He was born alone, amidst twigs and bones, atop a tall, tall canyon with its contoured face of sand dunes. The sun baked down on him that day as he hatched out from the pale grey shell within which he had been curled. His teryr mother was off hunting, yet she met her death, struck through by spears and arrows. Or at least this is what the rumours say.
Though maybe there is some truth to them, for Cairo is most at home where sand nestles deep into his coat and his feathers catch the hot desert winds. Maybe it is teryr blood that surges through his veins and calls him out into the open where the land is parched and the sky is endless in her reaching from distant horizon to distant horizon.
Cyrra is almost an illusion as the midday heat rises toward its peak and sets the air to trembling. The serpent necklace about her throat seems to come to life where it glints in the sun. The sun breathes life to the copper metal and for a moment Cairo thinks he sees it slithering around the elegant column of her throat.
The Viper Slayer.
The words are upon his tongue, their familiar ring whispered in his ears like all the voices who whisper the name as she passes. Cairo’s wings dip and the aquiline warrior sinks from the sky, slow and elegant. Light reflects across Cyrra’s coat as the pool ripples with the touch of her lips.
He lands light as an eagle amidst the verdant grasses. Slowly the Arete pushes through the flat waxy leaves of the oasis plants. Leonine he stalks toward her, his tail twitching, twitching over sand-strewn grasses. His golden gaze upon her is avian, sharp as a beak tap, tap, tapping its way up her spine.
His name tumbling from her lips is almost like a prayer. The pool sings as water drips off her chin. Cairo languidly watches the next drop gather at her lips, rolling to her chin and clinging until it drops, suddenly. Once gone, the man’s eyes flick up, setting hre ablaze in the light of his sunbright gaze.
“Cyrra,” Cairo replies, as if her name is water to his parched throat. “I heard you had awoken too.” He did not afford even Zayir a touch of greeting and he does not offer Cyrra any now. She knows too much of him, his deeds, the constant bodies in his bed who were never the one he really wanted.
They hold each other’s gaze, even as another droplet rolls down the groove of her throat. “I still feel the vestiges of that fetid magic. It lingers at my edges, wearying me.” His words are the cut of talons, directed not at Cyrra but at the magic that cast them all into a statue’s sleep for too, too long. “Do you feel it too?” He murmurs low, like whiskey, ragged like the gathering cry of a teryr’s rage.
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