I. Air
The first time Diaval sees his mistress take to the sky, it knocks the air from his lungs.
She is courage and power and raw, fearsome splendor. Magnificent, beyond all dreams.
No wonder the armies of man had trembled in their armor.
For this, he thinks, is how she must have been in the time before. The mistress he'd followed so long had been but a shadow of the untamed radiance before him now.
She is so wildly, fiercely beautiful it dazzles his eyes. The sound of the wind fills his ears—it sings in joy to have her home again.
Diaval tilts back his head to caw in reply, but his human voice can't make the sounds. He strains up on human feet to fly with her, but he is earthbound.
She no longer needs his wings.
But in the next moment the air shimmers, and he is transformed. He is shuttling skyward faster than he has ever flown—lifted in her updraft.
Perhaps, even though she doesn't need his wings, there is a still a place for him beside her. He can hope.
They fly together over the Moors.