Wing Magic

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  “We ride,” Retger said, making the sign of the bird, and then we were stepping out to the road, the horses’ feet light and quick on the ground, their heads still tossing with excitement as they danced a little, eager to be off.

  “I don’t like this,” Zayana whispered.

  “Trust me. The horses are good ones or Retger would not have brought them. Our family breeds the best horses in Far Stones.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  But she didn’t have time to clarify what she was worried about.

  We reached the road and the horses leapt forward, moving from walking creatures to streaks of speed in the blink of an eye. I clung to the reins and the saddle of the horse I sat while Zayana clung to me.

  “That’s truly your brother?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Has he been following us all this time?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t imagine that kind of loyalty.” She paused for a moment. “He looks very strong.”

  “Hopefully strong enough,” I muttered. But strength wouldn’t be enough. Not with Osprey chasing us. Every moment that passed seemed to make the feather in my cuff hotter.

  Morning streaked into a blur around us as the horses ate up ground so quickly that no one could possibly be able to catch up – not even Osprey and his glorious Os.

  We’d ridden for maybe an hour when the light of the rising sun began to dim. I checked above us as I had a dozen times already. No silhouette in the sky. No sight of the purplish-white light of Os’s wings. I didn’t know why the light was fainter here.

  Sesara danced under me, reading my mood. I felt edgy, waiting for the inevitable. Waiting for Osprey to descend on us. I was glad we hadn’t had to face that yet – and yet part of me longed to see him again. And that was a problem.

  By the time I saw him next, I needed a firm plan of action. Should I try to carve out the rest of that feather? Should I take any opportunity I could to kill him? If I didn’t decide now, then I knew what I’d do. I’d stand there frozen in inaction because I’d hope that he was the Osprey from before the cathedral underground – the Osprey who wanted to help and to keep me safe. I shook my head, trying to clear the thought. Thinking about a young man who wanted me dead was a distraction I couldn’t afford. I needed a plan and I needed to focus.

  We turned a corner in the road, and I gasped.

  Ahead, the road was completely enclosed by Forbidding. It curled over the dirt track, making it into a tunnel, continuing on either side, its dark tentacles clawing into the air, reaching for us.

  “I’ve never seen it so close to a city!” Retger called from his horse. He was reining him in. I followed his lead.

  We paused, our breath coming in quick huffs, as we watched the moving, breathing mass ahead. Retger drew his sword with care and I drew mine, too.

  “You’re sure you want to go to Ingvar, Shrikeling?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I forced every bit of confidence I had into my words.

  “Then, we fight.”

  I kicked my horse up again and Retger kicked his up beside mine. We drew our horses neck and neck with practiced ease. Anyone who had ever ridden the roads in the north knew the drill. Two wide. Each of you was responsible for hacking your side of the Forbidding and keeping it from the other person. Retger had taken my left side on purpose, giving me the easier side to defend with my right-handed grip on the sword. We rode at a quick trot. Not so fast as to stumble, not so slow as to let the Forbidding slow us.

  “I don’t like this,” Zayana said.

  My wristband flared hotter and I looked over my shoulder as we reached the tangle of Forbidding. Was that a burst of purplish-white light on the horizon, or was my mind playing tricks on me? I didn’t have time to wonder more. The first tentacle of Forbidding reached toward me and I deftly chopped it off with my short sword. It fell to the ground writhing as I moved to the next tentacle and the next.

  I knew this routine. Control your breathing. Don’t panic. Attack. Reassess. Attack again. I chopped and hacked at tentacle after tentacle, my grunts and labored breathing the only sign of my work. Beside me, Retger sounded the same as he cleared his side.

  Our horses trotted further under the overarching boughs of dark magic, brave as only a Far Stones horse could be. Some people put blinders on them to keep the horses docile, but we didn’t have to do that with Retger’s mounts.

  I risked a glance over my shoulder again. There was a last flash of light outside the tunnel and I could have sworn that I saw the briefest silhouette of someone removing a toothpick from his mouth. My heart felt a pang of regret for leaving him behind – which was crazy. I should not be thinking longingly of someone who was my enemy in action if not in spirit! – and then we were rushing deeper into the yawning mouth of the Forbidding and the muscles of my arm began to protest at the heavy work of fighting.

  “We’ve lost whoever was following you,” Retger said as the tunnel grew darker. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that I think the Forbidding has closed over the mouth of the tunnel behind us.”

  I cursed.

  The tunnel filled, suddenly, with scarlet light. Flame danced above Zayana’s hand.

  “Then it won’t matter if Flame is visible,” she said and she sounded relieved.

  As an experiment, I let my bees free, too, and realized why she felt that way. The moment my manifestation was out again, I felt a sense of rightness. It was as if containing them swallowed a piece of myself. Maybe that was why Osprey had Os in view all the time. I wanted to keep my swarm visible, too – out where they could buzz in complete freedom.

  “Welcome,” I breathed to them. “You’re always welcome."

  I blinked, grateful for both the light and the feeling, but I didn’t dare pause. I hacked at the next tentacle and the next, driving myself into a kind of trance as I worked.

  I was so lost in the rhythm of it that I barely noticed when another view overlaid mine. A bobbing, similar rhythm. Only when I blinked myself to awareness, did I realize I was seeing through one of my bee’s eyes and he was bobbing on a boat in the sea. Ixtap muttered something, turning his head and swatting at the bee, who only spiraled upward so he could look down at a ship packed with snake people. They looked odd on the sea, like an actual snake might if it flew. Odd, wrong, and horrifying on a bone-deep level. I shuddered and my vision flickered again.

  Another bee was showing me another vision. It was a brief glimpse, but I stumbled in my attack on the Forbidding, I was so distracted by it. Osprey leapt from his bird onto a thatched roof and quickly slid down the thatch, easing himself into the wide hay-door at the top of a barn. Inside, Wing Ivo was propped against a haystack, clutching his chest. Pain painted his face.

  “I was too slow to catch them,” Osprey said. “They have help now, too.”

  “Good,” Ivo smiled as Osprey dug into a bag and brought him a flask and a tin mug. “I don’t know why you’re bringing me with you. I only slow you down and you know I won’t help you find her.”

  “I couldn’t leave you to die out there, old man.” Osprey poured him a drink and held it out to him. “But I will have to leave you with a healer somewhere if we don’t get that fever down.”

  “Don’t leave me, boy,” Ivo said, punctuating his words with a severe cough. “You know I can’t abandon my Hatchlings. But you’ll hear about this from the prince. That pact you two have – it was unwise to go against it. He torments you with it. He purposely pushes you to despair. He wants you to end the rivalry by your own hand – to end your own life. Surely, you must realize it. I knew it in the boat when he forced you to hold her head under. It would be better if you stopped searching for her.”

  Osprey ran his hand over his face, stress making his features taut. “Do you think I don’t know that? I want nothing more than for her to escape me. If I could lend her my wings, I would. And yet, I am compelled to hunt.”

  “You should think about what you’ll do whe
n you catch her. She was never meant to be wed to a snake.”

  The growl in Osprey’s throat was half anger and half pain.

  I felt like I was leaning forward, wanting to know what was said next when my vision vanished. My eyes blinked open just as Retger leaned past me and swiped a Forbidding tentacle away.

  “No daydreaming. Watch your half.”

  There were no more bee visions, only the steady attack and defense against the tangled Forbidding as the horses slowed to a walk. It was getting too thick to fight easily. My arms were getting heavy, my thighs rubbed raw from constantly shifting in the saddle to bend and swipe and hack. Even Retger was sweaty beside us, his face screwed in concentration. How far did we have to fight? No one could tell us. And somehow it made it worse to not know.

  “Is it like this in the wild?” I asked him tightly. “Where our family is.”

  He glanced at Zayana, clearly not trusting her. “To a degree.”

  “You can trust Zayana,” I said and he paused to give her a considering look at the same moment that her bird flared a brighter red.

  A tentacle of Forbidding slashed toward him and Zayana startled, sending her bird toward it in a frantic squawk. My strike shot out, to deflect the attack before it hurt Flame. The strike was awkward, and I cursed as the tentacle slipped and bit into my hand.

  “Come bees,” I whispered. “I need your healing.”

  They were there in a moment, clustered around my hurt hand. The scent of honey filled the air and I felt instant relief.

  I looked up and caught Retger staring.

  “What?” I asked, irritably.

  Zayana’s laugh seemed to shake him back to himself in time to turn a new attack. “He’s as horrified as we all are at watching you cover yourself in insects.”

  “As fascinated,” my brother corrected her. “It’s fascinating. It makes me wonder about the Forbidding. Is it a perversion of the magic that makes it possible to manifest birds and bees? Or is it some byproduct – some remnant left over from the production of those manifestations? Or is it some corrupt entity and at its heart is the source of all this rot?”

  “Whatever it is, knowing won’t help right now,” Zayana said, but she had a considering look in her eye as she watched him and a faint smile. I hadn’t seen her so happy since I met her. I nearly rolled my eyes.

  “What? Never seen a red-eared Far Reach boy before, High’un?” Retger asked, noticing her glance.

  “I haven’t been missing much,” she said with a sniff, but she didn’t sound very sincere. She turned her attention to her bird and I almost fell from the saddle when it began to sing.

  At first, Flame’s voice was like any bird song. Bright, cheerful, filled with life. But as we fought back the tendrils of Forbidding, it morphed into something beyond a bird – into sounds like the choir I’d heard once on a trip to Vlaren. The song built, layer upon layer. The sound of viols and pandrums and a dozen more instruments coming together in a soaring theme, it built upon itself until it became the soul of a bird made sound.

  My breath caught and I almost missed a Forbidding tentacle trying to pierce through to me. I recovered quickly, hacking it back.

  “That’s beautiful, Zayana,” I breathed and even Retger looked impressed.

  But he was more impressed a moment later when the tentacles closest to Flame curled back, giving him room to soar. And though we had to keep fighting off the Forbidding in front of us, the area around Zayana and Flame remained safe from the Forbidding. It pulled back to avoid the bright little bird and his enchanting song.

  Now, that was a useful skill for a bird to have in the Far Stones.

  “Are you sure that you haven’t been here before?” Retger asked. “Because it seems like you have the kind of skills we could use around here.”

  Zayana said nothing but she seemed pleased with herself even though it was clearly an effort for her. Good for her. Her bird was worth more than she’d imagined at first. I bet those stupid Wings wouldn’t be beating her for failure now!

  My vision blurred for a moment and I was seeing with my bee again – this time, what I saw was Osprey, lifting Wing Ivo up onto Os’s back. Ivo was pale-faced and he winced as he was lifted, leaning to the side to cough and cough until I was afraid he’d never catch his breath.

  “I tracked her this far,” Osprey was saying, in a low, miserable voice. “And it’s only a matter of time before I find her. I wish you wouldn’t suffer for it, old friend. You know I’ll win and you know I can’t help but persist in trying to find her. So ... why not just let me leave you in a warm bed in an inn?”

  Ivo locked his jaw and said nothing, and Osprey sighed.

  “You won’t be able to stop me from catching her and you are only slowing me down by a few hours. Is a few hours of freedom worth so high a price?”

  “You tell me. What would you give to have two hours free of your binding to Juste?”

  Osprey’s face was so pale it almost looked green, but he shook his head as he hopped onto Os’s back beside the Wing, reaching down to steady him carefully. They sailed up into the air and my view jittered as my bee followed in fits and starts and a nausea-inducing ricochet course up through the clouds. From up here, I could see a city surrounded by darkness – a creeping, living darkness crawling its way toward that bright coastal city. That city could only be Glorious Ingvar. My eyes really hadn’t been lying to me. He’d tracked us this far. Being able to fly had given him a powerful advantage that even the undertrails couldn’t mitigate.

  I blinked back to my body and found myself sprawled on the earth, my head ringing and pain in my side. Retger was yelling something from above me. I could tell by his labored voice and grunts that he was fighting as he spoke. Zayana’s voice was nervous. The horses screamed and her voice became even more anxious. But I couldn’t make out the words. The singing of Flame was too loud as her bird did his part to shrink back our adversary.

  “Aella? Are you with us again?” Retger spared a glance down at me, his blacksmith’s muscles bulging as he shoved back against the Forbidding.

  “Yes,” I said thickly, grabbing my ringing head in both hands.

  “I’ll get you out of this mess as quickly as I can,” Retger said. “Hold on.”

  I felt for my short sword but it was gone. Spinning in place, I searched for it and was nearly trampled by my horse when I reached across the ground. It was only Zayana’s scream that warned me. Everything seemed thick and hard to hold onto.

  There was something I needed to tell them. Something important. I tried to think of what it was, but my feet slipped and the ground came up and met me with a crack to the chin.

  Chapter Nine

  “Easy! Easy now!” I woke to the sound of Retger quieting the horses. “Can you wake her? We need to move!”

  “Aella?” Zayana called.

  I nodded my head. “He’s hunting us. He’s close.”

  “The Forbidding will stop him,” Zayana assured me, helping me to my feet.

  “Who is hunting you?” Retger asked. “This Osprey guy? Tell me about him.”

  “Osprey is the Wing assigned to the guardianship of Le Majest,” Zayana said reverently but she looked at Retger like she was weighing his reaction to her words and when he made a sour face at what she said, she frowned. “He is bound to hunt down and kill anyone who threatens the life of Le Majest.”

  “And let me guess, Aella did just that?” My brother sounded amused.

  “Yes. She’s openly defiant. She insists that the freedom of her family is worth dying for. I’ve tried to tell her it’s crazy. But she’s stubborn and she never listens.” Zayana’s eyes were wide as she pled with Retger to be on her side.

  “I’m right here.” I pulled myself to my feet again and Retger handed me my sword. He was on foot and so was Zayana. “Maybe you should talk about how stubborn I am when I’m not right in front of you.”

  “Surely now that she has family here, you can show her a better way,” Zayana said. �
��I saw a narrow dark cloud pass behind a white fluffy cloud before I went to sleep last night. That should mean the protection of a greater, purer force. She needs your protection.”

  Retger nodded, keeping a straight face even though I could feel a smirk lurking behind his stony look. We were all crowded together, Zayana’s bird holding back the Forbidding as she lectured him.

  Zayana’s words turned urgent. “When we leave here, he will fall on us immediately, but if she goes with him and does as she is told, there will be honor and she will live.”

  “I thought you agreed to be on my side!” I objected.

  “I want what’s best for you,” Zayana looked pious. “Surely your bother can see that. He will help to guide you. What price should you pay for a freedom you’ll never have? It’s not worth your life!”

  “What is freedom worth, then?” Retger asked Zayana.

  “Freedom can’t buy safety or happiness. It can only buy you troubles and hardship.”

  Retger turned to me. “And is freedom worth trouble and hardship to you, Shrikeling?”

  I bared my teeth. “Let them try to take it from me and I will show them what it’s worth.”

  Now, he did smile. “I hate to disappoint you, High’un, but I am one of heart with my sister. I’ll gladly give my own life to carve out a little freedom for my family. Even if that Wing is waiting on the other side of the Forbidding, I will still stand with her and fight.”

  “Good,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat. “Because he is waiting there.”

  Retger drew in a breath, a look of surprised irritation on his face.

  “But I have a plan. I’m sick of being the prey. I want to be the predator.”

  “Fine words, Shrikeling, but freedom is not so easy to gain.”

  “I have an idea,” I said with an answering grin. Well, maybe not a plan, but it was the beginning of one. “But I’m going to need your help. And we need to make it work before we can leave this tangle of Forbidding.”