Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

“No!” Sobbing, he beat the ground with his fists, and screamed out curses. His beloved puppies, all trampled to a mangled heap of fur! The heat was growing—it was becoming harder to breathe. An ominous roaring came from above. Grince glanced up through streaming eyes, and saw the flames beginning to consume the support beams of the roof. Panic seized him. He scrambled up, to run . . . And saw a corner of the blanket move.

Grince grabbed, and ran. Ran for his life, as the beams began to sag . . . Ran gasping, breathless and blind, depending on pure instinct to guide him through the smoke to the door. Sparks and flaming bits of rubble landed in his hair and scorched his scalp, but he barely noticed . . .

With a triumphant roar of flame, the ceiling of the warehouse fell in upon itself. The boy erupted from the doorway not a second too soon, a cloud of smoke billowing out behind him and flames scorching his heels. He fell gasping to the ground, rolling instinctively to protect his precious furry burden, and with the last of his strength, crawled away from the heat, one hand cradling the precious pup, alive or dead, to his breast.

Grince sat up, coughing convulsively, and wiped his streaming eyes. The warehouses were a blazing inferno; the courtyard was empty of people. Of the living, at any rate. Retching, the boy turned away from the dark and twisted lumps, most with their features still recognizable, that had been the folk who lived in Jarvas’s sanctuary. Determinedly, he turned his attention to the scrap of fur that was still cradled in his arms. It was the white pup, his favorite. Grince’s heart leapt—but he knew better than to rejoice too soon. The tiny creature huddled in his arms, shivering, weak, and wretched. It needed food, and warmth, and care . . . The boy looked wildly around him. Where was Emmie? She would know what to do. Where was everyone?

Grince put the puppy inside the scorched rags of his shirt, too concerned for the little creature to heed his own discomfort. Squaring his shoulders determinedly, he set off across the trampled, bloody courtyard to find Emmie. That she might well be one of the scattered corpses that littered the yard was a fact that he was not prepared to accept. He did, however, find his mother.

Tilda lay in the mud, her guts split open like a butchered pig, her empty eyes staring in stark horror at the smoky sky. Grince stood there, reeling, too shocked yet for tears, unable to take his eyes from the ghastly sight. After a time, the puppy squirmed restlessly against his skin, its tiny scrabbling claws bringing his mind back to reality. This—this horror was not reality. This was not his mother! It couldn’t be. She must be somewhere else, lost in the city . . . He would find her, he knew, and in the meantime, his puppy must be cared for.

Grince turned his back on the grim carnage of Jarvas’s stockade, and moved slowly, like a sleepwalker, through the gates. Little more than a shadow himself, the young boy vanished without trace into the shadowy slums of Nexis.

“Leave me alone!” They were the first words Raven had uttered since her wings had been destroyed,

Cygnus sighed impatiently, and turned away from her. For days he had remained at her bedside, talking to her, coaxing her, comforting her, trying anything to pierce the shell of desolation with which the Queen had surrounded herself. How typical that now, when he had troubles of his own, she should finally respond to his presence! A few moments ago, he had been visited by the High Priest, and was still reeling from the shock of Blacktalon’s words. “What fools we were,” he moaned to himself. Elster captured, and about to be executed; and himself a prisoner within Queen Raven’s rooms, awaiting a similar fate when the priest was done with his services! Suddenly, Cygnus had stopped wishing for Raven’s swift recovery. Once she no longer needed him, he could measure his life in minutes.

“Leave me alone, I said!”

The sharpness of Raven’s voice jerked Cygnus from his bleak thoughts, and he felt an irrational surge of anger.

“Willingly—if only I could!” he snapped at her. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear Blacktalon. I’m as much a prisoner here as you, so you might as well get used to it. I shouldn’t worry, though,” he added. “I doubt that I’ll be around to trouble you for long. You have a longer life than I to look forward to!”

Stunned by the bitterness of his tone, Raven turned her head to look, for the first time, at the young physician who had tended her so patiently. “I don’t want life,” she said flatly. “Would you want to live like this? Why did you not let me die, as I wished?” Her voice lifted in a childish whine, and tears of self-pity gathered in her eyes. The drops of moisture went flying as Cygnus slapped her hard across the face. “You selfish little fool!” he yelled. “Do you think you’re the only one suffering? What about your people? What about me? What about Elster, who saved your miserable life, and will die at sundown? You are the Queen! Instead of lying there whining like a coward, why aren’t you trying to revenge yourself against that black-winged monster?”

“Curse you! How dare you strike me! How dare you speak to me like that? Have you any idea what it’s like to be crippled like this?” shrieked Raven. Incensed beyond all measure, she tried to raise herself to strike back at him, struggling against the heavy splinting that bound her wings.

Horror replaced the rage on the physician’s face. “Don’t! For Yinze’s sake, lie still!” Firmly, he pushed her back to her pillows, avoiding her hands that clawed for his eyes. Raven struggled for a moment longer before hopelessness overwhelmed her, and she went limp.

Cygnus let her go as though she burned him, and the two young Skyfolk glared at one another, breathing hard.

“Gods, I hate you!” Raven spat.

“I don’t think much of you, either,” retorted Cygnus. “But Elster and I put in a lot of hard work on those wings, and I won’t have it undone by your hysterics. Try that again, and I’ll strap you down.”

“You wouldn’t! You—” Raven was spluttering with rage.

“Would I not?” Cygnus spoke softly, but the winged girl saw the obdurate glint in his eyes, and shut her mouth abruptly.

“At least you’re fighting back at last,” the physician went on wryly. “Had I known it would be so effective, I would have slapped you much sooner.”

“What’s the point in fighting back?” Raven’s despair returned to overwhelm her. Steeling herself, she looked Cygnus in the eye. “I’ll never fly again, will I?”

Cygnus shook his head, his eyes brimming with sympathy. “Alas, Blacktalon was too thorough. We saved your wings, but—” Eyes blazing, he grasped her hand tightly. “Your Majesty—avenge yourself! Keep your hold on life until Blacktalon has paid for his misdeeds!”

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” Raven cried. “What can I do, against the High Priest? I am crippled—helpless! I was betrayed—”

“The way I heard it from Anvar,” said Cygnus brutally, “you got what you deserved.”

Beneath his accusing gaze, Raven writhed with shame. There was no escaping the fact that he was right. She had caused her own undoing, by betraying the Mages . . . Then the import of his words sunk in, and her eyes grew wide with horror. For a moment, time seemed to stop for her. “What?” she gasped. “Anvar is here?”

Cygnus nodded. “Imprisoned below the city. Perhaps the gods have given you one last chance to redeem yourself,” he added softly.

Raven closed her eyes. How could she help Anvar? It was impossible. Yet for the first time since her capture, she felt a tiny seed of hope, buried deep within her, begin to grow. “You’re right,” she whispered. “There may be no hope for me, but at least I can try to undo the damage I caused.” Opening her eyes, she looked at Cygnus, as though seeing him for the first time. “Perhaps we can think of a way to save your life, too,” she added, with the faintest ghost of a smile.