Exhaustion had settled deep into my bones by the next morning. I’d spent the rest of the night lying in bed, unable to sleep, and now each step felt like a gust of wind pushed back at me. It was a familiar sensation, a heavy, slow feeling that had haunted me for months. Some small part of me had hoped it had gone for good, but in truth, I’d known it might always be there, ready to drag me down the moment I waded too deep into my self-doubt, into my dark, acrid memories, into the knowledge of what I faced.
I’d done all those things in the long hours of dawn. Now my mind swam with thoughts I couldn’t control, couldn’t banish. Would Caylus abandon me? Would Ericen catch us and drag me back to Illucia? Would Trendell ally with Rhodaire?
Never mind that Res had just used his powers successfully for the first time against our enemy. Never mind Kiva’s arm was healed and she had Sinvarra back.
The feeling never cared about the stuff I should be happy about. It was like the sea or the wind or the rain; it simply was, and I had to deal with it.
The whine of slicing metal snapped my train of thought. I whirled out of the way as Kiva brought Sinvarra down in a broad stroke and leapt back, my boots clattering against the solid wood of the main deck. The cacophony of sounds all around us flooded back, centering me in the moment.
Kiva grinned, sword poised for another strike. My heart hammered. The black gold blade had been wrapped to dull its edge, and Kiva would have softened the blow, but it still would have hurt. I needed to pay attention—it wouldn’t be long before sparring became war. I had to be prepared.
The eyes of the crew strayed from their tasks to watch us, and Talon, the ship’s lookout, shouted unhelpful advice from the crow’s nest.
“Charge her!” he called. “Take her legs out!”
The sun heated my flying leathers, and sweat beaded on my brow. Kiva’s skin was flushed pink, her jaw set. She lunged again. I dodged, stepping inside her guard and twisting. I seized her sword wrist and threw an elbow back into her stomach. She wheezed, releasing the sword like I’d expected—and then her arms came around me in a great bear hug, pinning my arms to my side and leaving me trapped.
“Hit her in the chin!” Talon called. “The chin!”
“Shut. Up,” I wheezed.
Kiva laughed and, after a moment of my struggling, finally released me. “You’re fun to spar with when you’re distracted,” she said. “I get to stomp you without trying.”
“I’m going to put seaweed in your bed,” I grumbled back.
“Are the two of you done?” Samra called from the quarterdeck. Aroch perched on her shoulder. “You’ve been taking up my deck space for long enough.”
I waved in acknowledgment and approached the shadowed area below where Res perched on the quarterdeck rail. He had his wings half lifted, the breeze fluttering his feathers. He balanced easily as he experimented with the feel of the wind.
For one long breath, I let my dark thoughts rise. Ericen would catch us and kill him. I wouldn’t be strong enough to be Res’s rider. One crow wouldn’t be enough to stop Illucia. He’d be the last of his kind, the other eggs forever out of my reach.
With a heavy exhale, I shoved the rising tide of emotion back down, where it settled into a molten pool of lead in the pit of my stomach. The feeling might never leave, but I’d learned how to fight this battle. I’d learned that I could.
I am more.
“Rider ahead!” Talon called a moment before Jenara ascended the gangplank. She wore her old riding leathers, a sight that brought me closer to tears than I wanted to admit. It’d been a long time since I’d seen another rider wearing them.
Res fluttered down before her, something small and green clasped delicately in his beak. He dropped it proudly before Jenara.
“Is that for me?” She scooped the item up, revealing a grass-colored rope knotted in the shape of a leaf.
“Is that one of my talismans?” Samra leaned over the deck railing. “Your crow’s a damned thief!”
I grinned sheepishly, holding up a piece of black coral Res had given me that morning. “I was going to give this back at dinner.”
Samra grumbled something under her breath as Kiva snickered, sheathing Sinvarra. “What, nothing for me?” she asked.
Res eyed her sidelong, then leapt from the ship, disappearing over the edge. He soared upward a moment later, circling back around to Kiva. But rather than land, he simply opened his beak atop her and doused her in water.
I swallowed a laugh, but a low chortle burst from Jenara.
“Saints! Stupid chicken.” Kiva shook the water from her arms and stomped over to where she’d left a cup of water, only to find Aroch there lapping it up. She threw up her hands. “He’s in league with the bird!”
Res let out a cackling noise much like a laugh and circled back to land before Jenara. She patted him gently on the neck. “I’m ready whenever you two are.”
We waited while Jenara retrieved two buckets, one filled with seawater, the other empty, and set them before Res.
“This is one of the most basic water crow training exercises,” she explained. “The goal is to move the water from one place to another.”
A painful familiarity flared at Jenara’s instruction, pulling free memories of my lessons with Estrel. She should have been the one helping me train, the one at my side. I’d thought it more than once while working on Res’s storm magic with Caylus, but I felt it even more keenly now, standing next to another rider clothed in flying leathers.
I turned the feelings aside and looked to Res. “All you.”
He squared up, lifting his head. Then he gave a low, whimpering caw and flopped pitifully to the deck, his wings spread limp as if unable to hold them up for need of food.
“Impressive,” Jenara mused.
I groaned. “Caylus isn’t here to give in to your begging.” I winced at the own truth of my words. This was usually the part where I griped at Res and Caylus bribed him with scones and cookies. But he hadn’t come out for breakfast, and I worried he wasn’t eating.
Res croaked softly.
“He isn’t coming,” I replied just as quietly.
Res eyed me, plucking at the cord as if to ferret out the lie before slowly clambering back to his feet. He hopped to the bucket full of water, leaning close to inspect it, then tapped it once with his beak, making it ripple.
“Focus on the size of the water,” Jenara told him. “Imagine its weight and substance. Think of it as a single entity.”
Res lowered his head, focusing on the water. Energy surged along our bond. I hovered over his shoulder, holding my breath.
The water beveled, rising up the sides. I nearly squealed in delight. Then whatever control Res had over it evaporated, and it sloshed back into place.
“You did it!” I exclaimed.
He cawed triumphantly, lifting his head.
“Sort of,” Kiva muttered from the shade of the quarterdeck. She’d commandeered a new glass of water, and Aroch now sat on one of her broad shoulders, a fate to which she seemed resigned.
Jenara chuckled. “It wasn’t bad for a first try. Let’s keep going.”
We spent most of the afternoon on the task, trying again and again until Res finally managed to move the bulk of the water from one bucket to the other. Then we switched to moving different-sized globs of it, which proved far more difficult. By the time the sun had begun to set, Res was exhausted, hungry, and looked about ready to heft the water bucket over the side of the ship.
“That’s enough for today,” Jenara said, scratching Res’s neck. He leaned into it, nearly knocking her over. “It’s a shame you can’t stay longer.”
I nodded. “We have a few days to spare, but it’s probably best we don’t linger where Razel can easily find us.”
“Well, in that case, take this.” She handed me a folded paper from her pocket. I opened it to reveal a detailed training routine for Res to follow. She flipped the paper over in my hands, pointing to a corner where she’d written a list of towns and names, some of which I recognized. They were all retired riders.
“Friends of mine live in these towns. They’re all on your way to Trendell, and they each rode a different kind of crow in their day. Stop by if you can and see if they can help you with Res.”
“I can’t thank you enough,” I said, tucking the paper safely into my pocket.
She smiled warmly. “It’s you we should be thanking. It’s no easy task you have ahead of you. Take care of yourself. Both of you.” She clapped me on the shoulder again, then enveloped me in another hug, saying in a low voice, “And make Razel pay for what she’s done.”
“I will.”
* * *
After posting a letter to Caliza to let her know I was safe and to update her on the fires, surviving crow eggs, and our upcoming itinerary, we set sail from Isair early that evening, half the town pouring out onto the promenade to see us out.
It took a little convincing to get Samra to agree that stopping in the other towns was for the best, but in the end, she accepted that Res needed the training. With just over a week of travel remaining and nearly two weeks before Belin’s Day, we could spare a few hours in each town for me to track down the riders and get their help starting Res on training regimens for the other powers.
It felt good to have an immediately actionable plan. Something to keep me busy through the days of travel and distract me from the immensity of what waited ahead. It didn’t stop that heavy feeling from seeking me out, but it helped.
When Caylus didn’t come to dinner again, I carried a bowl of stew and plate of bread to his room, my mind so engrossed in the latest Sella tale Darya had spun that I almost missed the sounds echoing from within. A sharp, heavy thudding. Rhythmic and bone deep, it made me shudder. I turned the handle and pushed open the door.
A dim sona lamp shadowed Caylus’s broad form. His back was toward me, his shirt gone, baring the crisscross of angry red and white lines. He’d pinned a pillow to the wall before him and wrapped his hands in strips of cloth, but neither had stopped his knuckles from scraping raw and staining both fabrics a bright, vicious red.
He drove his fists into the pillowed wall again and again, the strike of bone against wood turning my stomach. Caylus didn’t even flinch. How used to pain did someone have to be before bloodying their knuckles against a wall over and over again had no effect?
“Stop.” The word came out as a whisper, lost beneath his strikes. I swallowed hard, finding my voice. “Caylus, stop!”
He froze, arm half-extended, bloody knuckles metallic in the dim sona light. For a moment, he simply stood there, his shoulders heaving with his wild breathing, every muscle coiled like a knotted chain. Then he faced me, and the hollowness in his eyes nearly broke me. Tears tracked down his cheeks, his jaw a tight line.
I didn’t know what to do.
“Why?” I asked hoarsely.
He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. Trembling, I set the bowl on the small desk and closed the distance between us. I reached for one of his damaged hands, still curled into an impossibly tight fist. He shuddered.
He’s spent too long fighting. Given too much of his life to it.
Samra’s voice beat a dangerous tattoo in my head.
Caylus has been forced into them again and again, and he is one wrong blow away from breaking.
An uncomfortable thought sprouted in my head. He didn’t want to fight, but he would for me.
He didn’t want to be here, but he came for me.
My hands looked so small beside his. I curled my fingers around his hand, cupping it like an injured bird. “I don’t expect you to fight for me, Caylus,” I said. His eyes widened, but I pressed on before he could argue. “You’ve done so much for me already. More than I had any right to ask, and I’m so sorry for what it’s cost you. I know how hard this is for you, and I know it isn’t what you want. You don’t have to do this.”
“You don’t understand,” he breathed, voice jagged. He stumbled through his words, not with his usual nerves but with an energy barely contained. “I want—I—” He stopped. Tried again. “There’s something wrong with me, Thia.” The words were half confession, half prayer, and they spilled out of him. “When I first met you in the Colorfalls, and then when we went looking for Malkin, it was like some other part of me took over. I wanted to fight. I wanted to drive my fist into your opponent’s face until only blood remained.”
I drew in a sharp breath. He didn’t notice, his eyes trapped on some spot over my shoulder without truly seeing.
“There’s this—this hole inside me that I fall into when I’m fighting, and I lose myself to it. I don’t know how to stop when I’m inside there. I don’t know how—how to find myself.”
What are you looking for, Caylus?
I don’t know.
“It becomes my purpose,” he said. “I want to help you. I want to stop Malkin and Razel before they destroy anyone else’s world like they destroyed mine. But I don’t want to fall into that hole again. I don’t want that to be my purpose.”
Malkin had made fighting Caylus’s life. He’d made it his survival, his everything. And no matter how much ocean we put between the Ambriels and us, those chains still bound him.
I still held Caylus’s hand, trapped between my own as if letting it go meant letting him go, as if he’d simply fade away.
“Your past doesn’t have to be your future.” Ever so gently, I pressed my fingers to the place where his nails dug into his palm. Carefully, I straightened one finger, and then the next, until the fist was gone, leaving bloody crescents in its wake.
He stared down at his damaged hand, his fingers trembling in my grasp. He tried more than once to talk before the words finally came. “Have you ever felt like no matter what you do, there’s no putting the pieces of yourself back together?”
“Every day.”
He swallowed, nodding. Caylus knew all about the pain that had plagued me for months, that still did. Hatching Res didn’t erase the loss of so much. Some cracks couldn’t be mended; they only became a part of you instead, forever places that left you unsteady.
“It feels impossible,” he said. “Like trying to repair shattered glass.”
“You should know better than anyone that’s not impossible.” I placed my hand palm to palm with his, his skin rough with calluses and scars. Each one told a sad, dark tale. “If you melt it down, you can re-form it into anything. Even something new.”
His fingers curled about my palm, his touch tentative. “You make it sound so easy.”
“It’s not,” I admitted. After months of struggling to put my own pieces back together, I knew how hard a process it was, how many cracks still ran through me. “But it’s easier when you have people to help you. I will always be here to help you, Caylus.”
I lifted my free hand but paused, my fingers hovering above his face. I didn’t know what stopped me touching him. The gesture suddenly felt too intimate, the boy before me at once foreign and familiar. But not touching him felt like drawing a line, one I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
The distance that had opened between us sat like an invisible hand against my chest, pushing me back.
In the end, I let my hand drop, feeling oddly betrayed by myself. I stepped back to find him looking at me in confusion, his head tilted like it did when faced with a problem he couldn’t solve.
“What?” I asked.
He bit his lip. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
I shook my head, though a part of me knew exactly what he meant. This distance between us was made of more than fear and painful questions. More than my fire to fight and his desire to be something more than what Malkin had made him.
What had grown between us in his workshop had been a friendship unlike any I’d had before. Kiva was my life, my blood, but Caylus had been there for me during a time of my life I never thought I’d see. He’d helped me hatch Res, raise him, and train him. Our connection had grown from a shared sense of curiosity and a need for healing.
But I didn’t love him. Not in the way I’d hoped. And looking into his gentle face, I knew he felt the same way.
“I care about you so much, Caylus,” I said softly. “You gave me peace in a place that threatened to break me, and I owe you everything for that. Without you, I may never have figured out how to hatch the egg, and your friendship means more to me than I can ever say.”
He waited, green eyes dark in the fading dusk.
I forced my voice steady. “But the feelings I used to have for you, that I thought I might always have for you, they aren’t there anymore.”
Caylus’s hand trembled in mine. He bit his lip, started to speak, stopped, and then did it all again in a pattern of uncertainty I’d grown to know so well.
“I…don’t feel that way either,” he said.
A relieved smile pulled at my lips. “I’m so glad you’re here, Caylus. I really am. You make me feel calm, something I’m not very good at being, and I need that. And I will always be thankful for everything that you’ve done for Rhodaire and me. I can never repay you. But I think…” I hesitated.
“That we’re a little too different?” he offered, and I was surprised by the accuracy of that situation. He’d never been the most perceptive of people, but he’d always been aware of me, of what I wanted and needed. He was a better friend than I could have asked for.
“Yes,” I said. “But I also think our lives are meant for different paths.”
I’d railed against Samra’s warning, but now I saw what she did.
I saw a boy who had been knocked down too many times to count but who had always stood back up. I saw a brilliant mind that wanted nothing more than to learn and grow and discover new things, even if it meant losing himself in them. I saw a friend.
Caylus ran a hand through his perpetually unruly hair, unsuccessfully attempting to get it to lay flat. “To be honest with you,” he said softly, “I’ve started to realize… Well, I’m not sure.” He paused, folding his arms almost protectively about himself. “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel that way.”
I raised an eyebrow, listening.
“I really care about you, just not in that way. Not romantically. I’ve never felt that way toward someone, and…” He trailed off. “Well, I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I followed what was expected of me instead of what I wanted. And I’m not sure I want to be in a relationship like that.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’m still figuring it out.”
I nodded in understanding. “I’m here if you ever need to talk about it.”
Caylus smiled, squeezing my hand. “I’ll still be here for you too. I’m coming to Trendell one way or another. I’ve always wanted to visit Eselin anyways. Did you know they have a university that’s open to the public? It’s free too. Anyone can walk in and sit in the lectures.”
“Thank you. Having you with me means more than I can say.” I squeezed his hand gently, lifting it. “You should get Luan to look at your hands. And come join us for training tomorrow. Res is so much more compliant when you’re around.”
“I think that’s the scones,” he muttered, and I glowered at him. “Right, no scones.”
I snorted, even as something inside me threatened to break. This was the way things were meant to be between us: easygoing, comfortable, quiet. But none of those were what waited for us in the coming weeks.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.
He smiled. “Eventually.”
I nodded. Sometimes eventually was all we could ask for.