The wind was a living thing, screaming past Emery's ears with enough force to steal her breath. She pressed her face into the warmth of Zekar's chest, her fingers knotted in the wolf-hide cloak, too terrified to look down at the world spinning far below.
The creature they rode was nightmare-made-flesh—a mountain hawk the size of a small house, its feathers black as oil and its eyes the color of dying embers. Its wings beat with a slow, terrible rhythm that shook her bones with each downstroke. She had seen these beasts from the palace windows, had watched them carry Caelorth scouts to the farthest reaches of the Empire. She had never imagined being on one.
Zekar's arms were iron around her.
