. I didn’t dare let him get the first words – or actions! – in. Not now that I knew.
I knew he was trapped by something inside himself and that he could be freed. But he wouldn’t be freed by a dagger digging out the feather. I’d need something better than that to free him. There was so much that stood between us, it was like an impenetrable wall – that he was brother to the crown prince, that the Forbidding was everywhere on every shore and deep inside him, that there was some kind of pull between us that made it impossible for us not to look deeply into each other’s eyes as if running a tally of what had happened to the other since we last saw each other. And this time I wasn’t going to run while he chased me. This time, I was going to do the chasing.
“If you must take me to your brother, then you may,” I said calmly.
He pressed his lips together, his brow furrowing at my words.
Behind him, I saw that Ivo was leaning against the bookshelf, sweat pouring from his forehead, his blade wobbling in a circle as he guarded Osprey’s back from my brother. Retger crouched, back against the other bookshelf, breathing hard. He had a fresh bruise on his cheek and Zayana was tucked in behind him, safe from danger. She kept looking from him to Ivo like she couldn’t understand what had happened or what she should do.
Books lay scattered everywhere and more than one shelf was toppled. Around the perimeter of the room, the monks stood still as statues, hands up in a warding gesture or covering horrified mouths. Retger’s arm was bleeding and Ivo was hunched over a wound. There had been a fight.
I looked over Osprey. He stood tall and straight, but heat curled up from him like mist and his blade was streaked in blood.
“You came for me? Then take me,” I said grimly. “But leave the others here – all of them. That fulfills your orders, doesn’t it?”
His mouth snapped shut and his throat bobbed as he swallowed down whatever he was going to say. He swallowed the words, but he couldn’t swallow the look in his eyes that seemed to be eating me up.
“He tried to hurt Zayana. You can’t go with him,” Retger said through clenched teeth. “That’s our enemy no matter what love-lorn looks he gives you.”
I held up a hand, impatient. “If he wanted to hurt you, Os would have torn you to pieces already. He is clearly holding himself back.”
I drew Victore around me and gently guided him to Retger. The others still had their weapons up and ready for battle, but I was determined not to let that worry me despite a wobble in my knees.
“We need Victore. The Single Wing needs their general.” I met Retger’s eyes. “Take him to the place where my bee found you.” Victore would be safe with my family but I didn’t want to mention them aloud. “I will join you as soon as I can.”
“I won’t leave you with these madmen.” My brother’s voice was raw.
“Madman,” I corrected. “You’re taking Wing Ivo with you.”
“But he’s our enemy, Aella. What kind of brother would I be if I agreed to that? The Wing will stay here and you will come with me where I can keep you safe.”
“I’m no enemy of yours, boy,” Ivo said, his chest still heaving like he’d just been running or fighting hard. “But when you come at me all slash-dash-crash like a carabao in a potter’s shed, then I’ll put up my blade and do what I have to. I love liberty and freedom and truth and justice. And if that’s what you love, then we’re blood brothers. Stop slashing at me and I’ll stop slashing at you. Plain and simple.”
Retger watched him with the same careful uncertainty that I always felt – like he couldn’t tell if he was serious or crazy.
“And he’s Zayana’s Guide,” I said gently. “He won’t hurt her. He’ll only help her.”
Retger nodded uncertainly. “He can come if you want him, but you’re coming, too.”
“You know the way to get there quickly,” I said, raising my eyebrows to try to remind him of the undertrails. “I’ll find you on that path.”
Nothing about escaping. Nothing about joining them if I could. I didn’t dare tip my hand. I had to be quick and I had to be smart. I’d had enough of being driven by the winds around me. It was time for me to steer this ship.
He shook his head again and I made a chopping motion with my hand.
“You must let me do this, brother. It’s something only I can do and if you don’t get the general to safety, then what will happen to the revolution? We must be relentless.”
“It feels wrong to leave you, Shrikeling,” Retger said, but Zayana reached out and caught his hand and he relaxed just a hair. “You should go with the Wing and Zay and the general and I’ll stay here and deal with whatever this Wing wants from you.”
“I agree,” Ivo rumbled. “No need to surrender just because things have become difficult.”
I shook my head. “I’m not surrendering. I’m fighting in my own way.”
“Aella.” My name on Retger’s lips was a plea.
I glanced at Osprey who had remained perfectly still this whole time, his bright eyes never leaving me, his body trembling as if he was holding back from saying something. He kept looking me up and down as if he was trying to assess me.
“It’s a task only I can take on, Retger,” I said, keeping my voice low and trying to sound certain. I could see he was crumbling in the face of my certainty. Even now, it might end in disaster, but one way or another, this endless chase had to stop. It would have been better if I’d had time to lay a trap, but our trap last time hadn’t worked. I’d just have to do what I could. “And they need you. You have to go.”
He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat and that’s when Osprey spun. Retger’s sword tip came up but Osprey batted it away with the flat of his hand, a growl welling up from his throat.
Despite the growl, his words were incredibly measured. “I swear this to you, House Shrike, I will spill my own blood before spilling hers. I will take any pain she gives without lifting a hand against her. I will cut off my own hands before harming her.”
Retger’s mouth tightened and he shook his head, looking at me instead of Osprey. “I don’t trust him, and I don’t really care what he says. You should come with us, Aella. There are five of us – if Wing Ivo is truly on our side – and one of him. This Wing can’t stop us if you want to go with us.”
I shook my head in denial. I knew perfectly well how fast Osprey was with that blade and how stro
ng Os was. Five of us would hardly slow him. But that wasn’t what was stopping me. I had my own plans. And they didn’t involve running anymore. If I kept running, I’d be running forever, and then who would save Osprey from himself?
“Go, brother,” I said gently. “This task is mine. I mean to see it through.”
He surprised me. I’d expected to have to fight him more, but he dropped Zayana’s hand and leaned in to give me a brotherly half-hug, eyes never leaving Osprey as if he expected him to strike at a moment’s notice.
“Relentless,” he said – our family motto – and I echoed it back.
“Relentless.”
“I trust you to make this choice, Shrikeling, but if he hurts you we will find him and kill him in the most creative way we can imagine – and between us all, we can imagine quite a lot.” He slipped a knife into my belt – never a bad choice of gift – and I smiled in gratitude.
Then he turned back, nodded sharply at Ivo, and said, “We’ll have a fight and a half getting out of here. Let’s take the back way.”
“Is there one?” Ivo asked, his gaze still locked on where Osprey and I stood frozen, unwilling to move before the others were gone.
“There’s always a back way if you know how to look for it,” Retger was saying, and then he turned the corner and they were gone. There was a murmur from the monks nearby.
Chapter Twenty-One
I cleared my throat and looked to Osprey. “And now there is you and me.”
His eyes lit and he snatched another toothpick from his sleeve, but he didn’t stick it between his teeth he just looked at me and looked and looked, his face drinking me up like he’d never expected to see it again and thought the sight might be snatched away at any moment.
Behind him, I saw the monks stepping away from the walls and turning to lift books and valuables from the ruin of the floor.
“If you must take me to your brother, then I will go,” I said, catching Osprey’s bright blue eyes.
He ignored the statement.
“You must hear this, House Apidae. What you tried to do,” he said, rolling the toothpick between two fingers, the slightest hint of a smile on his lips, “was valiant.”
“Getting my brother and Zayana to safety?”
He shook his head and his eyes were alight with an emotion I couldn’t read.
“Trying to carve out the feather from my chest – at great cost to yourself. It lost you valuable time in fleeing. It’s why he managed to catch you again.” He swallowed and his face fell. “I tried to get to you. But I was weak, and I couldn’t manifest after that stab to my chest. I beat and beat on the door, but I was too weak to save you.”
My arms crossed over my belly and my hands grabbed my opposite hips as if to protect me from myself. “What you tried to do was valiant, too.”
A furrow appeared in his brow and he tilted his head.
“Stabbing yourself all those times. Doing it to keep from harming me.”
His cheeks colored and he looked away. He spoke almost to himself, “It wasn’t enough. It’s never enough.”
“Are you still in a lot of pain?” I tried to keep my voice gentle. “Are the wounds healing?”
He shrugged as if it was nothing, but Os appeared behind him in a flurry of purplish-white light and glowing feathers, he hovered behind Osprey, wrapping one wing around him, the other branching out as if to ward off evil.
“You understood what I was trying to tell you,” Osprey said, clearing his throat as if there was something else he wanted to tell me and couldn’t. “You figured it out?”
“He’s your brother,” I said. “Like the two brothers on the coin – the ones who wanted different things and started a war.”
Osprey nodded, his piercing blue eyes meeting mine. “I didn’t want a war.”
“There will be one anyway,” I said with a shrug. “And more people will die if we leave it to chance. Like what’s going on outside right now.”
“That’s why I have to rely on other people to set this right.” He was so grave as he spoke. It made him look older.
I had so many questions to ask him but all of them felt too personal. I settled for a statement. “You have the same blue eyes as Juste. But the rest is different because your mothers are different. So, your father ...”
“House Osprey raised me. And until I was twelve, I thought that General Petren was my father. I consider him that still,” he said quietly. “But I am the Emperor’s bastard.”
I didn’t like how he said that word, as if he were judging himself by it.
“Who knows this?” I asked, swallowing.
“Juste does. My father does. The emperor does. Ivo has guessed it. He was my friend when I was newly Hatched.”
“And Juste torments you with it.”
“What else would Le Majest do with such information?” He winked - one of his terrible, not-funny-at-all winks. I was starting to wonder if they were a nervous tick. “But it’s more than that. He’s the reason this feather is in my chest. He’s the one who tied those children to me - tied their fates to my obedience. A boon he asked of our father - a way to help give him a leg up.”
“A leg up in what?” I asked, and his mouth snapped shut. “You can’t tell me.”
His gaze met mine again, open and pleading but silent.
“But I can guess. The Winged Empire kills off members of a family to make the bloodline stronger. They killed your mother to make you Hatch. And now that I know more, I’m guessing they did it for other reasons.”
He nodded, looking away.
“They would normally kill you for Juste, wouldn’t they? The previous emperors used to kill their brothers and sisters. Which means you’ve been left alive for a reason.” I paused, thinking. “As a spare in the event that something happens to your dear brother?”
He nodded.
“But you can’t do anything to him to harm him and you must wait, obedient and patient for your own death.”
He nodded at that.
“Osprey,” it was mostly a whisper but partly an aching gasp. His burden was so heavy.
His eyes snapped back to mine. “I’ve been ordered to hunt you and bring you back, but I’m not going to do it, Aella. I’ve thought long and hard about it. I’ve tried to think of ways out of it. So has Ivo. There are so few that might work and all of them have severe consequences, but I’ve chosen one. It’s just ... I just need ... I wanted to find you first.” He paused, licking his lip nervously, and then biting it as if he was trying to catch the words that kept slipping away. When he started again, he was calm and measured. “I wanted to tell you that your betrothal to him is more dangerous than you think, and it has put you in grave peril. Forget the Single Wing for now. Bide your time. You need to run as far and as fast as you can. You must not let him marry you.”
“You can’t kill him, can you? That isn’t your plan.” I guessed. He smiled sadly, pleased at my clever guess but his eyes still welling with some new emotion. “And even if you could, you wouldn’t. Because you don’t just murder people.”
“I don’t,” he agreed. He was so beautiful when he looked at me with those tragic eyes.
“And because of that, you wouldn’t condone Ivo or me killing him for you.”
He looked down and away, guilt filling his features. He wished he could ask. But I knew he never would.
I gasped as the realization struck me.
“Please don’t tell me that you plan to sacrifice yourself. Again.”
He still didn’t meet my eye. “House Apidae, I can think of only one way to free you. I came only to say goodbye. There is still time to catch up with your brother and go with him.” He looked up at me with agonized eyes. “I hope you can forgive me. I wanted this one selfish thing – the chance to say goodbye to you.” He swallowed as the floor of the monastery trembled. “It was – perhaps – too much to ask.”
“Of all the foolish, ridiculous, noble things.” I was shaking my head, my teeth gritted together. S
omething outside the door boomed and the floor shook. “And here I am talking to you about it when we should be running – both of us.”
“Yes, you must run, House Apidae. Fly free,” he said, his eyes boring into me. “Forget this plan to go to my brother.”
“I will.”
He gave me one of his rare smiles, pleased by my answer, and then sank to his knees so suddenly that I barely managed not to stumble backward.
“Have you been hurt?” I couldn’t keep the flare of panic out of my voice.
He shook his head, his eyes meeting mine again and a look of utter vulnerability there. It was as if I was sinking deep within him.
“Take my life, House Apidae. I am bound to hunt you down, but you are not meant to be hunted. You are meant to be free - a symbol to our people. Already, I hear whispers on the streets of a woman with bee manifestations. A woman who will guide freedom to these shores. Free yourself of the Winged Empire. End my life and the hunt that threatens you.”
I shook my head, shocked. The bees raging in my head so that I could hardly think.
But the resolution in his eyes didn’t fade.
“I understand,” he said, drawing one of his daggers from his belt. “It is too much to ask. I will do this myself. Please know,” a gentleness came over his face. “Though I have known you but a short time, you have breathed life again into the banked ashes of my heart and given me the courage to do what should have been done years ago. You should go now. You don’t need to see this. No one will hunt you when I’m gone.”
My voice felt too small, the buzz of my bees so loud that it drowned out all thought. “He’ll only send someone else.”
He shook his head, his eyes on mine tender. “He chooses to torture that which becomes precious to me. When I am gone, he will forget you. Be free, House Apidae.”
He put the dagger to his throat, and I leapt forward and caught his wrist.
“Don’t! You’re wrong. It won’t end with that,” I said breathlessly. “Your brother will have me back one way or another. Suicide would end your part in it, certainly, but you are not the only one who obeys his commands. Or haven’t you seen the fires consuming the city or the wave of Blue washing over it?”
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