Even after all everyone had been through that horrible day, there was still much to do before more than a few minutes’ rest at a time could be had. To avoid the spread of disease, the griffins with the most strength left were assigned to dracat removal, carrying the remains of their enemies to the cliffs and dropping them off into the water. Those who were too exhausted were returned to their apartments and made as comfortable as possible.

The bodies of all belonging to Nilvar, rider and griffin alike, were burned to ash, which would later be gathered for a solemn ceremony.

Erin was assigned to relief crew, taking medicine and refreshments around the field and Aerie as needed. She’d heard, rather than seen for herself, that Wrath had gone straight back to her apartment and was already working on building a new nest. Her voluntary return was amazing, really, but Erin barely cared.

Dread of the next morning consumed her, wondering what awful thing Koben had planned for them as punishment. It couldn’t be that bad, could it? The prince had always seemed so kind, but that broad smile he gave at that meeting, which should have given her assurance, felt so off, and had only made her heart leap into her throat with a fear she couldn’t name. He wouldn’t let any of them come to harm, right?

She was allowed to check briefly on Phoebe, but, like the other recruits, was forbidden to release any of the keets from their cages. There would be no solace there until things had returned to normal, and the extra risk of thieves was past.

Underscoring it all was Leslyn’s voice, repeating over and over: “I am not Desmond.”

His eyes had told her it was the truth.

She was alone.

It had been dark for hours by the time everyone was released from their work to go home. For once, Erin was ahead of Kaleit, though she trudged with dragging steps.

Other than walking a lot more slowly than usual, he seemed completely unfazed by the encounter with Rittan and the hours of danger he’d just been through. He was certainly tired, though. More than once, she glanced back and caught him walking with his eyes closed and head beginning to droop.

Tannoran and his griffin had passed over above them minutes ago. Erin expected he’d be waiting there at the door when they got back to the manor, and she was right.

He stood at the top of the steps, looking down on his son and ward with grave dignity, chin high and eyes frigid enough that Erin suddenly felt cold from head to toe.

“To the stable, orphan,” he said to Erin, but his eyes were only for his son. “You, with me.”

The quiet words triggered another chill, and Erin looked to Kaleit, suddenly afraid for him.

The boy was glaring up at the captain, his shoulders square and chin held just as loftily. He paid no attention to Erin, clearly well-prepared for whatever was about to come.

Father and son went into the house, and Erin made her way to the stable, anxiety making her constantly look over her shoulder.

She took one of the lit lamps hanging on either side of the doorway and went in, the sweet smell of hay and the warm scent of horse immediately bringing her small, but welcome relief. After slipping the lamp onto a wall hook, filling a section of the stable with warm yellow light, she set to putting together some sort of bed.

Focusing on the soothing nightly nickering and steady breathing of the drowsy and sleeping horses, she gathered up some straw that had been tossed down from the upper level and formed it into a rough mattress right next to the wall. Several saddle blankets went over that, plus one of them rolled up into a makeshift pillow.

Erin smiled as she took off her messenger bag and got into bed, insisting on being proud of herself for making due when things were in such an awful state.

The moment the task was done and everything went still, she burst out crying against her knees, bawling straight from the depths of her gut like a freaking baby.

She was sitting in bed leaning against the wall, gripping the purple crystal heart of her mother’s necklace in one hand and staring at the photo of Phoebe on the tablet in her other hand, when Kaleit came into the stable. Quickly, she shoved the tablet under one of the saddle blankets, then belatedly remembered to wipe away as much evidence of her tears as possible.

Kaleit didn’t even look at her, passing right by where she sat to start climbing the ladder up into the loft. There was blood on his face and an angry-looking bruise was wrapped partway around his upper arm.

“A-Are you all right?” she asked, too shocked to wonder if it was a good idea to do so.

She actually flinched when Kaleit whipped his head toward her, eyes bright with outrage. “Better than he’ll be, when I’m through with him,” he snarled through bared teeth. A dash of red had been smeared across one eyebrow, a dark circle already beginning to form around the eye just underneath. “I’ll kill him. I swear, I’m going to kill him.”

He went swiftly up the ladder, and Erin heard the rustling of straw as he shoved together a large enough pile and collapsed back onto it. The only part of him visible from her bed was one hand hanging over the edge of the loft.

Minutes later, Erin was still sitting with her back mashed against the wall, eyes open fully and locked on that hand. You’re just being stupid, she kept telling herself. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. He didn’t mean it.

But she didn’t actually know that. She’d always thought of him as the sort of person she would have imagined him to be when she drew his dream-portrait on her tablet so long ago, but the truth was, she didn’t really know him at all. Perhaps it was the insane, unfamiliar terrors of the day getting to her, but for the first time, she was genuinely afraid of Kaleit.

The belief that she was the author of this story she was in, some kind of meta character with such importance that she had automatic protection from any harm, had been slowly dissolving since the first time she realized she was not waking up from the dream. Leslyn had, unknowingly, just snuffed out the last hope she had left. Now that she was cut off from her uncle Desmond—maybe forever—this was it. This was all she had, cowering in a stable until daylight, waiting for her luck to run out and something awful to happen. If not tonight, what about tomorrow? A year from now?

She had to escape. But Phoebe… how could she afford to take care of the keet on her own? And where would they go? There was no “home” to return to, no family to take them in. Her only recourse was to earn rightful citizenship.

Erin suddenly remembered what she would have to do to legally release herself from Tannoran’s control, and nearly started crying again.

Who could she trust with something like that?

Who could she trust at all with anything?

If she was in real trouble, who would be willing and able to help? Who in this strange place was truly her friend?

She looked at Kaleit’s hand, still hanging over the lip of the loft. He certainly wasn’t a friend, but he was the most familiar person within reach. There was also a question she desperately needed an answer for, that only he would know. She wasn’t convinced it was worth the risk, but what did it really matter now? At least she’d know one thing about him for certain.

“You wouldn’t… really kill him, would you?”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The timid words had come out so painfully quiet that she was sure he hadn’t heard.

“Just go to sleep, orphan,” Kaleit mumbled, a slight whine coloring the muffled words.

“I’m not going to be able to sleep in here, so I’m trying to pass the time. There’s no one else in here to talk to.”

Kaleit’s hand clenched around the wooden planking and he sat up to send a disgusted grimace down to Erin, the power of the expression amplified by the darkening mark on his face. “Why does it matter so much? It isn’t as if you have any love for Tannoran—or do you?”

“No. He scares me to death.”

Well… why not just admit it and get it over with? Erin always did prefer to speak her mind.

She looked up, fighting the quaver that wanted to weave itself into her voice. “…And you’re starting to scare me, too.”

It was too dark in the loft for the girl to see his eyes clearly, but Kaleit’s brows twitched, then furrowed again.

He was silent for so long that Erin gave up and averted her gaze. Clearly, he didn’t care to answer that. She started shifting the saddle blankets around, trying to make her straw bed a little less lumpy.

“Look, stupid girl,” came the irritated voice from the loft. “The fact is, I have had a very, very long day today, and I am well past my tolerance for Tannoran’s asinine despotism. I might not be willing to kill him outright, but I can’t say I’d be very sad if he had an accident.”

Not knowing what else to do, Erin nodded. That was… better than she’d expected, anyway.

He started to lay back down, but suddenly sat up again. “I can promise that, given the chance, I will gladly cave his face in.”

With that decisive statement, he flopped down with his back toward the edge of the loft.

After mulling it over for a short while, Erin found that she felt moderately mollified, and put herself to bed.

The straw was lumpy and poked her legs where they went over the edges of the saddle blankets, but Erin was so tired that she barely noticed. She thought of Desmond, trying to picture his reaction if she could introduce him to Phoebe. He'd certainly be fascinated, and probably try to figure out what parts of her needed to be medically treated like a bird, and what parts would need a large feline's treatments.

What I wouldn't give to see his stupid face again, she thought as the warmth of sleep enfolded her, and she began to drift off.

A moment later, the warning bells clanged, cruelly ripping her out of sleep and onto her feet. It wasn’t fair. It was ridiculous! She looked up and saw another group of dracats circling overhead. When had those arrived?

Luckily, the Guard was already prepared, ten mounted griffins in a diamond formation just beginning to rise into the air.

“You there, quit gawking and start feeding the keets,” the forewoman snapped, shoving a massive bucket into Erin’s arms. It was so heavy that she instantly collapsed under its weight, falling to her knees. The bucket tipped, spilling out gallons of gelatinous red griffin-vomit over the grass. As Erin gagged into her hand at the overwhelming metallic scent of blood, the keets swarmed the mess, scooping the goop into their maws with great relish.

As she watched, the keets began to grow, thanks to the forewoman’s nutritious offering. Phoebe’s body stretched and rich blue-violet feathers sprouted and extended across her skin, replacing the soft baby fuzz and filling out her stubby wings. Erin observed the other keets, amazed at their similar transformations, and when she looked back at her own griffin, Fee was already saddled and ready to go.

She hurried to Fee’s side to mount, but the royal blue griffin screeched and flared her wings, orange eyes locked on the sky. Erin followed her gaze and saw a third wyvern approaching, far more quickly than the others had. Its color blended so closely with the sky that it was almost invisible, and it was moving like a griffin, diving steeply and blasting forward when it leveled out.

The girl hastily mounted her griffin so they could get airborne, but they were too late. The ground shook as the wyvern landed just in front of them, rising overhead like a moving mountain. It craned its neck down toward the ground to examine them, peering at them with glowing green eyes.

The sky-blue wyvern opened its beak and let out a belching roar, at which Phoebe stretched her neck upward and began to peep excitedly, fluttering her wings.

Leaning over her keet, the titanic Wrath opened her impossibly wide maw, as if to swallow the whole world whole. A moment later, a bloody waterfall cascaded from her throat.

The initial strike of the steaming liquid knocked Erin out of her saddle, slamming her backward onto the ground. It knocked the air from her lungs, and she tried to suck in a deep breath, but choked on a mouthful of blood instead. It continued to flow thick and heavy, and she fought to sit up, trying to cover her face enough to get a breath. It pressed her flat against the ground, the weight of the pouring blood too much for her to overcome. She couldn’t see anything but solid red all around. She couldn’t breathe. She was drowning.

In pure panic, Erin shoved her feet into the grass and launched herself backward—slamming her head right into the wall behind her. There was a moment of terrifying pain and blindness as her vision screwed up for a second, then the wooden floor and walls, bathed in warm yellow lamplight, snapped back into focus.

She was lying on her makeshift bed of straw and saddle blankets, warm and dry in Tannoran’s sweet-smelling stable.

That was all she could take. Erin tensed up to the fullest, as if she were about to explode, then abruptly went limp with a feeble whimper, unable to stop the tears from gushing forth.

“Oh, for— What is it now?

Kaleit looked over the edge of the loft, his expression quickly shifting to indicate that he wished he hadn't. He disappeared again a moment later.

Curled up on her side, Erin was too far gone to even think about being ashamed anymore, or controlling the volume of her sobs.

It went on for a while, until Kaleit slammed his fist against the floor of the loft. “You’re wasting your strength, acting like an infant,” he called out, not bothering to move from his bed. “Crying doesn’t change anything. Just go to sleep.”

The only response he got was a flinch, and more sobs.

He sat up, glaring down at Erin. “Not only are you the stupidest girl I’ve ever met, but now you’re the noisiest—and ugliest one, as well.”

Not too long ago, she might have found that amusing, or at least rude enough to kick her out of her funk and into a righteous rage. Just then, though, she most certainly didn’t think much of the comment. She barely even heard it, and went right on crying.

“…Please stop.” He was beginning to sound a little desperate.

“Leave me alone,” Erin moaned, grabbing the rolled-up blanket and hiding her face with it.

For a time, the stable was completely silent except for the sound of her pathetic sobbing.

“The truth is, I didn’t sleep at all, the night after my first time on the battlefield."

When Erin looked up, peering past the blanket, Kaleit was sitting with his legs hanging over the edge of the loft, eyes gone distant.

“I was fourteen.”

That young? Erin was already five years older than that. At fourteen, she was wearing makeup and flirting with boys with her friends at school, while secretly playing with dolls and model horses in private at home. She couldn’t imagine how much more terrifying the battle against the dracats would have been, if she’d have witnessed it back then.

“I saw a man torn in half by those monsters, and his griffin carved up into five or six pieces before any of it even hit the ground. I can still hear its screams, even now. That wasn’t even the worst of it.” Kaleit stared off at nothing, absently trailing fingers around his bruised eye socket as he relived those ugly memories. “Late that night, I took Tannoran’s coat from its hook, wrapped myself in it, and sat on the floor outside of his bedroom until dawn. I never told him. He would have just mocked me and made sure I was restricted to bucket duty the next time the dracats attacked.”

“Why is he always so awful to you?” Erin was sitting up now, hugging the rolled-up blanket in her arms.

“I’ve got my father’s legacy to live up to.” He held up his hand in a sort of shrug. “How else was Tannoran supposed to teach me to do it?”

“Maybe by saying something nice to you, for once,” she snapped. “He never says anything encouraging. All he ever does is insult you, even after you’ve done something perfectly. It’s so annoying.”

Kaleit was about to retort instantly, but thought the better of it. He took a breath and started again with another thought, but paused a second time. “Yes, he does do that,” he said on the third try. “Right, you’ve stopped crying. Time to go back to sleep.”

Erin nodded, and gave it another attempt. This time, she thought about her mother, certain that strong, brave Archer wouldn’t have been anywhere near as much of a big baby, were she in Erin’s place.

When she jerked out of another nightmare, already whimpering in fear before she was even fully awake, Kaleit leaned over the side of the loft again.

“Please, just be quiet and go to sleep,” he begged.

“I can’t. I just can’t. Every time I close my eyes, they’re here.”

His teeth showed themselves in an incredulous grimace. “Look—there’s plenty of room up here. You can sleep back there, on that big pile.” He gestured further in. “I’ll be here guarding the ladder, so nothing can get you. All right?”

Erin thought about it for a moment, then started gathering up her bed. First, she took one blanket and rolled it up, then the next. There were about four more to go, and then she’d need to make a few trips to get them all up that ladder.

She felt the breeze as Kaleit walked right past her. She turned just in time to see him touch his back to the wall and slide down to sit on the floor between her bed and the stable door. Once he was seated, he leaned his head back against the wall with a pointed thump, glaring at her all the while.

“You took too long,” he snipped. “Goodnight.”

Mutely, Erin held out the rolled blanket she had in her hands. Kaleit narrowed his eyes at her, but then snatched the blanket and tucked it behind his neck. After that, he crossed his arms and shut his eyes.

It took a few minutes to reassemble her bed, but Erin made a sincere effort to do it as quickly and quietly as she could, then lay down with her messenger bag clutched against her chest. This was far, far from ideal, but seeing someone there, just a few feet away—even someone as awful as Kaleit—finally allowed her to rest without the sight of wings, teeth, and blood appearing before her closed eyes.

At last, Erin slept.