Wings of Creation (45 page)

Bryan pushed himself up off of Seeyan. I ran to his side in time to see that her neck had been broken. His nails had raked her arm bloody, and the look he gave me was full of horror. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to kill her. I just wanted to stop her. We’d been looking for you, and looking for you, and here we’d finally found you and she was trying to get you caught.” He leaned down and tried to straighten her up. “See, we know she trapped you.”

I closed her eyes, barely managing not to withdraw my hand before I touched her.

Beside me, Bryan sobbed, and I slid my arm across his great, wide shoulders. “It’s okay. It couldn’t be helped. Shhhh . . . Shhhh . . .” He needed to pull himself together; we needed to go. Seeyan wasn’t our only enemy.

His voice came out low and controlled, but he was my Bryan, my friend from forever, and I heard the anger boiling in his heart and feeding his words. “She was smaller than me. She didn’t deserve it.”

“Of course not. But you didn’t mean to kill her, did you? You were protecting me. And we stick together, right?”

He lifted his face to me. “She was your friend. She loved your children.”

No. Not my friend. “She betrayed me.”

He blinked, and another sob caught in his throat, but that was the last one. We held each other’s eyes for a long time. In his, I saw old pain behind the new pain and, like I always had, I wished there was a way for me to erase it from his past.

I’d always wished him happiness most of all of us; he ate anger in place of it, and now the anger had bitten him again, laid down a fresh scar.

Not that I could look at what had been Seeyan, either. In some moments, everything sucked. I cursed Juss, and then cursed myself for a fool. He’d only told the truth, and I’d seen that even then. I leaned over and kissed Bryan on the cheek, and he startled a little, then pulled me closer to him, his bulk making a safe place, however momentary.

Someone pulled at my free arm, the one that wasn’t around Bryan. And Ming stood on Bryan’s far side, and when I looked up Jenna’s face swam into view above me. She was talking, and maybe she’d been talking to me for a while. “. . . need to go. Now. The fliers are gone. They probably went to get reinforcements.”

I
followed Amalo out. Really out. We left the compound and ventured into the fair. The booths were still closed, although a few vendors had stirred and were making col or talking amongst each other. Near the entrance, two nearly finished sculptures stood, waiting for the artist’s final touches. I startled: one was Joseph, Chelo, and Kayleen standing hand in hand together in a circle, each holding a baby. They wore Keeper’s clothes, with grand smiles on their faces.

Where were the rest of us?

Amalo stopped, letting me look at it from all sides. When it was done, it was going to be beautiful, perhaps as beautiful as the first statue I’d seen of a flier, on Silver’s Home. Tears came to my eyes, completely unbidden. The artist had chosen to show Kayleen graceful and strong instead of half-crazy. Her hair had been rendered in the manner of fliers, with silver charms in the shape of hebras dangling from her wooden braids. Chelo, as always, had her own stark beauty, and she appeared to be looking far away, perhaps into the future. Joseph’s face had been rendered true, except the artist had given him a few years by adding tiny lines around his mouth. His eyes were right, soft and full of the infinity of knowledge, and I wanted the statue to climb down and hold me.

What if I didn’t see him again? Could I bear that?

And where were strong, angry Bryan, and steady, loving Liam? Where was I? They needed a risk-taker. Jenna had said so long ago. If
it weren’t for me, we’d have never left Fremont. A tear slid down my cheek, and I swiped it away, keeping my face averted from Amalo’s until it had dried.

“Let’s go,” he said softly. “We don’t want to get caught.”

He’d taken me without permission. They wouldn’t have taken me if they hadn’t decided to tell me yes. If I agreed, Joseph and Kayleen and Chelo would fly away from me. I wanted to be part of the statue in front of me, captured forever as one of the children of Fremont. Trying for wings felt like too big a risk, too irreversible.

As we walked out of the gates, we passed other statues, but none of them were as beautiful as the unfinished one by the doorway. Our progress was slow because of Amalo’s awkward gait. He kept our pace wandering, going from sculpture to sculpture, pointing out the pain and beauty in each one. A few showed only one emotion or the other, but the ones Amalo prized the most were full of both. It felt surreal to move so slowly.

Eventually, Amalo took me to a flier’s house close to the fair, all big rooms with oversize chairs designed to work as perches, and sweeping spaces in the kitchens and bathrooms. Inside, Marti waited with a wingless woman who offered me col and bread and nuts. I had never seen fliers without at least one wingless waiting on them. Was it hard for them to be alone?

Marti cocked her head at me. “Do you have questions? Is there anything you’d like to know about the process?”

My throat closed, and I coughed the words out. “Does . . . does that mean you’ve decided?” I knew the answer, but I didn’t know how I’d react when I heard it.

Amalo spoke from behind me. “It will be a great honor to have you attempt to join us.”

I froze.

He came around and sat beside Marti, so I could see them both. “If you succeed, you will be honored for all your life as our first flier from Fremont, and as sister to Joseph and Chelo.”

I wasn’t Joseph’s sister! I was his lover. Now what. What if I said no? Now I knew that was what I wanted to say.

No.

How much had Amalo risked taking me from the jail they’d been
keeping me in? What would he do to me if I refused, especially after I’d almost begged?

Even a risk-taker knows when isn’t a time for risk. Or maybe I was finally learning. I tried to buy time. “Thank you for the honor and trust,” I said. “I do need to tell my family.”

Amalo hesitated, and then said, “That may be difficult.”

“I know where some of them are.” Maybe if I found them they would keep me safe from myself. Why did I always make that so hard?

“For now, perhaps we should answer your questions.”

Okay. I had questions, anyway. Asking a question wasn’t a commitment. “How long does it take?”

Marti smiled shyly and mumbled. “It took me three months. And then two more to condition to fly. For others it takes longer. Rarely less. You are already strong, and it may take you less time to teach your body to love its wings. I came from Silver’s Home.”

“What if I succeed, and then I change my mind?”

Amalo answered. “We could cut your wings off, and you would become like Seeyan, a wingless flier. But you cannot go back to being who you are now. You will be transformed.”

“If you can turn me one way, why not also the other?”

“There has never been a demand to go the other way. The processes have not been tried often.”

Interesting, that they had been tried at all.

Marti added, “But you will not want to go back. Perhaps you are hesitating now, but to fly is to touch the skies and see the world all at once, to gain a perspective that no ground-born can ever have.” She made sure I was looking at her, and then she spoke softly but firmly. “Don’t let your fear keep you from this. It is the most beautiful state in the world, to be a flier. We turn away thousands of petitioners every year. You’ve suffered, and because of your suffering you have the soul of a flier.”

She clearly believed it. What had I done?

The slow flap of wings told me to look up. Tsawo and Angeline flew in the top of the house, Tsawo’s face dark. Before they had even landed, another flier came in behind them; the blonde from the first day. This morning she looked even angrier than she had at the welcoming
feast. On a flier’s face, anger was a strange expression, twisting her features, elongating her chin. Their faces were made for serenity, and joy, and pain, but less so for anger or desire. Right after she landed, she shook her wings hard, as if needing to get every feather into place.

Tsawo turned to her before even acknowledging any of us. His voice dripped a bad welcome. “Mille. What a surprise.”

She let him have it. “Why thank you for keeping me in the loop. You know they think Joseph succeeded? They think your niece can have babies. You will change all of our world!”

Angeline looked dryly at her. “You mean Silver’s Home won’t need you to broker babies anymore?”

Of course, that wasn’t the position Mille took. “I mean we will no longer be the beautiful martyrs we are. We will become like all the rest, only less. We will be animals.”

Tsawo laughed in her face and she backed up two steps, but she didn’t stop her rant. “They will never admit us to the Court of Worlds. The Islans will no longer care about us. Everything we know will change.”

Angeline again spoke quietly. “Marcus has already arranged a place for us on the Courts. It is done. We are full humans.”

Wow. Good for him. I mean, I didn’t know what that meant, not really, but it sounded good.

Mille looked like she’d swallowed a bee. She sputtered and glanced back and forth between Amalo and Tsawo.

It was like watching three jeweled butterflies argue.

Amalo cleared his throat. I expected him to talk to Mille, but he spoke to Tsawo, his voice full of authority. “What about our promise to take sides in the war?”

He was on Mille’s side?

Tsawo answered politely, as if he did, in fact, answer to Amalo. “I have a plan.”

Amalo frowned. “A promise was made. Even though you and I did not make it, all of us will be held accountable if it is broken.”

Angeline grabbed her brother’s hand and held it up. “I trust Tsawo. He should have his chance.”

Amalo gave them both a look that would have withered a paw-cat.
Apparently Tsawo was used to it. He just stood, waiting, and while he and Angeline stood quietly, some of the anger leaked from Amalo. The feather around Tsawo’s neck rose and fell as he breathed, and his hair blew a tiny bit in a soft eddy of wind that came in from the open roof, kissing him and moving on. Otherwise he might as well have been part of a carved statue.

Amalo finally said, “I’m old, and I didn’t expect to see this day.”

I didn’t quite understand the conversation. I glanced at Marti, who hadn’t said a word since the other fliers came in. The color had drained from her face. No one seemed to be honoring her because she was a wingless human given flight. Rather, she seemed afraid, and shrank back a bit from Mille. The other fliers all ignored her.

Mille cleared her throat and said, “I don’t care who leads us or who made what promises to whom. We shouldn’t let these children of our masters lead us to war.”

This time it was Tsawo who seemed to temporarily side with her. “Not to worry. I won’t.”

“Or fly.” She glared at me, as good as Amalo at sending scorn without a word. Maybe getting old made people good at that. “Don’t give them wings.”

I wanted to stick my tongue out at her, but I followed Tsawo’s lead and simply stared back. Unlike Amalo, she didn’t wither at all, and I thought perhaps we’d stare each other down like dogs until one of us keeled over from hunger.

Amalo cleared his throat and announced, “I am the one who chooses, and I have chosen.”

Mille stepped back, looking like she wanted to raise a hand to him but didn’t dare. Tsawo’s head snapped around and his dark eyes bored into me, taking the place of Mille’s more malevolent gaze.

I did turn away from him.

He stepped close to me and put a hand on my cheek, turning my face toward his. “You will lose your ability to run like the wind.”

His words drew a shiver from my core, and it was all I could do not to look away from him. He rewarded me with a soft kiss on the forehead. “If you live, I will be your flying teacher.”

And then he kissed my lips. He tasted of sweat and nuts, and the sweet clear air of Lopali.

I still wanted out. I wanted both things, for Tsawo to teach me to fly the way he did, to kiss him again, to kiss him every day, and to leave this place and never come back. To stay with Joseph and cheer him on, and make him take risks when he needed to.

Mille glared even harder at me and gave a great leap and a hard flap of wings, so hard she gasped in pain as she cleared the roof, and then she was gone. I immediately wished to never see her again.

Amalo did not appear to like the kiss that Tsawo had given me a whole lot more than Mille did. He gave me a slightly disgusted look, and took Tsawo by the arm, and gestured up. Amalo and Tsawo took off, far more gently and with far more control than Mille had shown. Angeline looked more confused than angry or disgusted, but she followed the others into the sky. Apparently they needed to talk without me.

I glanced at Marti, who shrank a bit from me this time. I sighed, loudly, and said, “I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me.”

She shook her head, as if she’d run out of words.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I need to freshen up.” When I said it, I really did mean to go to the bathroom. But as soon as I was there, looking in the mirror, it was the most natural thing in the world to turn my mod on, and walk right past Marti and out the door.

T
wenty pointless minutes passed while we waited for word about Seeyan. We’d moved to a scrap of grass by a perch so Matriana and Daniel would be more comfortable. Kayleen and I sat below them, too close to talk without being overheard. Marcus paced, walking circles around us all. Beside me, Sasha’s head followed Marcus, so between the two of them, I felt dizzy.

Kayleen looked quizzical. “How come you’re so tense?”

“I keep expecting Induan to poke me out of thin air and make me jump.”

She grinned. “I’d think you’d be used to it with Alicia and all.”

I reddened. We had played night games that took advantage of her invisibility. “I hope Alicia’s with Chelo and the others. Your mom, too, of course.”