27
Standing atop a viewing platform on the side of the Omega, Manon watched the first Yellowlegs coven of the day take the Crossing. The plunge down followed by the violent sweep up was stunning, even when it was the Yellowlegs riders astride the wind.
Leading them along the sheer face of the Northern Fang was Iskra. Her bull, a massive beast named Fendir, was a force of nature in himself. Though smaller than Titus, he was twice as nasty.
“They suit each other,” Asterin said from beside Manon. The rest of the Thirteen -were in the sparring room, instructing the other covens in hand--to--hand combat. Faline and Fallon, the green--eyed demon--twins, -were undoubtedly taking some plea-sure from torturing the newest sentinels. They thrived on that sort of thing.
Iskra and Fendir swept over the uppermost peak of the Northern Fang and vanished into the clouds, the other twelve riders trailing in tight formation. The cold wind whipped at Manon’s face, beckoning to her. She was on her way to the caverns to see Abraxos, but she’d wanted to monitor the Yellowlegs Crossing first. Just to make sure they -were truly gone for the next three hours.
She looked across the span of the bridge to the Fang and its giant entryway. Screeching and roaring echoed from it, reverberating across the mountains. “I want you to keep the Thirteen occupied for the rest of the day,” Manon said.
As Second, Asterin was the only one of the Thirteen with any sort of right to question her, and even then, it was only in very limited circumstances. “You’re going to train with him?” Manon nodded. “Your grandmother said she’d gut me if I let you out of my sight again.” Golden hair twining about her in the wind, Asterin’s face, with its now--crooked nose, was wary.
“You’re going to have to decide,” Manon said, not bothering to bare her iron teeth. “Are you her spy or my Second?”
No hint of pain or fear or betrayal. Just a slight narrowing of her eyes. “I serve you.”
“She’s your Matron.”
“I serve you.”
For a heartbeat, Manon wondered when she’d ever earned that kind of loyalty. They -weren’t friends—-at least, not in the way that humans seemed to be friends. Every Blackbeak already owed her their loyalty and obedience as the heir. But this . . .
Manon had never explained herself, her plans, or her intentions to anyone except her grandmother. But she found herself saying to her Second, “I’m still going to be Wing Leader.”
Asterin smiled, her iron teeth like quicksilver in the morning sun. “We know.”
Manon lifted her chin. “I want the Thirteen adding tumbling to their hand--to--hand training. And when you can handle your wyvern on your own, I want you in the skies when the Yellowlegs are aloft. I want to know where they fly, how they fly, and what they do.”
Asterin nodded. “I already have the Shadows watching the Yellowlegs in the halls,” she said, a glimmer of rage and bloodthirst in those gold--flecked black eyes. When Manon raised a brow, Asterin said, “You didn’t think I’d let Iskra off so easily, did you?”
Manon could still feel the iron--tipped fingers digging into her back, shoving her into the pit. Her ankle was sore and stiff from the fall, her ribs bruised from the beating she’d taken from Titus’s tail. “Keep them in line. Unless you want your nose broken a second time.”
Asterin flashed a grin. “We don’t move without your command, Lady.”
?
Manon didn’t want the overseer in the pen. Or his three handlers, all bearing spears and whips. She didn’t want any of them for three reasons.
The first was that she wanted to be alone with Abraxos, who was crouched against the back wall, waiting and watching.
The second was that the human smell of them, the beckoning warmth of the blood pulsing in their necks, was distracting. The stench of their fear was distracting. She’d debated for a good minute whether it would be worth it to gut one of them just to see what the others would do. Already, men -were going missing from the Fang—-men who -were rumored to have crossed the bridge to the Omega and never returned. Manon hadn’t killed any of the men -here yet, but every minute alone with them tempted her to play.
And the third reason she resented their presence was that Abraxos loathed them, with their whips and spears and chains and their hulking presence. The wyvern -wouldn’t move from his spot against the wall no matter how viciously they cracked their whips. He hated whips—-not just feared, but actually hated. The sound alone made him cringe and bare his teeth.
They’d been in the pen for ten minutes, attempting to get close enough to get him chained down and saddled. If it didn’t happen soon, she’d have to go back to the Omega before the Yellowlegs returned.
“He’s never taken a saddle,” the overseer said to her. “Probably won’t.” She heard the unspoken words. I’m not going to risk my men getting it on him. You’re just being proud. Pick another mount like a good girl.
Manon flashed her iron teeth at the overseer, her upper lip pulling back just enough to warn him. He backed up a step, whip drooping. Abraxos’s mutilated tail slashed across the ground, his eyes never leaving the three men trying to force him into submission.
One of them cracked the whip, so close to Abraxos that he flinched away. Another snapped it near his tail—-twice. Then Abraxos lunged, with both neck and tail. The three handlers scrambled, barely out of reach of his snapping teeth. Enough.
“Your men have cowards’ hearts,” she said, giving the overseer a withering look as she stalked across the dirt floor.
The overseer grabbed for her, but she slashed with iron--tipped fingers and sliced his hand open. He cursed, but Manon kept walking, licking his blood off her nails. She almost spat it out.
Vile. The blood tasted rotten, as if it had curdled or festered inside a corpse for days. She glanced at the blood on the rest of her hand. It was too dark for human blood. If witches had indeed been killing these men, why had no one reported this? She bit down the questions. She would think about it another time. Maybe drag the overseer into a forgotten corner and open him up to see what was decaying inside him.
But right now . . . The men had gone quiet. Each step brought her closer to Abraxos. A line had been marked in the dirt where the safety of the chains ended. Manon took three steps beyond it, one for each face of their Goddess: Maiden. Mother. Crone.
Abraxos crouched, the powerful muscles of his body tense, ready to spring.
“You know who I am,” Manon said, gazing into those endless black eyes, not giving one inch to fear or doubt. “I am Manon Blackbeak, heir to the Blackbeak Clan, and you are mine. Do you understand?”
One of the men snorted, and Manon might have whirled to tear out his tongue right there, but Abraxos . . . Abraxos lowered his head ever so slightly. As if he understood.
“You are Abraxos,” Manon said to him, a chill slithering down her neck. “I gave you that name because he is the Great Beast, the serpent who wrapped the world in his coils, and who will devour it at the very end when the Three--Faced Goddess bids him to. You are Abraxos,” she repeated, “and you are mine.”
A blink, then another. Abraxos took a step toward her. Leather groaned as someone tightened their grip on a coiled whip. But Manon held fast, lifting one hand toward her wyvern. “Abraxos.”
The mighty head came toward her, those eyes pools of liquid night meeting her own. Her hand was still extended, tipped in iron and stained with blood. He pressed his snout into her palm and huffed.
His gray hide was warm and surprisingly soft—-thick but supple, like worn leather. Up close, the variation in coloring was striking—-not just gray, but dark green, brown, black. It was marred all over by thick scars, so many that they could have been the stripes of a jungle cat. Abraxos’s teeth, yellow and cracked, gleamed in the torchlight. Some -were missing, but those that remained -were as long as a finger and twice as thick. His hot breath reeked, either from his diet or rotting teeth.
Each of the scars, the chipped teeth and broken claws, the mutilated tail—-they -weren’t the markings of a victim. Oh, no. They -were the trophies of a survivor. Abraxos was a warrior who’d had all the odds stacked against him and survived. Learned from it. Triumphed.
Manon didn’t bother to look at the men behind her as she said, “Get out.” She kept staring into those dark eyes. “Leave the saddle and get out. If you bring a whip in -here again, I’ll use it on you myself.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Muttering and clicking their tongues, the handlers shuffled out and shut the gate. When they -were alone, Manon stroked the massive snout.
However the king had bred these beasts, Abraxos had somehow been born different. Smaller, but smarter. Or perhaps the others didn’t ever need to think. Cared for and trained, they did what they -were told. But Abraxos had learned to survive, and perhaps that had opened his mind. He could understand her words—-her expressions.
And if he could comprehend those things . . . he could possibly teach the other mounts of the Thirteen. It was a small edge, but an edge that could make them Wing Leader—-and make them invincible against the king’s enemies.
“I am going to put this saddle on you,” she said, still cupping that snout. He shifted, but Manon grabbed on tight, forcing him to look at her. “You want out of this shithole? Then you’ll let me put this saddle on you to check the fit. And when -we’re done, you’re going to let me look at your tail. Those human bastards cut off your spikes, so I’m going to build some for you. Iron ones. Like mine,” she said, and flashed her iron nails for him to see. “And fangs, too,” she added, baring her iron teeth. “It’s going to hurt, and you’re going to want to kill the men who put them in, but you’re going to let them do it, because if you don’t, then you will rot down -here for the rest of your life. Understand?”
A long, hot huff of air into her hands.
“Once all that is done,” she said, smiling faintly at her wyvern, “you and I are going to learn how to fly. And then we’ll stain this kingdom red.”
?
Abraxos did everything she asked, though he growled at the handlers who inspected and poked and prodded, and nearly bit off the arm of the physician who had to dig out his rotted teeth to make way for the iron fangs. It took five days to do it all.
He almost took out a wall when they welded the iron spikes onto his tail, but Manon stood with him the entire time, talking to him about what it was like to -ride with the Thirteen on their ironwood brooms and hunt down the Crochan witches. She told the stories as much to distract him as she did to remind the men that if they made a mistake, if they hurt him, her retribution would be a long, bloody pro-cess. Not one of them made an error.
During the five days they worked on him, she missed her riding lessons with the Thirteen. And with each passing day, the window for getting Abraxos airborne became smaller and smaller.
Manon stood with Asterin and Sorrel in the training hall, watching the tail end of the day’s sparring session. Sorrel had been working with the youn-gest coven of Blackbeaks—-all of them under seventy, and few of them experienced.
“How bad?” Manon asked, crossing her arms.
Sorrel, small and dark--haired, crossed her arms as well. “Not as bad as we feared. But they’re still sorting out coven dynamics—-and their leader is . . .” Sorrel frowned at a mousy--looking witch who had just been thrown to the ground by an inferior. “I’d suggest either having her coven decide what to do with her or picking a new leader. One weak coven in the wing and we could lose the War Games.”
The coven leader was panting on the hard stone floor, nose dripping blue blood. Manon ground her teeth. “Give her two days—-let’s see if she sorts herself out.” No need to have word of unstable covens get around. “But have Vesta take her out to-night,” Manon added, glancing to the red--haired beauty leading another coven in archery drills. “To wherever she’s been going to torment the men in the Northern Fang.”
Sorrel raised her thick brows innocently, and Manon rolled her eyes. “You’re a worse liar than Vesta. You think I -haven’t noticed those men grinning at her at all hours of the day? Or the bite marks on them? Just keep the death toll down. We have enough to worry about as it is—-we don’t need a mutiny from the mortals.”
Asterin snorted, but when Manon gave her a sidelong look, the witch kept her gaze ahead, face all -too innocent. Of course, if Vesta had been bedding and bleeding the men, then Asterin had been right there with her. Neither of them had reported anything about the men tasting strange.
“As you will it, Lady,” Sorrel said, a faint hint of color on her tan cheeks. If Manon was ice and Asterin was fire, then Sorrel was rock. Her grandmother had told her on occasion to make Sorrel her Second, as ice and stone -were sometimes too similar. But without Asterin’s flame, without her Second being able to rile up a host or rip out the throat of any challenger to Manon’s dominance, Manon would not have led the Thirteen so successfully. Sorrel was grounded enough to even them both out. The perfect Third.
“The only ones having fun right now,” Asterin said, “are the green--eyed demon--twins.”
Indeed, the midnight--haired Faline and Fallon -were grinning with maniacal glee as they led three covens in knife--throwing exercises, using their inferiors as target practice. Manon just shook her head. What-ever worked; -whatever shook the dust off these Blackbeak -warriors.
“And my Shadows?” Manon asked Asterin. “How are they doing?”
Edda and Briar, two cousins that -were as close as sisters, had been trained since infancy to blend into any sliver of darkness and listen—-and they -were nowhere to be seen in this hall. Just as Manon had ordered.
“They’ll have a report for you to-night,” Asterin said. Distant cousins to Manon, the Shadows bore the same moon--white hair. Or they had, until they’d discovered eighty years ago that the silver hair was as good as a beacon and dyed it solid black. They rarely spoke, never laughed, and sometimes even Asterin herself -couldn’t detect them until they -were at her throat. It was their sole source of amusement: sneaking up on people, though they’d never dared do it to Manon. It was no surprise they’d taken two onyx wyverns.
Manon eyed her Second and Third. “I want you both in my room for their report, too.”
“I’ll have Lin and Vesta stand watch,” Asterin said. They -were Manon’s fallback sentries—-Vesta for the disarming smiles, and Lin because if anyone ever called her by her full name, Linnea—-the name her softhearted mother had given her before Lin’s grandmother tore out her heart—-that person wound up with missing teeth at best. A missing face at worst.
Manon was about to turn away when she caught her Second and Third watching her. She knew the question they didn’t dare ask, and said, “I’ll be airborne with Abraxos in a week, and then we’ll be flying as one.”
It was a lie, but they believed her anyway.