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.