Crush the King (Crown of Shards #3)(90)

“She was supposed to stay in her tent!” Serilda hissed.

Apparently the strix had had other ideas. Then again, Leonidas had said she would listen only to him.

Lyra leaped off the tree branch and landed right in front of the cages. She spread her wings out wide and cawed at the other strixes again.

“Leave! Fly! Now!” Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought I heard the sharp snap of commands in her singsong voice.

Her loud caws finally roused the other creatures out of their dull, resigned state, and they quirked their heads from side to side, staring at Lyra. I wondered if the strixes knew each other the way that people did. Grimley and the other gargoyles at Glitnir had recognized each other, and I was betting the strixes did too.

Either way, Lyra’s appearance perked up the other strixes, and they began ruffling their wings, as though they were about to take flight. I started to reach forward and rattle the cage in front of me to further encourage them when another, smaller flutter of movement caught my eye. I looked to the right. I hadn’t noticed it before, but a final cage was sitting off to the side all by itself, almost buried in the tall grass.

I squinted into the sun. This cage was smaller than the ones that housed the strixes, and the creature inside seemed smaller too, with feathers that were white instead of purple—

My breath caught in my throat. It was a caladrius.

I had wondered if Maximus killed other creatures for their magic, and now I knew that the answer was a sick, resounding yes. Even worse was the fact that the caladrius absolutely reeked of magic, more than the strixes did. The tiny, owlish bird had more raw power than all the other creatures combined, and I couldn’t help but think that Maximus had brought it here to use for something special.

Like murdering me and my friends.

The Mortan king had already tried to have me assassinated during the Regalia, and the caladrius must be his backup plan, his final secret weapon if all his other plots and schemes failed. I thought back to the opening ceremonies when Maximus and his guards had flown their strixes into the arena. Maximus had said that they had ridden the creatures all the way from the Mortan capital, which meant they could easily ride them from here all the way to Svalin.

I had already been worried about Maximus invading Bellona, and I had left Halvar and Bjarni behind at Seven Spire to hold the palace until I returned. With the caladrius’s magic, Maximus could kill me and my friends, destroy our encampment, and fly to my capital. Halvar, Bjarni, and the palace guards would put up a fierce fight, but they wouldn’t be able to counter the king’s magic, and Maximus would eventually take the palace—and the rest of Bellona along with it.

I wasn’t a time magier like Serilda, so I never got glimpses of the future, but I could see it all unspooling clearly in my mind, as if I were watching images from a memory stone. Right now I knew that the fate of my whole kingdom hinged on freeing this one small creature from Maximus’s clutches.

“Keep trying to get the strixes out of their cages,” I said.

“Evie!” Serilda hissed. “What are you doing?”

I ignored her, ran over to the final cage, and crouched down. The caladrius was tiny, smaller than my palm, and its feathers were completely white, without any ribbons of gray, indicating that it was little more than a baby. Its eyes were light gray too, without any hint of blue that older birds had.

“Hey, there, little fella,” I said, cooing to the caladrius the same way I had to the strixes. “Let’s get you out of that nasty cage.”

I reached out and grabbed the padlock. The second my fingers touched the metal, I wished they hadn’t.

Maximus had put more magic on this one lock than on all the strix cages combined, and purple lightning exploded around the metal, along with a flurry of hailstones. The cold blast tried to freeze my skin, while the sharp, hard pellets blasted against my palm, and I had to choke down a surprised shriek.

But I wasn’t leaving the creature behind, so I gritted my teeth, wrapped both hands around the padlock, and poured my immunity into it. A few seconds and several violent, chilly shocks later, the lightning sizzled out in a shower of sparks, and the last of the serrated hailstones dropped to the ground.

I unclenched my teeth, raised a shaking hand, and wiped the sweat off my forehead. Then I leaned forward, opened the lock, and tossed it into the grass before yanking open the door on the front of the cage.

“Come on,” I cooed again. “You’re free.”

To my surprise, the caladrius immediately hopped forward to the edge of the cage, perhaps because it was a baby and hadn’t been held captive as long as the strixes had. I cautiously held my hand out, trying to show that I wasn’t going to hurt it. The caladrius studied my fingers for a moment, then bent down and rubbed its tiny head against my hand just like a cat would.

“That’s a good boy.” I don’t know why, but for some reason I thought it was a male, although I couldn’t tell for sure.

The caladrius rubbed its head against my hand again, then straightened up and hopped out of its cage. The second it was clear of the metal bars, it spread its small wings as wide as they would go and took flight. The caladrius wobbled a bit, as though it wasn’t used to flying, but the bird made it to the trees and disappeared into the thick tangle of branches.

I sighed with relief. The caladrius was gone, as was the threat it represented. Maximus could have more of the creatures hidden somewhere else in camp, but at least I’d gotten rid of this obvious, immediate danger—