Prisoner (The Scarred Mage of Roseward #2) - Sylvia Mercedes Page 0,4

“A harpy is significantly larger, being the size of an eagle or greater. They are also exclusively female.”

“Oh.” Nelle regarded the little man-bird. It had worked its head free of the slime and turned to watch the two of them, snapping its beak viciously. “So that’s a male harpy then?”

“No.”

That seemed to be the end of it. Nelle half wondered if the mage simply didn’t know anything more. He was certainly determined to end the conversation—opening his book and burying his nose amid the pages again. Hopefully, he would hurry up with whatever he was doing. The harpen had already pulled one of its feet free, and it looked as if both wings would break loose at any moment. Nelle kept hold of her copper pot just in case and sidled behind the mage.

“Ah!” he said at last and held the book out at arm’s length. The next moment, a stream of that strange language flowed from his lips. As Nelle watched, something bright, white, and churning formed in the air just in front of the mage’s forehead. It reflected in his eyes, turning the gray disks to shining mirrors, and soon the glare was too bright to look at directly. Nelle turned her head away.

A sizzle of heat sparked the air, followed by a loud crack. Nelle cried out in surprise, ducked to the floor, and pulled the pot over her head. A reverberating rumble seemed to shudder the ground under her feet.

When she dared peer out again, there was a black smear on the wall where the harpen and the ooze had been. The awful slime stink mingled with a sulfurous stench.

“Boggarts and brags!” Nelle groaned, standing upright and letting the kettle dangle from the end of one arm. She turned an accusing glare up at the mage, who snapped the book shut with a nod of satisfaction. “What’d you go and do that for?”

He glanced her way, one eyebrow upraised.

“Don’t look at me like that! You blasted that poor little creature to oblivion, and you expect me to just tut and go about my day? And clean up your bull-stinking mess while I’m at it?”

“You are not obliged to clean up anything, Miss Beck. You are not a servant.”

“Well, thanks so much, your graciousness.” Nelle thunked the pot down on the tabletop and marched to the door. Flinging it open, she drew a deep breath of salty sea air, fresh with morning dew and a hint of coming rain. The ocean stretched before her all the way to an endless horizon. Only in one direction could she spy any break in that dizzying endlessness—due south, where the Evenspire loomed faint but present in the distance. The one visible mark of the mortal world, just on the edge of sight.

Nelle inhaled several more times before she could bear to turn and face the room. The wind blew her hair in her face, and she quickly tucked it back behind her ears before crossing her arms. The mage stood before the morbid smear on the wall and seemed to be muttering another spell, passing his hand over the stone as he did so. The stink was already much less potent, whether due to fresh air or magic, Nelle couldn’t decide.

“I don’t see why you had to annihilate the poor thing like that,” she said. “It wasn’t all that big and didn’t seem particularly dangerous. Nasty, sure, but what damage could a bird-thing that size do?”

Silveri completed his spell without pause. When he was quite through, he closed the book and returned to the armoire. Nelle began to think he wouldn’t answer her at all. He crouched, pushed a few books around, and tucked the volume carefully away inside. Only when he’d finished and shut the armoire doors did he turn to face her.

“Harpens,” he said, “travel in flocks. They are swarmers—not unlike my wyverns, but a hundred times more malicious. You’ve heard that a flock of crows is known as a murder of crows, Miss Beck?”

She nodded slowly, not liking where this conversation was going.

“In this case it would be a massacre of harpens. With good reason.”

Her gaze shifted almost unwillingly to the dark smear on the wall, which the mage’s clearing spell had not seemed to affect. She could still see the outline of each individual pinion splayed out in exquisite detail. She shuddered again and looked away quickly.

“So, where’s the rest of them then?” she asked in a rather more subdued voice. “If they always travel together,