by K Kazul Wolf
My fingers shake and I fumble to slide the sabre from its sheath. A man charges me but I swing to barely block his sword from slicing my neck. The blades ring, the force vibrating up my arm. He slashes, again and again. All I can do is block. I’m useless.
This is nothing like what I practiced in the sky. They aren’t using any of the moves I memorized. They aren’t following the patterns.
He catches my blade, flinging it wide off its path. He stabs toward my gut. I jump aside barely in time, grazing my arm instead.
He’s going to kill me.
Panic bubbles up my throat. He raises his sword again. No, no, no, this can’t happen. I’ve fallen to be killed within a week, leaving Vito to fend for himself.
No.
I refuse to let these people take anything more from me.
Like an animal, I lower my horns, catching his eyes widening. Before he can move his blade, I run him through.
He screams. I pull back and my smooth, sharp horns slide right out. He gives a wild swing as he falls and I barely pull back in time. He hits the floor and doesn’t move, blood pooling across the dirt.
Warm liquid drips down my horns onto my scalp. Blood, crusting against my skull. Blood, rushing through my veins. Everywhere. The smell of death, of iron and flesh, fills my nostrils as I take in the two bodies smeared before me. Almost like a painting.
My painting.
My guilt.
All I’ve ever known dead at my feet.
Except—
A roar rings through the air. My hands shake violently as I look up, finding the room painted in a rainbow of color. In the blink of an eye, it all goes dark and a crash rings out, a huge form exploding through the window, brown scales shimmering as he slams into a guard on my right.
Vito.
Bricius fights the few remaining guards at the door, Vito between him and me. But Carita— Where is she?
I spin around. There. That pale-blue suit, dirtied and bloodied and ripped. Carita’s on the ground, clutching her ribs, a glare focused on Duryea.
He raises a hand toward her, his mouth moving in words I can’t make out, a vicious grin around every word.
She’s going to die.
Because of me.
I run toward her, but my legs are shaking. I can barely walk.
“Vito!” I cry. His head whips toward me. “Carita, help Carita!”
Duryea’s attention snaps our way at the sound of the rebel leader’s name. His eyes widen as he spots Vito. How didn’t he see the dragon before?
He turns from Carita, and…he bows. Despite his enemy being right in front of him, despite the dead guards surrounding him. He bows.
Vito charges, lowering his head like I had. He rams forward and crushes the ambassador against the wall. The squelching of flesh echoes through the room. Then he shakes the illusionist off, like a piece of trash.
It’s quiet.
Vito stands there, panting. Bricius runs to Carita’s side. I stumble toward Vito, falling to the ground.
“We shouldn’t have come.” Bricius examines Carita, his frown getting deeper at every cut and scratch.
Carita flinches when he touches a particularly deep cut on her arm. “You didn’t have to come with me.”
I try to get up again.
“Yes I did,” Bricius says without a question in his voice, features the epitome of calm.
“No, you moron!” she hisses at him as I take my first, tentative step. “You have no attachments to me. You should have run away an age and a half ago.”
“If you want me to, I will.” He states it like it’s something simple, not his entire life.
“You’re damned lucky I’m injured.” She looks away from him. “I would beat some sense into you.”
“Of course.”
She tuts, and I make my way forward, my legs slowly growing solid underneath me.
Vito still doesn’t move.
“V-Vito?” I ask quietly.
Nothing.
I place my hand on his side. He jumps, jaws snapping toward me. With a yelp I fall backward, raising an arm as if it could protect me.
He freezes again, this time his eyes pinned on me. What’s wrong? I try to get the words out, but my mouth won’t move. He isn’t… He wouldn’t…
Unless he figured out what I’d done, back at the city.
His eyes widen and he finally moves, running to my side and pressing his head into my chest, moaning a soft whine. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
“I know,” I murmur, trying to hide the tremor in my voice—not afraid of him, but of myself. That he’d wish that bite had landed, if he knew.
With a deep breath, I run my fingers over his cheek. His breathing slows, calms down.
“How did you know where we were?” I dare ask.
Gently, he lifts his head. He just barely presses his snout to my nose.
I blink. “Me? What did I—” Oh. My screaming. He heard my screaming and he came for me. Despite not being able to cast illusions for the same reason he can’t become human, despite the fact that he was most definitely seen.
My chest feels like it’s slowly cracking with the weight of my heart.
I don’t deserve him. I didn’t deserve to be saved. I deserved everything that awful ambassador was going to do to me.
“Thank you,” I rasp, the words broken in my mouth.
What am I doing here? Why did I let him come with me? As much as I want to believe he would come with me no matter what, I didn’t push him as hard as I could have. I should have.
The blood on my horns is an iron weight, dragging me into the abyss.
Can I survive this much longer?
Vito nudges me. I stroke his spiked eyebrow ridges, wanting the ability to push him away more than anything. But as long as he wants to stay, I can’t leave him.
Then maybe…maybe I need to tell him.
8
The Thunder
Fingers pinch my ear, dragging me to my feet. “Ow, ow, ow.”
“That’s only the beginning of your pain, birdie,” Carita growls, her other arm wrapped around Bricius’ shoulders. “What the hell made you think running out into the open was a good idea?”
I smack away her hand, glaring at her. “They told me, the Story Collectors. Everything. What you’re up to and what you want to use me for.”
“What I want to use you for?” She laughs. “Birdie, if you think I’d trust you as far as I could kick you, you’re insane. No. I told them you wouldn’t understand; you have no part in that. Not yet. Not unless you choose to take it.”
“But…why then?” I glare, all too aware of Vito’s claws scraping as he moves behind me. “Why did you rescue me? Why are you helping me? What’s my price?”
She scowls, giving me her look. “Unfortunately, you’re paying it.” Then her eyes soften a bit. “You’re the only goddamn hope the ground has seen since before I fell. All we want is freedom, all we want is to be able to live. Just like you and your dragon.”
Freedom from slavery, from starving, from being oppressed. I didn’t want to believe, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Maybe…maybe a rebellion is the right path. Something needs to change. Before I can stutter a response, Carita and Bricius limp forward, out of the room and through the great house beyond. I stumble after them, trying not to see the bodies littered everywhere, trying not to look back at the crumpled form inside the ruined blue suit.
“Why would he do that?” I mutter, half to myself. “Let himself die?”
Vito snorts softly.
Carita tuts her tongue and says, “You are such a strange birdie. Do you remember the lesson they beat into you every day of your life? Bow to the dragons, do their bidding, bend to their every whim. ‘To disobey a dragon is to disobey a god.’ Especially you winged ones and what you’re raised for.”
Of course I know the phrase, burned into my mind every second I was trained. But to take it so seriously as to die for it? Would I die if a dragon told me to? For Vito, I m
ight. But that’s because he’s Vito, he’s my dragon and I’m his caretaker, his…something else. Something more.
Maybe it leads back to my dad, again. How he would hug me every day that he came home, tell me how important I was and that I should always come first, always take care of myself as much as others. He never specifically contradicted my teachings, but he worked backward. Was he always working against them?
Vito brushes my side, head quirked curiously. I shrug him off. Sick guilt worms into my stomach at the memories, at poor, innocent Vito, always loyal beside me.
We’re close to that hideout that Carita brought me to earlier, where those Story Collectors were. Is it really still the same day? Carita and Bricius descend the steps first, the door opening to Estes’ face. He nearly faints at the sight of Carita, ushering the lot of us in, offering anything and everything that he has. Food is among the offers, and I scurry over to grab some for Vito and me, remembering the breakfast promised to us earlier. Well, a few things have happened between then and now.
No one notices Vito until he slides through the door, deftly squeezing his slim frame into the small space in the same way a mouse does with a crack. Then someone screams, one of them grabs a spear and points it at Vito, and he slowly backs up.
“He’s mine!” I shout, all eyes save for Bricius’—who tends to Carita’s wounds—turning to me. Mine. The word sounds wrong, but feels right. Heat gathers in my chest. “Don’t hurt him. He’s with me.”
Nalani is the first to look away, those sharp features all bunched together in worry as she places a hand on Carita’s arm. “What happened?” Everyone stills at the question, except for Bricius and his large hands working furiously on the delicate task, and Vito, who slithers quietly to where I stand.
Carita takes in a shaking breath, looking around the room. “Duryea is dead. The ambassador is gone. We have nothing tying Caelum to us and the guards are running scared.”
The air in the room is heavy. I can’t get enough into my chest, my breaths becoming gasps. I did this. I ran from all of this and ended up handing them their revenge on a silver platter. Of course Carita didn’t come and save me for me—she got her chance to take down the ambassador.
“We have our one chance to take the city, to finally advance from the ground.”
“But what about—” Fitz starts, eyes wide.
Carita raises her hand. “No buts. No hesitation.” She takes a few steps toward Fitz, his skin as white as a sheet. “In your exploring, have you ever heard of a town south of here?”
“I-I’ve seen it, but I wouldn’t really call it a town. It’s been recently abandoned, but the destruction, and the number of bones…”
“Exactly.” Carita’s eyes are alive with fire. “Last time we hesitated, we lost a town that no longer has so much as a name. When Caelum and its king smell rebellion, when they sense anything astray, they act quickly. They killed and burned and took everything. But now we know more. Now we’ve learned from our mistakes. We can quell any hint of the dragons’ power in this city. We can destroy the poverty and struggle they’ve created. And once we own this town? We can’t stop moving. The city will come back. And by then we will have taken more towns, and gathered more people, and we’ll be more than those little feathered snakes could dream of taking. With the stories and the knowledge and the power we have gathered, we will make this country ours.
“So tell me, Fitz.” Carita leans in close enough to Fitz to make even me uncomfortable. “Are you going to let the dragons tear you to tiny bits and then burn your remains in a heap of nameless corpses?”
Fitz shakes his head, eyes wide and a little frantic.
“Then move.”
The silence stretches for one moment before the Story Collectors spring back to life. But this time, there is no chaos to their movements. They move calmly and quickly, gathering things in such a flurry I can barely keep them straight. Within moments, they’re all gone, the door still open behind them.
What are these rebels going to do with my people, the dragons and illusionists I grew up with? Even those guards, mutant in a way that makes me pity their state. Will they treat them as my kind treat them, as slaves and lesser beings? Even if an illusionist shows pity or regret, saves their lives and the lives of their families, will they still turn on them? And…do they deserve it?
What have I started?
“Ava?” Carita’s voice makes me jump. Vito gives a comforting nudge, but I gently push his snout away.
“What?” I snap back. “What more do you want?”
She raises an eyebrow. “No need to throw a fit. I just wanted to know how long Duryea had you before I showed up.”
I press my lips together, looking away. “I— I got knocked out. I don’t know.”
“Mmm.” She’s quiet a moment, except for a gasp of pain as Bricius wraps her bandages. “Then we won’t know if he was able to send out a hawk to Caelum.” She leans her head back. “Damn.”
Bricius finally finishes, placing his supplies on a table. “How do you feel?”
She laughs. “Like crap. But thank you.”
Bricius smiles, and I swear, Carita almost smiles back.
Then her eyes flick back to me. “What did you run from in the city in the sky, birdie? Is it something I should be running from, too?”
And there it is. I could have it all out right now, let Vito know, have them all persecute me and be done with it. But…I can’t. I bite my lip. Dragons, I’m such a coward. “There’s nothing you could trade me, not enough money in the world to buy that information from me.”
Her mouth pops open. What, I’ve finally rendered her speechless?
Vito nudges me again. I try to push him away, but he won’t budge. He looks at me with the eyes of a kit, deadly curious. What did you do, Ava?
My breath catches. I can’t say.
But…
Out of all the people, with everything that he’s done with me, for me…
For the first time since it happened, I wish that things had gone differently that day when he was forced to take me as his caretaker. I wish someone else had cornered me first, a dragon that didn’t care about me. Or maybe I wish things could have gotten worse from that point. Maybe instead of his quiet responses, his slow acceptance of me into his life and him into mine, he despised me. He never would have sat on the fence with me, imagining the lives happening on the ground. We never would have raced across the sky, him sometimes letting me win, despite how much he’d deny it. And I could have never shown him all my books, all my ideas and thoughts.
I wish he hated me more than anything in the world.
“Vito,” I choke out. “You shouldn’t have come with me. You should have stayed and let me do this.”
He shakes his head. I would never leave you.
I don’t want to do this. I’m going to tear us both in half and destroy everything the two of us have ever shared. Yet what held us together is exactly what got both of us here, everything we shared behind the punishment I run from. “V-Vito, the night that we left, I… I-I killed—”
Crashing, more monstrous than any dragon’s roar echoes from outside, cracking through the air like electricity.
“What was that?” Bricius asks, turning toward the door.
In unison, Carita and I whisper, “Thunder.”
Storms in the desert are a rarity, what with the city in the sky regulating weather with illusions. And in the middle of the summer? It never happens.
So if there’s a storm, that means only one thing.
Caelum is here.
Vito races ahead of me to the door. Carita and Bricius argue about her getting up to see. The moment Vito slithers out, he claws up the stairwell wall and spreads his wings, flying to the rooftop. I run to the top of the stairs and fly after him.
I freeze and my wings stop beating. I fall to the rooftop, scraping my hands on the clay, unable to take my eyes from the heavens.
Clouds smother the sky, so dark they’re nearly
black. Lightning flashes every few moments, the thunder growling as if the mass of black is an angry, living thing.
Then, they fall. Figures wing down from the sky—but that’s not right. Hunters can’t fly. That’s why they’re chosen as soldiers; the winged ones have other things that must be done. If they ever need to go to the ground, the dragons carry them. I’ve only been gone a day. Things couldn’t have changed that much.
Then they come close enough that I can see their wings. They aren’t made of soft, colorful feathers and muscle and sinew; they’re only one color. Grey. Metal and glass and webbing strung together to make artificial wings.
My father’s wings. The ones he made for my mother, and her alone.
Vito’s whine beside me slowly becomes a growl.
Mind numb, I draw my sabre from my sheath. “Aim for the joints.” Rage blooms in my chest, burning through my limbs. “They’re the only part that can be broken.”
I leap off the roof, wings pumping hard as I dart through the air. Vito still overtakes me, but I barely see him. Everything is red. My gut churns at the sight of my father’s wings on all these undeserving hunters. They couldn’t have built them overnight. They stole these from my family a long time ago.
Vito roars and I scream with him, raising my sword and crashing into the fold. I swing and swing and swing, severing joint after joint after joint. These may be trained soldiers, but they haven’t been trained to fight in the air any more than I have. I, however, have been flying for years. With no footing to gain, they are at my will.
My lips twist into a grin and I scream again, this time with glee, destroying them for what they stole from me: my father, who meant the world to me. The way my mother went missing and no one gave a damn. How they hated Vito for the color of his scales, how they made him hate himself for something so stupid. How we couldn’t so much as be friends. We were never allowed what little happiness we could steal.
Metal hisses through the air. Pain flares up my right wing. I can barely move it. Flapping desperately with my other, I fall, gravity clawing me down into a twirling spiral. I hadn’t realized how far up I was. I never realized how frightening height really is.