“We could go to Garbocco,” Raquella said, coming in from the kitchen. She set the food down and fresh plates. No meat, though. It must really have burned in the oven. “Start a new life somewhere free.”
Oska shook his head. “I heard from a trader last week. Le Majest has been talking about our long friendship with the islands of Garbocco. Last month, he threw a ball for their ambassador. Drank their local brew in his honor.”
“Forbidding take it,” Awet cursed.
I swallowed down a lump. That meant they’d be next. The Emperor always praised another country just before his armies marched. I’d seen it three times in my short lifetime.
“There’s nowhere free to go,” Royn said. “It’s why my parents settled here – why you came here, Barran.” He nodded to my father. “It was the last free place to live. A new continent with no high’uns, no Majests, no Wings, no Claws. Just land and work and freedom.”
“Until now,” Anfrea said miserably. “Let’s eat something. We have food, at least. For now.”
She began to help Raquella serve bowls to everyone, trying to mother us. Her eyes met mine and I gave her a tremulous smile.
“It will be all right, Aella,” she said, her brown eyes meeting mine in kindness. She put a gentle hand on my shoulder. She had our mother’s eyes. I’d thought so since I was five and she let me sleep in her bed after mother died of the Frost Fever.
“I don’t know what we can do,” I said. “Even if everyone agrees – all our friends and neighbors – then what? The Empire is too strong. Even here in Far Stones. And they have Wings with the power of their magic. Our whole family couldn’t stand up to a Wing – and that’s if we were armed. And what do we do when bandits come to our farm? Or Forbidding beasts? Or bears? What if the Forbidding Ghouls rise up like they did when I was a baby? We’re defenseless now.”
I didn’t like giving up. It made me feel like I might be sick.
“Our fight’s not gone yet,” my father said, reaching for the bowl Anfrea gave him. “As long as we all stick together, they won’t take more from us. We’ll find a solution and we’ll weather this storm. We’ll find like-minded people. We’ll use our heads. There has to be a way out of this mess. You know what I always say, Shrikeling.”
He spared a smile for me – though it was tight and fraught with worry. I smiled back, trying to encourage him like he was encouraging me.
“The fight isn’t over,” I said. I knew his motto by now. “There’s work to be done. Be Relentless.”
We buried our dogs, and I fought back tears as I helped lay them in the earth.
And then I went to bed, tucked into the cot I was sharing with Helissa’s six-year-old twins, with those words ringing in my ears, but it didn’t feel like enough defense against what was pressing in on us.
I’d grown up on the edge of the Forbidding, feeling the way that the otherness of that place was always pressing in, always fighting to break down what was built up, to expel people from its eerie shores.
I was used to every task being a fight. I was used to doing without luxuries – or even necessities – out on the edge. But I wasn’t used to feeling defenseless. I wasn’t used to wondering if it was worth it or if we could ever see an end to the crushing work it took just to make it one day to the next.
The feeling ate at me, twisting me up inside until I was a tangle of thoughts and wishes and hopes. There had to be something I could do to get my family out of this mess – to keep them free and strong and alive.
If only I could figure out what that thing was.
I fell asleep dreaming that I was a shrike diving from the sky and Juste Montpetit was in the grip of my talons. I spit him on a huge thorn as my family watched, safe and well. As long as I had them, I had everything I needed.
Earlier in the Winged Empire ...
Vasyklo knew he had to keep his hands from shaking. His father looked on sharply with hands clasped behind his back, military uniform precisely outfitted, heavy brows pulled together over brown eyes. General Petren still had a patch over his eye from the taking of Dunit Hill. And he wore his military uniform, thick with white Swan embroidery rather than his Osprey House talismans even here – standing underneath their great family totem beside the sea.
The carved whitewood Osprey of the talisman looked down its long beak as if judging Vasyklo already.
“Cup your hands,” the Imperial Wing instructed firmly. A translucent green hummingbird buzzed next to her left ear. She cocked her head to the side as the hummingbird echoed the motion exposing its red-tinged spirit throat.
Vasyklo swallowed and cupped his hands, pressing the edges of them firmly together to eliminate the shaking. He was ready.
General Petren gave a very slight nod of his head, his eyes narrowing. Vasyklo’s family needed this – wanted it so badly that sweat shone on all their foreheads as they watched. They were lined up in military precision in two lines running parallel to the totem, the sea winds rushing up over the ragged rocks of the coast and tangling their hair and cloaks. No one in their line had Hatched in two generations.
And then there was his mother. Her death must not be for nothing. They only remembered her for accepting the sacrifice of her life for the chance to make him hatch, but Vasyklo remembered so much more. He would give up any chance at all just to have her back.
He swallowed down the memories and looked out over the blooming crocuses spilling across the rounded hilltop to the silver ocean beyond. Hundreds of masts dotted the horizon. Masts that needed Wings to help them defeat the enemies of the Winged Empire.
General Petren had taken him to see them yesterday and explained how vital it was to fill them with those who could control the manifestation of magic. He’d balanced him on the masthead – the place for a Wing at war.
“See the osprey flying near the shore, son?” he’d asked.
“I do.”
“See how it swoops in to take the fish from the crest of the wave?”
Vasyklo had peered into the spray at the same moment that the bird wrenched a silver fish from the clawing sea.
“I do.”
“Be the osprey, not the fish.”
He must do this.
They were all counting on him.
He clenched his jaw, stared at the center of his palms, and summoned all his courage.
A large purplish-white egg formed in his hands.
“Hatch,” he whispered, thinking of the powerful osprey.
Crack.
Chapter Five
“Stick close to me, Shrikeling,” my father said as we approached the town of Far Reach.
We passed between the tall totems that stood watch over the road leading into the town of Far Reach. They were carved of whitewood, which bleached bright white in the sun. Owls were shaped on the top of the totems, reminding us that wisdom rules all. Ravens followed beneath the owls to remind us that the clever survive. Whiskey jacks came next to remind us that tenacity is the foundation of our lives here.
“We can protect ourselves if we stick together. We keep our heads down just for today and then we make a plan. There will be others who feel the same.”
I was beside him as the village came into sight. Questions burned in my chest as we drew closer to the wide town gates formed out of two snowy owl sculptures, their wingtips meeting over the road to shelter travelers.