Aelion Silverwind's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

Aelion came through the gate at first light, as he had each morning since she granted him passage. The wolf lay in its straw, wing bound. Today the noblewoman waited by the kennel wall, arms folded. She had never stayed to watch before. She watched now, and her eyes tracked his hands the way a judge tracks a thief. "The dressing is stiff," she said. "My kennel master says you wrap it too tight." Aelion knelt slow. The wolf's red eyes found him and held. One wrong pull at the joint and the beast would snap, and she would see a man who did not know what he claimed to know. Then the gate would close for good. "He wraps for a dead thing," Aelion said. "I wrap for one that must fly." He loosened the cord a half-turn, no more. The wolf's ears flattened. He stopped. He waited. He hummed low in his throat, the way he had in the gully. The old linen came away. The wing flesh underneath had knit clean along the joint, pink and closing. The noblewoman leaned in despite herself. Aelion let her see it before he spoke. "It sets straight," he said. "Another week and he lifts off." The wolf shifted. For one bad moment its jaw swung toward his wrist. Aelion did not flinch. He pressed his palm flat to the beast's shoulder and held it there until the muscle went loose under his hand. The noblewoman's breath caught. She had expected the snap. It had not come. She straightened. The skeptical set of her mouth eased. "He trusts you," she said. It was not a question. "He learned to," Aelion said. "So did I." He wound fresh linen over the joint, firm but loose enough for blood. When he finished, the wolf laid its head down and breathed slow. The kennel master, who had hovered near the door, said nothing and left. The noblewoman did not send Aelion out. She walked him instead toward a low bed of plants beside the wall. There grew a strange flower on a tall green stem, its blossoms open into small cat faces, soft petals shaped like ears and whiskered cheeks. She touched one bloom with a bare finger. "My mother kept these," she said. "I let no one near them." She was quiet a moment. "The wolf's dressing can wait until midday tomorrow. Come earlier. I want you to see the garden in full light." Aelion's chest went tight. Three years she had refused him. Now she asked him to stay past the wolf. "I'll come at dawn all the same," he said. She almost smiled. "Then you'll find me here." He had passed her test. The wolf would heal, and when it flew, his reason to enter would fly with it. But she had opened a second door now, a garden and an hour that was hers, not the beast's. The gate had stopped being the only way in.