The floors were groaning. The walls whispered his name: “Eolh . . . Eolh . . .”

The bed was rocking, or maybe it was the floor, but the linen sheets were so sweet and warm he didn’t think he would ever get up. Eolh pulled the sheets tighter, wishing the walls would stop talking.

“Wake . . . up . . .”

“Shut up and let me sleep,” he groaned.

“The human . . .”

Eolh’s eyes shot open.

A dim gaslight hissed in the corner of the room. Vines creeped along the walls, jostling Eolh’s bed. The sterile smell of chemicals mingled with the scent of old bark.

“I can’t smell him . . .” The Doctor’s voice, breathless with worry, rushed out from the walls.

“What does that mean?” Eolh said.

“I can’t see him . . . either.”

Eolh groaned as he threw the sheets off and hauled himself out of bed, stopping only to grab Laykis’s eye from under the pile of his awful-smelling overclothes. He ducked into the infirmary room across the hall, using the eye to light his way.

The sheets were strewn across the human’s bed. A feeling rose in Eolh’s chest, a tightness that made it hard to breathe.

“Is he upstairs?”

“No . . .”

“Gods damn it.”

Eolh banged a fist against the wall, but there was no strength to his blow. He cursed the fledgling. He cursed himself for letting it happen. Again.

“When did he leave?” Eolh said.

“Hours ago . . . his scent lingers . . .”

Eolh dashed back into his room, muttering more obscenities to himself. He threw on his clothes, ignoring the pungent scent of sweat and sewer, grabbed his hook and clipped it to his wrist plate. Then he headed for the stairs. With his hook gripping the worn wooden rail, he stopped.

“Doctor. If he returns before I do, I don’t care what you have to do. Take him. Tie him down. Do not let him leave.”

“Be . . . careful . . . Eolh. The gate . . . has been opened.”

The gate? Eolh thought. How? The next opening is weeks away.

Eolh shook his head. There was no time for questions. He sprinted up the steps toward the vacant apartment where they had talked during the night, looking for any sign of the human.

Out on the balcony, the Doctor’s warning became so much worse.

Black shapes flew circles over the city. Too large and too unnatural to be avian, they scooped low over the rooftops, gliding through the air with impossible grace, heedless of either wind or gravity. Each fuselage was split into twin pincers—the fangs for which they earned their name, like the black tusks of some deep jungle predator—aiming down at the brick chimneys and cast-iron smokestacks of the city.

Their prey could do nothing.

Just like last time. Just like all those years ago.

Worse, Eolh thought he knew where the human had gone. That damned statue had caught his attention for too long. Where else would he go?

But just a glance down the Midcity vium told Eolh he would never find the human without help. The vium was swarming with legions of cyran soldiers, and the guard towers were scanning the alleys with huge spotlights. Even the Fangs were looking for him.

The city was vast, and Poire could be anywhere.

Who can I ask for help?

It wasn’t as if he still had friends in Lowtown. Not after what he’d pulled. Horace was not free with his forgiveness, and word would have spread to the other gangs that Eolh the Listener had gotten twisted up in a job gone wrong.

Besides, he had history with the other gangs. Too much history. Even on the best of days, they were prone to sell him out faster than a featherhand could empty your pockets.

What about the Queen?

His mind rolled back over their conversation. Just when he was starting to trust her, the Queen started talking about joining the Empire. As if they could just forget the last nineteen years. Death. Fire. Not to mention the crucifixions.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

But . . .

Eolh looked down at his hook. His best flight feathers had been on that hand, and he had been afraid to test it. Afraid to find out that he was landbound.

Eolh gripped the splintered wood balcony in his talons. He stretched out his wings, filling his feathers with the humid air. A numbing sensation rolled up his severed wrist, painfully uncomfortable. But he could still feel a moment of lift as the rest of his body became lighter. Eolh flapped his wings again, harder this time. Ignoring that numb, stabbing sensation.

It would have to do. She would have to do.

What other choice did he have?

Eolh looked up at the stars winking behind the clouds. He spoke to himself in a quiet whisper, “Gods, guide me.” It was the first prayer he had uttered in a very long time.

Eolh leaped into the early morning darkness, his wings beating at the warm air.

The balance was rough, the pain worse. If he flew too low, a keen-eyed guard might see him and raise the alarm. Too high, the Fangs would turn him into ash. All the while, the numbing sensation built up in his right wing, like a hot iron poker was being forged in the wing bones of his arm. At first, Eolh had to flap wildly to stay aloft, like a fledgling’s on his first flight, but as he picked up speed and the Midcity started to blur beneath him, he found the rhythm of the air.

And then, he leaned into the burn, pushing himself as hard as he could, until his heart and lungs were screaming as one.

Up here, the air was cooler, and the humidity condensed into mist that wetted his beak and made him blink away the moisture. Every flap of his wings sent a spray of water down his tail feathers. But he did not let up. Every stroke of his wings was stronger than the last.

He held nothing back. All that mattered was getting to the Queen’s Hanging Palace.

The cliff walls were sheer, and the few outcroppings he could land on were covered in sharp stones. Every perch dug into the flesh of his feet. His tongue was dry from the flight, and his heart hadn’t stopped pounding.

He waited, and breathed, and listened.

Imperial guards lined the palace rooftops. They marched in pairs around the perimeter, and more of them stood sentinel on the balconies below, their badges and metal ornaments twinkling in torchlight. On the western balcony, where the Queen kept her chambers, the patrols were lighter.

He held his talons as high as he could to keep them from clacking against the clay shingles. He crouched, moving low to avoid the lantern lights of the soldiers. The dull black of his feathers hid him well.

A balcony wrapped around the palace, a long stretch of ornate stone architecture that hung far above the lush estates and mansions of the Highcity. The nobles’ houses looked so perfect from up here, peaceful and pleasantly twinkling with warm lights. As if the Magistrate’s Fangs weren’t hanging over their city. As if the axe wouldn’t fall upon their necks.

Who knows? Eolh thought. Maybe the upper castes had struck a deal. Maybe they had already bought favor from the Magistrate.

It wouldn’t be the first time . . .

Eolh dared to peer over the edge of the roof, down to the Queen’s balcony below. No guards. Nobody at all. A set of thick curtains walled off her chambers from the open air, and another layer of lighter, laced curtains fluttered with the breeze.

There was another sound.

Eolh cocked his head, willing his heartbeat to quiet. Slowing his breaths.

A woman was crying. He hadn’t seen her at first, standing in the darkest corner of the balcony.

Her feathers were a soft white. Not the Queen.

Eolh lifted his arms, spread his wing feathers, and made a gliding jump down to the balcony. His talons made a quiet click-click on the seastone floor.

The avian was young, judging by the youthful shine of her feathers. Though she wore a servant’s dress, it was still richer than the finest Midcity garb. One of the Queen’s wingmaidens, then. She was leaning on the marble rail, her face and beak buried in her arms. Shuddering breaths and deep sobs racked her white-feathered body.

Eolh cleared his throat with a low caw.

The wingmaiden gasped and flinched back against the balcony rail. Her crest feathers spiked with fear. “Please don’t hurt me. I haven’t done anything!”

“Not here for you. Where’s the Queen?”

“Are you him?” Her breath caught in her throat, but Eolh thought he heard a new emotion. Is she glad to see me?

“Are you Eolh? She said you would come.” The wingmaiden pressed toward him, a powerful need etched in her face. “She said you could help.”

Eolh took a step back, surprised that the Queen had told anyone about him. “Where is she?”

As if in answer, a piercing cry rolled up from the depths of the palace, muffled by the chamber curtains. The wingmaiden recoiled from the sound as if the scream were a knife dragged along her skin.

“Can you hear what they’re doing to her, corvani? I can’t leave her. I thought I could help her—” A sob stole her voice, and she hid her face in her hands. Tears rolled down the sides of her beak.

“Where is the Queen?” Eolh asked again. His whole body was numb, except for the cold sinking feeling in his stomach. “What the hells happened?”

“I hid and I watched them talk. The Magistrate was being kind to her. I’ve never seen him act like that with anyone. Kind and gentle. But then, my Queen said something, and the Magistrate was furious. He hit her. He did something to her to make her kneel.”

“What did she tell him?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t hear them. But he did that thing with his hands”—the wingmaiden made a gesture with her own hands—“and she dropped to the floor. I thought she was dead. But they took her away, and—”

Another scream ripped through the air, turning his blood to ice. It went on and on, echoing out over the balcony. By the gods, what are they doing to her?

“What can I do? She said you would know. You have to help her . . .” The wingmaiden’s voice was rising again, and when she grabbed for Eolh’s hand, he pulled away from her.

“I can’t.”

The sound of his own voice made him sick. What am I supposed to do? The Queen would be surrounded by guards. If he went in there . . . they would slaughter him where he stood.

More screams. It felt like they would never end. Even in the silence that followed, he could still hear her. Still feel her voice cutting him from the inside.

How could he fight? How could he do anything at all?

“I’m begging you.” The wingmaiden stepped toward him, her hands clasped together. “She said I could trust you. That you could help.”

“I can’t.” Eolh looked down at his hook. This was all wrong. He needed Ryke, not the other way around. She was the Queen of Aviankind, for gods’ sake.

“Please—”

“I’m sorry.” Eolh took a step toward the balcony.

“No. Wait!” she called after him.

But Eolh was already throwing himself over the railing. Diving into the shadow of the Cauldron’s walls.

Running away, just like he had all those years ago, with the same self-loathing gripping his heart like some black talon. In a way, he was glad of the pain.

You deserve to hurt, Eolh thought to himself.

You deserve so much worse.