But I also watched for any hint of betrayal – of any hint that someone was hurrying off too quickly or tying a message to a pigeon’s leg. We were prey – and I must never forget that. Hunted, chased, harried. Our only hope now was that we could hide among the harmless people of these towns and escape notice.
When the first Claw division came thundering down the road, mounted on carabaos, I almost missed seeing the looks on the faces of townspeople. I was so busy trying to look normal, trying to still my racing heart and calm my frantic puffs of breath that I almost missed their resentment. Some of it was close to rage as it flickered across every face. Their shoulders were hunched, and eyes turned down, but not out of submission. I saw their knuckles clench white on anything they were holding, their mouths tight with anger.
I didn’t dare let my bees loose, but I could feel them within me, furious and buzzing with the anger of the people and the fear in me. They almost seemed to resonate with what was around us instead of just what was inside of me. We all felt the yoke of the Winged Empire settling heavily on our backs. Maybe Ivo was right. Maybe the people were ready to give their very blood to lift that yoke.
We settled for the evening in someone’s back pasture just past a small town. Zayana looked longingly at the smoke drifting up from the fires of the inn we’d passed, but Ivo shook his head grimly.
“The town is too small. They’d remember us. This is safer. There’s no Forbidding to worry about in this place and we can sleep quietly. Here, eat some bread.”
There had been bread stowed in the saddlebags along with a blanket for each of us, skins of water, and not much else. Wing Ivo still had his leather pack, but Zayana and I were starting to feel our poverty. We had no way to clean or tend ourselves, no mirrors, no way to clean our teeth, nothing. Miserable and spent, we sank into our thin blankets. I didn’t know if the others felt as hunted as I did, but I looked often at the sky, worried about Osprey’s pursuit. I knew him too well to think those wounds would hold him back for very long.
Wing Ivo snorted at us. “Bold revolutionaries one minute and then sniveling girls the next. Stop looking so fearful. We have a little space here and I can help you with your manifestations. When we reach Glorious Ingvar, the city is large enough that we can take rooms at an inn without fear and I will give you coins to shop for what you need, hmm?”
I smiled, trying to pretend I wasn’t as worried as I was, and his answering grin made me feel warmer than the blanket.
“Now, call your manifestations, and let’s see what we can do with them.”
“I just want to sleep,” Zayana moaned.
“You can sleep when you’ve tended your bird,” Ivo said firmly. “You need to practice tending, and so does Aella. We’re not safe yet and this is more important than sleep.”
I opened my palm and a bee popped out almost before I could stop it, buzzing around my head angrily. Five more followed and in moments I was almost swallowed by them.
Ivo made an irritated sound in his throat. “I think I will work with Zayana tonight. Go a little way off, Aella, and try to calm those bees. I can already feel a sting from one of them rising on my neck. You can’t tend magic so wild that it strikes at everyone nearby. Think of calm things to say ... if you know any.”
The wryness of his tone made my cheeks heat. I knew how to be calm! I did. It had just been a while since I felt that way.
I stalked off to the edge of the trees, bringing my thin blanket with me. I found a quiet place and slumped to the ground, wrapped in the blanket. I glanced worriedly back up at the sky. My bees swirled around me, stinging me on my hands and arms.
“Really? You’re still doing that?” I complained. But words like that wouldn’t help. “I forbid you from stinging me.”
That did nothing, either. Quietly – being sure that no one could hear me – I tried a song. It was a song that my father used to sing to me when I was a child. I had always found it calmed me.
My bees grew more agitated, stinging me a half-dozen times in a few seconds. Maybe it was only my poor singing voice, but it felt personal.
Frustrated, I shook them off and tried something else.
“Fine, you want to be mad? Go ahead and be mad!,” I told them. “I’m angry. You’d better believe I am. Anger is better than fear. It cripples you less. Think I don’t have a good reason to be angry? I’m on the run again, hunted by someone who is supposed to be my friend and when he finds me, he’ll drag me off to be the wife of a villain from a Forbidding Tale. Me! I’m not even pretty. It should be someone with long flowing hair and a voice like an angel who can enchant him into sparing her life and all her people, but we all know I’ll be the opposite because I’m not a sweet, nice girl. I’m Aella. I’m angry and I’m direct and I just want my freedom and to protect the freedom of the people I love.”
Strangely enough, my fury seemed to calm them down to a dull buzz. I swayed against exhaustion. I could just lie here. Just for a moment. I could talk to my bees lying down as easily as sitting up, right?
I lay down on the stony pasture ground, not even caring that the rocks pressed into my ribs. My eyelids flickered and I mumbled to my bees.
“I complain about you, but you are actually a real asset. You were there when I needed you. You caught me when I leapt from the balcony. You were there to free me from Juste. Those are things I’ll always be grateful for. And you sent my message to my family. That was very important. And you are my eyes, watching friends and enemies alike.”
There was another flicker of a vision after I said that. A vision of someone looking over the city of Karkatua. I saw the buildings, small and rolling out before the person’s vision. The sight came and went so quickly that I couldn’t see whose perspective I was looking from. Perhaps the crown prince was still surveying the damage from where his allies attacked the people he was supposed to shelter and guard. And no, I wasn’t at all bitter about that.
My eyelids were growing heavy. I fought them as I began to mumble.
“If you could just channel all that fear and anger into a cause – like me. If you could use it like you did in the city to protect people and help them see. If you could find my family and guard them. If you could help me escape evil and cling to the good. If you could hold me together with ... your ... buzz.”
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until I felt something burning my fingers. I woke with a start.
I’d tucked my fingers into the edge of my wristband without realizing it and the heat of Os’s feather had scalded them.
I scrambled to my feet.
My bees were gone. My blanket damp. I stumbled back toward where our camp had been. My feet were both painfully slow and far too loud at the same time. I didn’t dare cry out. The rocks were wet. A drizzle of rain was making everything slick. It dampened my hair and face.
Almost there.
Above me, thunder cracked, splitting the air like a hatchet. I jumped. Was it Osprey? Of course not. Just thunder. Powerful though he might be, he didn’t create the thunder.
I scrambled into the camp where Ivo sat opposite the fire from Zayana. His voice was a patient drone as he taught her. I couldn’t have been asleep for very long, though it was fully dark now and it hadn’t been before. And the fire was new.