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Lady Mhysra Kilpapan was blessed from birth with a distinguished family, a glorious home and a giant eagle miryhl of her own. Fully aware of her luck, she wants for nothing in life - except a chance to become a Rift Rider. The elite force...
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Wrentheria, the Lowlands 15th Gale, 785 CE
Not everyone could handle raw meat first thing in the morning. Then again, Lady Mhysra Kilpapan had never considered herself entirely normal. Not when she spent every possible moment in the eyries. Dawn was her favourite time of day, when the rising sun spread golden fingers through the hatches to make the feather dust dance. Even in winter, if the sun rose cleanly, the eyries became a slice of Heirayk's own heaven. Except for the meat in her hands.
Sadly the sounds of the eyries rarely matched the perfection of its sights. Miryhls were far more raucous than their smaller, wild eagle cousins. They muttered constantly, like discontented dowagers at a ball. At all times the eyries bubbled with a low purring hum, occasionally shattered by a shriek, just because they could. Breeding miryhls were a fractious lot, but the chicks were the worst.
Which was why Mhysra was there before the sun, bird dust in her nose and chunks of raw venison in her hands. Five chicks jostled around in front of her, trampling each other in their eagerness to gain her attention. Barely a month old, the ugly chalky-white creatures were covered in clumps of ash-grey down, long scrawny necks wobbling beneath their oversized heads. They were already as large as a medium-sized dog and growing fast. Not too long ago their enormous beaks had seemed too heavy for them, meaning they spent more time on their faces than their feet. Yet with increased size came strength enough to lift their heads and gape plaintive demands for the bloody meat clenched in her fingers.
Behind them, two yearlings waited. The size of pit ponies and highly irritable, they looked like hedgehogs; glossy brown feathers pinpricked by the emerging quills of their first flight feathers. They tried so hard to act fully grown, but hunger defeated them and the squalling chicks were drowned out by a cracked scream, silenced only when Mhysra tossed a chunk their way.
"Dignified," a hoarse voice muttered behind her, rough-edged with sleep.
She glanced over her shoulder, smiling. "As if you weren't the same at their age."
On first glance the young miryhl looked little different to the other adult eagles slowly waking in the glowing dawn. Their feathers shimmered through every shade of brown, from near-black down to honey-gold. The bird at her back was a conker-coloured giant, streaked with hints of gold. Cumulo, her Wingborn.
Snorting, he glowered at the chicks vying for her attention. "Remember it well, do you?"
Mhysra chose to ignore him, preferring to focus on feeding the babies instead. Of course she didn't remember Cumulo as a chick; she'd been a helpless babe at the time. He had hatched at the exact moment she came into the world, creating that most coveted and rare of bonds – the Wingborn – tying them together for life. Rift Rider legends were full of daring Wingborn, describing them as one soul divided. One will, one reason, one heart.
She'd tried reading such stories to Cumulo once. He told her not to be so soppy and, that if she insisted on reading to him, could she please not make it such sentimental drivel. Whatever the Wingborn bond meant to historians and storytellers, to her it was family. No different than siblings or cousins. Quite disappointing, really.
