A crow is flying overhead with wings that look as if they are made of oil instead of feather. It's diving through the soot and smoke, beady eyed and swift as a desert wind. When it lands it cocks its head like a wolf at Isra and opens up that sharp beak to cry.
Isra does not smile when she cocks her head and looks at it like a doe in a thicket of smoke. She does not look away to watch Katniss dissolve into the ashen clouds rising like a cage around her. That feeling in her heart, a first beating against a shield, is enough to know that they don't need words between them anymore. Isra thinks briefly of the roar Fable makes, how her heart aches with it even as her ears sting.
It's still that roar she's thinking of as she turns back to the fortress rising around her like mighty oaks. All the char and ash is still turning to marble and steel. Her power is rising in her like a tide, and for a moment it's easy to forget that she is a unicorn of flesh and bone instead of primordial skin and dangerous blood heavy with magic. She lets it sweep her away, away to the place where she doesn't have to be a queen in a burning city.
She lets it sweep her away to the place where she is only a weapon sharp and thirsty.
That crow shakes his feathers and prepares himself to launch back into the sky. Isra smiles and cocks her head at him like a lion in the tall-grass. All the ash piling along her spine turns to gold-dust and pearl dust. Isra shines when the dying embers reflect against her coat.
And when she blinks the crows turns into a lark and the sound it sings when opens its beak to scream almost sounds like a hallelujah.
“There is no home for you”
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