Page 31 of King of Storms and Feathers

The smile that crossed her face wasn’t pleasant. “You’re welcome to try it. But your death would be slow and regrettable.”

After helping me stand, she inspected my scrapes and bruises. “These require more ointment, but not until after you’ve washed.”

I touched her wrist to get her attention. “Is Grendal all right?”

“Your friend has a new roommate, and since they are both obedient servants, all is well.”

Ari unlocked the chain from the shackle on my ankle and fastened it to a plain gold collar around my neck. She explained the various ways she could use the chain to restrain me—by linking my two hands together, my hands to my feet, and so on.

She slid a bar through the end of the chain and used it to lead me along the death-trap stone walkway into the sitting room. “I’d prefer it if you walked beside me,” she said as if she had entered my mind and heard me calculating the short, sharp actions required to wrap the chain around her slender neck and choke her.

Raising her eyebrow as I stepped beside her, she patted the knives that hung on both sides of her hips against her metallic dress. I wondered if Esen had told her about my weapon-pilfering skills.

I sighed. There was no point in killing the Sayeeda. If I wanted to escape this damned apartment and the city without being captured, and then somehow flee in the right direction, I would definitely need her help. And she might prove a useful source of information in time, if I could worm it out of her.

Transparent curtains fluttered in a light breeze as we strolled past the auron kanara cages, then down the stairs to the river room. We crossed the river and went up another set of white stairs to an antechamber on a raised platform of marble.

The small bathroom we entered was windowless and contained a toilet, a copper bathtub, and a long basin that curved in a semi-circle around the walls.

Ari turned the faucets over the bathtub and clean water gushed from them. She gestured for me to use the toilet while the bath filled, refusing to leave the room and give me privacy. I did as I was told, then stood and scowled at her.

“Don’t look at me like that. Trust must be earned,” she said as I climbed into the tub and sank up to my neck in sweet-smelling water. “At present, Leaf, you have much to atone for.”

After I bathed and dressed in a clean gold tunic, she attached my chain to a link on the floor below the window that the river flowed through. While she tidied the room, she let me sit on the sill and watch the water cascade over the sloping marble into the city pool below.

“You have many duties,” I told her. “The king’s cleaner, food server, and his slave master. Why don’t other servants perform some of the lesser tasks?”

Arranging cushions on a couch, she snorted. “Because he wishes me to do these things. Also, not everything is as it first seems.”

I couldn’t argue with that slightly cryptic statement, so I turned my attention to the pool below. It looked several feet wide and flowed through a quieter section of the market district. Opposite it was a city wall lined with a bank of thick bushes that were just the right height for a person to hide behind without being observed from the street.

The drop from the sill to the water was considerable, and I wondered how deep the pool was. Raiden was likely correct; the fall could be deadly.

A shiver ran down my spine, and my vision tunneled, images flickering at the edges of my mind, memories of me chasing the green-eyed boy through the forest.

This time, we followed a creek to its end. It spilled over a cliff overlooking an undulating landscape of trees and distant mountain ranges. Below us, a waterfall rumbled into a river.

With loud yelps, the boy and I leaped over the edge, our arms spreading out like wings to steady our descent. I felt the wind rushing past, freedom sizzling through my blood. I was alive and flying like a bird.

This wasn’t a dream but a memory of a real event. Something I felt sure the boy and I had done regularly. A fun game. Something we had survived over and over.

Hope beat against my ribs as I studied the king’s waterfall and the city pool it flowed into with a new purpose. What I needed to do was painfully clear.

No matter what, I had to gain the Sayeeda’s trust, if not her friendship, so that one day, she would leave me alone and unchained as I sat in this exact position.

The sudden frantic fluttering of the auron kanara disturbed my thoughts. “Can’t you feed them, Ari, and stop that horrible sound?”

“Gold reavers cannot summon the lightning they feed upon, hence why we elves need the Light Realm fae.”

“For what exactly?” I asked.

“We cannot control the storms nor harness the lightning, and yet we must eat the auron kanaras’ feathers to survive. Gold runs through our veins, which we feed back to the soil and rivers. Our elemental magic creates the gold that lies beneath the Auryinnia Mountain, always renewing. We mine it and sell it to the rulers of the fae realms.”

“And also to the black marketeers,” I added.

“That’s true. Some reaver elves work with gold raiders and trade the information that allows the humans to intercept gold deliveries throughout the lands. But not many elves are willing to take such a risk. As you can imagine, the punishment if they’re caught is severe.”

Ari hummed as she ran her fingers along the cages, and the birds stilled, as if listening to her song. Water lilies drifted on the river’s gentle currents at the far side of the room where the water entered Arrow’s apartment, defying nature as it coursed uphill, growing stronger as it neared the waterfall window I sat upon.

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