Henry held out his arms and barely kept himself from screaming in joy.
Thanatos soared over the open water of the waterway, confirming the quality of the fabric the spinners had woven for his wing, so much so that he claimed he could nearly not feel the difference.
Henry grinned as the familiar sensation of freedom took over, always brought about by flying. He rose a little from where he lay on Thanatos' back.
"You know, I'm starting to get a hang of this outcast thing," Henry yelled against the wind and instantly regretted it as pain pierced his eye. He dropped back and down at the shimmering water. The bandage still felt foreign on his face, and it stung when he moved or rose too quickly. Or when he screamed, apparently.
"You only notice that now?" replied Thanatos, flying a lazy serpentine. The tip of his wing was still broken but, just as Henry had speculated, spinners were excellent medics too; now that it had been stabilized, it would heal soon.
A team of three had worked on the flier whom they had once kidnapped—all for their Bringer of Buzzer Wings—and they had even woven special fabric to more closely mimic the tissue on the flier's wing. When they had given the rest of the fabric that hadn't been used to Henry, he had adorned Mys' handle with it. Now he and Thanatos really matched, he thought, grinning.
"Well," he mumbled. "Let's just say that you were right, back at the nibbler colony. It's odd saying that now, after the eye, but I understand now." He touched the bandage and winced. "You can only change as much as you let yourself change."
"Well, at least we are learning."
Henry ignored the sarcasm and closed his exhausted eye. He smiled. What would his half-a-year-younger self—the spoiled, delusional Prince of Regalia, who had taken his power and status for granted—say if he saw him: Henry, the . . . whatever he was now?
He wasn't an entirely different person, but he had learned more about life in the last six months than in the sixteen years before that. That was what Thanatos had meant, no? He'd been compelled to adapt, learn, and change, but not change who he was. He had this.
Hadn't, in fact, the same traits that he had been judged for back in Regalia saved his life now? Those very traits that had once consumed him with so much bitterness and hatred, compelling him to conspire with Gorger against his own people?
Out here, his disdain for weakness and his fear of failure had animated him to not allow himself to succumb. His ambition and hunger for recognition, his neverending drive to prove himself, had pushed him not to remain idle, to find a way to not only live as an outcast but to be successful. He had won his challenge, he thought, smiling. And he had done so with flying colors.
For a moment, the self-doubt from earlier flooded Henry; how much of it could he still replicate now, with the state of his eye? The moment it rose, he drowned out the doubts in a wave of determination. Thanatos was right; this did not invalidate any of his achievements that had come before.
The damn eye could go sit on a tack. He would not let it diminish his self-worth or take away his achievements. It was an impressive list, and he decided it was far from complete. He had led a crawler colony into victory against an army of cutters. He had won a one-on-one battle against a former general of Gorger's. He had taken on a swarm of buzzers, made himself welcome at the spinners', and ridden on the back of a serpent.
They had been wrong about him, Henry thought with so much satisfaction that it almost overwhelmed him. He was not one to be dismissed or forgotten. He was the one who had, in the face of utter disgrace, learned to chase glory—the same that he had felt so deprived of back in Regalia. And what glory!
"I changed so much, and yet I'm still myself."
"And yet you're still an impulsive hazard to society, you mean?"
He flicked at Thanatos' ear. "What's the fun of not being an impulsive hazard to society?"
"As long as you don't forget that your actions have consequences . . ."
"Oh, they do," said Henry with a grin. "And each consequence may be turned into an opportunity, and subsequently, into a victory."
"Is that your main takeaway here?"
"Well, it is nothing new." Henry considered it. "I have always prided myself on being better than most at using failures to my advantage. But even I had not grasped the full power of an ability such as this. If I can find an opportunity in something such as exile, what can I not do?"
"Be humble about it," said Thanatos.
"I do not need humility!" cried Henry, clinging to the flier's fur. He blew out a breath, considering what else he had wanted to say. "I suppose," he said more quietly, "I should thank you. For saving my life at the expense of your wing."
"In moments such as this, it is that I genuinely realize that you are, in fact, not beyond hope."
Henry groaned. "Have we not acted as bonds far longer than we have been bonded?" he asked, ignoring the sarcastic jab.
"That is exactly why I claimed that bonding changed nothing between us."
Henry didn't respond. He thought he understood what the flier meant but did that mean that he couldn't make a big deal of it? It was a big deal, and to pretend otherwise meant to disregard the extent of his own feelings about the matter. Surely nobody expected him to do that?
"It was all prophesied anyway," said Henry. "As you said, our alliance and our bond. And the Rider must not lose Death."
"You are really excited about this Death Rider thing, aren't you? You may as well be a child on his birthday."
"I am not excited!" Henry was very much so, but the flier didn't need to know that. "And even if—I am a mythical figure, the stuff of legends. I have every right to be."
"Whatever you say."
"Either way," hissed Henry. "At least now I finally have a true outcast name to call myself that was not given to me by crawlers." Henry did not mention his fear of being laughed at if he attempted to go by the name. He would not look or present himself like someone to be laughed at; he would make sure of that.
"True," replied Thanatos. "And a Rider without Death is hardly a Death Rider."
"What? Use words, please. My head hurts. I can't think right now."
"Can you ever?"
"Shut up," Henry hissed, barely suppressing laughter. "I'm tired. All prophecies are fulfilled, no?"
"I still have my doubts when it comes to the Prophecy of the Death Rider," said Thanatos.
"And what about the Prophecy of Gray?"
"Are you back to obsessing over prophecies?"
"No!" exclaimed Henry. "I would merely like to know if we get a break now or if there are still any outstanding decisions about where to stand or anything of the sort to be made. See, I must know where Sandwich places me so that I can judge whether I am content with it or not."
"Is that so?"
"Yes," said Henry emphatically. "If Sandwich says that I am the Death Rider, I have no objections whatsoever. But if the old man says that I am "the last who will die", he will have to rise from his grave and stab a sword into my chest with his own hands."
"That is quite a healthy mindset," said Thanatos. "And . . . less surprising than one might assume, coming from you."
"Why?"
"Because you are quite possibly the most hopeless, unshakable, infectious optimist that I have ever encountered."
"So I am!"
Thanatos laughed. "And so, you have decided to stand with them. How did that go? The last who will die must decide where he stands—"
"—The fate of the eight is contained in his hands," Henry continued. "So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps / As life may be death and death life again reaps."
"The fate of the eight . . ." Thanatos hesitated. "We never understood that line, did we? So what if we can now?"
"You mean it refers to . . . now?" Henry frowned. "There were more than eight people on that boat."
"But some of them were the same—among them Luxa and Aurora," the flier remarked. "What if "the eight" are not the group from the last quest only? What if it means a set group of people, of . . . questers. Your choice to stand with them saved Luxa this time. Like your choice had their fate contained in your hands."
"Maybe." Henry's gaze trailed ahead and he watched the waves quietly break on the scaly cliff to their left. His mind flew back to his forced bath in the waterway after Thanatos had been kidnapped. "So, you say it does not matter who it is?"
"Yes," replied the flier. "What matters is that their fate—whoever exactly the eight are—was and could, in the future, still be contained in your hands."
"You mean if we continue to aid them?" Henry rose on his back. "Like—"
"I mean, it would be foolish of me to not support the one heroic goal you have ever made for yourself, no?"
"I could be a hero."
"Condemner, savior has become," recited Thanatos. "And I believe just this once that it may not be foolish to let the prophecy show us what we could do."
"Yes," replied Henry with a wide grin. "I took care where I leaped this time," he said suddenly. "In the serpent's way."
"And I . . . and Death saved your life . . . again."
"Death life . . . again reaps," Henry mumbled. "You're right. It says "again". I do not think anyone ever questioned that."
"And Death became the Death Rider," mumbled Thanatos. "Death and his Rider."
"Death Rider needs a vacation," said Henry, earning laughter.
"Oh really?"
"This needs to heal." Henry brought his hand up to his eye. "Your wing too, no?" And there were also all his issues regarding his perception and fighting skills, he thought, but didn't say out loud.
"And what did the great Rider of Death have in mind?" asked Thanatos. "The nibbler colony?"
"That is on the other side of the waterway." Henry shook his head. "What if . . . remember that crawler island I mentioned to you?"
"You want to take your vacation . . . among crawlers?"
"Why not?" Henry grinned. "They will not be a bother; they have way too much adulation and respect for me."
"And that respect is clearly not mutual."
Henry rolled his eye but ignored the flier's jab. "So, are you in?" he asked.
Wordlessly, Thanatos veered and soared above the glittering, breaking waves toward the island. Henry rose higher and once more spread his arms. This time, despite the eye, he screamed at the top of his lungs.