My heart ruptures beneath the words.
I, too, know the crush of Pah’s antipathy. Difference is, I had a constant role model who made me feel both loved and seen. A brother who raised and nurtured me to be strong and capable rather than lean too hard into unhealthy compulsions to toss my life about like a piece of trash.
“I don’t want to hear any more—”
“The boy—” Arkyn continues, “he remembered a song his mah used to sing while putting him to sleep. A ballad about an Elding Bird who’d built a roosting flourish in the mountains after surviving the huntings that rid our world of her kind. He went in search of the beast, finding three golden eggs.”
My gaze flicks to the Elding Bird trilling in Arkyn’s loose embrace, nuzzling deeper. Like it’s seeking comfort.
“Rather than plunder the nest, he made a deal with the beast, receiving an egg in exchange. An egg he took back to Dhomm and presented to his pah. But Ostern was not pleased as the boy had hoped.”
A tremble starts at the base of my spine, shaking me gently.
Then harder. Faster.
“Do you know what he did, Veya?”
“Please stop,” I whisper, perfectly aware of how deep Pah’s words burned.
How hard his actions struck.
“He ordered the boy to place the egg on the ground, then brought his boot down upon it.”
The statement is a clenched fist that punches me just below the sternum, making a blunt sound heave up my throat.
“His heel was still in the muck as he looked the boy in the eye and told him he could claim every egg in the world, but he wouldneverbe good enough for the title of Ostern Vaegor’s son. Then, he told him torun.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, tears slipping down my cheeks.
“Can you guess what he did next?”
Yes …
A stir of wind and ash buffets my face.
“Look at me.”
I do, gasping at Arkyn’s close proximity, now crouched before me, fingers reaching up to flick his hood back off his head. And though I expect it, seeing the puckered, melted flesh on the right side of his face is still shocking enough to halt my heart.
“Hideous, isn’t it?”
I don’t answer, observing the gnarled shape of his lips, his eye halfmelted shut, ear gone. His nose looks as though the flesh started to drip from the tip before it set, giving the fierce impression of a beak.
The side of his face that isn’t burnt reminds me of Cadok, but finer. Paler. And perhaps with a little less madness in his eyes. More gut-wrenching heartache, carefully veiled.
But I see it.
“If it weren’t for Cliár, I would’ve died that dae. But she saved me.”
I look over his broad shoulder toward the Elding Bird as she fluffs her feathers, the gold specks becoming so luminous they glow in the dark. Igniting her majestic shape.
Boasting just how huge she is.
I swallow, stare drifting. Scouring the piles of scavenged stuff surrounding us. The weapons, bits of armor, helmets—
I remember the story. Think of the brutal evidence of his bloodlust as a terrible truth settles, gouging its claws into my heaving heart.
My next words are a leaden whisper. “You want the bronze throne.”
