Beneath Stained Glass Wings

by K Kazul Wolf

  The leather pulls tighter around my joints, the buckles bending. No, no, no! Vito’s illusions haven’t been that powerful since he was stuck as a dragon, apparently a side effect of avoiding cannibalism. Except, when he gets upset…

  “No, don’t do this,” I hiss. And he pauses for a second, his eyes focusing on me. The straps tied around me lose their pressure. “If you let me go…Vito. We’ll both die. You need to— You have to—” I can’t say it. It’s too horrible, too unreal.

  He has to eat me.

  The anger roars back into his eyes, all fire and ash. The buckles around me burst and clank to the floor, my blood rushing through my wrists and ankles with relief and sparks of pain. No, no, no! The vices on his wings fall, too, the ornate metal cracked.

  “What was that?” the king asks, the clacking of his shoes coming this way.

  The anger fades from Vito’s face for one second, his nose butting closer, pushing me away. Run.

  “No,” I whisper. “I won’t leave you.”

  His eyebrow quirks. Fine, then.

  “Maybe I was too lenient with you. Maybe I should eat her while you watch, so you can understand it isn’t a—”

  Vito snaps forward, ducking his head underneath my chest and flinging me back. My wings snap open, and too late, I remember the hole ripped in them, pain sparking through my nerves. I slam into the far wall, sliding to the ground. My ears ring and my focus swims, everything blurring into a swirling mass.

  Vito’s roar snaps sense back to me.

  The hunters swarm him, blades and spears ringing against his scales, blown back by explosive illusions, only to charge again.

  “Be careful!” the king yells. “I’d like him alive. We aren’t through with him yet.”

  My lips twitch into a snarl. He can’t have him.

  I reach for my sabre, but stop as my fingers brush the hilt. Jamarcus was right when he captured me. Sure, I was excellent in the yards with my blade, but I can’t fight. Yet I can’t leave Vito, either.

  What else can I do?

  There’s nothing here except for the fire, the painted walls, the drains— Wait. Something glimmers, catching my eye in one of the grates. As I dive for it, a few guards look my way, turning from the battle. But it doesn’t matter.

  My fingers catch around the shimmer in the grate, yanking it out. A crystal the size of my palm, deftly cut with intricate rivets that manage to catch any and all light in the dim room, casting rainbows across the floor.

  The very last thing my father gave to me before he died, the thing he kicked across the floor and saved my life with.

  His invention.

  “Did you know that we don’t actually see the world around us?” he asked, bouncing me on his knee while he worked at his desk, sometimes tickling my wings. “At least, not like you think we do. We only see light. It’s how we’re able to hide ourselves in a mirage, because we can manipulate the light, reflecting it with the water.” I asked if he was teasing and he laughed. “Why don’t you try it yourself? Prove me wrong, Ava.”

  Jumping into the air and biting my tongue against the pain, I take two wing beats and land on the sill of the giant window. I yank the tarp down. It’s light, the first pinks of sunset or sunrise painting the sky.

  Good.

  Taking the stone between two fingers, I bite the inside of my cheek and grasp at the moisture in the mist that floods the courtyard outside. It’s so familiar, so easy. I’d practiced this often, unlike the mirage that holds my wings in place. This illusion was a challenge.

  And I mastered it.

  Twisting the light and reflecting it to the floor below, I make another me. She swings her sabre at one of the hunters. The woman swings to parry without a second thought, her sword slicing right through the illusion of light and water and straight through the chest of her comrade. She drops her weapon and tries to help him, but the wound went too deep. I move onto the ones by Vito, shooting bits and pieces of images all around them. Their heads swing around, swords flying out in defense but instead striking a neighbor.

  But Vito knows this trick. He helped me master it. After he catches sight of me in the window he rips through the hunters. Blood flows to the ground, dripping into the drains as it was meant to.

  A roar shakes the room. It’s so deep that oil spills from the trails along the walls, fire bleeding into the room. At the other end of the room, a golden dragon stands, black eyes flickering with the fire. The king.

  No. We were so close.

  Vito leaps toward me, beating his wings as hard as he can as the blood flecked on them splatters to the ground. The golden dragon struts down the room, flames flaring bigger and brighter as he passes by them.

  I can’t move. I can’t think. The only way I was able to take Vito’s sister was by surprise, hers and my own. Even with both Vito and me…we don’t stand a chance. Not against him.

  As Vito reaches me, the king makes his first move. Moisture wraps around Vito’s wings, twisting them. He cries out, an ear-shattering howl, and crashes into me, sending the both of us flying from the building. I land, rolling, but I hit something softer than the grassy courtyard of the palace, cushioning my landing. Moisture presses against my skin, and for an instant I’m sure it’s the king, I’m sure I’m about to be strangled. But I sense the trail of the water, and it’s coming from only a few yards away.

  I scramble up, looking toward the source of the quickly fading illusion.

  It’s Vito. He lies there, only barely twitching. But…he can’t. He can’t cast an illusion, not after what breaking my chains would have done to him. He can’t have saved me again.

  I stutter, then scream his name, running back toward him and closer to the golden dragon beyond the wall. He doesn’t move, his eyes glazed over and distant as he whimpers in pain. God, he’s burned an illusion in Vito’s blood, hasn’t he? He’s not moving until the king stops, but how the hell do I stop him?

  The stone.

  “How does it work?” I asked my father, the first time I took the stone from him. “Well,” he said as he plucked it from my hands. “It reflects light. And light reflects off water, which we bring in closer, denser.” He makes a flower bloom on his desk. It’s so delicate and soft, I have to reach out and let my finger fade through a petal, make sure it’s truly nothing but a mirage. “But, the path of the light shows a trail of our illusion, sometimes.” He shifted the stone slightly, a rainbow showering from him and over the flower. “So you can always trace where the illusion is coming from.”

  “Does it work with any illusion?”

  “Yes.”

  Turning the crystal in my hands, it takes focus to stop my fingers from shaking and try to catch the water in the light. There. A rainbow glitters from the window, showing the path of the king’s blood illusion. Gnawing my raw cheek, I drag a patch of mist to slice across the middle of the path, severing the connection between Vito and the king.

  Vito gasps.

  The king’s footsteps echo closer to the window, but pause as he realizes that the illusion stopped working.

  “Vito, we need to fly, come on!”

  He moves to his feet, shakes his head, then finally leaps to his feet, wings beating unevenly as he gains air. I jump with him, biting my tongue against the pain in my wing, trying to move faster. Come on, come on.

  A crash echoes behind us, vibrations shaking through the air.

  I glance back to find dust rising from the building we escaped, a long, golden body bursting through the shattered wall.

  My wings ache, the muscles along my back screaming as I try to push them faster, grapple for a good grip in the air.

  We aren’t going to make it. We can’t outrun him.

  But we have to.

  I swivel onto my back. Shining the light behind us, it reveals an illusion snapping toward us through the air like lightning, rainbow smoke through the sky. Gripping the pain in my wing to focus, I push a mirage out into the air, just as it catches Vito’s tail.


  The two energies collide and explode, too much power in the combined illusions. It tosses Vito and me farther and faster than I would have thought possible, and we tumble and fall through the air, over the city and through the clouds surrounding its border. Thrashing and turning, I try to throw out my wings, try to catch myself, try to find Vito, but I can’t see him with my head spinning.

  Finally, I catch the air under my wings—just in time to slam into sand and rock, bouncing and rolling and trying to catch my grip on my surroundings again. Up and down blur into one and I can’t find the ground. The landscape becomes a whirl of sand and stone and air.

  My head hits something hard.

  The world disappears.

  11

  The Aftermath

  My hands are bare. There’s no roughness of fabric and scales against my skin as my fingers move. That’s all I can feel—the absence.

  I drag my hands out from beneath a blanket, holding them in front of my face. Where are they? Where are my gloves?

  Where’s Vito?

  Sitting straight, my entire body aches with cuts and bruises, my right wing so stiff I can barely move it. Not that I can move it much anyway; a bandage wraps around it, holding it in place.

  I’m in a bed, covered in a thin blanket, in an otherwise empty room with a small, square window that I can’t see out of from here. But I shouldn’t be here. I should be in the desert. I should be with Vito. I need Vito.

  Panic pricks along my skin, shooting through my veins. I need to do something, but I don’t even know where I am.

  The door into the room creaks open, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  “Ah, you’re finally up.” Carita strides through the door, stopping short when she sees the look on my face.

  “Where’s Vito?” My voice is a hoarse croak. I clear my throat but it doesn’t make a difference.

  “Hey, hey, you should probably sit back down. It’s only been a couple of days and you were pretty beat—”

  “A couple of days? Couple?” It can’t have been that long. There’s no way I could have escaped the king for that long. He has to have found me—maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe I’m dead and this is what really happens when you die: you wake up to have conversations with near strangers.

  She nods. “Two days since we found you knocked out in the desert.”

  “How— How did you find me?” What was she doing out in the desert?

  “One of the Story Collectors saw you fall while we were taking the town.”

  So…they did it. They have control of Mercatus—or did. A grim happiness creeps inside me, a dirty thing. The city in the air deserves all the punishment I can throw at them, after what they did to me. And Vito…

  “But Vito, he fell with me. What happened?”

  She takes a few steps closer, sitting on the edge of the bed, her sharp green eyes on the floor. “Birdie…your dragon didn’t come through the clouds with you.”

  No. “Th-that can’t be right. He was there, with me, we were both running and…”

  But it is possible. What if the king caught him? What if the illusions didn’t throw him as far as they threw me? The image grows in my mind, his small body clutched and broken in the massive claws of the golden king. No.

  “I’m sorry.” She actually sounds earnest.

  “I-it can’t be.” My voice catches and I blink tears from my burning eyes. He had to have fallen with me. If he didn’t fall, if they got him… What will they do with him? What will they put him through? What if…it’s too late? “I have to go back up.”

  I move to get up, every part of me screaming—but Carita jumps forward, holding my wrists to the mattress. I can’t find the energy to fight her.

  “Birdie…” Carita looks up, pity in those harsh eyes. It looks wrong. Then she leans in closer, wrapping her arms around me. Every muscle tenses at her touch, pain riveting through me. “I know. I know what it’s like to trust the dragons, have faith in them. But your dragon is gone. All that’s left are those bastards. To go up there by yourself, without a plan, is suicide. If they haven’t— If he’s still up there, they’ll have him locked up so tight that only another dragon could get to him. And he won’t be alive long enough for us to get to him.”

  “S-stop it!” I try to push her away, get these images out of my head. No, no, no. There’s no other option. If I don’t have Vito…if he’s not okay…

  “It’s the truth.” She holds on, despite my struggling. “And if Vito heard your plan, if he knew what you were doing, what would he do? Would this suicide mission be what he wants?”

  I give one more weak shove, tears building in my eyes. No. He wouldn’t want it. He’d snort in my face, pushing me back onto the bed. Vito.

  “I know. I know. I’ve been there. When the last person you trust abandons you, betrays you, and you think you have nothing to live for. The scar that runs along my face, do you know where I got it?”

  I shake my head, not trusting my words.

  “This was given to me by my father. I followed his orders, became one of the top hunters. Until I met a ridiculous slave named Bricius that made me stop and think. Because my father…he was not a good dragon. None of them are good. He…he murdered my mother in front of me.” For a moment her features go sharp, a fire burning behind her eyes.

  “B-but Estes said you didn’t know what happened to your mother.” Like I never knew what happened to mine. Unless…if our stories really are that similar, and she’s telling the truth…

  “She was eaten as my sacrifice. By my father, when I was young but old enough to watch. It was when he tried to eat me that I left. Bricius helped me fall, just like your dragon stayed by your side. I know it must be hard, even if he was a dragon. But you have so much you can do, birdie. Accept what you are. Leave the dragons behind. They deserve to be hunted and destroyed as they’ve tried to do to us. You are Fallen.”

  She’s right.

  I’ve lost everything I’ve ever had. Everyone I’ve ever loved.

  I am truly what I’ve become.

  Fallen.

  I close my eyes and finally let her hold me, tears pouring along my cheeks. I don’t think she can understand it. Carita isn’t the sort of person who can grasp Vito, what he is and always will be to me. I…I just want to see him. Tears burn through my throat, sobs choking me. I want to hold him one more time. I never got to say I’m sorry. He never heard how much he meant to me. He never understood. I never understood.

  I want him.

  I want my Vito.

  “Do you ever regret it?” I choke out, barely even words past the sobs. “The fall. Getting cast out. Would you do anything differently if you could?” Because I would give everything to change this. Everything.

  “No.” She looks up, meeting my eyes with all her ferocity. “Never.”

  Time blurs together. There’s a lot of debating on what to do next, how to plan the next attack. The Story Collectors were more than prepared to take Mercatus when it fell; it seems from the talk that this isn’t the first time they’ve done it. Curiosity rises, then collapses within me about the whole event. They obviously learned enough from the past to take the town with ease, now. All I care is that the slaves are freed, that no mother is being beheaded for trying to care for her children, that no more kids are going to be starving to the point of stealing.

  Carita took the ambassador’s hawks and relayed the message that I was spotted falling, but I’d fled to the small country to the east.

  The sky’s been clear since that day.

  “You’re going to help us.”

  I look at Carita, not quite grasping her words. “What?” I don’t know what they were talking about. I was staring at the flickering candles barely keeping their underground hideout lit. I don’t know why they still meet here now that there’s no reason to hide.

  “Help us round up the guards.”

  I look around the room. Estes adjusts his glasses in his nervous manner, Fitz raps long pale fingers on the table
, Nalani’s fingers work in elegant patterns along her loom, and Dantea stares at me with her multitude of wrinkles creased in what looks like worry. Each of them commands an arm or leg of the Story Collectors, from what I understand. But Bricius is off somewhere, running another errand for Carita.

  I take in a breath, not realizing how empty my lungs had been. “I can’t fight. I’m no help.”

  Carita sighs, standing. “Draw your sabre.”

  “What?”

  “You need to stop saying that word.” She scowls, her scar mimicking the frown on her face. “Get up. Draw your weapon.”

  I do as she says, my movements feeling like one of my father’s inventions in need of a good oiling. The sabre is heavy in my hands, a weapon I have no care to use.

  “No, no, no.” She shakes her head and grabs my hands, readjusting them on the grip. “Hold it like this. No wonder you had to ram that one man through.”

  “Move your feet apart,” Nalani instructs, barely looking up from her string. “Bend your knees slightly. Good.” A small smile flits across her lips.

  “Oh, come now, you aren’t going to intimidate any guards hired by an ambassador like that.” Fitz stands, crossing his arms. “If you can’t hide your emotions, at least keep your face blank.”

  I let my hand drop. “Why do you all care?”

  They all freeze, eyes fixed on mine.

  “If I die, I die. You stole wings from the fallen guards and some of them still work. You don’t need me for the feathers on my back, and we all know I knew nothing about my life there.” Know nothing, if we’re going to be honest. There’s no reason they need me. I have nothing. I am nothing. There’s no point. “The kindest thing to do would be to send me out without any training.”

  “Never.” Estes calms the tufts of hair behind his ears. “You’re one of us now, young illusionist.”

  “And why should that matter?” None of it matters. They may call me one of their own, but I’m not the person to fight for this, decide what’s best for them. Anything I ever called home lies dead at my feet. So long as we’re against the dragons, I don’t care what they use me for.