Seconds stretched into half a minute, then a minute. A light breeze blew through the overgrown clearing outside, tossing the lonely trees back and forth. Nothing else moved in his field of vision.
He was about to give it up and go back to sleep when there was the slightest of sounds, somewhere above him. A creak. Maybe it was just the old house, settling?
Then it happened again, on the second floor.
He turned and crept into the hall, trying to make as little noise as possible. He waited again, staring up the stairs.
He had to wait for a long time before it repeated. Eventually it did, and that decided him. He couldn’t stay in this house for the rest of the night without knowing what it was.
He stepped up to the base of the staircase. “I know you’re up there,” he said in his calmest, most authoritarian voice. “It’ll be easier if you just come down.”
He waited, but there was only silence.
Sighing, he started up the stairs.
The wood underfoot creaked, and he placed his steps carefully, all the while shooting glances above. He didn’t want to be caught unawares.
On the ninth step, his foot went through the rotted wood. He grabbed for the rail, but it crumbled under his grasp as the whole bottom half of the staircase separated from the wall, falling to pieces under his feet.
As he fell, he extended his wings and swept them down powerfully, pulling himself up to the landing halfway up the staircase. He grasped the edge of it and pulled himself onto its flat surface as the bottom half of the staircase collapsed into splinters and dust. His breathing gradually slowed back to normal.
The landing seemed to be connected more firmly to the structure of the house, and it bore his weight easily. He looked down at the mess of debris below. Maybe he should give up this little quest and move on to someplace less… creepy.
Xander wasn’t one to run from a challenge. Besides, traveling in these woods at night, full of wereveren, seemed like a bad idea.
He stood cautiously and resumed his climb up what remained of the staircase, which seemed to be in better shape. He made it to the second floor without further incident.
The hallway at the top of the stairs had three doors. Xander pushed open the first one, wary as the floorboards squeaked beneath his feet.
The room was empty save for a thick carpet of dust.
He eased his way to the second door and threw it open.
There were tarps covering several objects in the room—perhaps old furniture the owners had left behind when they departed.
He tested the flooring inside the door with a toe. It seemed sturdy enough.
Xander stepped into the room, looking around.
The moonlight showed him four distinct things. It was impossible to tell what they were under the tarps.
One way to find out. Xander took the edge of one of the tarps and whipped it off.
The air of the room instantly filled with dust, and Xander cursed himself for being an idiot, coughing and waving the cloud away from his face.
Another of the covered bundles exploded, showering him with more dust just as the air had started to clear.
Xander stepped backward out of the room, desperately seeking the cleaner air of the hallway, and something ran past him toward freedom. He reached out instinctively and caught an arm, hauling its owner backward. “The stair’s broken,” he said as he hauled… a boy? In front of himself.
The boy was almost naked, save for a pair of old, worn pants that might once have been white but now were so dirt-stained that it was almost impossible to determine their true color. He was also really scrawny. Poor thing looked like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. His dark hair was wild and unkempt, and he had freckles across the bridge of his nose, though they were hard to make out under the grime that covered his face. He stared up at Xander, a surly, defiant look on his face.
He couldn’t have been more than twelve years old.
Xander stared back. What in the Split was a kid like this doing out here in the middle of nowhere? Had his parents abandoned him?
By the looks of it, the house hadn’t been lived in for close to a hundred years, so it was highly unlikely he was the child of the old owners. “What’s your name, son?” Xander asked, kneeling before the boy.
The boy stared at him and shook his head.
“Don’t you speak?”
Another shake.
“Okay,” he said, trying to figure out what to do next. “Do you understand what I am saying?”
The boy nodded.
Well that was something. “Do you remember your name?”
The boy shook his head. Poor little thing stank. He probably hadn’t had a bath in ages. Who knew how he had managed to survive out here? He needed a name. Xander thought about it. “I’m going to call you Morgan. That was my foster father’s name.”
The boy looked up at him, wide-eyed.
“I’m going to let go of your arm. Do you promise not to run?”
The boy he’d named Morgan nodded.
Xander released his arm, and Morgan stood there, looking back and forth, as if not sure if he should stay or go.
“Are you hungry?”
That got Morgan’s attention. He nodded vigorously.
“I kind of destroyed the staircase—sorry about that.” Xander glanced back at the stairwell. “You have to know this place needed a lot of work.”
Morgan gave him a blank look.
“So I’ll have to fly us down. I’m going to pick you up.” When Morgan didn’t object, he took the boy around his waist and led him back down the surviving part of the staircase, wrinkling his nose at Morgan’s smell. They reached the landing safely.
“Here we go.” Before the boy could object, Xander jumped.
His wings brought them both down safely to the ground floor.
Xander set Morgan down, breathing in the fresh air gratefully. He had to get the boy a bath—he thought he’d seen a well outside. Maybe they could attend to that in the morning.
He led Morgan into the kitchen. The boy seemed unmoved by Xander’s actions—for all that he had hidden away from Xander before, he seemed curiously passive now.
Xander shrugged. He rummaged through his bags for something the boy would eat. He chose an MRE that had lots of calories, and found an old glass that had survived in one of the cupboards.
He put them before the boy on the floor. “Sorry there’s no, um, table. We’ll just have to make do….” Before he had finished, the meal was gone. Morgan looked up at him expectantly.
Xander snorted. “Hungry little thing, aren’t you? Want another?”
Morgan nodded.
Xander sighed. This boy was going to eat him out of house and home. Which, given the state of this place, wouldn’t take long.
Chapter Eight: Interlude
QUINCE SAT with her back against one of the great blueoaks that mingled with the silverbarks in their little protected clearing. Though she was supposed to be keeping watch, her eyes were half-closed. It had been a long night, and the sun was just beginning to peek through the trees.
Jameson might be a psych, but the poor man had absolutely no wood smarts.
She supposed it was at least partly her fault. She had placed him with the first family that had come up—an off-world couple who had arrived on Oberon looking to adopt a child. She’d felt that it was better to have the boys separated. Anyone searching for the two of them would have a much harder time identifying them, and it would be more difficult for them to find the child of the House of the Sun if he were worlds away. It had been so hard to send him away.
The life he’d lived on Beta Tau had spoiled him.
He’d taken a beating for that last night. The wereveren saliva carried a poison that acted as an anesthetic—and he had sustained six bites, one on his back, three on his arms, and two on his left leg. She could see the sharp teeth marks, eerily like small human bites.
After Quince had dragged him back to the safety of the cleari
ng, she’d laid him out on his sleep sack. She’d used boiled water to clean out his wounds, and then bandaged him up as best she could. The poison would work its own way out of his system.
Throughout the process, he had slept like the dead—thankfully, for it would not have been pleasant for him otherwise. It wasn’t that pleasant for her either.
Afterward, she wrapped him in her own sleep sack. His was covered in blood and no longer usable. He’d likely sleep until midday, if not longer. She didn’t think they’d be going any farther until the next day.
In the meantime, she would do what she could. She’d wrapped the tracker in an airtight sack and would drop it in a stream later that morning.
She had sat next to Jameson all night, keeping an eye on him. He looked so young and innocent in sleep, and his blood loss made his skin pale and translucent. It wasn’t his fault he was like this, or that he didn’t yet trust her. That would have to change.
She remembered holding him in her arms as a tiny baby, how he had looked up at her with those big brown eyes.
Things were going to get harder for him now. For them all. At least he’d had the chance to live a normal life, to grow up like any other child.
She yawned. It was clear she wasn’t going to get any more sleep this morning. She might as well get up and get some work done.
She picked up the bloody sleep sack and carried it outside the clearing, ducking under the rope to carry it somewhere away from Jameson. He didn’t need to see it. She went a ways off, finding a place on the far side of a hill to leave it. Maybe it would keep the wereveren busy the next night.
With luck, Jameson would be strong enough to move tomorrow. They had a rendezvous to make, and time was running short for the end game.
On her way back, she found a stream to drop the tracker into. She watched the bag float down the watercourse until it was out of sight.
She stopped back in to check on Jameson once more. He was sleeping soundly.
Then she set off to see what she could find in the way of more fuel for the fire and something fresh to eat to stretch their MRE rations.
JAMESON WOKE up. His body was on fire. He lay still as a stone, not trusting himself to move. What happened to me?
He’d been with Quince in the forest. She’d told him something about a baby, and wings. It was all a bit fuzzy in his head.
Then he’d run, and there’d been a lot of pain. Searing pain, and then nothing.
He opened his eyes.
The sky above him was green.
Jameson lifted his arm up to his temple. He tapped his cirq to ask his PA where he was.
There was no response.
Then he remembered. They’d disabled their bioware the day before, in the mad flight out of Oberon City.
He suddenly felt very alone out here in the middle of nowhere on this godforsaken planet.
He sat up slowly, and parts of his body from his head to his feet protested.
“I’d imagine you’re a little sore,” Quince said from behind him. “Wereveren venom does that—it tires out your muscles. Not to mention all the bites I had to clean out and bandage.”
Jameson turned his head to see Quince sitting there, regarding him with a look close to pity.
“I shouldn’t have run.” He was starting to remember some of the things she had told him. Something about princes. And wings? “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure I could trust you—”
“Don’t be. We put you in a difficult situation, and I figure you’ve suffered enough for it.”
“You… you saved me, didn’t you?”
She nodded, holding up her finger and thumb. “You were this close to being a meal for those little bloodsuckers. You were a torn-up mess by the time I hauled your ass back here. Are you thirsty?”
“Yes.” He felt torn up. He couldn’t remember a day, in fact, when he’d felt worse. His head throbbed. His arms and legs throbbed, and it was like he’d been beaten by a Tander’s World miner.
She handed him a canteen.
He took it gratefully and swallowed a few gulps of lukewarm water. “Hungry too. What time is it?”
“Midafternoon. Your body needed the sleep.” She handed him a strange, stippled red fruit and an MRE. “I did some foraging this morning.”
He accepted those too, and bit into the fruit. It was a little tart but full of sweet flavor, kind of like a lemony apple. “We’re supposed to be meeting Xander somewhere, right?” He tried not to let his keen interest in the answer show.
“Yes, but you need another night’s rest before I’ll feel safe taking you anywhere.”
“I’m really sorry—”
“I said leave it be.” Quince glared at him.
“Okay, okay,” Jameson said, laughing. He finished his meal and felt a little better. He checked over his body—he had bandages on one leg and both arms, and one on his back. “I must look like a mummy.”
“Close enough.”
He tried to get up, but he was woozy.
“Your body’s not ready for walking just yet.”
“Um, I have to pee.”
Quince laughed, and it was a rich and welcome sound. “All right. Let me help you.” She got him up on his feet, and they started toward the forest. “This wasn’t how I pictured my day.”
He snorted. “You and me both. I’m not sure I want to go out there again.”
“It’s okay. I’ll be with you, and we’re safe from the wereveren until nightfall.”
“Okay, but if I so much as hear a bird call, I’m running back to the camp.”
She shook her head and gave him a sly grin. “I’d like to see you try.”
WHEN HE opened his eyes again sometime later after a dreamless sleep, it was fully dark out. Not the dark of his parents’ estate, or the dark of the mining camp on Tander’s World, but a pitch blackness only partially relieved by the little fire, like ink held back only by the flickering of the flames.
Quince had kept the fire going, and Jameson sat up gingerly to edge closer to the warmth.
His dreams had been full of wings. Birds fluttering all around him. Angels singing a strange, mournful song. His own body transformed, carrying him through the air, as free as he had ever been.
That had been a dream, right?
He’d always dreamt about flying. His psych training taught him that flight dreams were all about seeking freedom or release from an underlying or subconscious problem.
What had Quince told him about wings?
He reached over his shoulder to scratch absently at one of his shoulder blades, and stopped.
There was something on his back.
He twisted around and saw something golden. He ran his hand along it—it was soft and damp. It was about a foot long.
“They’ll get bigger soon.” Quince stepped into the firelight. She must have been standing there the whole time, watching him. It was creepy, but not as creepy as what was growing out of his shoulder blades. “You’re gonna be awfully hungry for a bit.”
It was as if her words had triggered his stomach. He was so hungry that he found it hard to think. “I am.” He stared back at the little wing. As if in response, it stretched out, and he could see the individual feathers, brown at the base shading into brilliant golden hues at the tips. “What the hell is happening to me?”
Quince sat on a rock next to him and passed him some more of the red fruit and a couple MREs. “It’s quite natural for a skythane. You just have to accept it.”
“Skythane.” He rolled the word around on his tongue. It was strange, but somehow right. “What does it mean?” His back itched where the wings sprouted from his shoulder blades.
“That you’re one of us. Like Xander and me.”
“Am I…. Is anything else different?” He looked down at his waist.
Quince chuckled. “Not down there, no. And no, you won’t grow bird feet, if that’s what you’re asking. But your heart’s a little bigger than the landers’, and your shoulders and rib cage a little m
ore robust.”
He nodded. “The doctors thought it was a birth defect.” He took some fruit and downed one of them almost whole. “What are these?” he said, holding another one. Red juice dribbled down his cheek, but he didn’t care. “They’re good.”
“They’re called obieberries. They’re native to Oberon. I found a tree of them not too far from here this morning.”
He nodded, trying to reach the itchy spot, but he couldn’t quite get to it. “Are you sure we have enough food? I don’t want to eat it all.”
She laughed. “I brought extra. I figured you were going to need it.” She picked up a knife and a block of wood that were resting on another rock by the fire and started whittling away at it.
“Wait…. You knew this would happen?” He kept eating as he was talking, downing a box of pasta and another with some kind of meat and gravy.
“Yes. People like us, here on Oberon, usually grow our wings when we reach adolescence. There’s a hormone we take, when the time is right. I told you this last night, but I’m not surprised you forgot. You had a pretty rough time of it.”
He ate another obieberry. “I’m sorry. I’m having a hard time processing this.” His hands were shaking. “Two days ago, I was just Jameson Havercamp, a young psych from Beta Tau, sent here on what I was told was a midlevel mission to track down the source of a Class X psychoamoratic. Now I’m in the middle of a hostile forest on a backwater planet, eating god-knows-what kind of fruit and I have fucking wings coming out of my back?”
“Well, when you put it that way—”
“What the hell is happening to me?” Jameson was breathing too quickly; he could feel the air wheezing in and out of his lungs, and the damned itching on his back was driving him crazy. He was having a panic attack, like he used to when he was a child and everything felt wrong. He started shaking all over. He was no longer hungry; he just wanted to be back home, his childhood home on Beta Tau, safe in his bed with his mother’s arms wrapped around him.
Quince put her carving off to the side and pulled him into her arms, her own white wings closing over them both in a warm embrace. “There, there, little robin, it will all make sense soon,” she whispered, rubbing his back gently.
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