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“Now,”he demanded.
“Cranky ass,”I accidentally said through the bond rather than thinking it to myself.
“We have had this discussion before. I am a horse. Now shift.”
I removed my jacket. My skin pebbled from the cold just before my wings emerged behind me.
Odarum walked around me to examine them, sniffing and nudging them with his muzzle before walking back in front of me.“Can you flap them?”
“I can try but the feathers—”
“What’s wrong with feathers?”He shot his head back in offense, ruffling his own wings.
“Oh nothing! They’re just…heavier than I thought.”
“Well, when they are all together they are, even though individually they are not.”He walked around me one more time, making a full circle.“Beat your wings up and down, like this.”He extended his to demonstrate.
I struggled to hold mine out to the sides like him, my muscles screaming as I slowly moved my wings up and back down, slumping them to the ground.
Odarum nodded.“Again.”
For the next hour, I tried and tried again, pushing my body harder in order to continue to beat them against the air. Despite the cold, sweat covered my body, dripping down my forehead and stinging my eyes.
“I have an idea,”he said as he extended one of his wings forward and craned his neck to the side, gently biting one of his feathers and pulling it free from his plumage.
“What are you doing?”I asked curiously.
Odarum placed the black feather, as long as my forearm, on the ground in front of me.“I want you to beat your wings hard enough to lift this single feather off the ground. Once you have donethat, I will allow you to retire for the night,”he said before he disappeared from sight.
“Godsdamnit,” I muttered under my breath.
I closed my eyes and allowed my wings to slump to the ground, resting my back muscles for a few moments. Taking deep breaths, I willed what strength I had left. In and out. In and out. I opened my eyes and concentrated on the feather before me. Cringing from the strain, I lifted my wings and thrust them forward and down as hard as I could.
Nothing.
Over and over for nearly an hour, I tried to pump my wings as hard as I could until I felt like they would fall off. I decided to give it one last shot before I went back inside. I lifted my wings again, at a different angle this time, and thrust them down.
For the briefest moment, I felt nothing through my terbis as my feet left the ground then landed back to the stone again. I breathed a laugh of disbelief as the feather slowly glided through the air, in front of my face. Holding out my hands beneath it, the feather landed in my palms. I tenderly held it between my fingers with a wide smile.
Shifting my wings away, I squealed with glee, hopping from one foot to the other in celebration of lifting not only the feather from the ground, but myself.
“Well done,”Odarum spoke through my mind from wherever in the realms he was.
I was so elated in that moment that I didn’t feel the aching pain of my muscles as I grabbed my jacket and ran back to the palace with a new-found wind in me, feeling exhilarated and awake, with Odarum’s feather in my hand.
By the time I got back to the bedchamber and bathed, it was dark. I quickly got dressed and rushed to the informal dining area, bringing the feather with me, to meet up with Ryker.
One of the Noavo warriors rushed out of the room when I arrived with a look of dread etched on his face. I saw Ryker as I walked in. The sight of him made my heart flutter. He was dressed casually, in a shirt and loose pants standing at the window looking out over the city below.
Smiling mischievously, I tapped into my magic and became invisible. Slowly, silently, I stepped closer and closer, creeping up behind him. Once I was close enough to touch him, I reached my hand out—
“You should really work on your heavy breathing, you know,” his tone was flat.
I scoffed, disappointed. I’d have loved to see the great Lord of Oryn jump out of his skin. I released my magic.
“Yeah, I guess I do,” I laughed. I craned my neck to the side to look at him, and my smile fell when I saw the sullen expression on his face as he read some kind of report in his hands.
“Ryker, what is it? What’s wrong?” I had hoped he still wasn’t upset about earlier, with Hakoa. His friend understood, we all did.
