The long, white neck was beautiful. She brushed her hand over it, it was cold. The triangular scales layered in folds seemed as though they could cut her soft fingertips. When she buried her hand into the soft down where the wings joined the body, she felt a faint heartbeat. The bird was tense too. About what had just happened, and about what was yet to come.
“Let’s go,” the girl whispered.
At her words, the bird stirred its wings a few times, then stretched them wide. Ah, they were truly large wings. Larger than the banners hanging from the ramparts, larger than the clouds floating above them. It seemed as though, as if rising from the shoulders of the castle, it could carry the castle beneath its feet and fly away.
The girl smiled. Filled with joy, she gave the command.
“Fly.”
The bird took flight, carrying the girl on its nape. With a single flap of its wings, the towers and the moat below shrank to toy-like proportions. One more wingbeat turned them into tiny dots drawn on a map. And then, they were no longer visible.
Higher, and higher they climbed. As they entered the clouds, droplets rustled all around them. Rain struck, making a crackling sound. When the girl pointed downward, a sharp sound rang in her ears, like a blade scraping against ice. As the bird dove steeply, the ice that had formed between its feathers scattered and flew off.
Below the clouds was a wide, open sky. The mountains, called the Shoulders of Giants, stood tall like green handkerchiefs. Between them, the golden sand river flowed. The sparsely visible landscape of the earth was beautiful. Perhaps it was because they looked so small. Small enough to be left behind with just a single flap of the wings.
The bird stretched its neck and let out a long, echoing cry. It was a sound that would make beasts of the sky and land tremble. But to the girl, it sounded like music.
Its long beak held two rows of teeth that looked as though they could bite and snap steel bars. Its arrow-shaped tail was sturdy enough to topple stone towers. The scales that covered its neck, tail, and belly looked strong enough to repel any spear.
This magnificent beast had allowed the girl to ride on the back of its neck. And now, it flew through the skies at her command, because at last, it had been tamed.
The wind grew stronger, sweeping the girl’s hair upward. The fluttering hem of her nightgown revealed her bare legs and feet, but she didn’t feel the cold. Her hands clung tightly to the soft feathers. Blue veins stood out across the backs of her hands and wrists. She wouldn’t fall. She was the master. This bird was hers.
From the south, golden clouds parted, and a massive river came into view. Where that river met the sea, would be the capital of the world, which she had only read about in books. The city that held the library containing every book in existence, and the pantheon that housed every god in the world. That was where she would go.
The girl raised her hand and pointed. It felt like she could almost see it. The grandeur of the library’s nine-story tower, said to be the tallest in the world, piercing through the clouds…
Kyprosa opened her eyes.
Beyond the thick stone walls, the wind howled. The fire must have gone out, because even under the covers, the sheets were cold as ice. She sat up and reached under the bed for her worn slippers, sliding them on. As she drew the curtain and stood, the shortened hem of her nightgown rose awkwardly. She grabbed the thick shawl draped over the chair and wrapped it around herself, but it did little to warm her.
She glanced at the stove, but not even a spark remained. There wasn’t even a single candle lit, yet Kyprosa, as if used to it, stepped forward and found the doorknob. When she opened the creaking door, a rush of cold air from the corridor swept in. She pulled her cloak tighter and slipped through the door.
The slippers weren’t enough to shield her from the chill of the stone floor. But if she switched to the wooden-heeled moccasins she carried, she wouldn’t be able to walk silently. Kyprosa descended the narrow stairs of the corner tower. The stairs twisted downward, leading to the castle’s rear courtyard. She favored these stairs over the central ones that connected to the castle gate. Through the cross-shaped holes here and there, faint stars could be seen.
The light of dawn tinged the stairs with a bluish hue.
As always, the side door to the courtyard was left unlocked. She finally changed her shoes and tucked the slippers into a shadowy corner behind the door. The air carried a faint scent of damp soil and livestock manure. At the same time, she sensed one more familiar scent.
It was the smell of winter.
Anyone who lived in Fir Castle would know that scent. Kyprosa knew it well too.
She stepped across the mist-dampened ground, circling the tower, until the hawk enclosures came into view. From the small, fast white hawk called “Arrowbolt” to the massive-bodied “Mountain Shadow” that had barely left its cage in recent times, Kyprosa passed them all without a glance. The birds watched her silently as she walked away. Mountain Shadow rattled the chain at its ankle and let out a cry, but Kyprosa did not turn back.
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