Kindred and Wings

by Philippa Ballantine

  Circe then rounded on Talyn, while Nyree struggled desperately to find her footing on the loose rock down below. Magma bubbled and hissed only a few feet from her. One wrong move and there would never be four seers to keep the White Void and the Kindred happy. They would be lost.

  “You are surplus to requirements now,” Circe said with a nasty grin, while her trapped Kindred began to howl loudly in despair.

  Talyn had never heard them make that noise before; usually their torment was soundless, but she suspected it was not in response to the Phage’s comments. They felt something else entirely—as much as she could. The White Void was preparing to open and either be satisfied or rip Conhaero apart. Talyn knew she did not have much time to converse with Circe.

  She had a much better reply than words. The once-Hunter whipped her pistol up and out of her holster. In one smooth movement she took aim and fired at the other woman’s head—with the trapped Kindred, it made for a rather large target.

  The before-time, though, was not working in her favor—it was now working for her enemy. Circe stepped away from the bullet with ease and somehow ended up closer to Talyn. The once-Hunter had a moment to grasp that her fellow seer had managed to get hold of an outcrop and was levering herself back up the slope, but that was the only good thing about the situation.

  Nyree wouldn’t get there in time to help Talyn. The Gifts of the Vaerli had been withdrawn from her by the Phage, and not yet returned by the Kindred. It was a shame, since she would have liked to have them available to her at this point. It seemed unfair to have come through so many painful years and be denied.

  Circe didn’t have a weapon, but when her fist connected with Talyn’s ribcage, the Vaerli was reminded that the Gift of strength would have also been most useful. Talyn staggered back with the impact, but used it to get enough distance that she might unsheath her sword. It was not her mother’s, she missed that one terribly, but this one could still do the job.

  While the Phage woman had the Gifts, she also had the advantage. Circe dodged Talyn’s strike with her sword. Instead she stepped in past her defense and twisted the weapon from her hands as if taking it from a child. Talyn was now getting a lesson in how terrible it was to be on the receiving end of that particular Gift. It was deeply unpleasant, and she had sudden empathy for her victims through the years.

  One of Circe’s hands wrapped around Talyn’s throat and she began to squeeze. The once-Hunter had a blurry impression of the Phage’s face, and the watchful heads of Kindred who could do nothing to save her. It seemed like a shameful way to die, but no matter how much she scrambled at the fingers, they were more powerful than she could imagine.

  The world went from the elemental red of the volcano, to gray, and then dark spots began to widen in front of her eyes.

  Then Talyn was falling, but not into the embrace of death; to the ground. She gasped for breath as her knees stung with pain, and heard a voice she had never expected to find here of all places.

  “I understand you are looking for me?” the Caisah said mildly to the Phage. He sounded different somehow, but it was hard to place why through the ringing in her ears.

  By the time Talyn levered herself up to catch sight of the Caisah, with Kelanim standing next to him holding his hand, the Phage woman had forgotten Talyn existed. Circe was staring at them while her Kindred whipped into a frenzy around her face. She bent and calmly picked up Talyn’s sword.

  “You are the lynchpin, the final abomination that must be cleansed,” Circe said through clenched teeth. “Once you are dead, the Kindred’s curse will be lifted. It will end and my brothers and sisters will take possession of the White Void. We will be stronger than you were, and all those worlds will learn to obey the Phage.”

  Talyn knew that look intimately. She had worn it herself quite often. It was the look of the fanatic. It was also the path to arrogance and short-sightedness.

  Which Circe was about to learn, because while the Phage enjoyed her moment of victory, she had missed another moment altogether: the one where Nyree managed to clamber high enough to reach Talyn. Her hand brushed against the exposed part of the Vaerli’s foot.

  “The pae atuae is yours,” Talyn whispered as Putorae had taught her. “I as the born do give it you, the made.” These were the required words, creating the bound between born and made seers, linking them forever in their guardianship.

  The silvered writing, like an impossible plant given light, crawled up her leg in an instant. She could feel it like ice running over her skin, covering every inch of it. The sensation was painful, and yet everything Talyn needed now and forever. She was finally what she had always been, the born seer.

  “No,” she said, with a savage smile at Circe, “I think you are the true abomination.” With that, Talyn stepped into the before-time as easily as she drew breath. It was bliss to do so. She foresaw the sweep of the Phage and her blade. Circe moved slowly, weighed down by so many Kindred around her, and Talyn was able to move in and past her blade with ease.

  The sudden impact of the once-Hunter’s sword piercing Circe’s gut shuddered up Talyn’s arm. It was a plain blade for such good work. The born seer twisted it once, savagely, and heard the trapped Kindred cry out in delight. Finally, they would be free. Then, with her boot, Talyn pushed the Phage from her, off the blade, to her fate. The woman tumbled away, falling past Nyree and into the distant pit of burning, unforgiving magma. It was a fitting end.

  Talyn dropped immediately to the ground, threw out her arm, and her made seer caught her hand. With a grunt, Talyn pulled her up, until they both sat panting on the edge of the pit. The cries of battle around them didn’t exist for a moment. It was the sound of footsteps approaching that made them both look up.

  “And now me,” the Caisah said with a sad smile. “You must do the same for me.”

  The mistress at his back was weeping, and for once Talyn saw clearly. Kelanim did actually love the Caisah—that was why she had been so jealous, not because she craved power. It was an odd thing to notice here, of all places. Empathy, one of the Vaerli Gifts, was making its presence felt. It was painful but worth feeling.

  The Caisah took Kelanim’s hand in his, but did not change his mind. “I am the lynchpin, the final piece that is holding back the return of the Vaerli Gifts. The Phage had it right. I am an abomination. The broken piece.”

  Talyn slowly clambered to her feet, feeling as though every bone was aching. She looked at him, her head tilted to one side. “Once the idea of slaying you would have filled me with delight. It wasn’t that long ago, really. Now that it comes to it, I don’t know if I can . . .”

  She looked up suddenly, for coming around the corner of the dragon’s fallen carcass were Finn and Ysel, but with them was another man. It was her brother. She knew that instantly, as well as she knew her own face in a mirror. For a second she didn’t register who he had with him. He filled her vision completely. A slow, rather wet blink of her eyes, and she noticed that the ranks of the Vaerli for which she had sacrificed her pride, her honor and herself, were finally there behind Byre. He had led them, and he would lead them in the future.

  For a long moment she drank them all in, as would a woman who had not tasted water for years. Her eyes darted along the impossible rank of delight. Byre looked very like their father, but with their mother’s jet-black hair. The Vaerli were all there—the remains of her people gathered together after so long from her sight. None of them were burning, and there was no pain.

  The curse was nearly extinguished. She let her eyes take them all in, filing away each precious, uncertain face. They looked tired, ragtag, though she could see in them the memory of pride. She wanted that in them—but not arrogance. Arrogance had brought them so close to destruction, and Talyn did not want to taste it again.

  When she held out her arms in mute offering, Byreniko rushed to her. He smelled of sulphur and sweat. Yet, he was a stranger to her, no longer the little boy with the huge eyes. He had real strength in his arms
. It was the kind of strength their trials had brought him. Over his shoulder Talyn saw the intense gaze of the Blood Witch she had sent to help him and keep him safe. She mouthed a thank you to her, and Pelanor smiled, showing her pointed teeth.

  “It is good to see you, sister,” Byre said, in a voice that spoke of strength and endurance. He must have had both to have reached here, after all the years. His eyes ran over her skin with dawning delight. “The born seer, then.” The way his shoulders sagged, she realized he knew what that meant; not for her the easy life, even after all of this.

  “You too, brother,” she said, as Finn reached her. He did not embrace Talyn, letting her have her reunion, but his eyes gleamed with tears. This wasn’t the kind of meeting she had dreamed about, but it was one none the less.

  “Talyn,” Finn whispered into her ear, and she felt, rather than heard the White Void rumbling toward them. It would not be put away.

  Kindred had appeared at the edge of the volcano; silent sentinels to what the Vaerli’s choice would be. They made no comment. They only watched.

  The seers, four now, all turned to the Caisah, who was watching them with the faintest suggestion of a smile in the corner of his mouth. Now, at the end, it seemed he wanted to offer an explanation.

  “They came to me in the Void, you know, when all my men were gone, and madness was only a breath away.” He looked out over the heaving magma and the silent Kindred with a kind of resignation that bordered on happiness. “They told me I could not save my men, but that I would be the savior of others, and that I would be remembered.” He looked up at the eagle mounted on the staff he carried. “All I wanted was to die honorably.”

  The earth was beginning to shake under their feet.

  He looked Talyn directly in the eye. “I was never meant to be the Caisah. My name is Vitus. I am glad at the end to have it back.” He spun about and clasped Kelanim to him, kissing her passionately in a way Talyn had never seen him kiss any other woman. Then, before the mistress could protest, he ripped himself away from her, and simply dived into the volcano.

  It was an elegant way to go, and swift too, no doubt. Talyn watched him fall with dry eyes and a strangely hollow place in her chest. She had spent a long time hating him, but now in this moment she felt very little.

  His mistress fell to her knees sobbing, but she did not throw herself after. Despite how much she loved the man, Talyn realized she had judged her properly; the woman was a survivor. How deep the wound went was another story entirely, and one that Kelanim would have to decide for herself.

  The Caisah was the last link to the curse. She felt it dropping away like something rotten. The Vaerli were free. Talyn swayed on her feet, and it was Finn who held her up. One hand in the small of her back mattered so much in this momentous time.

  Nyree was smiling slightly. “Your eyes are full of stars again,” she said matter-of-factly to Talyn.

  “Then I better earn them.” Talyn turned to the Vaerli. They were strangers to her, many lost in her nemohira memories that she had discarded so flippantly along the way. She would have to learn their names all over again, so it would be like starting anew. It would be as if none of the intervening centuries had even happened.

  She pushed her hair back from her face, tasting tears and sulphur on her mouth as she spoke to them. “We Vaerli mistook our path. We gave in to fear, which is always much easier to do than be brave. We had so many gifts that we became arrogant.”

  Finn was watching her, and she took a moment to enjoy feeling worthy of his pride and love. Those were the gifts of bravery, and they were worth earning.

  “I know all about arrogance, and fear,” Talyn said, dropping her eyes from them for just a moment. “I lived them for far too long, and they blinded me.” Her gaze darted to Finn. “Someone showed me how foolish that was, and now I want to live differently. The question is . . . do you feel the same?”

  Behind her the magma of the volcano began to spurt into the air. Great red flames were giving way to the blinding white of the Void. The heat was almost unbearable, coming from the center of Conhaero in terrible waves that set Talyn’s hair whipping about her.

  Just as it seemed the heat would cook them all from the inside, the wind from it suddenly turned cold, and now it was the relentless whine of the Void that came at them. It was as terrifying as her ancestors had said. It spoke of so many worlds, so many pains. Talyn held onto one fact: in there, scions and Vitus had survived. They had none of the Gifts that the Vaerli had, and somehow had managed it.

  When she spun around, it was to kiss Finnbarr, the Fox, the talespinner and the seer. He and his brother would indeed be the anchor. “My compass,” Talyn whispered into his hair as she drew in the smell of him. “I will come back to you when I can. Make Conhaero what it needs to be, for me and for all its people. I believe you, of all the souls in the chaos, can do that.”

  At that moment, Wahirangi CloudLord descended. Even the dragon had not come away unscathed; one of his wings was torn, and many of his scales were scorched, yet he preformed an admiring bow to the female seers. For an instant Talyn thought she saw the impression of another dragon in his place, one silver with blue eyes.

  Perhaps it was a before-thought, or one from her ancestors. She would take it as a blessing for what they had to do next.

  Then, before her courage could desert Talyn called into the crowd. “Syris!”

  The nykur came to her, tossing his shaggy green head and not looking one bit daunted by the White Void before them. He too had blood on him, some was even his, but none of his spirit was broken. Already he was rolling his eyes and tossing his head.

  She climbed onto his back, and then, turning around, held out her hand to Nyree. They were sisters of a sort now. When she was seated behind her, Talyn looked to their people.

  She had never been more afraid than when she next spoke. “We need to answer the call. Sing in the Void as we were meant to.” Talyn ran her eyes over all the people she had dreamed for so many years of seeing again. It was hard to judge their faces, marked as they were by sadness, deprivation and loss. “Some must stay here and rebuild, but I hope some of you will come with me. Will you?” she asked them, her heart hammering in her chest.

  Slowly, Vaerli picked their way out of the crowd, and she could tell every one of them was a warrior through and through. Like her, after years of being alone, they were looking for community and purpose.

  The last thing she saw was Finn standing at the end of reality, Ysel at his side. The talespinner’s eyes were full of stars and a bright smile was on his lips. At that moment, Talyn realized that she was suddenly an optimist. Yes, she would walk the White Void as the Pact demanded, but one day she and her warriors would come back to Conhaero and those who waited for them.

  Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Philippa has always had her head in a book. She first earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Political Science, and then a Bachelor of Applied Science in Library and Information Science. After a being a librarian for many years, she turned her hand to writing.

  In addition to the Shifted World series, Philippa is the author of the Books of the Order, and co-author of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series with her husband Tee Morris. Her awards include an Airship, a Parsec, and a Sir Julius Vogel.

  When not writing or podcasting, Philippa loves reading, gardening, and whenever possible traveling. With her husband and her daughter, she is looked after by a mighty clowder of cats in Manassas, Virginia.