by K Kazul Wolf
“Maybe it doesn’t matter.” Dantea finally adds her thoughts to the muddle of things as she sips her tea. “All of us have hit the lowest we could possibly go. All of us have become desperate enough that we thought our stories didn’t matter. But, my dear, here we all are. Lending our voices to the cause. So you can either accept our help or refuse it, that’s your choice. But we will not stop offering it to you, since we were once like you.”
I stare at the old woman, at the worn dark skin dimpled around eyes that seem to shine with unsaid words and secrets. Then I glance around the room, at these people who want to help me, to get me onto feet that I no longer want to use. These people who saved me when I fell out of the sky when they could have been spotted and killed by the king himself. Despite the fact that I was once one of Caelum’s pawns.
The least I could do is pay them back, fight with these people who for so long have fought for themselves with no hope or end in sight.
“Fine.” I lift my sabre. “Then show me how to fight.”
Carita grins, takes me by the hand, and drags me outside.
Bricius doesn’t show up too much later, finding me panting and sweating on the shadowed dirt road outside the hideout from exercises Carita won’t stop running me through. My body already aches, like all the training I did in the city in the sky was nothing. Maybe it was.
I collapse at the sight of Bricius coming down the alley, relaxing until I let my right wing fall loose and have a spike of real pain run through me.
“What are you doing?” he asks, looking between Carita and me.
“Teaching her how to fight.”
He shakes his head. “No, you’re teaching her how to fence. That isn’t fighting.”
Carita scoffs, but her smile twists her long scar. “Oh really? Please, show us how it’s done, then.”
She really doesn’t treat him like a slave. Or how I’d think someone would. I wonder what he said or did that made her question, made her fall?
“Get up.” He nods toward me.
My body protests loudly at every movement, but I get to my feet.
“No, don’t stand like that. Here.”
With gentle movements, he re-adjusts my feet, positions my back, places my hands. He moves softly for a man so large; his words have no bite to them. He’s not really like the man I thought he might be, whip cracking at the poor centimare.
At least not until he knocks me off my feet the first time I try to hit him.
Carita laughs, a loud and obnoxious sort of sound that I don’t know if I’ve heard before. “That’s enough, kiddos. We do have to take care of that guard. Everyone else should have their people in position, let’s take ours.”
She turns and walks away, Bricius reaching out a hand and helping me up.
My mouth twists, words trying to find their way out.
“You can spit it out,” he says quietly, his voice like pebbles rolling down a hill. “I won’t hit you again.”
I’m not worried about that; he didn’t hit me that hard. It’s just hard to find the right words. “What happened between you and Carita?”
“She freed me from slavery.” He shrugs. “I owe her my life.”
“I know that much. But why did she free you?”
He takes a breath. “Before she fell, when she was a hunter and I was working in the mines, she questioned me about a fallen illusionist. I questioned her back. She hated me at first for doing that, for daring to think she was wrong. She came back a few times, her questions getting stranger, until she stopped coming. I figured she’d acquired her prey and moved on. But then she came back, and she bought my life with the lives of others.” He says everything nonchalantly, but his lips tighten a bit. “It was more than I am worth. I owe her my existence.”
“That’s it?” Just some words changed someone like Carita’s mind?
“That’s all it can be. You understand, I’d imagine.”
I blink. “What?”
“Your dragon. He bought your freedom, too, did he not?”
The words hit harder than his punch did. Carita’s words echo down the street, and Bricius moves toward them, but I don’t yet. It takes a moment to remember how to breathe again, to work past the emotions clogging my throat.
It’s different.
But is it that much?
12
The Initiation
The guards don’t put up much of a fight. The illusionists too ugly to be kept by the city have little loyalty, though that doesn’t make them any less of a threat. That’s what Carita says, at least. She asks me to help, and I do. It feels good. I learn how to fight—how to really fight—as we control the few who rebel against us, the few still fooled by Caelum. Even after having spent their whole lives living in the squalor I’ve barely seen the surface of, they somehow hold onto their loyalty. Sometimes I want to shake them, force sense into their heads. Don’t let them have you, don’t let them steal your lives.
They never listen.
I growl, swinging my sabre in the arcs that Carita’s started walking me through, cutting through the useless words that pour out of my mouth to no effect. Instead, I think of the others.
I make some cuts, keeping my back straight, knees bent, imagining Nalani grinning as she somehow knows I get it right despite rarely looking up from the tapestry she’s making. Some of the scenes seem a little familiar, but I don’t want to look closer if they are.
My face stays a mask as Fitz’s voice echoes through my head in boisterous tones, making more jokes and puns than I thought one human, or even dragon, could store in their brain. If those don’t work, he’ll tell stories of tragedies and wars, try to make me cry. No warrior will take you seriously if you’re laughing or sobbing, he would say. I ask him why on earth I would be laughing if I were fighting for my life, and he would accuse me of thinking too much. I don’t mind him, though; he makes it easy to avoid my less-than-pleasant thoughts.
Unlike Estes, who will keep prattling on about stories with no meaning or relevance. Sometimes it seems like gibberish coming out of his mouth, nothing like the books my father collected. When I finally ask him why these stories are important, how this trivial knowledge is vital to the cause, he says that all knowledge that dragon-kind buried in the sands is important. The most meaningless fact could prove to be their weakness. Knowledge is power.
Bricius has a habit of interrupting Estes, something I’m both grateful for and dread. His quips about how knowledge is power but fighting is all we have left send Estes stomping off, and then his training begins. I’ve never experienced hand-to-hand combat, and I never want to face it in a true battle, but Bricius is a patient teacher. Maybe it’s because he feels a kinship with me. Maybe it’s because he pities me.
The only one of the lead Story Collectors I rarely see lurking about is—
“So you have found your own value again, hmm?” Dantea walks toward my practice area, a dusty, abandoned street near the moat.
“I’ve found out how to use a sabre.” I stand straight, wiping away the sweat on my forehead. “What are you here for?”
Her eyebrow arches, wrinkles following the tree rings I’d seen in the wooden structures in Caelum. Does each wrinkle mean a year for her, too? “Do you ask that of all your visitors?”
“Most of my visitors come regularly.” I shift the blade in my grip. I can understand the others. I see their purpose in the group. I know they’re grooming me; I know I’m a valuable piece to them.
“True.” She moves forward, keeping a cane close to her side as she walks. “Though I wonder how well you know them.”
I eye her, neither amused nor interested. “I know them well enough.”
“Do you?” She pauses, dark eyes meeting mine with a devious smile that doesn’t reach her lips. “You’re not curious as to why they’re helping you?”
“No.” I glance down the street, wondering if one or a few will visit me today. What I know is that Caelum has done wrong, and the Story Collectors will set it
right. That’s what matters.
“So you haven’t found a value.” She sighs, leaning heavily on her cane. “I was hoping…never mind. Are you planning on accepting Carita’s plan?”
“What plan?” What is she trying to pry out of me?
“The wings. She’s going to ask you to repair them.”
She says it like it’s a bad thing. “Of course I will.”
“You don’t care that they’ve been getting close to you this whole time to coerce you into this project?”
I glare at her, taking a step toward the short old lady. “I would have agreed anyway. Whose side are you on?”
“I am on the same side as you, that I’m fairly sure of.” The smile finally reaches her lips. “I’m curious: how are you going to repair the wings? With that water magic of yours?”
I bristle, my feathers rustling and sending a small jolt of pain through my almost-healed muscle. “It isn’t magic.” Some people call it that, but after seeing what the dragons do for it, justify it, I can’t call it something like that. “It’s the manipulation of water. Thickening the density of the air to distort light and create a mirage or to make the air heavy enough to throw off someone’s movements and trip them up. The dragons can do more, but I’m no dragon.” Even if I’ve figured out how to manipulate blood to a point, that’s it. “Those machines are made with hands and care, not magic.”
“Mmm.” She takes a step past me, like that’s it.
But that can’t be it. Isn’t Dantea the one who knew what my gloves were when I first fell? She has to know what illusions are. “Tell me: how did you know so much about hybrids being illusionists? That typically the wingless are soldiers and you recognized my wings and gloves marking me as a caretaker—you even knew about the sacrifice before me—but you pretend not to know about the dragons and dragon-kind.”
Dantea stops moving and gives a quick shrug. “I had a friend, once, who knew an awful lot about Caelum. You seem a lot like him, in some ways. You must have quite a bit of dragon’s blood in your veins.” She ambles forward again, leaning heavily on her cane.
Why would she assume that? The closer your lineage to a full-blooded dragon, the more powerful the illusionist, but I’m average at most illusions. I would rather not be any more closely associated with the beasts than I have to be. The only thing that makes me different than the others would be my knowledge of my father’s tinkering, but that has nothing to do with my bloodline.
I can’t help it, I ask, “Why do you think that?”
“You’re a strong one! Even if you’re still recovering. Like I said, you’re a lot like my friend.”
A lot like him? Was he an illusionist like the ambassador? Or…
“Why do you keep talking to me about the dragons?” Tears sting at the corners of my eyes, whether from anger or something else, I can’t tell. “I want them gone.”
“They are important to know about because you want them gone. You think about them because they may be on our doorstep any day. This is why we collect stories. The dragons may have destroyed any knowledge and culture we had, but they forget we have tongues.” She walks away, her voice getting harder and harder to make out. “Remember that they aren’t simply a ‘them.’ All beasts are not of one mind. Unless you would have killed your dragon, too.”
Anger coils in my gut, words twisting and growing thorns as they try to make their way to my mouth. How dare she. I ball my hands into fists, spread my wings to chase after her—
“There you are, birdie.”
I spin to find Carita coming from the opposite direction. Why is Dantea going to the moat?
“I should have known I’d find you here.” She grins, her full set of dragon’s teeth showing in the privacy of just the two of us. The main circle seems to know she’s an illusionist, but everyone below them knows nothing about her heritage.
I glance back at Dantea only to find her gone.
“Everything all right?” Carita places a hand on my shoulder, making me jump a little.
“Yeah, fine. Dantea just paid me a visit.” I turn to face her.
“Ahh.” Her mouth and her scar smirk. “She’s a strange old woman, but a brilliant one. Anyway, I came to talk to you about something else.”
“The wings?” Time to see if Dantea was telling the truth.
“She spoiled my fun.” Carita’s smirk flips into a scowl.
“I’ll do it,” I say, her face lighting at the words. But…my curiosity claws out of the nothingness in my insides, wanting to know the why of what we’re doing. “What is your goal?”
Her face freezes, emotion false as it stagnates on her face. “Why the sudden questions?”
Why, is she hiding something? “I want to know what I’m fighting for.”
She takes a breath, her mask cracking a little. “I know I told you my story, to a point. Caelum beat me into submission, they carved into my skin and my soul to create a warrior. They destroyed me. The only person who ever gave a damn about me was a ground-dwelling slave—the exact people that the dragons hate. They are insects to dragons. We are insects to dragons. There are no exceptions. They are beasts. They may put on a human skin, but they will never be human.”
She leans in closer, her voice a growling whisper, her eyes flashing with a fire alive in their dark depths. “I’m not ready to share our full plan yet, but rest assured, we will make them pay.”
Then she pulls back, smile plastered across her face again. “I will have you set up with the wings tomorrow. Assess the parts you need for repairs, make a list, and I will send you some of our best to train on using the functioning and semi-functioning wings.”
She walks away, and it takes until then for me to realize that night is crawling in, casting dusky shadows across the sandy town, quieting the distant hustle and bustle of the market. And I’m alone again with my thoughts.
I place my sabre back in its scabbard and spread my wings. It only takes a couple of wing beats to make it to the top of the tallest building on the street. I don’t know what Dantea wants me to do, but she still works with Carita so I must be doing the right thing. Besides, it’s not my place to have an opinion. I’m fighting for these people, for what the monsters I’ve lived my life with have taken from them. For other illusionists who only know the lies we’ve been fed our whole lives. Only a little justice, some resolution for what’s been taken from me and what I destroyed.
Lying on the rooftop, I spread my wings wide, relaxing as the pain of my sore right wing fades away. My cuts and bruises have all healed since that day. This is the first time I’ve stayed out to see the stars come out. It’s the first time since I became a caretaker that I’ve seen them alone, but I can’t look away. I don’t want to. All we have left are our stories, buried in the stars. Even if I know I won’t ever see those brown scales reflect in the moonlight again, no matter how strong that frustrating and stupid hope is, it makes me feel a little bit closer to them. And though it hurts, after a day like today, I could use his warmth and humor more than ever.
A month passes since I fell to the sands alone.
My hands are always busy, always at a new puzzle. Sometimes people come and visit me, and some of the Story Collectors seem worried. Sometimes Carita stops by, telling me of the progress the soldiers are making with learning to use the wings. She’s definitely not worried. At one point, even, she told me she was proud of me. That my focus and drive and dedication could be what gets us both what we want.
But I’m not proud. It’s not enough, it’s never enough.
The small building they gave me feels crowded with all the wings set against the walls, crates and benches loaded with tools and supplies making a maze of the place. Of course people offer to help, but I don’t want it.
Teaching someone to repair inventions they’ve never seen before would take too much time—or that’s what I tell them. Part of me knows it could be faster, but another part of me wants to keep everything of my father to myself, and an even larger part wants
to keep this as mine. My creations, my force to take revenge on that damned city in the sky. My fight to take to them.
There are a dozen repaired wings crowding the tight space, ready to be exchanged for more broken ones.
I tie them all on a small pallet, double-checking the screws and the gears and the sturdiness of the silken webbing running through the ribs.
Maybe my father made all of these, maybe his hands were once where mine are now. Maybe he never told anyone else how to make them.
No. Probably not.
With a sigh, I make to go outside.
What will come of this? Carita’s plans have to be close to ready, now. Nearly all the wings are fixed. Maybe she told me when she was visiting once, my hands too busy for my mind to listen. I don’t know. We will go up there, we will fight, and they will regret doing what they’ve done to my family and the families of so many others.
The sunlight is blinding white on the sand and clay buildings outside, and I block it with my hand. Sweat rolls down my forehead. Did the day start out this hot? Maybe I didn’t sleep again last night; my mind’s probably still stuck in yesterday.
My fingers itch to do something, and I grab at my gloves—which aren’t there. I grit my teeth and curl my hands into fists. Dammit, isn’t Bricius supposed to be here by now?
Finally, footsteps echo down the street, along with a clicking that I haven’t heard in at least a week. It’s a lot closer than I would have thought; exhaustion messing with my head again, probably.
Bricius leads the centimare with a whip in hand, another figure with them wearing heavy clothes, and a large pack on their back. The centimare slows as one of its legs clacks loudly against something in the narrow street, and it clicks sharply.
He raises the whip. About to beat it for being hurt.
“Stop,” I snap. Bricius pauses mid-strike, the whip falling limp to the ground.
Walking past the two of them, I reach the centimare’s side. Its pincers click softly, moving its feet in quick waves as it sways away from me. With slow movements, I stroke the plates of its round face, and into the grooves where the strange, tight flesh is. I rub my fingers back and forth for a minute, until its clicking returns to its regular, obnoxious pace. What simple creatures.