Page 145 of Flames and Blood

“I can take him, if he doesn’t mind the grip.”

“I’ve got him,” I say.

Nobody argues with that. Gideon doesn’t either, though he waits until the others are shifting around us before he says anything at all.

“You’ve never seen me do this,” I say.

“No.”

There’s a flicker in his expression as I strip naked and hand him my clothes. There are still faint bruises on my skin from his fingers, and I force myself not to think about how they got there as I prepare for the shift.

“Hold that.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

I let her out.

Gold scales cover my skin as my body starts to reshape itself, massive wings spreading out over a frame that could only be described as huge. It’s fast. It always is. One breath, I’m standing on gravel, and the next the gravel is scattering away from me in a ring, and I’m looking down at a man holding my clothes.

He doesn’t move. I put my head down toward him and hold still so he can look, because I want him to.

“That’s going to take some getting used to,” he says.

I can’t answer. I lower my head in front of him instead, and wait.

He gets onto my back, grasps the heavy scales along my spine and settles down for the ride.

The flight is a few hours of cold and noise, and I’m aware of him every second. I’ve never carried anything in my life with as much care as I carry him up that mountain.

The Eyrie comes up out of the cloud, and the torches in the yard below stop moving the second we clear the rock. A man sets his lamp down on the stones and forgets to pick it up. Two women grab each other’s arms in a lit doorway. Somebody starts ringing the alarm bell, fast and uneven, because nobody alive here has ever needed to ring it before.

I land last, and Gideon slides down and lands on the ground as I shift. He has my clothes ready before I’ve finished coming back. I dress quickly, and neither of us says anything about it.

Then I turn around and look at the mountain I walked off with nothing.

My mother comes out to receive us. She’s had five minutes’ warning, and she’s used every one of them to prepare herself.

“Caleb Craven, of the Craven clan.”

“Aldrake.”

“You’re welcome at this Eyrie, and your people with you.”

“We’re grateful,” says Caleb. “I am pleased that you have agreed to receive us.”

Her eyes come to me once, in the middle of it. Her mouth tightens. Her chin lifts half an inch. Then it’s gone.

She doesn’t look at Gideon at all.

“Of course,” she says. “We would have preferred a little more warning, but I understand that your business is pressing.”

They take us inside.

The clan assembles in the long hall. By the time we’re seated, every bench is full, and there are people standing along the walls three deep. That’s the point of five Cravens. Whatever happens tonight happens in front of everybody, where no council can quietly decide to bury it a second time.

Sereth comes to me before anybody else does. He crosses half the hall to do it and takes both my hands.