Page 68 of With Wing And Claw

Creon.

The gods-damned Cobalt Court.

Chapter 16

The sight of thosecrumbling walls and towers on the horizon came with a very particular flavour of bittersweet.

The Cobalt Court was where the Mother had stored her bindings – those little cornerstones of her reign, preventing all individuals under her rule from using magic against her. A secret that Thysandra, and only Thysandra, had been entrusted with. The only key to the magic shield of the ruins had been hers; the catalogue book of those thousands of trinkets had been written in her hand. Not too long ago, she’d believed it proof that her High Lady at least saw and valuedsomeof her loyalty.

Then the Alliance had captured her in the very same spot.

And now, as she flew towards those razor-sharp cliffs in the gold and purple autumn sunset, she couldn’t help but wonder whether the Mother had simply picked her because she’d been too blind, too clueless, to ever be a danger.

Very little had changed about the castle ruins in these last few weeks. The same overgrown gardens, the same pointed window arches with not a shard of glass left in them. The same lone, almost skeletal towerrising from the rocky earth. But at the heart of the castle, in the last few rooms that still had their roofs, the glow of a fire was lighting up the walls, and two or three figures moved in the rapidly lengthening shadows of the ruins.

She circled down, wary of defences or alarms. No one stopped her as she landed in a deserted courtyard, though; nothing but the sound of voices a few walls away disturbed the never-ending cadence of waves crashing against the cliffs below.

Cautiously, she began to walk.

As much of a mess as the Crimson Court might be, it was hard to believe anyone would choose to voluntarily livehereinstead, weeds and debris wherever she looked. It would take years to build something resembling a castle from this devastation. Decades, maybe. If one could claim every single fae isle in the archipelago, why—

A loud squeak interrupted her musings.

Something loud, white, and fluffy shot from an open doorway to her left, fast enough to almost hit her on the temple.

Thysandra staggered two steps backward, realising only then that she was fleeing a bird small enough to fit in the palm of her hand – a tiny, white-and-grey falcon, screeching and fluttering as it hovered in the air before her. The effect might have been somewhat like a swan protecting her young, except that this little monster rather lacked the necessary dimensions to back up the threat.

All the same, she hesitated to walk on. What if anyone thought she’d attacked the damn bird?

‘Alyra?’ a familiar voice yelled from close-by. ‘What are you—’

Silence.

And then, with such sudden cheer ithadto be feigned, ‘Oh, Thysandra!’

The High Lady of the Cobalt Court herself emerged from the low doorway the next moment, dressed in slippers and a knee-length tunic so dusty it was hard to say what its original colour might have been. Her brown hair had been bound into a messy braid. In her hands lay what appeared to be a pile of maps and sketches, all bleached sheets of parchment, not a fleck of colour on them – an informality, avulnerability, that seemed utterly irreconcilable with the woman who’d featured in Thysandra’s nightmares for weeks.

Which Emelin had to know or at least suspect, and yet all she said was, ‘Would you like to come in? You must have been flying a while.’

She’d vanished into the half-collapsed room before Thysandra could gather the wits to inform her she would in fact prefer to stay as far away from the castle as possible.

Damn it. She could hardly start shouting about her important decisions with walls and an angry bird between them; she’d look even more ridiculous than she already felt. With a muffled curse, she shook her wings, folded them, and ducked under the low door jamb, bracing herself for whatever awaited in the dusky space beyond. Traps? Collapsing ceilings? Creon fucking Hytherion?

But the room looked disconcertingly harmless – almost like a command post of sorts. Large central table. A mismatched collection of mugs and glasses. Paperwork, most of all,somuch paperwork, maps and sketches on the wall and the table and even the floor …

‘We’re working out our exact building plans,’ Emelin cheerfully clarified, rummaging through a pile of notebooks without looking up. The fact that she was in the company of a possible enemy didn’t appear to be bothering her in the slightest. ‘Seeing as you’re here, would you say it’s better to have a bedroom balcony on the east or the west? There’s something to be said for waking up with the sunlight in your room, but—'

‘I’m resigning,’ Thysandra said.

It echoed a little in the silence that fell – a hollow, dusty sound.

Emelin blinked once. Nothing else, nothing more, as she let go of the notebooks and lifted her gaze, a look of mild concern crossing her dust-streaked face. There and gone again – her smile grew back in place almost immediately.

‘Of course you aren’t,’ she said.

It didn’t even sound like a threat. If anything, it had that amiable, ribbing undertone of friends who have gotten used to each other’s nonsense after a few centuries in each other’s company –Don’t be silly, Thys, you always say that and haven’t meant it even once…

‘What?’ Thysandra said.