“He won’t be able to bring reinforcements into this place.” Retger nodded approvingly. “A good place to kill a Wing. If he escapes our grasp, then the Forbidding will get him.”
“You seem very calm about the Forbidding,” Zayana said, crossing her delicate arms over her chest. She was different around my brother. She had more of a spark of life. Her eyes constantly sought his as if he was the rock he looked like and she could tie herself to him.
“I’m used to it. I’ve been fighting it all my life, just like Shrikeling here, but I’ve been doing it for longer.” Retger’s grin was confident.
Zayana nodded, her cheeks flushing slightly.
“Have you ever caught birds in traps before?” I asked Retger, interrupting them. They could save all their getting-to-know-you for when this was done.
“Sure,” he agreed. “A pair of eagles for the old man when they were stealing foals.”
“Is there a good way to do it?” I asked. “Because this might be a man who is hunting us, but he’s as much a bird of prey as he is a man.”
Retger nodded. “Okay, we travel until we’re almost out of this stuff and then you two will have to hold back the Forbidding while I make the trap. But I won’t do it unless you’re both fully committed to it.”
He looked at Zayana, raised an eyebrow, and her eyes widened.
“If you think it’s the wisest course,” she said demurely. That wasn’t an eyelash flutter, was it?
“I’m your big puffy cloud, aren’t I?” he asked. “Hide behind me.”
Zayana’s chin lifted a hair more and she was smiling as she mounted her horse again.
“Thank you, Retger,” I said quietly.
He grabbed my arm, looking furtively at Zayana before whispering in my ear. “When we have some privacy, I have a lot to tell you that isn’t for idle ears. Things about our family and our connection to the Single Wing. Okay? You would have been told after you failed to Hatch like the rest of us were but ... well, that didn’t happen, right? Just know that we have allies and that once we get to Ingvar there will be people to help us find this general of yours.”
I opened my mouth and then shut it with a click. They all knew? And they hadn’t told me? But I knew better than to ask in front of Zayana. She still wasn’t sure where she stood, and I didn’t want her to have any information she didn’t need to have until she was committed to our cause. Especially when it came to the safety of our family.
I mounted up in front of Zayana just in time to take a swipe at an arm of the Forbidding tangling toward her.
“If we stayed on foot, Flame could keep them off of all of us,” Zayana said. Flame’s song was still strong, though I was growing used to it enough that I was no longer marveling at the beauty and just focusing on the utility of it.
“We need to ride,” Retger said. “Before we all grow tired in this mess. Why don’t you give your bird a break? We’re going to need it for my trap.”
“Him,” Zayana corrected him. “We’ll need him.”
I ignored their dance of words and focused on my bees for a moment.
“Light our way,” I whispered to them. That wouldn’t take much energy and Retger was right. Zayana should rest Flame’s ability until we needed it.
Her scarlet bird winked out of existence and we were swathed in the dull golden glow of my swarm of bees. Almost immediately, the attack of the Forbidding redoubled, and Retger and I had to put all of our concentration into fighting our way each step through the tangle. It was almost as if a bubble surrounded us, a bubble of malevolent tangles and reaching tentacles.
“Can we set fire to it?” Zayana asked after what felt like hours of fighting.
“Not without finding the heart,” Retger answered her. He bent around her protectively as he slashed away an attacking tentacle. “In a tainted tree or a Forbidding bear, it’s easy enough to find but this is basically like the wilds of the Forbidding. It’s impossible to find a heart to light on fire.”
“Forbidding bear? That sounds awful!”
“They’re rare. I doubt we’ll see one.”
I wished he hadn’t said that. Somehow it felt like if the worst of something could happen to us then it would happen.
“What if you found the heart of the wild Forbidding? Could you light that on fire?” she pressed.
She sat stiffly, awkwardly, behind me as if she felt uncomfortable that she couldn’t fight, too. I was dripping with sweat, my cloak too heavy and clothing too hot, but I didn’t dare remove it. These days, I seemed to lose anything not attached to me.
“It’s something I hope to do someday,” he said with a conviction that surprised me. I turned to study his face. He’d never talked about that before. “It has to be out there somewhere. This stuff isn’t completely mindless like a plant, but it doesn’t seem to have individual consciousness like an animal. It’s smart enough to attack but easily outwitted – like right now when we’re surrounded by the stuff but can still fight it back. That suggests there’s a mind or heart of some kind for all of it. But where to find it? And would you have to fight like this to drive it back?”
“I wonder if all of Glorious Ingvar is surrounded like this,” I spoke my fears aloud. “How do they feed their people?”
“They probably ship food in through the port.” Retger shrugged. “It was surrounded like this once before. The people can fight it back again.”
“Without swords?” I pressed.
He looked away awkwardly. But that was why we were fighting like this. I almost sagged with relief when we finally saw a glimmer of daylight on the other end. We fought until it was a wide tunnel. I could see the outlines of the city in the bright light beyond. It was nearly sunset. We’d been fighting this back all day. No wonder my whole body ached.
“We set the trap here,” Retger said after a minute. “He’ll be expecting Aella and Zayana but not me. So. We set up Zayana here.” He pointed to a spot on the side of the road near the Forbidding. Absently, he hacked off two tentacles as he spoke. “You’ll need to hold the horses and have Flame keep the Forbidding off of you and Aella while we wait.”
“If you say so.” She sounded nervous. Flame sprang to life on her palm and then hovered above us, beginning to sing.
“I was planning to make a net with my bees,” I said, crossing my arms. “Nothing you have can hold him.”
“You need to be the bait,” he insisted. “In bird traps, you use live bait. Usually, a smaller bird. So, we’ll use a Shrike.”
He winked and I nodded. He wasn’t wrong. Osprey would be coming for me, not Zayana. I was the bait, but this wasn’t how I’d hoped it would go down.
“Your net idea is good,” he said. “You can use it to grab his magic bird. I don’t have anything for that.”
“And Os is very strong.”
“You have a nickname for him?” Retger looked worried.
“That’s the name of the bird. The osprey. It’s called Os.”
“Oh, okay. You handle Os with your bees. You’ll be lying on the ground looking injured, so you can squint to see. We’ll lay out the saddlebags behind you and I will lie wrapped in a cloak there. When he drops on you, I will grab him with a noose – just like a big bird.”
I chewed my lip. It wasn’t the plan I’d had but it wasn’t a bad plan. I was just worried about the bees and Os. My bees were amazing – no doubt about that. But Os was huge and powerful. Could they really form a net around him?
“Look,” Retger said. “It doesn’t matter if your net thing doesn’t work very well. The key is to distract the magic bird. Once I have the noose around your pursuer’s neck, he’ll stop whatever magic he’s doing. He won’t have a choice.”
I nodded my agreement. I was trying not to think about what we’d do after that. Trying not to think about how we were supposed to drag a prisoner along with us into a city. Those worries could come after we’d accomplished this. I wasn’t going to kill Osprey. I knew that much. Whatever else we had to do, it wouldn�
�t be that.
“No mortal wounds,” I said.
“I’ll do what I have to do, Shrikeling. No one hunts down my sister to be the bride of anyone. In Far Stones, our family is free.”
Zayana watched us clasp hands with something in her eyes that looked a bit like longing.
“Give me your horses,” she said arrogantly and then gasped as Retger handed her his reins. “No. We shouldn’t do this.”
“Why not? Worried I’ll get hurt?” Retger asked with a teasing grin.
“You crossed your left rein over the right when you handed them to me. That is inauspicious in the extreme.” She made the sign of the bird, worriedly.
“How does she know these things?” Retger asked me.
I shrugged. “Apparently, we’re all supposed to know them.”
I was already lifting the saddle bags off the horses for our ruse.
“Tell me more about how you think we can destroy this Forbidding,” Zayana was asking Retger but I was too busy worrying to listen. No one knew how to destroy the Forbidding. Not Retger. Not anyone. Or we would have done it already. Even the Hissan would have done it. I knew their minds enough to know that.
No, the Forbidding was just one more obstacle to our freedom from the Winged Empire. That had to be our goal. It was a great goal – one that was even worth risking Osprey for. Or at least, that’s what I was trying to tell myself as I called my bees to me in a small swarm. It was growing harder to deny that thinking of hurting him hurt me.
I could still feel his forehead pressed against mine. I could still feel his pain as he watched me with agonized eyes the moments before I stabbed him. I could still feel the desperation dripping off of him. I felt in the cuff, felt the growing heat of the feather within, and let myself feel – if only for a moment – the mixed emotions I had about him. I was excited to see him again. I shouldn’t be. I was meant to be trapping him.
And yet, my heart was racing at the thought of seeing those bright eyes and that toothpick dancing across his curving lips. I was also terrified to see him. Because it would mean pain. His or mine. It was always pain. I’d run for days and taken terrible risks to flee him, and yet it often felt like we were tied together somehow. Like I could feel him on the other end of the tether and if he wasn’t chasing me, then I would be chasing him.
I shook my head. It was girlish emotions like these that would seal my fate. Even if he felt the same way – and I didn’t think he did after he denied me that kiss – even if he felt attraction to me, he would still obey every command of Le Majest. He would beat me and carve me up and serve me up to his prince as a tattered bride. Even if it ate him bite by bite to do it, he would. Caring about him was like walking into the ocean and taking step after step even as the water closed over your head. I shouldn’t do it. And I was already being swept away.
I tried to shake away my thoughts. If Retger had any idea I was thinking like this he wouldn’t just scoff. He’d take me by the scruff of the neck and shake me. I’d have to keep these thoughts to myself.
I called my bees closer. I needed to do this before I reconsidered. Their buzz was muted, almost as if they were as uncertain as I was.
“Work as one swarm,” I whispered to them. “You are mighty together. You are strong. You are not alone, you are part of the greater swarm that stretches toward the skies. You know that even your death is small compared to the greatness of your swarm that stretches through the ages. So, your story does not end with you. Your glory and bright light does not end in you. It is in your swarm, in your togetherness. Take courage and take risks. Work to do the impossible. You will be a net of hindrance around Os when he leaps from the sky. You will tighten together around his wings. You will hold him fast. You will not fear his strength or his fury. You will not be overcome by him. Because you are mine and I will give you my heart and my courage to keep you strong.”
I could only hope the invocation was strong enough.
I lay down dutifully on the ground, letting my bees lie with me – a trap waiting to spring.
Chapter Ten
He descended on us. Death from above. A flurry of flapping wings and blinding bright purplish-white light. It was good that my role was to play dead because I couldn’t have done anything else, I was so stunned by his arrival. It wasn’t that I wasn’t expecting it. It was that it was utterly gorgeous.
One moment, I was lying on the ground, eyes squeezed shut, hoping beyond hope that this would work. The next moment, he was there, riding his Osprey through the tunnel of Forbidding in a snarling crouch. His short swords were in each hand and he fought – double-handed – against the Forbidding as he swooped between snatching, clawing strands of it. One strand fell at the sweep of his blade, writhing on the ground, only to be met by another and another.
I’d barely managed to catch my breath and squeeze my eyes shut as he descended on me, leaping from Os’s back, his words gusting over me. “Dead or alive, you’re mine.”
Something in my chest leapt at those words. It wanted to throw itself into his arms, wanted to make those words true. I wanted to open my eyes and see his face as he said them.
The rest of me stuck to the plan.
“Net,” I whispered, reminding my bees. “Be strong now!”
My eyes snapped open, meeting his, and the wonder on his face swept all thought away. He was here to capture me, and yet the look on his face as of absolute reverence.
The bees surrounded Os, leaping up from their cloud into carefully regimented squares to form strands of net around him, a buzzing swarm of stinging fury. He screeched and Osprey spun away from me to lend his help at the same moment that Retger leapt from behind the horses, flinging his noose toward Osprey’s neck.
Osprey’s blue eyes lit with fury and he sliced the rope as it passed, bisecting the noose easily. How had he seen it in time? It had been over his head!
My heart lurched in my chest as I launched myself to my feet. This wasn’t going according to plan!
I clenched my fists and bees manifested to cover them.
“You think to trap me?” Osprey took a step toward Retger. “Who are you?”
He looked both shocked and furious. He made a swift hand gesture and Os bulged with purple light. He swelled to nearly double the size and I gasped as my bee net burst into a hundred little individual bees. They spun toward me, stunned and off-balance, knocking into everything around them as they tried to reform a swarm.
“To me, bees,” I gasped. Off to the side, Retger was drawing his sword now that his noose maneuver hadn’t worked.
No. Not a good idea.
Everything in me revolted at the thought of my brother going up against my ... whatever Osprey was. One of them would kill the other right before me and then what would I do? I couldn’t bear it.
Gasping with fear, I lunged, hands spread wide, bees flowing from them toward Osprey. I wanted them to form another net – this time around him.
Instead, his eyes went wide, and he reached through the golden stinging mass, gripped me by the forearms, and sang a single note. In the blink of an eye, Os was under us, bursting upward. We shot through the air like a star across the night’s sky. We shattered the Forbidding tangles above us and broke into the sky.
Osprey’s eyes were wide, his hands shaking as he held my arms.
“House Apidae,” he gasped, as if he couldn’t believe he was holding me. His touch was almost tender, as if he was afraid to hurt me. He wrenched one of his hands loose, reached in his pocket, and shoved something into the pocket of my jacket.
“To buy wisdom,” he said.
“Will you take me back to your master?” I asked, breathless.
“What choice have I?”
“I’ll find you one.”
My bees hurried to join us as we spiraled upward, a swirl of purplish-white feathers and furious golden bees. A buzz filled my chest as a memory of his song rang through my mind. I grabbed the opening of his half-buttoned jacket with my freed hand and his eyes
widened further, his lips parting and eyes melting as if he thought I was going to kiss him again.
But my other hand was already moving. And my belt knife was in it. I ripped his shirt open and plunged the belt knife into the blood-soaked bandage wrapping his chest – just to the left of the stain. Hoping, beyond hope, that I could hit the second half of the feather.
“I’ll cut you free.”
As the knife met his flesh, pain ripped through my heart. Stabbing him felt like stabbing myself. My lips fell open as I tried to pull in a frantic breath.
I looked up at his eyes then, terrified at what I might see. They were hot and thick with emotion and the corners of his mouth turned up into what could almost be a smile.
“Though you slay me, yet will I rise,” he said, eyelashes fluttering. His grip on my shoulders loosened as his body went slack.
With a cry, I dropped my belt knife, wrapping my arms around him.
His osprey vanished and we plunged through the air for a single heartbeat and then his eyes flickered open and the bird reappeared, settling under us.
Something firmed in his gaze and he reached for me, but I’d lost my knife. I didn’t dare risk what he might do next.
“We all do things we hate to make it possible for what we love,” I whispered, throwing his words back at him, and then I leapt backward, falling through the air.
I spun into a dive, hoping to be faster than Os. He must be slower with Osprey hurt.
“Catch me. Catch me,” I chanted to my bees.
They formed up under me in a cloud, slowing me as I tumbled to the tear in the Forbidding that we’d made on our way up – and then through it and to the hard ground below. It was enough to keep me from breaking my neck, but not enough to keep from jarring every bone in my body.
“Nnngh.” My pained groan filled my ears as hands tugged me up.
“What now? What do we do now?” Zayana sounded panicked.
“We flee! And next time we set a better trap.” Retger grunted as he lifted me to the back of his horse. I was still blinking stars from my eyes as he leapt into the saddle and kicked his horse into a gallop, Zayana’s horse straining right behind. “Come on, Welaro, run! Run as the wind sweeps over the hills!”
Wing Magic Page 7