“Aye, and so it is in Karkatua,” my brother Awet said grimly. He pulled his long brown hair back into a knot as he spoke. We all had the same tangle of brown curls and sharp features dotted with freckles. “I’ve seen both men and women disappear after a complaint like that. My sister-in-law took in a pair of children whose parents had disappeared in the night.”
“If no one says anything,” the old man – my father – said from the chair at the fire, “then they can do as they please. It will be them today and us tomorrow until the only ones left are those willing to kiss dust for the Imperials. I’ll not live like that. And neither should my children.”
There were pained murmurs among us, but I saw my siblings looking worriedly at the children gathered around the dining room table, already noisy as they dug into the tantalizing food.
“So we take a stand?” I asked, but Abghar was already shaking his head, worry creasing his face.
“It’s no easy thing to pit yourself against the Empire when you have small mouths to feed. How can we put our prosperity before their lives?”
“What lives will they have if they keep taking everything from us?” Alect argued.
There was a sound – barely audible – that tickled my ears. It sounded out of place. I frowned, trying to think of what it could be. A tool sliding down from where it had been left? Had Retger failed to bar the barn door? I gripped the shrike talisman on the handle of my knife as I stood up on my toes, concentrating.
The dogs weren’t barking. They would bark if someone was here. So I shouldn’t be worried, right?
“We can’t be silent. No matter the risk,” the old man said, his silver-streaked curls tumbling out of his leather hair-strap as intensity seized him. “We must be strong. We must be relentless.”
I opened my mouth, about to ask if anyone had heard the sound, when the door crashed inward with a bang. The force of the impact rocked the room leaving the door hanging from a single hinge like a drunk stumbling out of Cardinal Tavern.
My sister Raquella screamed.
Chapter Three
I froze.
What in the ...
Still no barking from the dogs. Sweat broke out on my neck.
Before my father could even rise from his chair, fabled Imperial Claws rushed into the house, swords drawn. I’d only ever seen an Imperial Claw – the soldiers of the Winged Empire – twice before in my life. They looked larger now – more intense in color and fury.
I gasped, fumbling at my waist for my belt knife without thinking, but I was already too late.
“Don’t move,” they roared as they rushed into the entranceway, armor and weaponry jingling, their boots hard on our polished wood floors.
Abghar tried to push forward, but he was caught in the doorway to the entrance, a drawn sword at his throat preventing him from reaching my sisters and the children in the other room. Retger and Oska were right behind him, pressed against his back, eyes moving wildly as they looked for an opening.
“Step back,”a grizzled warrior with an unshaven chin and a thick scar on one cheek murmured as he stepped forward, blade still at Abghar’s throat.
The nearest Claws stood in a line across the door to the Great Room, swords drawn, faces stony, like pieces from a game of Wings and Claws rather than real people.
They wore the traditional blue short-coats of the Claws, a design of golden eagles stitched in gold threads across their coats and marching up the sleeves to collars so high and stiff they looked like they might cut their chins. Their knee-high boots and breeches were black. More gold thread climbed up the outer legs of their breeches, swirling to give the impression of greater majesty in a design of curved talons. They were a long way from their Imperial home across the sea, but they seemed determined to bring that world with them.
My eyes widened at the sight of them. So many. And here. In Far Reach. They were as foreign to us as the Rah-Mehn of Rajadeer.
“Please! Don’t hurt the children,” Anfrea pled, her voice strained with fear.
I craned to look around the Claws and saw my sisters, Raquella, Anfrea, and Adigale standing in a trembling line, arms crossed over their chests, protecting the dining room with their bodies. Little faces peered around the edges of their skirts and breeches.
I swallowed down a lump in my throat. Vulnerability and fear warred within me, choking my breath and making my hands shake.
Soldiers poured into our home as porcelain crashed in the kitchen. They must have come in the back door as well as the front, smashing the washbasin on the way in.
My breath turned ragged. What did they want? Why were they here? We were no threat to the Empire. And that was all that Claws were rumored to care about. They were the Imperial Army – the sword of the Emperor to defend his land and bring more and more people under the Winged banner.
I made the sign of the bird as Claws pushed past Abghar, their boots hard on the wood plank floor. They surrounded us, ringing the Great Room before we could do more than reach for our own weapons. I could barely hear over the sound of my heart pounding in my chest.
This was worse than facing the Forbidding. Worse than taxes that stole from our pockets.
Flight of wind protect us, mercy of the skies fly over us, give us peace and protection, let us soar from this terror on the wings of eagles.
My prayer felt too weak.
From behind the Imperial Claws, a dark shadow emerged.
Tall and slender, with a dark short-coat embroidered richly with the thick wings and curved neck of a crowned white crane, the man stepping from the shadows stood in stark contrast to the blue of the Imperial Claw’s uniforms. Swan wings twisted around the arms of his coat and white feathers were sewn in overlapping layers over the crossed belts slung over his chest. The scarves wrapped round his neck under his high collar were stitched to look like feathers. There was something familiar about him.
The Claws stood at attention, making the sign of the bird in unison at the sight of him.
“Search the house, Sergeant,” he said in a drawling, Imperial accent. His hair was oiled and the scent of roses rolled off of him as strongly as the stench of the pigpen in the heat of summer.
He turned his face and my eyes narrowed at his profile. I’d seen that somewhere...but where?
“Look. Everywhere.” His bright eyes glittered.
I stiffened at the thought of these soldiers rummaging through our things – breaking even more irreplaceable items. The washbasin had been a wedding present for my mother and father. The old man liked to tell us about her pride in the basin when she’d been a blushing bride, long before bearing ten children and dying of the Frost Fever. I hadn’t seen another one sold here in my whole life. These things might be common in the heart of the Empire, but here on the new continent across the sea, they were rare and precious.
We took good care of what we had. Nearly everything was irreplaceable.
“What’s the meaning of this?” my father asked stiffly. “We’ve done nothing wrong. We’re just eating dinner as a family before the Hatching.”
The dark figure stepped into the light of our home so that I could finally see his face properly.
He was not much older than I was. Maybe not any older at all. Thin and pale with full red lips and blue too-large eyes, he was far too pretty to be an Imperial Claw. He was far, far prettier than I was. But the cruel slant of those full lips told a story of more than beauty.