BOOK ONE: OUT OF THE HIVE
On the cusp of the zephyr,
The edge of the breeze,
On the peak of the hurricane,
We find our ease.
Dance with the torrent,
Drift over the tide,
Embrace the tornado,
But live for the ride.
Songs of the Winged Ones
Elsewhere in the Winged Empire...
HE WAS SEEING THINGS. That was the only reasonable explanation.
Trassel Isle was the most boring post in the Winged Empire and any Claw sent here was either close to retirement – like he was – or too thick in the head to manage harder duties. He didn’t mind the quiet most of the time, but tonight, something had felt strange about it and he’d barely taken a sip from his tin mug of tea as he stared into the darkness hour after hour.
Dawn would be soon.
He hoped that when the sun rose all he saw was barren rocky shores, the beating sea, and a handful of seagulls – just like usual.
If the morning light showed that, well, he’d drink down his tea and change the watch a happy man.
He made the sign of the bird over his chest at the thought, and gently stroked his necklace sewn of gull feathers. Seagulls were alert. They shrieked at danger. He’d always thought they were a good house for him. Even now in the Claws, where he wore signs of the Winged Empire, he still felt like his spirit connected to theirs.
They were quiet now but when dawn came, they’d be shrieking and diving over the sea.
A bee buzzed around his mug and he tried to swipe it away. What was a honeybee doing here, miles from any flowers? He shook his head. Sometimes nature made no sense.
He smiled as the first blush of light peeked over the horizon, straining his eyes as he tried to see what couldn’t be seen yet. The minutes ticked by and he let out his breath, waiting, waiting.
The sea still seemed darker than usual as if even the morning light couldn’t banish the shadows this day. But that was likely only an old man’s imagination after a long night.
The light bloomed a little brighter, picking out white shapes floating on the surface of the sea.
What in the ...
The tin mug hit the tower floor, splashing cold tea over his polished boots. He didn’t care.
The surface of the water was speckled with dead gulls. At the base of the tower and filling every bit of land he could see, was something dark and tangled. It clawed toward him like a bed of writhing snakes, creeping right up the sides of his watchtower.
Something shrieked with the dawn, but it was not a gull.
Chapter One
I FLINCHED AS ZAYANA dabbed a cloth over my injuries. Her posture was haughty, but her actions told a different story as she tended me.
“I managed to stitch the shoulder while you were unconscious, but I felt bad doing it without your permission.”
I managed a faint laugh. “Better to stitch without permission than to let me bleed to death.”
“You wouldn’t have bled to death, but it wouldn’t have healed well either,” she said, worry in her eyes. “I wish you could spare some of your bees for this wound. I don’t like the way it is so red and angry.”
We were huddled in the bow of the boat as she nursed me. It was an old fishing boat, in good enough repair that I guessed people from the village had been using it frequently on the river. Ivo said he found it on the bank, stuck against a fallen tree in the water. It probably drifted downstream from where the town of Vlaren used to be before the Forbidding claimed it.
“Do you think the bees are actually healing his wound, or just keeping it stopped up?” I asked, shooting a glance down toward the rear of the boat and then quickly looking away.
“I see a spirit honeycomb inside his wound. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. But there’s no infection as far as I can tell. He’s feverish – but that’s to be expected.”
Zayana looked flustered, her court dress was rumpled, and soot-stained and little streaks of soot marked her face. I knew that I must look worse. She’d had to tear my shirt and jacket at the collar to get to my wound.
“I’ll stitch the jacket when you can take your clothing on and off without pain,” she said guiltily. “I really am sorry about them. I’m not much of a seamstress.”
Her little bird cooed sadly from where she had it tucked into the neck of her dress. Its spirit feathers were torn and ragged.
“Is Flame getting any better?” I whispered. He’d been damaged in their desperate fight with the Forbidding.
She looked down, her eyes glassy. “I hope so – Wing Ivo says these things happen sometimes. That I need to work hard on invoking good into him to heal him, but he feels so real and so vulnerable. I just ... I just don’t know.”
“He’s like you,” I said, offering a smile. “He looks small but he’s resilient. He will heal.”
She smiled ruefully. “I need to go see to my other patient.”
I nodded and she made her way carefully to the center of the boat where Le Majest, the crown prince of the Winged Empire, the terror of Far Stones and apparently, my owner, lay with a sword wound to the belly. A sword wound that I put there. A sword wound that my bees filled now, holding it together and holding him together. A sword wound with a spirit honeycomb being manifested inside him. What might that mean?
I swallowed. If I had what my heart wanted, I’d pull my bees away and let him die. I’d get revenge for the death of my father and the threat to my family. But that wouldn’t stop the Winged Empire. And it wouldn’t bring back my father. It would just doom my family, Zayana’s sister, and all of our lives in a single stupid choice.
I looked past the crown prince and met the light blue eyes of Osprey as he stared at me from the tiller. He clenched his jaw and looked away.
“If it had been anyone else,” he muttered. “Anyone else.”
Like he was the one who should be angry! He attacked me! He fought me! And he ultimately sliced my shoulder, which was the only reason that it hurt like a Forbidding-taken bear right now! I should be angry at him. And I was. Sort of.
I was also very confused. Because even when he’d been attacking me it had looked like he was trying to save me in some way. What did you make of someone who both wanted you dead and watched you with eyes of hope at the same time?
Beside him, Ivo leaned in, speaking in a low voice.
“We won’t reach Karkatua for days. We should find a place to spend the night. A place not filled with the Forbidding.”
“Mmm.” Osprey’s reply made me want to look at him to see what had him so distracted, but I kept my eyes to the river on either side of us, flashing in the noon sun. A small tree grew in the crevice of the tall rock banks surrounding the water. It had almost no soil or land, and yet it grew. Relentless. That was what I had to be.
Creeping to almost the edges of the river, tangles of the Forbidding reached out, the edges of them waving in the warm breeze. For some reason, the Forbidding always avoided the water. It could creep down to the very edge, but not touch it. You couldn’t push it back with water like you could with fire – we’d tried that before – but water was a place where settlers were always safe.