“Alix.” Robyn pointed to the edge of the slide.
One arm and the edge of a red shirt were visible, sticking out from under a large rock. The man’s fingers twitched once and then went still.
Alix looked away. “Goddammit.” He’d seen far worse on the campaign in Gaelan, and he hardly knew the man. Nevertheless, the man had been under his charge. He hated losing someone, and it could just as easily have been him. I’m sorry, Tucker. He knelt and laid a hand on his arm. “Into the void,” he whispered.
“We have to keep going. There’s nothing we can do for him,” Robyn shouted over the howling of the wind. “The Mountain is still settling. We’re not safe here.”
Alix nodded. The Mountain. So that’s where this was? The once-beautiful valley, reduced to a pile of wet, crumbled stone.
He knew where they needed to go. If they could get to where Dani stashed the bi-wings, they might make it to Gaelan once the storm abated. “Come on.” He stood and started back down the broken mountain.
Gaelan.
The occupation had started out simply enough, with Dani and her rangers as a support force, there at the will of the king. As the year wore on and the occupation tightened, things had gone downhill. His fellow soldiers were subjected to regular acts of disobedience, small and large, and relations with the wing men, as the invaders called them derisively, had quickly soured. “Lander-boy,” they’d called him and spat on him, though he was probably about as far from his boyhood as he was from his life’s end.
In the end, some of the OberCorp rangers and enforcers had taken matters into their own hands. More than a couple wing men lay buried in shallow graves, just outside the city. That was a black time in Alix’s life, one he still regretted.
Dani Black, the leader of the Lander occupation force, had called him into her room. She wanted his help capturing Xander—Prince of the Gaelani—and hadn’t that been a surprise. He knew how to pick ’em.
His left leg was sore. He glanced at the back of his calf. He’d scraped it up on the slide downhill. Something had sliced clean through the material of his trousers. Nothing to do about it at the moment.
His refusal to help Dani had gotten him sent to the mines—days of backbreaking manual labor and nights alone in a cold, dark cell.
He closed his eyes, trying to remember Xander’s touch. The smell of him, the taste of him when they kissed. The arch of his back and the fluttering of his wings as he reached climax. God, he missed that touch.
Now he was free, and in company with two of the skythane—the young woman, Alia, and the Queen of the Gaelani, who had lost her wings. Fate was laughing at him. He would find Xander and apologize for the things he’d done.
They descended another slope of loose scree. The rain was continuous, pouring in heavy sheets.
Robyn lost her footing and slid down the slope past him. Alix grabbed her arm, pulling her back up onto her feet. “Careful.”
She nodded but said nothing in reply. She was cold to him. She had her reasons.
Alix wondered what had happened to the others who’d fled the mines, both on foot and in the escape balloons. Surely they hadn’t fared well in the storm, if they had even managed to escape the Split. If not, they were entombed beneath a couple hundred trillion tons of rock.
They reached the bottom of the slope after another hour. The boulders were more widely placed here, making it easier to get around them, and the howl of the wind lessened slightly.
Robyn’s emerald eyes narrowed. She looked like he was a bug she wanted to squash.
Alix shivered.
Alia fell in beside him as they navigated the boulder field.
“Where did you come from?” he asked Alia over the sound of the wind and the rain.
“What?” she asked, looking up at him.
She was beautiful enough, with fine features and honey-blonde hair pulled back and tied behind her neck in a long braid. There was a hardness in her brown eyes. She’d seen things that had marked her soul. She had golden wings, though they were damp and matted down with rain and mud.
He’d always had a thing for wings, but his heart belonged to Xander. Maybe, if he were still single…. “Where… did… you… come… from?” he tried again, louder this time.
“Gaelan,” she shouted back with a weak smile.
“I mean, why were you here?”
She shook her head. “What?”
He sighed. It was still too loud for a conversation. He’d have to wait until the storm settled down to get some answers.
He closed his eyes and drifted into a quieter place, holding on to the image of Xander’s face.
I’ll see you again soon.
XANDER STARED at the torrent of water pouring over the cavern entrance. Somewhere out there, Quince and the others were lost in the storm.
“What happened to everyone else?” Jameson shouted, putting his hand on Xander’s shoulder.
“I don’t know. Last I saw them was before the lightning strike.” How had things changed so quickly?
Jameson started toward the exit. “We have to look for them!”
Xander pulled him back.
Jameson’s eyes were wild.
He squeezed Jameson’s hands, trying to reassure him. “Hey, calm down. There’s nothing we can do right now.”
“We already lost Morgan.” Jameson’s eyes pleaded with him. “I can’t lose the rest of them.”
Xander shook his head. “It’s no use. We’ll never find them in this tempest. They’re seasoned veterans. They can take care of themselves. We’ll go looking after the storm passes.” The loss of Morgan weighed on him too, though he was less and less certain that Morgan had been a human boy at all.
Jameson looked doubtful.
Xander felt it too, but there really was nothing they could do. “Hey, it’s gonna be all right.” He pulled Jameson to him, enfolding the two of them with his wings. Jameson was soaked, but Xander didn’t care.
Jameson nodded against his chest. “You’re right. Gods, I know you’re right. I’m sorry. I thought we were done with all this.”
Xander held him out at arm’s length. “Gods, huh? We’re doing the plural thing now?”
Jameson gave him a half smile. “Trying it out? When in Rome….”
“How’s your hearing?”
Jameson cocked his head. “It’s better. But everything sounds muffled.”
Xander nodded. “I can tell.”
Jameson blushed. “Am I talking too loud?”
“Just a little.”
Jameson smiled sheepishly. “It’s weird. It feels like my ears are full of water.”
Xander kissed him gently. “It’ll pass.” He looked around the cavern at last, his eyes gradually adjusting to the dim blue light.
The place was a faeryland, filled with rows of golden stalactites and stalagmites, like the bulwarks of an eldritch castle. Each one was a miracle of minute detail, like candle wax dripped from above. The whole cavern was lit by a turquoise-blue glow.
Xander looked around for the source. It came from pools of water on either side of the cavern. The scintillating light shimmered along the walls, creating complex, ever-changing patterns.
“Look, Jameson… it’s beautiful.” They were both a muddy mess. “We’re stuck here until the storm blows itself out. Why don’t we get cleaned up and try to rest? Then we can figure out what to do next. We have a long flight to Gaelan.” He was still shivering from the rain.
“A bath sounds like heaven.” Jameson let Xander lead him to one of the glowing ponds.
“Do you think it’s safe to go in?” Xander asked, pulling off his boots and testing the water with his toes. It was warm.
Jameson looked queasy, but then he smiled. “They called them faery ponds. There’s a microscopic organism that makes the light. It’s harmless, but beautiful.” He grinned. “Romantic, even.”
Ah, that’s how you knew this place. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” he said, slowly and clearl
y, gesturing to indicate Jameson and the cavern. His own generational memories were still fleeting, occasional things.
Jameson’s smile fled. He shrugged. “Not me personally….”
“Shhh. I know.” If he closed his eyes and focused, he could see this place too, but he seemed to be able to block them out when they were inconvenient. “Too many memories.” Xander pointed at his head.
Jameson nodded. He looked relieved. He reached out and pulled Xander close, his hands warm on Xander’s waist.
Xander slipped his arms around Jameson and kissed him once, twice. He wrinkled his nose. “You’re filthy and you stink! So do I.” He held up his shirt as proof. It was covered in mud stains.
Jameson laughed. “We can fix that.”
He helped Jameson unlace the sides of his shirt, pulling it off to reveal the naked skin underneath. Jameson returned the favor, his hands lingering for a moment before withdrawing to pull down his own pants.
They shucked their wet and dirty clothes and descended into the water. It was surprisingly warm, silky and smooth around Xander’s waist.
The pool was about three meters across and sloped down to about a meter deep at the far end. There was a warm, gentle current drifting past Xander’s legs, and the stone beneath his feet had been worn smooth by water and time.
Xander washed the grime off his skin, and it drifted off into the water around him.
Jameson pulled him in deeper and gestured for him to lower his head.
Xander lay in Jameson’s arms, and warm water washed over him, carrying the mud and dirt out of his hair. Jameson massaged his scalp, pulling away the twigs and bits of gunk he’d accumulated on the mad run through the forest in the storm.
Xander’s desire threatened to overwhelm him at Jameson’s gentle touch. He dipped his face into the water and rinsed off. It was so fucking good to get clean.
He shook his head, splashing Jameson, who shot him an aggrieved look.
The look turned into a wicked grin, and Jameson splashed him back. Then they were going after each other and laughing, a fine mist of water flying through the air.
Damn, it’s good to hear you laugh again. Xander grabbed Jameson and kissed him, harder this time, and Jameson’s body responded. They fell back into the water, and Jameson was hard against him, his own need naked before Xander’s desire.
After all that had happened, Xander needed to feel human and alive again. He tugged Jameson back to the shallow part of the pool and pulled his skythane down on top of him, Jameson’s skin warm against his own.
He kissed Jameson’s neck and nibbled on his ear, eliciting a low moan.
Jameson wanted this as much as he did. He could tell.
For a long, slow, ecstatic hour, Xander forgot all about the storm.
Chapter Two: Need
QUINCE WAS flying, and Robyn was beside her, as if the last twenty-five years of misbegotten history and separation had never happened.
A seemingly endless sheet of ice lay beneath them, white as far as the eye could see, glimmering under Titania’s red sun. It was cold out, bone-chillingly so.
To her right, a mountain range carved up the otherwise seamless landscape of white, one peak after another, ending in a tall crag that reminded her of nothing so much as the Mountain, before it had fallen—taller than all the rest, perfect in its symmetry.
As they approached the great peak, a low booming filled the air, like the sound of a giant drum. Once, twice, three times it sounded.
The huge mountain shuddered, cracks appearing on its sides. Great slabs of ice and snow slid down its skirts, forming massive avalanches that set up a thunderous noise as the debris buried the valley below.
Then the mountain itself split open with a deafening crack that went on and on like the judgment of the gods. A fierce golden glow shone from inside, and she could feel the heat of it even at a distance.
As they reached the mountain and flew overhead, Quince could make out a small figure perched on one of the split peaks, head in his hands, peering down at the light below. He looked up at her, his face a mixture of anticipation and fear.
Morgan.
His emotions struck her like a lightning bolt. Terror. Anger. Need. “Help me, Quince!”
Quince woke with a shuddering gasp, flailing around in the rain until she remembered where she was, trapped in the storm.
Morgan was alive. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she believed it with every fiber of her being, and he needed her. Something terrible was coming.
The storm still raged around her. She tried to get up as the relentless downpour pelted her, but her left leg was lodged under something. She felt blindly through the deluge until her hand reached the object…. It was rough, like wood. A fallen tree or branch, then.
“Help!” she shouted into the storm. The rain and thunder drowned out her voice. “Can anyone hear me? Jameson? Xander?”
No one came.
She tried again to pull out her leg, but she was blinded by the rain and couldn’t see how she was trapped.
Had anyone noticed she was missing? Venin? Kadin? The boys?
She sighed. There was nothing else she could do but wait out the storm. The gods knew it couldn’t last forever.
She turned her head to the side and laid a wing over her face to protect herself from the falling rain as much as she could, and closed her eyes.
ALIX LED his party over the foothills that sat at the base of the Mountain. The fallen trees were thick here, slowing their progress as they scrambled over and under logs through the tormented hellscape. At least the rain washed some of the dirt off.
Robyn paced him now. The queen looked at him from time to time, her arched eyebrow saying, more than a torrent of words, what she thought of him and his kind. He was probably an idiot for staying in skythane territory after what landers like him had done in Gaelan. He could have hightailed it back the other direction when the worlds came together, but he felt a strange responsibility toward the queen and her people.
He stared at her for a moment, but he was the one who turned away first.
The rift between skythane and lander went deep, and the subjugation of Gaelan hadn’t helped matters any.
The rain had slowed, and the worst of the thunder and lightning had moved on, but Alix was sick of being cold and wet.
“You were one of them,” Robyn said unexpectedly, her voice carrying over the downpour. Her tone left no doubt what she meant by them. Even soaked to the skin as she was, she retained her regal bearing.
He nodded. No point in denying it. “Yes, ma’am, I was.”
They locked eyes again, and the weight of her judgment fell on him like a blow. She stared at his hands, roughened from the work camp. “Why were you sent to the camp?”
He looked back at her, surprised. Not judgment, then. Not yet. “I stood up to Dani. I told her she was wrong to use Xander that way.” He lifted a fallen tree branch out of her way.
Her eyes narrowed. “What did she plan to do to my son?”
Her tone sent chills down his spine, like the screech of metal on metal in space. One wrong move and death came in for a visit. You could take the queen out of the castle… “She wanted to drug him with pith, and then use him to take over Gaelan.”
Robyn hissed. “She would have killed us all.”
Alix laughed harshly. “Apparently.” Without Xander, the shift wouldn’t have happened, and if the shift was real, he was guessing that Oberon-adjacent space was a damned inhospitable place to be right now. Solar flare and all.
“I may have misjudged you.” The words sounded like they were being dragged out of her.
He looked back at her, surprised. The queen didn’t apologize. Ever. “Thank you.”
Robyn held out a hand.
He took it. She had a firm grip. If she knew half the things he’d done in Gaelan in the name of keeping the peace, she might feel differently, but now was not the time to bring them up. It seemed they had common cause, at least for the mo
ment.
“So what happened to your wings?”
She looked down at her hands, her face suddenly pale. “They were… removed. Most painfully. Dani wanted answers.” She turned away, but he pulled her back gently.
“I’m sorry… Your Highness?”
“Just call me Robyn. I’m no longer the Queen of the Gaelani.”
“Robyn, then. Dani Black’s not human inside. Not like most of us.” There was a darkness in the woman that she seldom let show. He shuddered. What she had done to Robyn…. “Did you tell her what she wanted?”
Her returned glare could have melted ice. “No. Not a word.”
It would have been understandable if she had. “Then how did she know about Xander?”
Robyn shook her head. “I don’t know. I’d guess there’s a traitor in Gaelan.”
Alix nodded. “It would seem so. Do you know who?”
“I have my suspicions.”
Alia had been following right behind them, apparently listening to the whole exchange with a bemused expression. “You know Xander?”
“Yes.” Alix crossed his arms. “We were close. Lovers. Before I was hauled off to Gaelan by Dani with her crew.”
“He can’t be far from here. I was with him and Jameson before I found you—”
“Jameson?” the queen interjected.
“You’d know him as Lyrin, Your Highness.”
“Wait, Xander’s nearby?” Alix grinned. Some habits were hard to break. He’d known his lover would be coming to Titania, but they were at least a day’s flight from Gaelan. What was Xander doing here? Was this where Xander had brought the two worlds together? It might explain the destruction of the Mountain.
Alia nodded. “The storm came quickly after the shift. They can’t have gotten far.”
Xander is here. Somewhere. His heart beat faster at that thought. He remembered Xander’s touch, the taste of his mouth. His beautiful wings. Alix used to love running his hands over those black feathers, feeling them slip between his fingers. He sighed.
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