Page 5 of Court of Talons
“Move your ass, you lazy beast!”
The very air around us ripples with the force of the creature’s arrival from its spectral plane. My head rings with its scream.
Not yet, not yet! I want to see!I clamber up the rocky hill, barely clearing the promontory when the monster roars again. The ground suddenly shakes, sending me reeling. Dust swirls all around me, and I stagger upright—then gawk at the goliath before me.
I’veneverbeen this close to it.
Merritt’s Divh is twice as tall as our manor house and nearly as broad. It looks most like an enormous, sage-haired bear, except a single horn sprouts up from its nose, thick and pointed. Also, the monster’s body is hopelessly out of proportion to be a bear’s. Its neck is too thick, and even though it is standing tall,its forelimbs are far longer than its hind legs—so long they hang forward, the heavy paws knuckling the churned-up soil.
Scarcely able to breathe, I peel my eyes wide, determined to imprint this memory forever on my mind. As the Divh wheels around, my heart surges—not in panic, not in fear, but in a wild, exultant joy unlike anything I’ve felt before. In the brief second its gaze passes over me, I drink in its strength as if it were my own, filling me up, making me whole. Whispering in my mind thatIam the monster,I’mthe mighty power. ThatIcan do anything and everything simply by opening my heart and hands and willing it to be so.
“Gent!” Merritt cries a third time, shattering the moment.
With an exultant laugh, my brother drops his arm, setting the beast into motion.
The Divh scrambles around on its powerful hind legs as if to get its bearings, then springs forward, employing its oversized arms and legs to launch across the shattered forest. It lands in a crouch next to a scraggly copse of trees.
I jerk my glance back toward my brother. This jumping maneuver is Merritt’s favorite move with his Divh. More than once, he’s done it too near the Tenth House manor, sending dishes bouncing off their shelves and fine pottery crashing to the ground—until my mother ordered cabinet doors built to protect anything that might be broken, and rushes doubled up on every floor.
Now Merritt swings his arm in a swooping arc, directing the creature to dive headfirst into the last remaining section of standing forest on the slope. My fists clench tightly—Merritt should be more careful! The two of them are linked mind to mind, body to body. If his Divh is injured, Merritt will be injured too. But my brother’s face is rapt with excitement, jubilant in the surge of power that marks his sacred bond with the giant protector.
And I realize as I watch, Iwantthis happiness for him. This unfettered, unabashed joy. I want him to grow and find love, success, and real, lasting honor. He is my brother. I love him no matter what trick the Light played on us all those years ago, bringing me into the world first in violation of our sacred traditions. I love him no matter how foolish his notions are, believing that he could pit our Divh against the mightiest in the land—and win.
I love him no matter how much he likes knocking things down.
Merritt yells again, and the Divh bellows in response, whether in pain or frustration, I’ve no idea. Still, it does what Merritt orders and hurls itself forward. Its roar echoes off the mountains and shakes rocks free from the upper heights. Then it turns its shoulders into the remaining trees, toppling them.
Again and again, Merritt forces his Divh into yet more ambitious acrobatics—jumping, rolling, diving. With each punishing strike to the ground, dust billows up around the beast, only to be caught by the wind and scattered. The mountains seem to wince and shrink away as more rocks tumble and the beast’s bellows vibrate through the valley. The Divh responds each time in perfect service to my brother’s commands, though I cannot see the value in them. Instead of directing Gent to slash and tear, my brother treats his Divh like an overgrown pet, rolling it around the valley, causing maximum damage to anything that can’t fight back.
Nazar suddenly pushes by me on the ridge and takes several long strides toward Merritt. “Lord Merritt,” he shouts, and I’ve never heard the priest’s voice so loud, so curt. “If you’re going to train, you should?—”
“Watch this!”
My brother shoots his hand into the sky once more, making another fist, and the Divh leaps. As it descends this time,however, Merritt runs toward the edge of the promontory, knowing the Divh will break his fall when he leaps, knowing it will catch him in its enormous paws.
Unreasoning fear jolts through me as Merritt races so thoughtlessly toward the open air. He’ll be fine, I know he’ll be fine, he’s done this stupid trick a hundred times. Running at his Divh, knowing it will do anything he asks, and yet…
My heart is pounding so loud as Merritt jumps, I barely notice the flash of brightness in the air beyond him, the stab of light racing through the sky. It looks almost like…but no, that’s impossible, that cannot be.
Merritt!
I try to cry out the name, the warning, but my breath stalls in my throat, my hands lift up, my blood congeals. Time seems to rush too quickly, only to stop, halting completely as I lurch forward, too late—too late!
The stab of light is anarrow.
No sooner do I see it than it’s already reached its target, already ripped into flesh and muscle, piercing through my brother’s back and out his chest, Merritt’s body convulsing midair as his Divh’s roar shakes the whole world.
“No—” I start to run. Gent leaps. Its massive sage green paw swipes for my brother—swipes andmisses, the Divh’s immense body also jerking mid-reach, mirroring Merritt’s agony?—
No!My mind refuses to accept, my eyes refuse to see, every inch of me bursting with the wrongness, the impossibility of this scene. I race on, heedless of the terrain, tripping over my cloak, my hair, my own feet until I reach the promontory’s cliff.
I scream with helpless outrage as the mighty Divh makes a final heaving grab for my brother. The goliath and the boy collide together beneath the bold and brilliant sun, both of them twisting, turning, tumbling as they…
Fall.
Chapter 2
“Merritt!”