“That’s a coldhearted way of looking at it.”

“I train reeves. Nothing burns me more than a reeve who doesn’t care properly for her eagle. I’d sooner feast a reeve who had betrayed all her companions but placed her eagle’s welfare above her own, than one who neglected her raptor. Treat Tumna as she deserves, and she’ll repay your loyalty with her own. She’s a short-tempered, irritable bird, it’s true, but we all have our quirks. I suppose my lack of sentimentality is mine. So. Are you going to help me, or should I leave? If I go now, I’m not coming back.”

Maybe Arda was just playing on her contrary nature, or maybe it was that Tumna looked healthy and strong, no trace of injury like the other times Nallo had encountered her. Maybe it was the dreams, or the raptor’s undeniable beauty and edge of danger.

“All right.”

Arda walked over and showed her how to get into the harness. “It won’t be the best fit. Reeves are measured for their harness to make sure there’s no chafing. But it’ll do. You can tighten it—that’s right. Your feet go there—that’s the training bar—so you can adjust your weight in flight. You’re ready. I’ll show you how to hook in.”

She walked in under the cruel beak, right up to where the talons could puncture her. If Arda showed no fear, Nallo certainly was not going to. She followed her in under Tumna’s shadow. The raptor huffed, straightening. Her feathers were gorgeous, golden-brown, splashed with white highlights. She wore a jess on each ankle and her own harness fastened over the shoulders and across the breast so it did not impede the wings. Working slowly and with the greatest patience, Arda showed Nallo how to hook the various tethers that allowed the bird to fly and the reeve to tuck in beneath.

“You get the best view. Free hands for signaling or to hold a weapon. As you saw, you can hook another person in front of you without oversetting the balance, although not every raptor is strong enough to manage two. With training, you’ll learn how to hook in and out quickly.”

“I didn’t promise to become a reeve!”

“No need to rip my head off!” Then she grinned, leaned in, and kissed Nallo on the cheek. Nallo flushed like she hadn’t since—well—since ever. With a laugh, Arda backed away. “Just one flight. That’s all I ask.”

“Oh, gods,” murmured Nallo, as she realized she was well and truly hooked in. The rush went to her head, and then the raptor pushed so hard that Nallo thought her feet and her head were in two different places. Her feet slipped off the training bar, and she flailed, sure she was about to plunge to her death. Gripping the straps with knuckles gone white, she couldn’t breathe. The powerful beat of Tumna’s wings drowned out everything in the world except the plunge of the earth away from under her and, when she could see again, the many upturned faces staring as she rose. Air thrummed against her body. Tumna stopped beating her wings, simply held them out in that vast wingspan, and Nallo choked out a gulped cry, only they did not fall. They were rising as though in the hand of the gods, the earth dropping away to reveal the patterns of human handiwork below: the alluvial fan where the conduit had its exit; the holes marking the shafts; the gullies and hills. A pale berm, like rope, ran all around a hill where a brick palisade was also going up, plus many canvas tents and awnings to shelter the hundreds of folk now living and working here. The reeve hall was little more than canvas barracks for the reeves and fawkners, with massive perches set like skeletal trees rising off into the wilderness over a distance too broad for her to measure.