Gold Wings Rising, page 10
“Okay, sure,” Brysen agreed. “But the point is, we’re not strangers.”
“Brysen,” Kylee interrupted, and he stopped her.
“You know I have to go,” he said. “Don’t try to argue with me.”
She flinched this time. “I wasn’t,” she said. “I was going to tell you to be careful and to pack better than you usually do. Bring more food. Hunting won’t be easy now.”
“Wait, you think this is a good idea?” Jowyn said.
“You’re just going to let him go?” Grazim said.
Kylee met Brysen’s eye. She smiled sadly, and though he knew she was hurting, too, and was looking for some sign he’d forgiven her, he couldn’t offer her any. Not yet.
“He can’t stay here,” Kylee confirmed. “He has to go before Ryven and the general come searching for that egg.” She cleared her throat. “Look after him, okay, Jowyn? Don’t let them hurt him.”
“We’re two feathers on the same wing,” Jowyn said. “He falls, I fall.”
Kylee laughed and wiped away a tear. “That’s not how feathers work,” she said. “But you have to go before it’s too late.”
Except it was already too late.
RED-HANDED
“And why should we trust you at all?” Aalish asked.
The handsome young man in front of her leaned back on his small stool. Even with the bruise on his face and the oversize robes of a long-haul trader draped over him, he looked too fine to be in their shack in the heart of the Mutes. His voice was too polished, his skin too clear. Aalish knew his kind of handsome didn’t happen to the sorts of people she knew. She’d been on the march since she was born, first with nomadic Altari herders and then with the Kartami horde, sacking settlements and burning bodies. That kind of life didn’t leave much room for skin balms and ointments. This man didn’t even have any visible scars. What kind of person had no scars? A life made scars. Aalish did not trust this man.
“You shouldn’t trust me,” he said, looking from her to Dhona. “I have my own agenda, as you have yours. But right now, our interests are aligned. You want to survive. I want you to fight. You can’t do the former without the latter, so I’m here to help.”
“And why would a kyrg want us to fight?” Dhona stood, towering over him and setting her red-wrapped fist on the small table between them. She had a way of looming over anyone she chose, even though she was not a terribly large person. She was raised in the Kartami horde, a child of one of the first warriors to join the cause, and she’d been fighting ever since. She had a way of figuring out people, and judging by this dapper young man’s silence, she was right: He was an actual kyrg, here, in the Mutes. Aalish considered taking him hostage right then, but Dhona was the leader between the two of them, and Aalish had learned to defer to her judgment.
When Dhona was first paired with Aalish to infiltrate Uztari towns and recruit spies, she’d balked at the idea of putting down a blade and being matched with someone she described as “pale and soft as a cloud.” But Aalish had proved herself a skilled companion, and they both discovered that recruitment and intelligence-gathering suited them. Love came later, but when it did, it was complete. They knew each other and trusted each other and were prepared to die for each other, but, even more important, they wanted to live for each other. The Mutes were a sky-cursed place, filthy and hungry and cramped, but every day with Dhona was its own brutal joy. Aalish, being honest, saw no reason for it to end.
During the war, spying saved both their lives. When the ghost eagles came and tore every Kartami kite from the sky, they were on the ground, disguised as Uztari soldiers. They even managed to slit a few throats.
Though the battle ended, the war never did. The last fortnite had been a respite, and now here was this kyrg trying to start it up again. The question Dhona was after: Why? Aalish didn’t really care. She’d have happily sent him on his way and let things go on as they had been. It wasn’t like the two of them would starve. No one good with a blade and unsentimental about strangers ever had to go hungry.
“My name is Ryven,” the young man said. “And I was a kyrg—you’re correct. But I was removed from the Council. For treason.”
Dhona laughed.
“An uprising from your lot would go a long way toward bringing me back into power.”
“After you squash us with Kyrg Birgund’s soldiers?” Aalish said.
“After Kyrg Birgund fails to squash you, and I step in and negotiate a truce,” Ryven offered. “Of course, some will die in the fighting, on both sides … but have you noticed how crowded it is in here? A little thinning of the flock wouldn’t be the worst thing, would it?”
“I can see you aren’t much of a compassionate ruler,” Dhona said.
“Hawks don’t cry for rabbits,” Ryven said. Aalish flexed her fist and made sure he looked closely at the red kerchief she wore around it. The red was faded to brown, because the dye she used had come from an Uztari falconer’s jugular. She didn’t want this delicate man to forget he was at her mercy. Somehow, though, Dhona’s stillness seemed more threatening to him. Aalish was always in awe of that woman, how she managed to be so formidable with such ease.
“So you’re proposing to arm us so we can fight long enough for you to play peacemaker?” Dhona finally said.
“If you can survive that long.” Ryven laced his fingers together and rested them on the table, his body loose and relaxed. He was not intimidated. “Either you start this fight very soon with weapons I provide, or you wait and Birgund and his little fledglings let the talorum inside to tear you apart.”
Aalish shuddered at the Hollow Tongue name for the ghost eagle: its true name. Even Dhona flinched. They’d gone to war to rid the world of these monsters in the sky, but Ryven invoked them with such casual ease.
“We have eyes on the hatchlings,” Aalish said. “We can handle them.”
“The two you sent up after the boy are already dead,” Ryven told them, as though describing yesterday’s weather.
“How do you kn—” Aalish began, but Dhona stopped her.
“The talorum?” she said, her voice catching on the word. Bound to death, it meant, and even speaking it could cast death upon you.
Dhona wasn’t superstitious like that, though.
Ryven nodded. “They tell me things.”
“This all so you can get back on the Council?” Dhona tapped her fingers on her knees. “I don’t believe you’d do all this just to be back on the Council of Forty. They’re hardly in control of anything these days, and you seem like someone who doesn’t bet on a losing pigeon.”
Ryven chuckled. He had a compelling smile, warm and open—and false. It was like a good story: You want to believe it, even though you know it’s a lie. “I can have more than one goal at time,” he said. “As long as Kyrg Birgund is kept busy for a while, I will bring the fighting to an end and make sure you have a place in whatever new order emerges.”
“And you’ll be in a position to do that?” Aalish raised an eyebrow.
Ryven rolled up his sleeves to show tan lines from his falconer’s glove, staring at both of them, daring them to show offense. When they didn’t, he spoke. “I will have control of the ghost eagles by then, so yes, I do think I will be able to dictate a few terms for the way peace will look. Help me by helping yourselves, and you’ll get say. Turn me down and…” He let his voice trail off, then cleared his throat. “I’m a better friend than enemy.”
With that, he stood, raised his cowl to hide his face, and stepped out into the afternoon light. Hunched over and limping in the narrow lanes of the Mutes, Ryven looked to all the world like a broken old soldier—and not at all like a treasonous, deposed ruler of Uztar who’d just proposed to give weapons to his enemy. He moved away from them very quickly, however, and Aalish and Dhona agreed it would be wise to follow and learn what he was really up to. He said it himself: They shouldn’t trust him.
They didn’t.
KYLEE
UPDRAFT
14
It was amazing how quickly one mistake could change everything your friends thought of you. Brysen made mistakes all the time, but no one ever looked at him like they were looking at Kylee now. The injustice of it tasted like ash on her tongue.
“Anger took over.” She tried to explain herself. “You know how the ghost eagles can get in your head.”
“There isn’t a ghost eagle here,” the young battle boy, Lyra, said, rushing to a peephole by the door to scan outside. She wasn’t thinking about the eaglet inside the egg. Kylee wondered if the ghost eagle could get into her head before hatching, or if the violence she’d unleashed had been purely her own.
Kheryn, the battle boys’ muscle, stood next to Nyck, dismantling Kylee with their eyes. No one would ever look to the battle boys for lessons on morality or gentleness, but they did have a code. They fought for one another, not against one another, and they’d never, ever, ever call a hawk against one of their own.
Only Grazim didn’t look at her with disgust, which wasn’t the best endorsement of her actions. When they first met, Grazim sent a hawk to torture a prisoner of the Owl Mothers, just to provoke Kylee into a mercy killing.
Although she was glad for Grazim now, their friendship was fraught and more than a little bloody. Those were, when she thought about it, the only kinds of friendships she’d ever known. What kind of world only made bonds like blood clots? Was it really a world worth fighting for?
“Soldiers are coming up the hill!” Lyra warned them.
“Ryven told Kyrg Birgund all about the egg,” Kylee said. “I promised I’d bring it back.”
“Guess he figured out you were lying,” Kheryn said with some judgment in their voice. “And you let yourself be followed back here.”
“Guess so,” Kylee said, projecting whatever defiance she could. She was not going to be judged for doing what she thought was necessary to protect all of them.
“They’ll try to breach,” Nyck said.
“We’ll need to stall them while Brysen sneaks out,” Kheryn said. “He’ll need to take one of the tunnels we can lock behind him. Preferably one that doesn’t lead straight into the Broken Jess. Your ma know of any others?”
“I can ask her,” Kylee replied. Kheryn had the most fighting experience of all of them, so it made sense to let them take over. Also, Kylee figured none of them was inclined to let her lead right now, anyway.
She still didn’t feel like herself. The fury she’d unleashed on her brother unsettled her. She knew the ghost eagles couldn’t create new thoughts in her mind—the eagles could only twist and provoke what was already there, show her the worst version of herself and make her believe it was her whole self. It was a lie that used a person’s jagged pieces to hurt them and, apparently, to hurt people they cared about.
We will tame you all, the ghost eagles had sworn.
She had, at the time, looked into the dreadful, swirling convocation and simply told them, “No.” What a fool! She’d done exactly what they wanted. They’d tamed her more easily than a child tames a flycatcher. The ghost eagles knew her too well. They knew just how to get in her head. If she was going to beat them, she had to find ways to surprise them.
Going to her ma for help would definitely be a surprise.
“Ma?” she said, stepping into the hearth chamber, where her mother was putting a stopper into a bulbous waterskin.
“Your brother will need this.” She held the heavy waterskin out to Kylee. “It’s a hard climb to the blood birches.”
“The soldiers are coming,” Kylee told her. “We need a way out. Have you found any other tunnels?”
She nodded, pointed to a wall of the hearth chamber where broken pots and bowls and shards of pottery were piled. “You should go with him,” she said. “Look after each other.”
“He doesn’t want me to go with him,” Kylee said. “He’s got Jowyn now. And after what I did—”
“Some birds fly the same circles over and over every season,” Ma interrupted. “But you are not birds. The breeze doesn’t tell you where to go.”
“Ma, I don’t have time for Altari folk wisdom right now. Brysen’s going, and there will be a fight here. Maybe you should go with him.”
She shook her head. “This is where I belong.”
“You could help him,” Kylee said. “Use your…” She wasn’t sure how to describe it. “Use your gift for the Hollow Tongue.”
Her mother let out a rueful laugh that reminded Kylee of Brysen’s. “I hated myself for this ‘gift’ for so long,” she said. “I was taught that it’s sin, and I believed it. I believed it was a curse I’d never be free of if I stayed where I was. So I came to the Six Villages, looking for acceptance. Instead I found your da, and I rebuilt the misery I fled. It was a misery I felt I deserved. And when you had the same gift? That seemed like a punishment designed for me. I put it all back on myself again. It wasn’t on purpose, though I chose it, I suppose.” Her eyes found her daughter’s. “I guess, Kylee, what I’m saying is that I can’t fly where either of you are going. Much as I’d like to help, I know myself now. I’ve carved the same circles in the sky for so long, my wings don’t bend any other way. You need to go without me. Fly new circles.”
“You don’t have to do what you’ve always done,” Kylee said back. “You can change.”
Again came the rueful laugh, and as if in answer, Ma held out the waterskin for Kylee to take to her brother. Kylee was like her mother that way: A retreat into the practical was better than saying the wrong thing when words failed. Maybe there would be time to find the right words if they all survived, but there was no time now. Kylee took the waterskin to Brysen and pointed out where to go.
“Thanks,” he said quietly.
“Thank Ma,” she told him. He just coughed a little. “I’m sorry, Brysen,” she said again. There were wounds you could make that only you could heal, and then there were wounds that only got worse when you tried. Sometimes it was hard to know which was which.
Brysen nodded, but that didn’t tell her much. He moved for the tunnel entrance. She didn’t want this to be the way they parted, but she had no other choice. She watched him disappear into the dark.
“We’ve got six falconers coming up the slope!” Nyck yelled from the door. He and Lyra chose blades from a cubby that was meant to hold cloaks during the colder seasons.
“Arm yourself!” Kheryn yelled at Kylee. She was standing halfway between the hearth chamber and the large, round entry room. Before Kylee could act, Grazim was beside her, presenting her with the curved black-talon blade in its sheath.
“I can’t believe you’re going to let that feather-headed mope run off to the Owl Mothers with the egg,” she said.
“Who would I be if I made him stay?” Kylee replied as she took the sheath and belted it around her waist.
“Someone much smarter than you,” Grazim suggested. It was nice having a friend who didn’t lie to her. Grazim was unarmed but had the tailor’s hawk on her fist—a better weapon than any blade.
“Smart’s overrated when it comes to family,” Kylee said. “He’s my brother. I can’t take it from him just because I think I’m right.”
“But you are right,” Grazim countered. “That thing has to be destroyed. What if the Owl Mothers take it? We can beat Birgund and the ghost eagles if we find a way to use that egg against them, but it’s no good to us if your brother walks it right into the enemy’s hands.”
“No,” Kylee said. “But I won’t force him.”
“You’re stronger than he is!” Grazim objected.
“That why I have to let him go.”
Grazim clearly didn’t understand, but Kylee knew she had power, and power demanded she find another way. Her father had been a weak man, and he took out his weakness on Brysen. She’d almost done the same. Only the weak needed a whip. She was going to find the strength to do something new. She just didn’t quite know what that was yet.
“How did I end up tied to such a finch-brained friend?” Grazim shook her head and took Kylee’s hand. She squeezed their fingers together with a smile. “The things I do for your mud-munching family.”
“Open the door!” a muffled voice called from outside. It was Ser Ygeva, the officer from that morning.
“Prepare to open the door,” Kheryn said.
“Wait…” Kylee was puzzled. “Why are we going to open the door for them?”
“We want them coming for us, right?” Kheryn said. “So Brysen has time to get away. We gotta give them someone to fight so they don’t start looking for him.”
Made sense. Kylee was glad she’d deferred to their judgment.
“Knew I’d end up shedding blood for Brysen today,” Nyck said, spitting a green glob on the ground and adjusting his footing as Lyra prepared to release the mechanism holding the boulder in front of the cave entrance.
Kylee touched the handle of the knife on her belt. She thought about what Kyrg Birgund wanted her to do, the massacre he thought she would commit for him. He thought of her the same way the ghost eagles did: as a vehicle for rage. Maybe they weren’t wrong. After all, she’d nearly torn her own brother to shreds. But she’d also found a way out of an encounter without bloodshed, just that morning. She didn’t have to shed blood to get what she wanted. She could find other ways, if given the chance. She wondered if Kyrg Birgund’s soldiers would give her that chance. She looked from Nyck to Kheryn to Grazim and then back at Ma, in the hallway behind her. She’d have liked to make peace for all their sakes, but she was ready to make war for their sakes, too. She’d do what the situation demanded—no more and no less.
“If they want blood, they’ll get it,” she said as she drew her blade. “But let’s be clear: If it comes to it, this isn’t about Brysen. This blood’s for us.”
15
Nyck stepped back from the peepholes by the entrance, and Lyra released a rope from the cleat where it was tied. With a nod, Kheryn signaled Nyck, and the large, round stone began to move, rolling ponderously in its groove in the floor. It was like staring at the sun as an eclipse ended. Golden daylight flooded the antechamber, and Kylee was blinded for a moment by the brilliant afternoon. She saw the bright blue sky divided into uneven rectangles—blocked into squares by the net bolted into the stone just above the entrance.
