Page 69 of Beyond the Shadowed Earth
And then before Eda was ready, Morin boosted her up onto Filah’s back. The saddle was small and light, made of supple, tooled leather, with a raised part in front for Eda to hold on to, and braided leather stirrups for her feet. Morin adjusted Eda’s pack, making sure it was secure on her shoulders, and then stepped away to climb onto his own eagle, who had darker, almost black wings. Tainir’s was gold and white and seemed to be younger than the other two; it stamped its taloned feet and bobbed its head about impatiently.
Morin hung a smaller version of the horn he’d used to summon the ayrrah around his neck on a blue cord. He lifted it to his lips and blew one piercing note. Beneath Eda, Filah gathered her wide wings and launched into the air so suddenly that for a moment, Eda left her stomach on the cliff ledge.
Wind rushed past her body, stinging her hands and her cheeks. At first, she could hardly open her eyes; when she did, it was to a dizzying blur of rock and trees and empty air. She thought she’d be terrified, like she had been climbing the cliff, but somehow, she wasn’t. Filah flapped her wings once, twice, then soared for a while on a current of air.
Eda slowly made sense of what she was seeing: the mountains, marching beneath them, a river so far below it was a mere glint of silver. Clouds close enough to touch, treetops small as spiders. The thrilling sensation offreedom,untethered to the earth.
They flew almost due west, Morin’s ayrrah taking the lead with Eda in the middle and Tainir just behind. It was freezing, which made Eda grateful for the awful hat. The wind numbed her hands, and she slipped them beneath the feathers on Filah’s neck. Warmth crept tingling back into her fingers.
Morin looked back at her, an expression of pure joy on his face. “All right?” he called.
Eda couldn’t stop the grin tugging at her own lips. “All right! “
They flew on, and every once in a while she caught Morin looking behind them, tension coming into his frame again. She got into the habit of glancing back, too. Sometimes, she swore she could see that wavering darkness on the horizon, but mostly there was nothing.
They’d been flying several hours when, to Eda’s surprise, all three of the giant eagles spiraled closer to the peaks again and landed on a jut of rock in a rush of wings. Morin and Tainir clambered off, and Eda followed suit, confused when the ayrrah launched themselves back into the air.
“They may be descendants of Uerc’s eagles, but they’re still mortal, and we’re heavy,” Morin explained. “They’ve gone to hunt—they’ll be back before long.” He flopped down onto the rock, feet dangling out over empty air, and took flatbread and nuts out of his pack. He handed some around to Eda and Tainir. Eda didn’t miss the worry in his eyes as he glanced frequently back the way they had come.
The three of them ate in silence, Eda still trying to catch her breath. She had no idea where they were, or how far they’d flown, but Morin found their jut of rock on the map, and circled it with a charcoal pencil. Eda studied the map. “It’s not as simple as riding the ayrrah for a day up the mountain, is it?”
Morin shook his head. “It’s faster than climbing, of course, but we’ll have to take frequent breaks during the day for them to rest and hunt, and they don’t see well enough in the dark to fly at night. And we’ll have to do some climbing eventually—the ayrrah never want to go past the Singing Mountain.”
“What’s the Singing Mountain?”
Now Tainir was looking anxiously into the empty air behind them. “The stories say Tuer made it for Raiva, in the days before the Stars were plucked down from heaven. They say it really sings.”
“Have you heard it?”
“We’ve never been that far.” Morin let the map roll back up again and stuffed it into its protective cylinder. “But our mother said it was the strangest and most beautiful thing she ever encountered.”
Both his and Tainir’s faces closed at the mention of their mother, the grief still so raw.
“It was Filah who found her body,” said Morin. “Carried her back to me. I don’t know how far my mother made it or where she died. But she was long gone by the time Filah laid her at my feet.” He shut his eyes and rubbed his hand against his temple.
Tainir wrapped her arms around him, her eyes swimming with tears. For a moment, brother and sister clung to each other like they were the only two souls left in the world.
Eda shifted with discomfort, not wanting to fall back into her own grief. “What do you both keep looking for?” she asked, after a while, desperate to break the silence.
Tainir lifted her head, her cheeks damp. She glanced at her brother.
His jaw tightened. “The spirits that attacked Tal-Arohnd. I think they’re following us.”
When the ayrrah returned a few minutes later and Eda and the others resumed their flight, she couldn’t recapture the joy she’d felt before. Fear gnawed at her, and she looked back more often than she looked ahead.
Clouds knotted across the sun as the day spun on, and an icy rain began to fall. Morin blew several notes from the horn he wore around his neck, and the giant birds turned slightly to the north and landed high on the side of a mountain. Eda, Morin, and Tainir huddled under an outcropping of rock, as much out of the rain as possible.
Trees grew in a tangle from the mountain’s edge, on far too much of a slant to provide any realistic shelter, but Morin was able to gather enough wood to make a fire. The ayrrah nested deep within the branches, tucking their wings over their heads and seeming to fall instantly asleep.
Tainir drew jars of goat cheese and hummus out of her pack. “We have to travel light,” she told Eda by way of apology for the sparse fare. “But Morin did bring a kettle—we’re not monsters.”
Eda smiled, the knot inside her easing a little. “It looks a feast to me.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll have to hunt when the birds do,” said Tainir, with distaste.
“Food might be a little scarce from here on,” Morin agreed, eyes flicking in Eda’s direction.
She shook her head. “I lost my appetite for an Empress’s table a long time ago. You needn’t be sorry on my account.”
