“Yup,” Cassi called.
“Anyone there?”
Cassi paused for a moment and shifted her focus, before shouting back, “Not yet.”
Good, Lyana thought. It meant they had time to get to their favorite hiding place before anyone could spot them, exactly as she’d planned. One house. That was it. That was all. She hadn’t been lying to her brother. She just wanted to see one house arrive, then she’d fly back, play the good little princess, and do her part.
One house.
She swallowed a tight gulp, but the sound of whistling winds pulled her attention from the future and back to the present. They’d nearly reached the edge. A few feet before the ice and rock gave way to nothing, Lyana flapped her wings, easing her speed for an easy landing. Cassi, on the other hand, preferred to land at a run, shifting her feathers down to slow herself beforehand. Two different wings, two different styles.
What other styles are there? Lyana wondered, gaze shifting to the crystal bridge a few hundred feet to her left. It nearly blended in with the sky as it connected the inner and outer rings of her homeland. Theirs was the House of Peace, and as a sign of peace, no other houses would enter their inner island through flight. Instead, they walked over the bridge, vulnerable and submissive, with their wings tucked against their backs.
She wished she could see them fly, though, all the different houses, because she longed for something new. Sure, the doves had visitors from time to time, but most of the traders didn’t venture inland. Instead, they exchanged their goods at the outposts and towns scattered around the outer loop of her isle, avoiding the hassle of the sky bridge at all costs. Cassi was the only other bird she’d spent a lot of time with, but after so many years, she hardly even registered her friend was an owl and not a dove. They’d been a duo for as long as she could remember, ever since the day the guards had found Cassi abandoned on the ice and brought her back to the palace. Lyana had begged her parents to let the owl stay, too curious by half about this mysterious orphan discovered in the tundra. They searched for her parents and sent letters to the House of Wisdom, but no one claimed Cassi. Before long, she’d become part of the family.
Now she was old news.
Not exciting, not anymore.
Not like all the flocks flying toward her home at this very moment.
Patience, Lyana thought, hearing the voice of her mother in the back of her mind. Patience.
The lesson her parents always tried to teach—the one she had never bothered to learn. Because she wanted to see it all. She wanted to see everything. The libraries the owls kept. The great plains the eagles scoured. The tree villages the songbirds built. The paradise the hummingbirds cultivated. And more, so much more.
Lyana shifted her gaze from the two icy landscapes and the bridge connecting them to the blue sky that arched above and curved below. Then she looked farther down, and even farther, curiosity leading her eyes to the hazy white fog thousands of feet below.
The Sea of Mist.
According to legend, their floating isles had once been part of the land hidden beneath the fog. They’d been slaves to cruel masters who used magic to keep them weak and subservient. But their people had prayed to the gods to save them, to give them a home where they could finally live free from tyranny, and the gods had listened. Aethios, her patron god, master of the sun and sky, along with six others, surrendered their material forms and used their divine power to rip the isles from the ground, lift them into the sky, and gift their faithful servants with wings. But Vesevios, god of fire, refused to sacrifice his strength and remained below, where a raging sea rushed to fill the void, drowning him and all his power as a punishment for his greed.
Lyana tried to picture the world as it had once been, endless blue from sky to sea and back to sky. They said the waves were once as tall as mountains. That even from the height of her isle, nearly fifteen thousand feet in the air, she could have seen them crash and splash and rage. But the god of fire never forgot how he’d been bested by the other gods, and his anger bubbled under the surface, growing and growing with each year, until eventually the waters turned so hot, they began to boil and steam. And now, no one knew what existed beneath the fog. Water? Barren, rocky land? Molten fire? Nothing? And no one wanted to find out.
No one, it seemed, except her.
Lyana was dying to see beneath the Sea of Mist. To fly through the impenetrable white and discover what lay beyond.
But that wasn’t her future, no matter how she wished it could be.
Her future was here. Now. Waiting across that bridge.
“I think I see movement,” Cassi hissed under her breath.
Lyana blinked, tearing her eyes away from dreams that could never be and focusing on the present. “Let’s get in position.”
Cassi nodded.
Together, they jumped off the edge, wings bearing them aloft and flapping in the strong gusts whipping through the channel. They couldn’t speak over the loud, blistering winds, but they didn’t have to. They’d spent their entire lives sneaking out of the palace to explore what little bit of land they had access to, and they knew it better than anyone else. Just like they knew each other better than anyone else. They didn’t need words as they drifted below the edge, moving as one toward the cave below the sky bridge, hidden under a large outcropping of rough stone. The entrance was masked by shadow, and it was far enough to the side to make it nearly impossible to find, yet it provided a mostly unhindered view of the translucent stones overhead. It had taken the two of them years to discover it, but only a second to claim it as their own.
Lyana soared through the opening, finding a perch before tucking her wings as tightly into her back as possible. Down here, surrounded by rock and shadow, her furs and skin acted as cover, should anyone think to glance down.
Cassi took the empty spot by her side.
“Can you see who it is?” Lyana whispered, hoping her voice wouldn’t carry.
Cassi shook her head. “Not from this angle, not quite.”
They waited, watching silently in absolute concentration.
It wasn't long before Lyana began to bounce on her heels, excitement getting the best of her. “You don’t see anything?”
“Shush. I think—”
They spotted the two blurry figures at the same time. Men, most likely. Old or young, Lyana couldn’t tell, but it wasn’t their faces or bodies that had grabbed her attention as they stepped to the foot of the bridge, getting close enough for her to see them standing at the edge. It was their wings. Their deep ebony wings. Even with her dove eyes, and even from this distance, the black iridescent feathers that somehow both reflected and absorbed the sunlight were unmistakable.
“The House of Whispers.” Cassi all but breathed the words. A moment later, her arm shot out, anticipating Lyana’s itch to lunge forward for a better view. Cassi forced them both deeper into the cave, out of sight.
But the image of those wings was crystal clear in Lyana’s mind. She grinned. “The ravens.”
3
Rafe
“So, this is the infamous sky bridge?” Rafe asked, crossing his arms. “I have to admit, I expected more.”
“Expected more?” Xander snorted, shaking his head. His brother’s gaze shifted to the far side of the bridge, the open channel below, then back to Rafe. “Expected more than a bridge made of clear stones that spans a distance of nearly three hundred feet? You expected more than that?”