“And this place is what, exactly?” Pyrre asked, tilting her head back to gaze up the looming cliff. “A part of Anthera?”

“I don’t think it’s part of anything,” Kaden replied, turning slowly to take in the crumbling carved façade. “Not anymore.”

Although there was at least an hour of daylight remaining in the high peaks, deep in the valley night was gathering already, and Valyn stared into the growing gloom, trying to fix the surrounding terrain in his mind: the waterfall, the small lake, the narrow river draining out to the east. Eons of rockfall had piled up in places along the cliff base, but a little farther out, stands of blackpine grew densely enough that he couldn’t see more than a hundred paces in any direction.

He turned his attention back to the carved rock. A single entrance like a toothless mouth—the one through which Gwenna had disappeared—provided the only access at ground level, though a row of narrow slits glowered down on them from twenty or thirty feet above: arrow loops, scores of them. Rough carvings flanked the doorway, human shapes so eroded by wind and rain that Valyn could make out little more than the position of the bodies. Perhaps they had been triumphant once, but erosion had so twisted the forms that now they appeared frozen in postures of defeat or death. The remnants of rusted pintles protruded from the stone, but the hinges they once held were gone, as were the doors themselves, presumably rotted away. Whatever the place was, it had clearly been abandoned for a very long time.

Laith was going over Suant’ra, checking her pinions for damage, then the leading edges of her wings. Yurl’s kettral waited a dozen paces off, feathers ruffled against the coming night, watching them all with one black, inscrutable eye. The birds would fly for anyone with the proper training, and in theory she wouldn’t know or care that Valyn and his soldiers had been the ones to destroy Sami Yurl’s Wing. That was the fucking theory, at least. Valyn hoped to Hull it was right.

“A night’s rest will do them good, too,” Laith said, combing through ’Ra’s tailfeathers with his fingers.

Valyn shook his head. “They’re not getting a rest.”

The flier turned. “Excuse me?”

“You have the call-and-command whistles for Yurl’s bird?” Valyn asked.

“Of course. She wouldn’t be much good without them.”

“I want them both in the air,” Valyn said. “Circling. Yurl’s bird can stay low, just above the trees, but I want ’Ra high. If we need to get out quick, we’ll call them.”

Laith shook his head. “She’s tired, Val. They both are.”

“So are we.”