Believing in Blue

by Maggie Morton

  Sia decided that it couldn’t possibly get any worse and that her heart could only take so much pain, but then she saw Wren’s familiar face nearby. At first, seeing her friend, floating there and grinning so happily, Sia found herself almost wanting to smile back. But how could Wren look so happy in the midst of all this horror and chaos? How could she look so at peace? Before she could make any sort of sense out of Wren’s apparent joy, she saw another familiar face coming straight toward her, at an uncomfortably fast-looking pace.

  Ember.

  If Sia had been the type to have sworn enemies, Ember would have made a good first choice, and she found that she was one Winged Red she wouldn’t shed any tears for. Not one. She wouldn’t allow anyone to get away with treating dear, sweet Wren the way that wicked woman had.

  And if it had to come down to a fight between the two of them to settle matters, even a fight to the death, well, that would be A-OK with Sia. So she opened her mouth, screamed her fiercest war cry, and dove in Ember’s direction.

  Chapter Forty

  Wren almost lost her footing when she landed where the mirror had chosen to take her: right in the middle of Piru’s living room. A shaking Piru sat on his couch, and his eyes found her instantly, first filling with dread and then understanding.

  “You aren’t Passea, are you? I can see someone else behind that mask you’re wearing.”

  Her first thought was shock at the fact that she looked like her mother to him. Her second thought was to give thanks that Piru could see through her unintentional disguise. “It’s me, Piru. Wren. Are you…are you yourself again?”

  She wasn’t moving any closer to Sia’s grandfather until she knew she could trust him, but he looked too convincingly frightened when he answered her with a stuttery, “Y-yes. And is it ever good to be back in control of myself. My, but that was unpleasant, being trapped in the back of my head, unable to stop my body and mouth from doing things they would never normally do.”

  “I’m so sorry, Piru. But we haven’t got much time. Do you know if I’m already too late?”

  “You aren’t, but…but please, don’t go down there, to where they’re fighting. I was never able to tell you this, but I had a vision, shortly before Ember took me over, one I was never able to tell anyone about. If you go down there—”

  “I’m sorry, Piru, but I have to. I don’t have a choice. After all, you can’t argue with a prophecy, can you? Wish me luck!” And with those courageous words, Wren rushed toward Piru’s front door, releasing her wings while she ran.

  As she left, Piru called after her, but even the words he yelled weren’t about to slow her down now. Not even if he had just told her that if she ventured out into the battle, she would die.

  It wasn’t dark yet, but nightfall was close, the moon full and the sun’s last rays lighting up the sky. Wren wished it were already dark, because then, maybe, she wouldn’t have been able to see the Winged that were in the air in front of her, fighting each other, wounding each other.

  Killing each other.

  This was nothing like watching a movie, all of it far too real. And far too painful to see. She averted her eyes from the carnage as best she could, staying below the line of rooftops as she took off and flying as fast as she was able.

  The flight to her father’s mansion seemed to take much longer than it ever had before; unlike other times she’d made the journey, this time the sky was filled with Winged Blue and Red. She had chosen to stay closer to the ground in order to avoid as much of the fighting as she could, but she still had to maneuver around two male Winged Blue’s arrows and the thrust of a female Winged Blue’s jagged-edged dagger.

  She tried to block out the violence, the spilling of blood that was everywhere around her, but it was impossible. Still, she wouldn’t let it—or her tears—slow her down, no matter how much all this pointless brutality and pain saddened her.

  Once she was much closer to her father’s house, she noticed two flying figures, higher than the rest of the Winged: Sia and Ember. The two were fighting, just as Ember had promised. Neither appeared to have been injured yet, but Wren was near enough to see that Sia seemed worn out; her wings appeared to take more strength to flap as each moment passed.

  Wren had no other option. She had to join the fight, and she had to save Sia. It was her only choice.

  She arrived at the mansion, finding the garden deserted. Wren landed near the doors that led out of the mansion to where her birthday party had occurred. Just as her feet touched the ground, a flash of blue nearby drew her eye. A beautiful Winged Blue woman had been injured somehow, her robes now stained with blood, and she tumbled through the sky. She fell close enough to Wren that she could see the woman was no longer alive when her body met the ground with a sickening thump.

  It was too late to help her, but it wasn’t too late to save Sia. Or at least to try. Finding the mansion’s doors to the garden unguarded and unlocked, she went inside, rushing to the stairs and taking them two at a time. Her room was just as it had been before she’d been kidnapped, her bow lying next to its quiver on the table where she’d eaten breakfast her first day there. It seemed like much more time had passed since she’d arrived in Azyr than actually had. Far too many things had happened in that short stretch—too much pain, too much change, and too much new, unwanted knowledge.

  But there would be time for all of that later, unless Piru’s vision was an inevitability. Could she outrun fate, if she ran fast enough?

  Back downstairs, now armed with her bow and full quiver, she headed to the front of the house this time. But just as she was about to open the front door, it swung open, and she took a few startled steps back as she watched Faest carry in her father. There was a rip in his robe near his stomach, and the blue fabric was stained dark red, the deep wound all too visible from where Wren stood.

  “Dad?” Her voice shook as she spoke, and she was surprised when Faest leveled a furious glare in her direction. Then she remembered. She wasn’t Wren, at least not in Faest’s eyes. Or her injured father’s.

  But Faest’s arms were full, so she took Torien’s hand in hers before Faest could stop her, her fingers now covered in her father’s blood.

  “Is he…is he going to be okay?” she gasped out.

  “Only if you get out of my way, Pass…Passe…Wren?” Faest’s face softened, and she knew then that the strange feeling that she’d barely noticed—the one that had started the second she took her father’s hand—had come with her returning to her proper form, the one she needed to transform into if the battle was going to work out in the Winged Blue’s favor.

  “I need you to go upstairs and get a healing potion from Denise. We left some with her, in case she got hurt. And hurry!”

  Wren had started toward the stairs as soon as Faest had told her what was needed to save her father. She barely heard his last words; she was already moving as fast as her legs could carry her and was quickly up the stairs. Quiq was standing guard outside her stepmom’s room.

  Her “stepmom”? No, she thought with a shake of her head. Denise had been more of a mother than Passea ever had, and although she hadn’t managed to get them away from her horrible stepdad, Denise was here for Wren now, and Passea wasn’t.

  “I need a potion from my mom,” she told Quiq. “A healing potion. Torien’s been badly hurt.”

  “He has? Here, I’ll be right back. Wait right there,” Quiq ordered her, in a voice that clearly announced to Wren that nothing short of complete compliance would be acceptable. Then he disappeared into her mom’s room, and Wren tried to ignore the horrible thought that it was already too late.

  It wasn’t too late, though. After they’d rushed back downstairs, and after her father had swallowed the potion, she could see his wound begin to close, the damaged flesh weaving itself back together. “He’ll be all right?” she asked Faest, and he turned to her, his face slowly showing signs that the worst of it was over.

  “Yes, I think he will.” Faest reached out, possi
bly to comfort her, but even though she wanted to, she couldn’t wait for a sign that Torien was definitely going to recover. She could only barely hear Faest calling out her name as she ran, but nothing could stop her from heading straight back into the storm outside.

  Not with Sia’s life on the line.

  She was back at the front door before she realized she’d started moving, but that was good. She didn’t have any time to waste, not for her, and not for Sia. Now she would find out whether the prophecy was true. Now she would discover if she would survive the battle and if she truly was the Savior or just a girl, like she’d thought until only hours ago, a girl who wasn’t capable of saving anything.

  She didn’t have time to wonder which was true, once she was back outside. She positioned her bow, just as she’d learned to, and her quiver’s leather strap was looped safely across her chest by the time she took to the skies.

  Sia and Ember were still circling and diving while they fought, but as Wren flew closer, she could now see that Sia was hurt. Her left wing seemed to have been cut, and Sia’s lips were quivering just enough to let Wren know she was in pain.

  Wren prepared her bow, an arrow now in place, and aimed for Ember.

  Then everything changed in an instant.

  Passea, her face bright with fury, was now visible in her true form, flying from Wren’s direction and rushing toward Sia and Ember. It seemed that Sia had noticed the woman’s approach, too, and now Sia’s nocked arrow was pointing in Passea’s direction instead of Ember’s. She was moving so quickly that Wren was barely able to fly in front of her in time.

  “Wren, no!” She heard someone cry out these words. Her beginning thoughts of relief from saving her birth mother were interrupted as a sharp pain began to bloom in the middle of her chest, and she just barely noticed the fact that Sia’s arrow had found the wrong target.

  Now she was plummeting toward the ground, moving faster than she’d have ever thought possible, falling much faster than she would have liked.

  Suddenly, she was no longer falling, and a gentle voice, a familiar voice…Passea’s voice, said, “I’ve got you, Wren, I’ve got you.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Sia was in shock for only a few seconds. Then she did what she knew she had to do, aiming her bow at a distracted Ember and yanking back her bowstring. The arrow found its mark, exactly where Ember’s heart lay, but Sia didn’t wait to see if Ember would still be alive by the time she hit the ground.

  Ember hadn’t looked unhappy as Sia’s arrow had struck Wren. No, she’d appeared delighted, and so Sia didn’t have the slightest amount of regret at her decision to shoot Ember. Instead of taking even a brief moment to process the fact that she might have just ended Ember’s life, she dove down to where Passea stood on the ground, her daughter appearing limp and lifeless in her arms.

  It simply could not be too late for Sia to save her friend. The idea that it might possibly be was more than merely unacceptable to Sia. She wasn’t able to consider that Wren’s bright-as-the-sun light had been snuffed out. They’d barely begun to get to know each other, and she already felt like she’d known Wren forever—in the best way possible. It was unthinkable that Wren’s time was over and that Sia had never gotten to share how she felt about her.

  She touched down beside Passea and her daughter, and relief came when she noticed Wren’s chest still rising and falling, the offensive arrow sticking out of her stomach and a small rivulet of blood trailing down her body. “Is she…is she okay?” Sia asked Passea, and she worried that her face betrayed her fear that Wren wasn’t okay at all. She knew instantly that it was a pointless question to ask, but she didn’t know what else to say.

  “She is for now, but do you see how the arrow is glowing green where it is nearest to Wren’s clothes?”

  Now Sia looked more carefully, then hesitated briefly; she didn’t really want to hear Passea’s answer. “It’s…poison, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so. Oh, my poor, poor daughter. All of this was such a mistake. I just can’t…” Passea choked back what must have been a sob. Her lips were trembling, and her eyes seemed about to overflow with tears any second. Then Sia spied, out of the corner of her eye, someone landing just next to them.

  Piru.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth and turned toward the mansion. Denise and Quiq were running toward them from Torien’s home. “Do you have a healing potion?” he yelled to them.

  “No, we’ve used them all!” Quiq yelled back.

  Piru turned back toward them, his serious expression showing Sia that whatever he was about to say was of the utmost importance. “Then there’s only one thing left to do. Passea, place your daughter on the ground, please. I may have a solution, but we’ll have to get through to Wren if it’s going to work.”

  Passea knelt down, gently laying her daughter on the bare earth. She smoothed Wren’s hair, and then, clearly unable to hold them back any longer, she let tears begin to run down her face.

  Sia held her breath as she watched Piru kneel down beside Wren. She watched intently as he placed his lips beside Wren’s ear and began to whisper something to Wren that Sia was unable to hear. Whatever he was saying, Wren seemed able to hear him, Sia realized, Wren nodding slightly as he spoke.

  When Piru moved away from her ear, the outline of her body began to shimmer, her features shifting into a more peaceful alignment, and then they began to fade, just as they had every time she’d shifted. Clearly this was another shift, to someone Sia had never seen before, as now an unfamiliar face had begun to appear where Wren’s had been. Her hair was also growing in length, turning from dark-brown curls to a straight, shiny black mane that flowed past her chest. The wings she lay on remained the same, though, still made up of both red and blue. Then her eyes became narrower with slight folds in the far corners, and when they fluttered open, Wren’s transformation seemingly complete, they were a slightly paler brown with flecks of gold and green.

  “So,” she suddenly asked, her new voice quiet and a bit hoarse, “will I really never look like myself, ever again?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Piru answered with a kind, slightly sad smile. “But you’ll be fine now, once we’ve removed the arrow and dressed the wound. Do you know if you can stand?”

  “Yes, I think so. Sia, Piru, can you help me up?”

  Sia’s relief had begun to wash over her like the summer sun’s warmest rays, and she allowed herself a few moments to bask in its all-encompassing calm. She had just noticed that the fighting above them had ceased, Winged Blue and Red landing one by one as she and Piru helped Wren rise from the ground. Wren’s legs shook a little once she was fully standing. She took a deep breath, and then their shaking stilled.

  “I think I can manage it from here, you two. And thank you, Piru,” she said, turning in his direction and giving his shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for saving my life.”

  Passea walked up to stand next to Wren. “Nor will I ever be able to thank you enough for saving mine, my dearest daughter. Can you ever forgive me, Wren?”

  “I already had, when I decided to save you.” Wren lifted her arms from Sia and Piru’s shoulders and tentatively took a few slow steps forward. She turned toward Passea for a moment, then looked down at her stomach. “I guess I should wait to hug you until they’ve removed the arrow, huh?” These words brought a fresh flood of tears from her mother, but Sia was pretty sure these were tears of relief. After all, she’d been shedding a few of them herself.

  Once the group had returned to the mansion, they placed Wren on the couch facing the one where her father rested. His eyes shut, he was snoring softly, a bandage wrapped around his stomach. Sia turned to Faest, who was standing beside him. “He’ll be all right, won’t he?”

  “I think so. But who is this you’ve come in with? And why is she still able to walk, with an arrow sticking out of her?”

  Quiq admonished him. “Faest, don’t be rude. That’s Wren, and she ju
st managed to end our battle with the Winged Red.”

  “And saved my life,” Passea added.

  Upon noticing Passea, Faest reached for his dagger, but Wren raised her hand. “Don’t, Faest. She’s not going to do anything inappropriate, I promise.”

  “Yes, I wouldn’t even think of it.” Wren’s mother looked more than a little nervous as she spoke. “We’re on the same side, now.”

  “If you say so,” Faest grumbled, but he removed his hand from the dagger and walked over to stand with the small group.

  Wren lay down on the couch, then shut her eyes. “I think I’ll take a brief nap while you remove the arrow, if that’s okay with everyone.” Before anyone could agree or disagree with her plan, she was asleep. Her quieter snores were much cuter than the ones coming from Wren’s father, Sia thought as she smiled down at her sleeping friend’s form.

  Chapter Forty-two

  The raven was tapping its beak on the tree next to Wren’s head, but strangely, it sounded more like footsteps, hurried and anxious ones at that. And yes, it was footsteps she was hearing, but they weren’t in the forest where she stood—they were coming from farther away. The raven stopped its pecking and said, in a young woman’s voice, “Oh Wren, won’t you please wake up?”

  “Mmm,” Wren groaned, because damn, did her head ever ache. Apparently she’d been dreaming, although the raven’s words might have come from someone in the room she’d just awoken in. After she opened her tired eyes, her bedroom in Torien’s mansion slowly came into focus. Both of her moms were there, along with a pacing Torien, clearly on his way to making a new indentation in her bedroom’s already-weathered hardwood floors. Piru, perched on the back of a sofa a few feet from her bed, was wringing his hands. And Sia was sitting beside the bed, on a stool. It was she who first noticed Wren awakening.