There were very few spectators left in Wrath's apartment when the disheveled search party returned, either out of fear or presumably to bury the unfortunate man Wrath had killed. Leslyn saw that among those who remained were Katharesa and her wereling companion Teryn, the two appearing to have taken something of a leadership role in the absence of the Aeriemaster.
“See, my friends? All is well,” the Queen said to the crowd as Leslyn and the others began to file in. She bade the observers return to their places to continue watching the event.
It was a tense moment when Wrath entered, her posture upright and her neck elegantly arched like a swan’s. A few people moved to stand or sit further away from her as she proudly strutted by with her prize. Arlis was at her side, one hand resting on her leg as they went.
They reconvened in her cage exactly as they had before, except that Arlis now stood beside Leslyn and Kaleit. The boy’s addition caused a stir in the audience, which the Aeriemaster silenced with a loud, “The mother always chooses, and you never want to cross a mother.” No one present could argue with that. Wrath had proved the truth of the saying several times over already.
A quiet sound came from General Xavara. Without turning to look, Leslyn recognized it as a muffled sob. Only one mother was truly making the choices that day.
Beside Leslyn, Kaleit stared distantly through the floor, refusing to watch as the griffin collected her red keet and presented it to the years-younger boy. The embarrassment was probably suffocating just then, Leslyn guessed.
As soon as the red had finished its first meal, Arlis set the bowl aside, cupped the little creature’s face in both blood-soaked hands, and gazed into its eyes. The red immediately began purring a musical-sounding trill, gently touching its tiny beak to his chin. His own eyes, nearly as large as the keet’s, were bright and soft with unbridled delight, and his smile was beautiful.
It was a childlike joy that made Leslyn’s heart leap as he looked back to Wrath with new hope. If he was to bond with a griffin, he wanted it to be like that.
Reality hit him fast when Wrath pinned the black keet beneath her foot. Finding itself trapped, it wriggled and screeched as if possessed, craning its head backward over its own shoulders to bite at Wrath's toes. Its attacks were utterly ineffective on its mother, but Leslyn involuntarily swallowed at the thought of what its beak and talons would do to soft manling flesh.
Beside him, Kaleit had gone pale. He looked back and forth between the mother and offspring, then at Leslyn. When their gazes met, all uncertainty vanished. Kaleit curled his lip at Leslyn, and he stepped forward.
This time, Wrath was silent. She drew herself upright and approached the bold young man with wings folded and eyes narrowed. When they were face to face, she snorted, then looked at Leslyn. Both ears were flattened against her skull in a hateful look. Leslyn was startled by her sudden attention, but managed to control his face. Wrath's next glance was for her keet, then she turned back to Kaleit, one ear pinned, the other at half-mast, and the crest of her mane beginning to lift.
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It was a question. She was talking to Kaleit, Leslyn was sure of it.
The youth's eyes followed hers to Leslyn and then to the keet, his expression hardening steadily as the moments passed. When she beheld him again with that questioning look, eyes narrowing still more, Kaleit's brows jerked upward.
"No," he said, his voice faint and husky with surprise. "Don't do this to me."
Wrath seemed to scowl, her jaw pulling downward, but she waited on Kaleit as he continued in a quiet murmur, forcing it out through clenched teeth.
“You knowingly gave away every one I wanted. I don't know what I've done, and I don’t know or care what he’s done to make you spite us so, but know this: Unless you slay me here and now, I won't leave without this keet. I’m through with waiting.”
Leslyn was right beside him but could barely make out the words, and judging from the rumble of confusion on the crowd, no one else could hear a thing. He dared not speak to Wrath himself, unwilling to risk getting himself killed for that particular keet and not entirely certain he could safely say no if she did offer it to him.
A muttering growl bubbled up from Wrath’s throat, and she paced her cage again. She nearly stepped on the sickly yellow keet, but it was startled by her shadow and made itself known with a jerk that flipped it clear over. It struggled for a moment to rise, but then gave up and lay still.
The blue returned to give the two boys one last look-over, then finally plucked up the black keet and placed it before Kaleit.
With a triumphant smile, the youth accepted her gift and carried out his keet’s first feeding. The black keet was especially messy, splattering its meal everywhere—including all over Leslyn.
After his hands were cleansed by the Aeriemaster, Kaleit smiled smugly at the other boy and walked away, the keet scrambling along at his heels.
Leslyn watched it all with a heavy feeling inside. He hadn’t expected to be standing there, when he first arrived in Nilvar. Even after learning about the pact between manling and beast, he hadn’t expected to become so excited to claim one of the infant griffins, but so close to the end, something about Arlis’ bond with the red had stirred up a flame of longing within. A flame that had been cruelly smothered, and his hope utterly crushed.
His back was still straight and his head held high as he turned his back on the nest and began to leave, trailing behind the newly-bonded pairs. Perhaps later, when he was alone, he would let his head hang, but what shreds of pride he had left kept him standing tall.
Gunu and Koben met him at the cage door, sympathetic looks on their faces. As one, they looked up at something behind Leslyn, the sympathy turning to surprise.
When he turned, Wrath loomed over him. The yellow keet lay on the floor between them, moved from the nest by its mother. There was an odd quality in the blue’s expression when she slid her foot across the floor, pushing the keet right up to Leslyn’s toes. Something almost man-like, the way her eyes turned to slits and the corners of her mouth… was he just imagining that they twisted upward?
She didn’t bother to bring up a meal for the sickly keet. Instead, she turned away and scraped at her nest with her claws, much like a dog would after doing its business. Twigs and straw flew at Leslyn until she stopped.
She sniffed at the remains of the nest, nosed it a bit, and settled down to rest, never once looking at the boy—or her keet—again.