The Living Tower

Chapter Twenty-Three: Crow's Eyes

The tower's clearing finally appeared among the trees below. Baiya folded his wings and dove.

"Val?" Baiya exclaimed as he descended on the tower. "Val?"

He landed in the grass outside and peered up at the broken window. Would she really have been foolish enough to travel to the moon alone?

Of course she would have. She didn't think ahead—she'd never had to. But the Ellias she wanted to win over to her side might not be the same Ellias she remembered raising her. Training her.

Baiya shook his head. He was growing more and more confused in regards to Ellias. Ellias had always told him that Val had been so needlessly aggressive growing up, so eager to destroy anything in her path with her magic.

But the Val he'd seen in Stellich was gentle, playing with those children, helping them. And when her magic came out, he could see her trying to control it, trying to use it in a way she thought was...

Good.

The nature of her magic was still of some concern to Baiya, though. He got the sense that there was something else in there. That the gem hadn't just given her a pool of power to use, but that there was some kind of will of its own behind it.

Something moved in the tower window. Relief flooded Baiya. She's still here.

He flew up to the ledge of the broken window. "Val, thank the spirits. I was worried you'd—" He froze on the windowsill. The room on the other side was empty. He'd sworn he'd seen her moving up here.

"Val, come on!" he called. "Are you still angry?"

No response.

Baiya rolled his eyes. "Val, come out and talk to me or I'm leaving." He hopped down to the floor, started toward the stairwell.

There was movement behind him. The slightest sound of a foot brushing the ground was his only warning. Baiya turned as a woman came flying at him, driving her sword—

—right into the floor next to him.

Baiya yelped and flew into the air with all the force he could muster, knocking his head against the ceiling in the process.

"Fen Mailin," he exclaimed as he caught himself, wings beating hard. "Uh, General Fen now, isn't it?" He moved to a nearby shelf. "It's been a while. How are you?"

"Busy." Mailin lifted her sword and took slow steps forward. "Nothing personal, Baiya. My queen told me to follow Ellias' orders, and he wants you in a cage."

Ellias wanted Baiya in a cage? The crow's heart nearly stopped in his chest. Why? Why now?

Baiya hopped backwards and eyed the window. Before he could attempt escape, Mailin moved into his path, blocking the way out.

"Mailin, listen, things with Ellias may not be what we thought they were." His heart twisted in his chest at the thought. "At the very least, there's been a misunderstanding between him and Val—"

Mailin lunged forward. The flat side of her blade swung at Baiya. He lept and fluttered away from it. The huntswoman's leg flew up in a smooth arc to kick him out of the air. He smacked against the floor with a strangled cry.

The next thing he knew, Mailin was standing over him. "You can't fight, bird. And I'd rather not have to harm an opponent like you."

Surrender would be the easiest option. Wait for Ellias to return, explain what had happened, hope that the witch was the good-intentioned, logical man Baiya had believed him to be—

But it was impossible to deny that Ellias was acting strange. Becoming his prisoner could mean never seeing freedom again. And there was Val to worry about.

Betrayal twisted like a knife in Baiya's chest. If Ellias had been hiding things all along, misrepresenting his plans, lying, even...

How could neither his familiar nor the child he'd adopted seen it sooner?

And if Ellias had resorted to locking Baiya up—stars knew what had driven him to order this of Mailin—Val might have no chance at all at stopping him from trying to kill her.

Baiya's eyes narrowed. He pushed himself up off the ground. Mailin's hand tightened around the handle of her sword.

Baiya flapped his wings and went right for her face, feet outstretched, ready to claw. Mailin swung up with the weapon. He dropped abruptly, narrowly missing the blade, hit the ground, and darted between her feet.

Mailin started to turn but paused when the ground trembled. Violently. Earthquake? Baiya barely had time to process it. The Huntswoman, completely unfazed by the shaking after getting over her initial surprise, lunged at him again. Baiya barely escaped the sword's path. She was still swinging with the flat of the blade, intending to daze him rather than kill, but it didn't do much to alleviate the terror overwhelming him from beak to toe.

A stone tumbled out of the wall, and then another, and another. Baiya switched his focus to dodging the stones that rolled his way as the tower tipped. The floor's angle steepened at a dramatic rate.

"What's happening?" Baiya yelped. "Tower?"

Mailin was swinging again, having somehow found her balance on the tilting floor. Baiya set his sights on the shattered window and flew to what he hoped was safety. He passed through the empty frame, narrowly missing jutting shards of glass—

Mailin grabbed his foot, and they plummeted to the ground together.

With the tower having tipped as far as it had, the fall wasn't far enough to break anything. But they did land in rose bushes. Baiya let out a squawk of pain as thorns scraped his skin.

He found some small relief in the disappearance of Mailin's hand. After some struggle, he was able to free himself from the branches, spread his wings, and fly out of the thorns. He only made it a few feet before shooting pain in his right wing sent him dropping into the grass. Several thorns were embedded deep in the wing.

Baiya climbed to his feet and turned. "General Fen?" he called anxiously. These bushes were bigger than he'd realized. "General, we need to discuss Ellias. I don't think he's as loyal to your queen as you think—"

Mailin sprang from the bushes. Thorn vines clung to her uniform, her braids, her sword. Her eyes were both squeezed shut—she'd been using Baiya's voice to target him to ensure thorns wouldn't tear at her eyes.

Baiya yelped, spread his wings, tried to fly.

The sword swung. A vine smacked across his face. Thorns scraped his eyes. A strangled cry of pain escaped his beak, a sharp and loud squawk he'd never made before.

"Sorry. I know better than to blindly accept the desperate lies of someone who's lost the fight," Mailin said, her eyes opening. "Once I know you're not going anywhere, we can discuss—" She stopped. Her eyes widened. Her head tipped back as a shadow passed over her and Baiya.

Baiya's head turned. Through the blood clouding his vision, he could just make out a massive shape lifting off the ground. The stones of the tower. And the roof was splitting in half—

Darkness swallowed him.