Or at least that’s what a southern-born harper told me phases ago. But she was high, puffing an herbal smoke stick pinched between my fingers. I was equally high, and quite frankly, more interested in watching her pretty lips move, imagining how they’d feel pressed …elsewhere.
Now I’m wishing I’d paid more attention.
The Elding Bird screeches, boasting a maw of slitting teeth wedged with bits of meat and bone. It stretches its massive wings, the gold-dusted tips brushing the enormous cavern’s sides. Perfectly framing Arkyn, as though the wings arehis.
Theywhumpforward, encasing the dais as the beast dips its head, nuzzling the Scavenger King.
I stare, a thousand words knotted on my tongue.
Arkyn digs his fingers into the beast’s ruddy plumage, scratching deep. The Elding Bird croons, eyes closing. A vision of content devotion. Thesort of love I don’t have in me to dream up … making me realize I’m not hallucinating. Nor am I dead.
Though I am—quite possibly—fucked.
“Do you want to hear a story, Veya?”
“No,” I rasp, watching his skeletal hand tangle with those beautiful curly feathers. “But I doubt I have a choice.”
The throaty sound he makes confirms my suspicions.
“There was once a young bastard,” he murmurs, digging his hand deeper into the beast’s mane, his tone leading me to believe he’s talking about himself. “Though his mah was little more than a null servant, his pah hoped he’d inherit his strong blood and be able to wield three elemental songs. You can imagine his disappointment when the boy reached his tenth phase and could only hear Ignos.”
My bones lock, the story …familiar. Like the strike of an instrument shaped from the essence of my being.
“Not long after, his pah met someone hailed as the most beautiful fae to walk the lands north of the wall, from a long-standing bloodline artfully gifted with Bulder’s song.”
The Elding Bird lifts its crest, making it look as though it’s wearing a crown of flames, its gold-flecked eyes narrowed on me in such a way I’m sure it’s imagining how it would feel to peck out my eyes.
“Her, he bound with, bringing her north to sit beside him on his bronze throne.”
My breath hitches.
Bronze … Throne—
“Not long after they were bound, Kovina began to swell with fresh life,” he says, pronouncing Mah’s beautiful name with a languid tongue that muddies it. Disrespects it. “Alegitimatemale heir.”
Kaan …
“As you can imagine, Ostern’s interest in the bastard’s mah dissipated. While she fell into the rigors of her previous existence, once again preyed on by brutal members of Ostern Vaegor’s armada, Kovinaflourished.”
My throat constricts with the urge to retch.
“Kovina … well, Ostern protected her. In a way that was never offered to the boy’s lowly mah.”
“Stop.”
My voice blasts through the cavern, chased by a hungry silence. Not that it lasts—Arkyn’s next words hard like the stone I’m knelt upon.
“The boy had only just buried his mah when he was tossed a bucket and given the title ofservant, forced to scrub grime from the floors while his brother was nurtured.”
Stinging pain bursts across the backs of my eyes.
“Kaan Vaegor was given the title ofson.”
Arkyn smooths the crest on the creature nuzzling his chest while my tongue aches with the need to set him straight. Tell him Kaan’s favor only lasted until he failed to hear more than two elemental songs. Thathe was fire-lashed. Buried in tombs he was forced to stutter free of, ridiculed for his broken language. That once the twins were born, Kaan was tossed to the plains.
Told to toughen up or die.
“In spite of everything, the stupid boy so desperately wanted to make his pah proud. For him to see that he was worth something. Perhaps even earn the same title.”
