The Misbegotten hadnt been tested, but Akiva believed that his brothers and sisters would keep their promise to not strike first. Although the Kirin caves and the mountain that held them were still in the distance, he imagined that he could feel the clench of two hundred and ninety-six jaws as they ground down on every instinct, every lash of lifelong training.
A détente can only be as strong as the least trustworthy on either side, Elyon had warned, and Akiva knew it was true. Of the Misbegotten, he believed there was no weak link. A link of chain was, in fact, their sigil, signifying that each soldier was part of a whole, and that their strength was in their unity. The Misbegotten did not make promises lightly.
And the chimaera? He watched them in flight, taking it as a good sign that theyd left off the petty flashing of hamsas with which theyd begun the journey. As to trust, that was a long way off; hope would have to do in the meantime. Hope. He smiled at the unconscious conjuring
of Karous name.
Karou. She was one of many in the formation, and smaller than most, but she filled Akivas sight. A snap of azure, a glitter of silver. Even burdened by thuribles, she was as fluid in flight as an air elemental. Around her coursed dragon-things and centaurs set on wings, Naja and Dashnag and Sab, Griffon and Hartkind, and she shone in their midst like a jewel in a rough setting.
Like a star in the cupped hands of night.
What would it be like for her here? Artifacts of her tribe were everywhere in the caves: their weapons and utensils, pipes and plates and bracelets. There were musical instruments with rotted strings, and mirrors she must have looked in when she wore another face. She had been seven when it happened. Old enough to remember.
Old enough to remember the day she lost her entire tribe to angelsand still she had saved his life at Bullfinch. Still she had let herself love him.
We are the beginning , he heard inside his head, and it felt like prayer. We always have been. This time, let it be more than a beginning.
Karou saw the shadowed crescent in the face of the mountain ahead and an ache gripped her heart. Home. Was it? Shed said it to Ziri: home . She tested it now, and it felt true. No more air quotes around it. Of everywhere she had lived in her two lives, only here had she belonged without questionneither refugee nor expat but blood daughter, her roots deep in this rock, her wings kin to this sky.
She might have grown up here, free. She might never have known the way the great cage of Loramendi cut all light to confetti and cast it to the rooftops by the stingy handfulnever a full bath of sun or moon on your face but that it was slashed through by the shadows of iron bars. She might have lived her life in this effulgence of mountain light.
But then she would never have known Brimstone, Issa, Yasri, Twiga.
Her parents would be alive. They would be here .
She would never have been human, or tasted that worlds rich and decadent peace, thrived in its friendships and art.
She would have children of her own by nowKirin children, as wild in the wind as she had once been. A Kirin husband.
She would never have known Akiva.
At the moment that this thought flickered unbidden into her mind, she saw him. He was flying, as he had been, with Liraz, off the formations right flank. Even at this distance she felt the jolt of his eyes meeting hers, and a whole new set of might haves unspooled in her.
She might have made this flight eighteen years ago, instead of dying.
So much to rue, but to what end? All unlived lives cancel one another out. She had nothing but now . The clothes on her back, the blood in her veins, and the promise made by her comrades. If only they would keep it.
Remembering Keita-Eiris casual malice, she was far from confident. But there was no time to worry.
They were here.
As planned, Akiva and Liraz entered first. The opening was shaped like a moon crescent, many tall Kirin-lengths in height, but narrow, so that no more than several bodies could attempt entrance at once. There were niches high and low for archers, now unoccupied. The Kirin had been archers of renown. Misbegotten were trained in all weapons, but not generally armed with bows. Why should they be? They were the bodies sent in first to break steel on beasts. Let more precious flesh hang back and fire the arrows.
It was the steel that Akiva looked to when he scanned the assembly of soldiers, and here is what he saw:
The hands of his brothers and sisters hung awkward, because they were deprived of their usual place atop their sword pommels. That was where a swordsman rested his hand, but to illustrate their promise, the Misbegottenall two hundred and ninety-six of themrefrained from it, lest the pose seem threatening. Some had hooked their thumbs in their belts; others clasped hands behind backs or crossed arms over chests. Uneasy, unnatural poses all.
The moment was come, and it was massive. A host of revenants was bearing down on themsuch a sight as all had seen, and they had only survived it before by greeting it with gut-screams and steel. Steel without fail. To not draw now felt like madness.