33

The moment the shouting stopped, Brysen felt dizzy. He gagged and coughed, and then he spat out … water.

“Hey, Bry.” Jowyn rested a hand on his back, patting him, and Brysen tried to turn to him, but he lurched forward again and heaved crystal-clear water onto the floor.

Kylee, too, was spitting up water.

Brysen looked at her, then at the puzzled warriors opposite them and the soldiers halfway out the door to search for the egg, and then at Ryven as realization dawned.

“Idiots!” Ryven shouted at them. He ordered his soldiers to the baths before rushing for the door himself. “An egg can’t hatch underwater!”

Brysen knew they had summoned the hatchling from its shell, finally found the words and the intention to call it out, but that they’d called it to its death. It was drowning.

He righted himself to standing and looked at Jowyn. “I need to get back there,” he said quickly, and Jowyn understood. Kylee nodded at Grazim and at the battle boys, and there was no hesitation. They didn’t have birds of prey to fight beside them, but they all immediately charged, rushing the nearest soldiers they could see, tackling them, whaling on them. Even gentle Jowyn took out one Redfist’s legs, toppling them to floor and trying to pin them down.

“What is this!” Birgund bellowed, but Brysen was already through the door. He leapt past two guards who tried to block him and sprinted down the winding steps of the keep to the bright sun, racing across the parade grounds to the entrance of the baths. Ryven was behind him, but the man’s injuries had slowed him, and he was falling farther and farther behind as Brysen sprinted faster and faster ahead.

I’m coming, he thought. I’m coming. Hang in there. I’m coming. I’m right here. I’m coming. I’m here.

He saw Shara in his thoughts, felt her soft brown and gray feathers against his cheek, saw what he’d come to believe was a gentle fury in her red-rimmed goshawk eyes. She’d always been a contradiction—a partner who didn’t really need him, a friend who was indifferent to him, a wild animal that let itself be tamed by him. All Shara ever looked for from Brysen was safety: the one thing he failed to give her. She was dead and gone, but she was here with him, too. In every footfall against the smooth stone, in every thundering breath as he ran, she was there. I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m coming.

He leapt into the water the moment he reached the pool, again soaking his already-wet clothes up to his waist, sloshing through the hot spring, sweating in the steam, until he saw it: a bird’s body, the size of a full-grown hawk but featherless, floating halfway between the bottom and the surface, unmoving, with wings spread.

He sucked in a breath, dove under, and wrapped the creature in his arms, then stood with it cradled to his chest, his sopping-wet gray hair hanging over his eye so that he had to shake his vision free before he could look down at the baby bird. The sun shone on both of them, and the bird’s fresh, raw skin glistened from the water. A few puffs of waterlogged, downy feathers ringed its neck. The texture of firegrass and itchy to the touch, they were the same color as Brysen’s hair—the gray of storm clouds, the gray of smoke. They weren’t black. They weren’t gold. They were nothing.

A newborn bird’s chest should heave with labored breaths from the strain of hatching. This bird’s chest was still, its eyes closed, its body cold even in the sun’s afternoon blaze. Brysen looked down at the bird and whispered, “I’m sorry … I brought you here … I’m so sorry…”

Suddenly the sun blotted out, like the moon itself had eclipsed the day.

Brysen looked up and saw the ghost eagles, in their hundreds, perched on the nets above, looking down with their black eyes, their black bodies pressed so close to one another that no light could get through. They watched, as silent as owls. The only sound he heard was the creaking of the nets under their weight.

Then came the footfalls of the soldiers running after him, some from the keep, some from the sewers. He saw his sister and Jowyn: Uztari soldiers had Kylee. Two Redfists held Jowyn. Nyck and Lyra and Grazim were headed in his direction, fighting every step of the way. Ryven ran up and stood by the edge of the water, too, catching his breath. Blood seeped through the fabric of his sling.

Good, Brysen thought. I hope it hurts.

He looked down again at the bird in his arms. No change to its downy feathers, but he found he wanted there to be. He wanted it to transform, to come back, to lay waste to everything.

The thought nibbled at him. It was like a tick biting his grief, glutting itself on his emotions but infecting him with something else. The ghost eagles wanted his rage and were transforming his regret.

Look at your friends, all prisoners, he thought. Jowyn. Nyall and Ma. Your sister. They will all die unless you stop them. There can be no healing. Only death. Forever death.

Hundreds of ghost eagles looked down at him with grief and anger, longing for him to unleash his emotions. Their hatchling was dead, but they remained tethered to Brysen and they wanted only to do what felt familiar. They wanted to kill.

You know the words to heal it, he thought. This is your purpose. This is your gift. Heal it and we will have our revenge.

He looked up at the people around the baths. All of them were pitted against one another, ready to strike one another down to claim what they thought was their due. All of them thought they had power, but he knew, at that moment, the only power that mattered was his.

The eaglet was dead, far past hearing any falconer’s call, but Brysen had a gift. Brysen could heal it. He was suddenly certain of it, certain that this was his purpose, the reason he suffered, the reason he learned to speak the language of birds, the reason for everything. All his choices brought him here, to this moment, with talents only he possessed.

Call it back, the dread flock above pleaded in his mind. This is your chance for greatness. Show them all who you are.

He felt the word forming on his lips. He felt pride swell inside him. He’d done all he could, followed every sign and obeyed every instinct that led him here, but all that followed him was death. From the moment he first swore he could capture a ghost eagle, he’d tried to prove his greatness, and it brought nothing but grief. And now this bird he swore to protect was drowned because he thought he could outwit armies and defy history, and yet, like a fool, he’d left it to hatch underwater. He was too reckless. Nothing good ever came of chasing power, and that was what the ghost eagles wanted. They wanted him to do what he always did: chase a glory that was beyond his grasp and sow chaos all around him.

If this bird returned to life, everyone would die and then be transformed into death itself. More ghost eagles crying out in a pain they didn’t understand; more people struggling to control them. The cycle of pain and destruction would go on forever. He had to break it. He had to let go.

Standing waist-deep in steaming bathwater, surrounded by soldiers looking down at him and silent ghost eagles above them, he let go of the baby bird. Its wide wings splayed in front of him on the water’s surface, and he stepped back, turned away from it, and sloshed through the water to the bath’s edge. As he wiped his eye, he looked up at his sister. The soldiers holding her had dropped her arms, more frightened of the flock above them than of disobeying orders. “I won’t give them they want,” Brysen said.

He’d sought glory and greatness for so long in as many forms as he could imagine—falconer, then trapper; warrior, then healer; protector and peacemaker—and none of them worked. None of his grand schemes ever worked. He was no hero, and this wasn’t his heroic tale. This was just his life, striving and reaching and never grasping, and he’d had enough. He was done. His pain was his own. He wouldn’t let the ghost eagles use it, not anymore. No one else would suffer because Brysen hurt.

“We’re different,” he said out loud. “A hurt animal attacks. Hurt people don’t have to hurt people. I won’t anymore.”

The ghost eagles looked down at him, their black eyes invisible in the shadows of their faces. Some of the soldiers around the pool had their weapons raised, but they stood totally still. No one dared move with so many ghost eagles overheard. Brysen’s was the only voice, and his shouting was not answered.

“You understand?” he yelled at the ghost eagles. “I’m not one of the twins in your history. I’m done! I will not summon death for you!”

The ghost eagles’ heads all tracked him as he waded to the water’s edge and pulled himself out. He looked straight up at them. They weren’t leaving. They weren’t attacking. They were just … waiting. And then their heads turned.

The flock of ghost eagles screeched as one.

“Oh, merciful sky…,” one of the soldiers in front of him whispered, and the Redfists holding Jowyn let him go, dropping to their knees and pressing their foreheads to the ground. He heard splashing and the fluttering of wings behind him. He spun around.

Across the pool, the hatchling burst from the water. Alive! And bigger than before, its new feathers gleaming gold.

He felt a surge of pure joy, and a smile wider than the horizon cracked across his face. He’d changed the story. All he ever had to do was let go.