We’ve begun to channel subconsciously, the connection sliding into place so easily I do not notice our maegics merging together until his voice sounds in my head.
“Nothing,”I lie thinly, jolting out of my convoluted thoughts.“Nothing at all.”
He knows I’m not being truthful, but does not push the matter. He distracts me instead with a lesson on flight dynamics, engaging my mind with such a flood of information, within a matter of seconds I no longer feel my attention pulled toward troublesome western horizons.
Then again, with Zephyr banking at perilous angles and careening around mountaintops, it would be difficult to concentrate on anything but the present even if I tried.
We stay in the skies for a full hour—the final part of which Soren spends instructing me to reallysensethe wind currents flowing around us, so someday I might mimic them without a Paexyri mount to ferry me along. The prospect of solo flight feels far out of reach—Queen Arianrhod, I am not—but I do as he says, honing my focus on the sky as it rushes by on all sides.
I am abuzz with pure exhilaration. My maegic sings through me, each pump of my heart in total harmony with Zephyr’s beating wings, as though we truly are connected at a spiritual level. I close my eyes to the realm below and channel all my energy inward, where my endless storms swirl.
My Remnant feels intensely awake. Awake in a way I havenever felt before. For this is where it belongs. I simply had not known it until now.
Before I felt the breadth of the heavens at my fingertips, I did not realize how I longed to reach for them. Before I breathed the thinnest air, I did not understand how much my lungs craved its crisp relief.
This, here—in the wind, in the air, in the sky—is as close as I have ever felt to knowing where I come from. As close as an orphaned halfling from the shores of Seahaven has ever come to calling somewherehome.
Tears streak down my cheeks for the remainder of the flight, and they have nothing to do with the biting air in my eyes.
At some unspokencommand, Zephyr guides us back between the five summits into the Vale’s circle of shelter. Hooves clatter against the earth with a bone-shaking jolt as we touch down, galloping around the glade before slowing to a stop by the tree line. Soren dismounts first, then reaches up to help me down. His hands remain at my waist even after my boots hit the earth.
“Well?” His hair is windblown, his cheeks ruddy, his eyes warm as the Hylian hot springs. “What did you think?”
“It was a thrill,” I confess, hearing my own wonderment. “Truly. One of the most incredible experiences of my life.”
“I’m glad.”
“Thank you, Soren.”
His lips part, then close on a swallow. As though he wanted to say something, only to change his mind at the last moment. “Don’t thank me,” he says instead. “Thank Zephyr.”
With that, he steps away from me, turning to murmur words of gratitude to the King of the Vale. I watch the two of them—howSoren rests his forehead against Zephyr’s nose, how his hands stroke gently along the strong sinews of the stallion’s neck; how a velvet muzzle butts insistently against the left side of his broad chest, where his Remnant sits beneath the fabric.
Their bond is plain to see. Witnessing it inspires a muddled mix of emotions. Respect. Appreciation. Awe. Even envy, for I have never been so deeply connected to another living soul in all my years. Nor have I ever been touched with such reverence.
A sad state of affairs to find oneself jealous of a horse.
Cheeks aflame, I tear my eyes away from Soren’s gentle touch on Zephyr’s flanks.
We do not return by portal right away. Instead, we sit for a time beneath a large evergreen, our backs propped against the rough trunk. In my peripheral, Soren fiddles with a birch stick, peeling strips of white bark off in long ribbons. Most of my focus remains trained on the clearing. I thought Zephyr would immediately leave us, but he seems content enough to stay, grazing on the stubby grass and vibrant mosses.
“Why does he remain here instead of in Hylios with the others?” I ask eventually.
“Would you choose a stable over this open sky?”
“No. Probably not.”
“Each Paexyri has a different temperament. Some are more suited to saddles and battle strategies. Others, like Zephyr, do not answer to any commands but their own. There are times when he does not appear even for me when I visit this place.”
I study his distinctive lines for a time—the proud carriage, the keen eyes—and am struck with a distant chord of recognition.
“He looks a bit like Onyx,” I murmur almost to myself.
Soren chuckles. “He would. Onyx is his colt. So it would bemore accurate to say Onyx looks like Zephyr, not the other way around.”
Head whipping to the side, I gape at him.“What?”
“Don’t look so shocked, skylark. Zephyr occasionally mates with the wild mares that roam the beaches of the Leeward Port. His offspring are only half Paexyri, resulting in a rather apparent lack of wings on Onyx.” He twirls the stick in his fingers absently. “But I’m sure you’ve noticed how swift his gait, how long his range. They far exceed that of a normal horse.”