always looked empty somehow, as if they weren’t really a person any more but just a thing. Which they were. A dead person’s soul fled their body the moment their heart stopped beating, and took their memory and personality with it. Someone asleep, though they were often just as still as a dead person, didn’t look like that. In sleep, Arren still looked like Arren. His personality was still there. But his troubles weren’t. He looked utterly peaceful and content, as if nothing had ever hurt him or ever would. Once again she noticed how much older he looked with a beard. She made a mental note to ask him to get rid of it. Kissing him was much less pleasant now that he had hair all around his mouth.
As she watched, Arren’s face twitched. His eyebrows lowered slightly and his lips moved, as if he was trying to speak. Then he started to mumble, making vague half-speaking sounds that were almost words but not quite.
Flell watched him. She wondered if she should wake him up, but curiosity got the better of her and she listened, trying to understand what he was saying, if anything. His mumbling became a little clearer, and she lay down with her head next to his, listening.
“. . . falling . . .”
It was only just discernable, but even as she registered this he suddenly started to speak coherently.
“Help me, I’m falling. Help me . . . falling . . . help me . . . I’m falling . . . falling . . .”
The words were spoken in an emotionless monotone, but for some reason they scared her more than yelling or screaming would have.
Flell nudged him awake. He stopped talking and opened his eyes.
“What?” The irritability in his voice was so normal it made her feel almost ridiculously relieved.
“Good morning,” said Flell. “Did you sleep well?”
Arren blinked a few times and yawned. “Ooh, sorry. Quite well, thanks. I can’t normally get to sleep in a real bed, you know. But yours is”—he grinned—“pretty comfortable.”
Flell grinned back. “Remember when we tried to share your hammock?”
“It was fun,” said Arren. “Not for very long, but it was fun.” He looked over at the window and sat up. “Godsdamnit, I have to get going. Roland will be expecting me.”
They got up and dressed and shared a quick breakfast before Arren left for the hatchery. Another day of work began.
15
Entrapment
Darkheart lay on his belly in the cage he had now occupied for nearly a month and knocked his beak on the wall beside him, over and over again. He’d been doing it for weeks now. Not for any particular reason. He was hardly aware that he was doing it any more. It had become a mindless reflex.
Things had changed since his first visit to the Arena. Since then he had been in the pit several more times and had killed two more griffins. Aeya, though, was not one of them. They hadn’t been in the pit together since Kraee’s death, as she had taken a wound that day and was still recovering from it. The other griffins in the cages had come to fear the black griffin, and with good reason. He had a habit of attacking his fellow griffins as much as he attacked the humans in the Arena. Humans were easy to kill, but other griffins—he hated them. They mocked him for his dark coat and slow speech, and enjoyed his helpless anger and threats. It was the only sport they had when they weren’t in the pit. But it was in the pit that Darkheart would take his revenge on them. He attacked the other griffins indiscriminately, even the ones that hadn’t joined in the taunting, and besides the two he had killed outright he had wounded many others, one of whom died a few days later from an infection. Some of the more cowardly griffins had started to leave him alone, but others didn’t. They were too proud to succumb to their fear of him, and when he attacked in the pit, none ran away. They always stood and fought. It was the griffish way.
Darkheart had noticed that the humans who came to the cages paid extra attention to him. They gave him more and better food than the others, and after his second visit to the Arena they tied some strips of brightly coloured cloth to his wings and daubed a strange-smelling substance on his throat which turned the feathers deep red.