Flight

by Jae Waller

  Airedain pointed me to a chair and handed me a bucket. “Sorry to make you call your own water, but the well’s freezing cold.”

  I set his bloody tunic on the table. “You live here?”

  “Yeah. Every flat on this street is Iyo.”

  “Why not in a plank house?”

  “’Cause the plank houses burned down. We got a chunk of Ashtown in a treaty after the Second Elken War, when the brown pigeons started moving into Bronnoi Ridge. The Council promised to build us something that wouldn’t burn.”

  I held my hair aside as he washed my face with a rag. He worked gently, careful not to graze the strands with his fingers. After spending so much time around itherans, it was a relief to be with someone who understood the taboo.

  “Thanks, by the way,” he said. “You didn’t have to take a bottle to the head for me.”

  “Seeing you almost bleed to death once was enough.” I flinched as he dabbed at the cut. “Will Britte come looking for you?”

  “Probably not.” He wrung red water from the rag. “She ran off during Skaarnaht. Doesn’t look good to be with a viirelei in a riot.”

  “She left you there?”

  “I was still in one piece then. She’d have stayed if she knew I was gonna bleed out in my tema’s shop. I think.”

  Airedain washed his hands, dug a wool tunic from a rioden chest, and pulled it on with a wince. I watched him move around the room, closing the shutters, lighting a fire in the stove. His crest of hair brushed the ceiling. He was even taller than Fendul, with wiry strength from drumming, but neither of us would’ve survived a longer fight.

  “What was that blade you had?” I asked.

  “A fan knife.” Airedain pulled it from his pocket. Closed, it looked harmless, two auburn wood rods clasped together, but he showed me how they folded back into a handle for the blade hidden between them. “Gambled it off a sailor a few years back.”

  “Does this kind of thing happen often?”

  “Nei. I’ve been in bar fights, but I always knew why.” The blade and rods blurred as he flipped them around his fingers. “I’ve seen a couple of those pigeons at the Knox before. The owner Emílie will ban them, but the Elkhounds won’t arrest ’em. They never do. Useless fucking mudskulls.”

  I unsheathed my flail to wash off the blood. “I wonder what they think we did.”

  “Dunno.” He snapped the knife shut. “But you should stay here tonight. My cousin’s in Toel. You can borrow his bed.”

  •

  “Rin-girl. Let’s go get breakfast. I’m starving.”

  I opened my eyes to see Airedain poking me with a drum mallet. I touched my forehead and made a face. “All right, I’m getting up.” I sorted through my ashy clothing, grateful I’d worn leggings under my dress so I had something to sleep in.

  I’d finally started sleeping through the night at Tiernan’s, but the previous night brought the dreams flooding back. Rain, firelight, a sword at Nili’s throat, and a rider bearing down on me. It’d been comforting to wake and hear Airedain’s slow breathing in the next bed.

  “Jonalin and I don’t have much food here,” he said. “My friend’s sister has a flatbread stand in the docklands, if that’s okay. She makes it with brassroot flour.”

  “Fine by me. I’ve eaten enough rye this winter.”

  I paused halfway through lacing my bodice. Airedain used his palms to shape his dark brown hair into its usual shark-fin shape, stiffening it with clear amber paste from a clay pot. The smell reminded me of the forest. “What is that stuff?”

  “Pine resin and linseed oil.”

  I half-smiled. “You won’t be able to do that after you get married.”

  “So I won’t get married.” He flicked his oily fingertips at me. “I don’t think it’s fair men have to grow their hair out after they marry.”

  “The Haka don’t. You could marry into their jouyen.”

  “Not a bloody chance. They’re weirder than you Rin.”

  Outside, the streets were grey with ashy slush churned by passing feet. Rotten leaves clogged the gutters, forming puddles covered with thin ice. Itherans either ignored us or cast us dirty looks. I put up my hood and stayed close to Airedain.

  “Hang on,” he said as we crossed a park full of gnarled trees and limp bushes. He picked up a soggy bundle of papers from a bench with broken slats. Black ink ran onto his fingers.

  I peered over his shoulder. “You can read?”

  “Little bit. Went to itheran school for a few years.” He thumbed through the pages and then stopped. “Aw, fuck.”

  “What is it—” I fell silent as I saw the illustration. A white bird with spread wings, its long neck out straight — and next to it, a black bird with spread wings and its head turned. The Rin crest and the tel-saidu symbol Suriel had taken for his own.

  Airedain’s eyes moved slowly over the page. “Some itheran found the Rin crest on an old plank house in Bronnoi Ridge. Ruins from the fire seventy years ago. It doesn’t mention the Rin by name, just says the symbol must be related to Suriel. Now itherans are claiming viirelei were behind those attacks — Crieknaast, Rutnaast, everything.”

  I reeled back. “There’s not enough Rin to even do that—”

  “I know. Guess the pigeons don’t.” He flipped to the front page. “It’s today’s newspaper. Those people last night must’ve heard about it early.”

  “Do you think someone wrote that because the Okoreni-Iyo testified yesterday?”

  “Probably. Now they won’t trust anything he said.” Airedain crumpled up the newspaper and tossed it in the snow. “Itherans can’t accept this is their fault. Fucking takuran.”

  “There’s no way the Council can believe viirelei did it. The Iyo warned Crieknaast about Suriel. The mayor said so in his testimony—”

  “How do you know what he said? It’s a closed inquiry.”

  I bit my lip. “I have a friend in the Colonnium guard.”

  Airedain looked at me like I was covered head to boot with itchbine rash. “You’re friends with an Antler? What in Aeldu-yan is wrong with you?”

  “I’m friends with Marijka, and she saved your life.”

  “Yeah, ’cause I got stabbed by a fucking Antler.” He spat on the frozen ground. “Face it, Rin-girl. Someone hates us and wants the other pigeons to hate us, too.”

  •

  Iannah was by the fountain when I arrived at the Colonnium at noon. “What happened to you?” she asked.

  “Drunken bar fight. I was neither drunk nor inside a bar.”

  She tugged my hood over the gash on my forehead. “Don’t let anyone see that.”

  I flinched, more from shock at her hand going near my hair than from pain. “Why?”

  “A viirelei was hauled up overnight for killing a Ferish man. Self-defence, he says.”

  I felt dizzy all of a sudden. “Who? What’s going to happen?”

  “Don’t know. But they’re keeping him here instead of the prison.” Iannah turned as someone emerged from the Colonnium. Faint shouting drifted out.

  We hurried up the steps and inside. Parr and Montès faced each other in the lobby, ringed by onlookers. Their voices echoed off the marble. The bald spot on Montès’s head looked as smooth and glossy as a chestnut in the cold light. I positioned myself behind a pillar, hoping no one would notice me wearing a hood indoors.

  “—needless distraction,” Parr was saying. “You know Suriel is behind these attacks!”

  “Viirelei have been trying to drive us from Eremur for a century,” Montès said. “You fought their Rúonbattai allies for years. You know they always intended to stage a coup. This is it. They terrify our citizens with ghost stories to lure our army from the capital—”

  “The Rúonbattai are gone. Be as paranoid as you like, but murder is a matter for the city guard—”


  “We must make an example. We must prove we will not tolerate—”

  “We risk civil war with every passing day! We must focus on Suriel!”

  “So desperate to return to the battlefield, Antoch?” Montès’s lips curved like a poisonous flower in bloom. “One might suspect you of warmongering, though I could not blame you. What do you have left but faded glory?”

  Parr’s voice went suddenly quiet. “You know nothing of war, Siego.” He stepped close, bearing down on Montès with his full height. “Divided we are weak. How can we stop a spirit if we cannot even come together to fight his human army?”

  “Human,” Montès said. “A generous term. How many humans scratch their own fleas?”

  Iannah grabbed my cloak the moment I stepped forward. “Not this time, Koehl.”

  Parr took a deep breath. “We will resume this discussion in the Hall, Councillor Montès.” But as he turned away, I glimpsed raw anger in his eyes.

  17.

  SKAARMEHT

  Segowa’s stall was empty in the morning. I peered through a gap in the locked folding door. The shelves of embroidery tools were still there, but the valuable furs were gone. I leaned over to the next stall. “Do you know where Segowa is?”

  “At the Colonnium with the rest of them, probably,” said a man sorting cartons of wax candles.

  I didn’t understand until I arrived. The avenue up the hill was packed with people. Not chanting, not fighting, just sitting on the cobblestone. Colourful flags fluttered in the damp wind. Dark blue dolphin for Iyo, pale orange shark for Tamu on the coast of Anwen Bel, grey whale and roaring brown grizzly for Beru and Haka in the north, green heron and copper fox for Kae and Yula in the south. I’d never heard so many Aikoto dialects at once. The occasional Coast Trader word was as jarring as a stone in a bed of moss.

  Colonnium guards lined the avenue between leafless trees, their bronze buttons winking in the sunlight. Three captains with red silk bands on their sleeves talked quietly. Clustered together, their spearheads really did look like antler tips.

  A short distance off the road, Segowa and several others huddled around a bonfire. I crunched through deep snow over to her. “What’s going on?”

  “A protest,” she said, ladling out broth from clay pots nestled in the coals. “The Council refuses to release the Iyo man who killed an itheran.”

  “Who are they? No one I asked yesterday knew.”

  “Baliad Iyo is a fisherman. I sold him mittens for his son last month. The dead man was a dockhand named Palut Cimarus.”

  I hugged my chest. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “Yes.” Segowa pointed her ladle at a crate of clay mugs. “We can take care of these cold and hungry people.”

  It was better than nothing. I helped a man with a whale tattoo on his neck carry the crate up the hill, and we joined other antayul distributing hot water. In the crowd, I saw the Iyo tea seller, a Tamu woman who visited Aeti Ginu sometimes, a few people from the Knox Arms. I crouched to hand a mug to a young boy, and as I straightened up I saw a guard shiver.

  The guard wasn’t much older than me, with short black hair and a thin beard, his ears and nose red from cold. The leather glove on his spear hand had a hole in the fingertip. Snowflakes gusted into the high collar of his blue coat.

  Tiernan’s words came back to me. One day you will have to choose between who you are and who you want to be known as. I suddenly understood it was more than a warning. It was a challenge. I didn’t care if itherans feared magic or if other Aikoto thought I was betraying them. None of them were my people, yet we were all on that frozen slope together.

  I stepped toward the guard and held out a steaming mug. I waited, my arm outstretched. “It’s just water.” I took a sip and held it out again.

  He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Wind swept across the hill, creaking in the gaunt branches, driving snow into his skin. Finally, he wrapped a gloved hand around the mug and drank. “Thank you,” he whispered in stilted Trader.

  I smiled. I noticed another antayul watching, a girl bundled in a deerskin cloak, barely old enough to have attuned. She looked at me with eyes wide as an owl, then held out a mug to a scarred guard missing an ear.

  From then on I offered water to everyone. The guards who accepted nodded their thanks. Not one smiled, but I was used to that. When I found Iannah, she accepted a mug without hesitation.

  “Keep your weapons under your cloak,” she said quietly. “We have permission to use lethal force on armed viirelei.”

  I spilled hot water down my cloak. “Kaid,” I swore and dried the fabric. “How can the Council condone that?”

  “Their heads are stuck where it’s too dark to see.” Iannah spat on the cobblestone. “I’m expected to fight my own city while a war has started out there.”

  “So what are we supposed to do? Not fight back?”

  “Pray to whatever god you believe in.”

  I snorted. “The only spirit I’m sure about is the reason we’re here. I’d have better luck asking a mountain goat not to gore me.”

  Near the top of the hill I recognized Airedain by his spiked hair. He was passing out dried lingcod from a hide bag. He gave me a long look over the crowd before turning away, as distant as the pale sky scarred by grey clouds.

  “Sohikoehl,” a voice called, then louder, “Sohikoehl!”

  I whirled to see Falwen, Officer of the Viirelei. He stood in a cluster of people, standing out among all the fur and leather in a grey wool coat with brass fastenings. His hands darted like birds as he spoke rapidly in the Haka dialect. He ushered the others off and beckoned to me.

  “Take this to Councillor Parr.” Falwen clamped a quill between his teeth, rifled through a stack of papers, and pressed an envelope into my hands. The red wax seal showed a rearing elk under a spray of rioden needles. “If he is not in his office, find him.”

  “Why me?”

  “You are here all the time. You are less likely to be questioned.”

  I glanced at the closed gates in the looming stone walls. “Am I allowed in there?”

  “Yes. Show the guards that seal. And if you open that envelope, I will open you.” He pointed his quill tip at my heart.

  I backed away, all too aware he knew everything about me. The guards scrutinized my identification before opening the iron gates with a wrench that made my teeth hurt.

  The Colonnium was silent. Gélus wasn’t at the front desk, but I left my weapons, sensing the guards’ eyes on me. I hurried to Parr’s office and rapped on the heavy door.

  “Come in,” came the faint reply.

  I edged inside. Parr was at his desk, sleeves rolled past his elbows, black hair loose over his shoulders. Morning light flooded the room, glinting on the gold script on the wall map.

  “Councillor, Falwen asked me to bring you this.”

  He didn’t look up from his writing. “Bring it here, please.”

  I padded across the rug. Parr slit open the envelope and pulled out the contents. I waited, not sure if I was dismissed. His desk was covered in the most beautiful craftsmanship I’d ever seen. A glass inkpot with swirled sides like a seashell, brass candlesticks, a three-masted ship made of black marble with white linen sails.

  “A plea from the Okoreni-Iyo.” Parr finally looked at me. His eyes went to my forehead. “Goodness, Miss Kateiko. What happened?”

  I reached toward the gash. I’d parted my hair off to the side before braiding it, but it had shifted. My lie faded before it left my lips. “Baliad Iyo is going to be executed, isn’t he?”

  He set down the paper. “I will do everything I can to prevent that, but criminal matters are the jurisdiction of the city guard. The law is against us.”

  “The law is wrong. Blood in the ground doesn’t put blood back in someone’s veins.”

  “It may not come to that,” he sa
id gently. “Baliad has a clean record, and witnesses saw Cimarus attack him first.”

  “I heard Councillor Montès in the lobby yesterday.” My chest felt tight. “We can’t go on like this, sir. If viirelei are blamed for everything Suriel does, soon there won’t be any of us left to blame.”

  Parr folded his hands in front of his face. “I know. We are at an impasse. Death lurks at our border and self-destruction lurks within.” He shook his head. “What would you do in my position?”

  I opened my mouth and shut it. No one had ever asked me that.

  “I’d find out what Suriel wants,” I said finally. “This isn’t just about defending his territory. He tolerated itherans until the summer of the Dúnravn expedition. Something changed then. But killing us isn’t the goal, or he wouldn’t drive people away with storms first. We’re collateral damage.”

  He fixed me with an intense look. “Do you think we would be safe if we avoided him?”

  “Nei.” I wondered if I was being tested. “He didn’t care about Rutnaast until this winter. He keeps pushing further, and he has nothing to lose except human soldiers. I don’t think he’ll stop until he gets what he’s looking for.”

  “Smart girl.” Parr chuckled wearily. “Let us hope we survive long enough to figure out what that is.” He rose and drifted across the room, stopping at a portrait of a young woman.

  I followed and gazed up at her. She wore a high-necked black dress, hands folded in her lap, dark hair pinned up in soft curls. There was a trace of sadness in her brows. “Who is she?”

  “My wife. She fell ill during the influenza epidemic, a year after our son was born. I was in southern Eremur fighting the Sverbian Rúonbattai when she passed away. She had already been buried by the time I returned.”

  “You must’ve loved her a lot, to keep her picture here.” I knotted my fingers into my skirt, regretting my intrusiveness as soon as I said it.

  “I was very fond of her.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “My son left after I joined the Council. I have not seen him in half a decade. At times like this, I wonder if it was worth it.”