My head whips round and I spot them—a group of Moon caste bird demons. There must be more than twenty. I make out the shape of hawk, crow, vulture, eagle. Of all the demon forms, bird castes are the most foreign-looking, with their unsettling blend of feathers and beaks with humanoid form, and to see so many now, winged arms spread wide, racks fear through me.
They’re approaching fast, not weighed down by passengers. Though they aren’t as large as Merrin, everything about these birds screams predator. Glowing yellow eyes. Beaked, hook-tipped maws. Armor is strapped to their bodies, their taloned feet fitted with blades.
Merrin lets out a hiss. “Not these assholes.”
“The Tsume!” Wren shouts in my ear. “The King’s elite bird warriors.”
“And of course,” Merrin says, “they keep badgering me to join. How many times must an owl say no?” There’s a pause. “Sorry about this, girls,” he says, then tucks in his wings.
We flip upside down—
And plummet through the air.
I scream as we hurtle toward the earth, wind lashing my face, my gut lurching. Tears stream down my frozen skin. The drop is so fast that one of my hands slips from where I’m clutching at Merrin’s feathers, and the wind tugs at me, trying to yank me away. With a twist of her arm, Wren grabs me. She digs her heels into Merrin’s sides, holding us down. The caws of the Tsume follow us.
Ahead, the rooftops of the palace are getting closer, but Merrin doesn’t slow.
“We’ll crash!” I yell.
Neither Wren nor Merrin answers. I squeeze my eyelids shut; the last thing I see is the curved eaves of a temple roof hurtling toward us.
Merrin pulls out of the dive without a second to spare.
The movement is so sudden it almost jerks us from his back. Pain flares through my rib cage and shoulders. Wren and I grunt, our arms almost wrenched from their sockets, but we manage to cling on.
Thuds, shrieks, the sound of wood shattering behind us. Some of the Tsume didn’t pull back in time.
I risk a glance round and my pulse stutters.
Some of them did.
They speed toward us. The hawk at the head of the group lets out an ear-splitting caw. He gains on us in seconds and slashes out with a metal-tipped talon, the blade catching Merrin’s flank. He cries, dropping suddenly, but then he rights himself and takes a sharp turn, weaving between the rooftops.
The hawk follows. Smaller and lighter than Merrin and the rest of the birds, he gains on us quickly again, this time drawing up beside us. Garnet eyes glitter from under a hooded bronze battle helmet that wraps his upper face and covers the top of his short beak-nose, tapering to a sharp hook.
“Shame on you, brother,” he says, his voice a high-pitched croak. “Letting Papers ride you.”
Merrin shoots a quick look over his shoulder as Wren reaches back to draw one of her swords. “At least I’m not wearing that ridiculous hat.”
The hawk hisses. With a flap of his wings, he swerves towards us, lashing out with his metal-hooked beak. Wren is ready for him. Still clinging on to Merrin’s feathers with one hand, she arcs her other arm toward him, blade flashing. The sword catches the hawk across his helmet with a metallic crash. He squawks in surprise, faltering, just as we take a sharp turn.
There’s a sickening crunch. I look round to see the hawk tumbling down the side of the tall temple pillar we managed to avoid.
Merrin flies between the rooftops, the palace a blur of shapes and colors. The perimeter wall rears up ahead. We fly straight for it. Again, Merrin turns at the last second. The bird demons following us hit the black rock at full speed, the sound of their necks snapping loud as a whip crack. Twisting round to look, I see the huge crow pull up just in time—though judging by the way he lands sprawling on the top of the wall, clutching a winged arm across his torso, he damaged one of his shoulders.
He lets out a furious shriek as he watches us fly on.
Below, the landscape changes to the shadowed stretch of bamboo forest. Darkness falls as the lights of the palace recede. Merrin keeps close to the treetops, but as time passes and no more of the Tsume come for us, he spreads his wings wide and takes us up into the clouds.
“Oh, dear,” he says when there’s nothing around us but white mist and eerie silence. “They’ll only want me even more after that.”
I let out a shaky laugh. My skin feels raw, lashed by the wind. The air is wet up here in the clouds. Beads of water cling to my body, making me suddenly aware that I’m still just in my thin dancing slip, though the gold fabric is soaked through with red: my own blood, and the King’s.
“Is this a good time to wish you a happy birthday?” Wren asks, and I laugh again. She lowers her lips close to my ear. “You have it with you, right?” she asks, serious this time.
I know immediately what she’s referring to. “Yes,” I reply.
She plants a kiss on my cheek. Her breath is hot on my frozen skin. “You can open it when we land.”
I sense the pull of my necklace, suddenly heavy where it’s hanging, exposed, over my collarbones and swinging with Merrin’s wing beats. All these years waiting for this day, waiting to discover the word—the future, the world—my Birth-blessing pendant contains for me. But now, flying through a sky that tastes like ash and endings, I’m not sure I want to know anymore.
We were meant to escape the palace quietly. Instead, the Hannos and their alliances have been exposed.
There is no doubt about it. A war is coming.
THIRTY-SEVEN
MERRIN FLIES ON UNTIL WE ARE far from the palace. The night is starless, snow clouds thick above. The air tastes like ice. Below: a carpet of darkness. There are no settlements here, or at least any that I can see. Wren tells me we’re to the northeast of the palace, in the foothills of the mountains bordering Han and Rain—the infamous Kono Pass, impassable even by flight because of the turbulent currents and jagged peaks. We’ll stay at a hideout tonight before leaving for the Hannos’ fort in Ang-Khen tomorrow.
Or at least, that was the plan.
“We’ll send a message to my father as soon as we can,” Wren says as Merrin begins to lose altitude. “Ask him what we should do. I doubt our home is safe anymore, or any of our holdings. The ones the court knows about, anyway.”
“Could you ask him about my father and Tien, too?”
“Of course. I’ll make it one of his priorities. I’m sure they are safe, Lei.”
My stomach is hollow. “The court know Kenzo is working with your father now. That he’s been plotting against the King. He won’t be able to take over the council.”
Wren’s voice is hard. “Not if he killed Naja.”
I picture the fox female’s wild eyes, her relentless energy. Somehow I can’t imagine her allowing herself to lose. At the same time, I can’t imagine Kenzo losing, either. The warmth of his fur as he carried me from the King’s chambers comes back to me, the safe feel of his muscled arms and his smell, deep and almost sweet, like wind-stirred grass.
He’d better win. Not just for us, but for what Naja did to Zelle.
“She killed her.” The words choke in my mouth and I have to clear my throat before I continue, “Naja. She killed Zelle.”
“I know,” Wren replies quietly. “I saw her body.”