Was that really true? she wondered. She couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t, that the prince should be afraid.

She brought out the small black cloth bag she’d brought for this purpose and dropped him gently into it. The clothes were an annoyance. She couldn’t have him riding into that horrid little town naked. She gathered up the clothes and tried to tuck them in her various pockets, but the boots would go nowhere. Damn her sloppiness!

Every moment now was pushing her luck. She had to be gone. If she could be off with him—she’d figure something out.

She ran a finger down the edge of the eagle feather. A few dizzying seconds later, she felt her talons dig into the earth.

One talon clutched the top of the bag; the other grabbed the top of his boots. Then without another second’s hesitation, she launched herself into the sky.

The wind was much calmer now, and she gained height quickly. Her ears rang, her heart pounding, but she was nearly gone, the prince literally in her clutches.

Just as she was losing sight of the terrace, she heard a woman’s voice. “Aven?”

She felt a chill go through her, a pain in her wing where the brand festered even now. Had someone seen her? Hell. She should have left the boots behind. An eagle carrying a tiny bag and a pair of boots was hardly inconspicuous. If the Akarians figured out a mage had taken their prince… would that mean that she had already failed?

She felt suddenly dizzy with fear and lurched as her concentration wavered. Flying needed her whole mind. She thrust the thoughts away—whatever was done was done. She couldn’t have gotten the prince any more smoothly or been any luckier. She had done her best, and that was all she could do.

Aven’s head was spinning. After the woman dropped him into the little bag, which was now much larger than him, everything was still and dark for a brief moment. Then he was swinging, listing wildly left and right. His stomach dropped as he was lifted—up, up, up!

What in all the stars and moons had just happened?

Given his newly tiny size, the cloth of the bag was knit as tightly as he might have hoped. If he tried, he could see between the fibers to the snow and mountains swinging below him. This made him even more nauseous, so he shut his eyes and covered them with his strange little hands. He wasn’t sure what he was, but he had white and brown fur… and a tail.

Where could she be taking him? How was she flying, and how did she transform like that? Would he ever see his mother or father or any of them again? Who was this woman who’d swept him away on freshly grown wings?

He sighed. This was just what he deserved. He had wished for something else, something beyond Estun. He had taken it all for granted. Would this be better or worse? Time would tell, but being kidnapped and transformed into a tiny animal didn’t really bode well. Perhaps he would spend his eternity as some eagle-witch’s pet mouse.

After a while, with his eyes shut tight, the rocking became lulling, and at some point he fell asleep. Or he passed out. It didn’t matter which.

4

Introductions and Observations

Elise stared after the eagle in shock. The blue book Aven had been carrying this morning lay on the floor on its edges, skewed open as if dropped mid-sentence. He was nowhere in the garden. She’d been right behind him. But he was gone, and all that was here in his place was this book.

And the eagle flying away into the distance.

She was rusty. She cursed her indulgent lack of practice; she hadn’t used significant magic in years. But she desperately flung a wisp of herself after the eagle and found what she feared—the strange, musty, wild smell of creature magic, the bright lights of two beings there in the sky.

It was no ordinary eagle—it was a mage. And the mage had taken Aven.

Her pulse began to race—but she needed to think, not panic. Instead, she felt weak. Her thoughts swam. Someone had ripped her heart out, and it moved farther away with each second, carried off by some malevolent mage.

Could this have to do with the princess? That damned Devoted Knight? What did she need to do? What could she possibly do?

Before she realized what she was doing, she leapt into the air after them. She was no majestic eagle, but she had not forgotten how to be a sparrow, how to ride the winds like a little girl. It was not something she could forget.

The eagle gained distance. Her wings ached, and her little heart beat as though it might explode.

This was stupid. No one in Estun knew what had happened or where she’d gone. Even if she caught the eagle, what would she do? Fight her? She was not bad with a bow, but she had no weapons with her. She had never used magic to fight. She suspected the same was not true of her adversary. She would never catch them, and if she did, she had no idea how to prevail.

She couldn’t do this alone. She needed help.

But she also couldn’t just let them fly away.

She groped at the earth below her, thrashing her mind on the mountainsides, searching for any mobile creature she could find until—a hawk. That creature! she commanded with all the force of two decades as a queen. It has my son. Follow it—do not let them go!

She could feel the hawk’s understanding, her own feelings for an egg that had yet to hatch. Somewhere lower on the mountainside, the bird leapt into the air. The hawk would at least try, and that was more than generous.

Elise turned in flight and raced back to the balcony, her transformation unraveling sloppily as she continued to run from where she landed to the bench where he’d been sitting. The book was still there. She snatched it and rushed inside.

When Aven awoke, he was lying on his back in the woods. It seemed to be later in the day; the sun shone in strong, dramatic beams through the treetops. Tall, skinny pine trees, red maples, orange oaks—they all were lit up by the autumn sun against a clear blue sky.

He felt… better. More like himself. He was afraid to look and discover something different. He forced himself to raise a hand in front of his face. The lines of his palm, his fingernails, and knuckles—they’d never looked so welcome, so familiar!

But below that—on his wrist hung the bracelet of a pair of heavy shackles. The air around him stirred uncomfortably, and a wave of dread and apprehension whipped through him. Now that he hadn’t seen before.

Glancing around from his prone position, he couldn’t see much. He sat up and immediately discovered two things. First, he was completely naked. Second, a woman crouched nearby, leaning against a tree trunk. She was the one that had brought him here, and she must have been the one that had shackled him. And taken his clothes. Why in heavens would she do that?