The last light of day was fading behind the rooftops, swallowed by ash-colored clouds. A cold wind snapped at the soldiers' coats and sent shards of glass skittering across the cobblestones. No one moved at the windows.
On the upper floor of a house, a curtain slid slowly across a windowpane. The hand holding it vanished the moment Nyros looked up. Farther down the street, a loose shutter knocked against its frame at intervals. Between the knocks, Thalen could hear leather creaking beneath a soldier's fingers: the man kept tightening and loosening his grip on his sword without drawing it.
Thalen watched that hand. Huddled against the base of a building, the owl kept his wings tightly folded. Each time the leather creaked, his head swiveled toward the soldier. He hoped the hand would finally stop.
Nyros studied the captain kneeling before him.
"Oh… Now you decide to talk?"
The man's lips parted. No sound came out. Ever since Nyros had spoken Arzyel's name, he had stopped trying to get up.
A bead of sweat slid down his temple despite the cold. He wiped it against his shoulder, his eyes still raised toward Nyros. Nyros let him. That apparent patience forced the captain to remain there, beneath his gaze, without even an order to obey that might offer him refuge.
"I know you couldn't tell me anything. But you could at least have found a way to let me know you had something to say."
Beneath his feet, the shadows thickened and slipped between the cobblestones.
"Count yourself lucky I've let off a little steam. If I'd truly lost my temper, you'd already be dead."
He leaned closer. The captain tried to back away, but his injured leg gave out. His palm slipped in the blood-streaked dust.
"You know perfectly well you can't stop me."
"Nyros."
Tharion's voice carried across the street.
The luminous cross in his irises had brightened. His arms hung at his sides, but a muscle twitched along his jaw.
"I won't tell you twice. Do nothing. Not yet."
Nyros turned his eyes toward him.
"Arzyel doesn't remember anymore. This man knows something."
Nyros gestured toward the captain, keeping him in the corner of his eye.
"I want to know what happened to my brother."
"And if I decide to kill him before you get your answers?"
"Then you'll be the next to die."
The creaking of leather stopped.
Thalen looked at Tharion, waiting for an immediate answer, a laugh, something to make the threat feel less real. Nothing came. The former hero was studying Nyros with newfound attention. His fingers had spread slightly beside his thigh.
No one tried to intervene. Behind the captain, a knight shifted his foot a few inches. The scrape of his sole was enough to make the man beside him turn his head.
Tharion stared at Nyros. One corner of his mouth lifted, without amusement.
"You think you can kill me?"
Nyros straightened and walked toward him. Glass crunched beneath his boots with every step.
He was in no hurry. Thalen watched the distance between them shrink, unable to tear his eyes from the space that still lay empty. Three steps away, Nyros could have stopped. At two, Tharion could have ordered him back. When only one remained, the feathers on the back of the owl's neck rose. Thalen took a small step backward and felt the stone wall against the tip of his tail.
Thalen glanced up at a windowsill, then toward the rooftops. He opened his wings a little. One beat would lift him off the ground; then he would have to fly through the open air above the soldiers. His gaze returned to the two men. He hesitated a second too long.
Nyros stopped in front of Tharion. The former hero was slightly taller; he had to lower his eyes to meet Nyros's gaze. Neither man stepped back.
Up close, there was something strained about Nyros's composure. His jaw tightened whenever he swallowed. Slowly, he opened one hand, then the other. Tharion noticed; his gaze dropped to the movement for a moment before returning to Nyros's face.
A lantern flame flattened inside its glass.
Gravity slammed down on the street.
A knight buckled beneath the weight of his armor. His knee struck the cobblestones with a metallic clang, soon followed by the others. The captain was pinned to the ground.
Thalen's legs gave way. His chest hit the cobblestones before he could spread his wings. One remained partly open against the ground, its long feathers crushed into the dust. He tried to lift it, then to draw his talons beneath him. Nothing. The weight held him flat, his beak inches from a shard of glass.
Ahead of him, Nyros was still standing.
Thalen tried to raise his eyes to his face. He could see no higher than his boots. Around their soles, tiny fragments of stone broke loose from the joints and sank into the dust. He tried to call out to Tharion, but his voice emerged as no more than a breath. Neither man turned toward him.
Nyros's shadows climbed the buildings. One lantern went out, then another. The remaining light still traced the edge of his face; in Tharion's eyes, the cross shone alone in the darkness.
"Until I have my answers, you won't touch him."
The stone split beneath Tharion's feet.
The crack raced toward Thalen's talons. He watched it stop, then widen a little more. A sharp crack came from one of the buildings. Dust settled on his feathers.
He thought of the people behind the windows. They might not even have realized they needed to move away from the walls.
Thalen felt his neck give way as well. He had to turn his head to keep his beak from striking the stone. From so close to the ground, the grains of dust almost hid Tharion's boots. He wanted to shut his eyes, but the fear of missing the next movement kept them open.
Then the pressure eased.
Thalen did not move at once. He waited for it to return, his body still pressed against the cobblestones, before daring to lift his head. Tharion had looked away first. Nyros was still watching him.
"Very well," Tharion said. "If that's what you want."
Thalen carefully drew his wing back against his side, then found his footing. A few feathers were still askew. He made no attempt to straighten them. Around him, the soldiers were catching their breath, still too shaken to get up.
Tharion tipped his chin toward the captain.
"I'm not finished with him anyway. I have questions of my own."
He cast Nyros a sideways glance.
"But I understand."
Nyros did not answer. The shadows withdrew from the walls and gathered around the captain, cutting off every escape.
Light returned to patches of the buildings, but no shutters opened. A soldier began to rise; when he saw Nyros coming back, he remained on one knee. The captain watched the shadows creep toward his hands. He pulled his fingers away just before they reached them.
Nyros returned and crouched in front of the captain.
"Now, talk."
The man struggled to prop himself up on one elbow.
"Tell me what happened to Arzyel when he was eight."
The captain's lips moved, but he could not form the words. Nyros waited until the man looked at him.
"Seven years ago… During the War of the White Ashes…"
Nyros's fingers curled against his knee.
Eight years old.
Nyros thought of Arzyel, still at his side, and of the past his brother could no longer remember. Eight years old. He tried to picture him with a child's face again, but the captain's words were already seeping into the image: the War of the White Ashes.
This man knew something. Nyros clung to that certainty.
His gaze fixed on the captain's mouth. Just let him speak. Even if Nyros was now dreading what would come next.
He was about to ask why no one had told him. The words came so quickly that he had to clench his teeth to hold them back. Not yet. He had to let the captain finish. Nyros loosened his fingers one by one, but the creases he had dug into the fabric of his trousers remained.
"You were away," the captain continued. "High Command had sent you on an infiltration mission behind enemy lines. No one knew when you would return, and…"
He broke off. His gaze drifted toward his men. One of them lowered his eyes.
Nyros followed the glance, then looked back at him.
He waited for the rest. The captain moistened his lips. Behind them, the shutter knocked again, and the man flinched as though someone had called his name.
Nyros had stopped blinking.
"And?"
"It's… complicated."
Nyros's mouth closed.
Complicated.
He looked down at his fingers, clenched against his knee. Arzyel could not give him answers. This man perhaps could, and Nyros still had to drag every sentence out of him.
He raised his head.
A black spike shot up behind the captain.
It struck a soldier beneath the arm and drove through his shoulder with a crunch of metal. For a moment, the man remained on his knees, held upright, his mouth open. Then his scream erupted between the buildings.
Thalen recoiled so sharply that his talons slipped on a shard of glass. His wings spread to steady him, then folded back at once. A short cry escaped him; he snapped his beak shut, startled by the sound of his own voice.
The soldier was trying to touch the spike protruding from his back. He could not reach it. His hand kept fumbling for it as blood ran beneath his armor.
Nyros had not turned around.
"Nyros…" Tharion breathed.
"The soldier is still alive."
The shadow withdrew. The soldier collapsed onto his side, his injured arm lying limp against him. His scream broke into a moan he seemed unable to stop.
Thalen looked at Nyros. A few moments earlier, he had thought he understood his anger. Now he did not even dare speak his name.
The wounded man lay only a few steps from his comrades. One had reached toward him before stopping. Thalen waited for him to try again, for an order that would finally allow someone to help. He tried to catch Tharion's eye. Tharion was watching Nyros.
So Thalen stayed still too, ashamed of the relief he felt because the shadows were not coming toward him.
More spikes rose behind the knights.
One for each of them.
They stopped against the backs of their necks. One soldier tried to turn toward his wounded comrade; a drop of blood slipped beneath his collar. He froze at once.
Someone murmured a prayer.
The knight closest to Thalen had shut his eyes. His lips were still forming words, but no sound could be heard. Another stared at a stain on the cobblestones with desperate concentration. They all seemed to have discovered, at the same moment, just how difficult it was to hold their bodies perfectly still.
Nyros stood. The captain could no longer take his eyes off his wounded man.
"They're your men, aren't they?"
"They have nothing to do with this…"
"Then don't make me involve them any further."
The words hung between them for a moment. Thalen looked at the wounded man, curled up on the cobblestones. He had not even spoken.
One spike pressed harder against the back of a second knight's neck. His hands rose a fraction, then fell back onto his thighs. His eyes remained fixed straight ahead.
"Wait!"
The captain reached a hand toward Nyros, stopping short of touching him.
Nyros went still.
The captain kept his hand outstretched. His fingers trembled in the space between them, clearly visible in the light of the last lantern. He looked at his wounded soldier once more, then raised his eyes to Nyros.
This time, he no longer sought his men's gazes.
"During the War of the White Ashes… Arzyel was on the battlefield."