Michelle Sagara - Cast In Flight

She studied their wings through the wing of the familiar. She looked at the feathers, the ridges of their wings, the things that were missing in this world. She turned to look back at Clint; he looked the same when viewed through either eye.

Frowning, she asked, “Clint—could they ever fly?”

“...I’m not a doctor. But no. No, I don’t think so.”

Kaylin glanced up at Teela. “I wish Mandoran were here.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” Tain snapped. He might have said more, but Teela turned to look at him, and he fell silent. If it was a grudging silence, it didn’t matter.

“I believe he sees what you see. It’s not, however, standard magic.”

Bellusdeo, silent until then, said, “It is Shadow magic.”

* * *

Teela was right. The Hawklord landed five seconds later. He barely glanced at Teela, but did demand a report. The Barrani Hawk’s voice was toneless as she described the events she’d personally seen. Since she’d more or less seen nothing until the familiar had taken to the sky, her part was pretty simple. But the Aerians had appeared shortly thereafter, struggling to stay aloft, all thoughts of possible assassination or capture forgotten in their desperation to touch down the right way.

The Hawklord approached them.

The two huddled together like frightened children. “How,” he demanded, “were you able to fly?” He spoke in Aerian, his voice a crack of brief thunder. His eyes were blue; they matched the eyes of his prisoners.

The prisoners remained silent, their wings—what remained of them—drawn tightly to their backs in either fear or deference. Or both, since one was often a product of the other. It was clear that they had no intention of answering.

“What is your flight?”

Silence again. Other Aerians had joined the Hawks on the ground, and one or two were looking at the prisoners the way Clint had—but not all of them. Interesting. Clint knew, or thought he knew. But so did the Hawklord. She wondered how political this was all going to get.

“Are they a threat in their present condition?” the Hawklord demanded. The general consensus among those who could detect telltale traces of magic was no. The Hawklord therefore turned to Kaylin, blue-eyed, almost quivering with what Kaylin assumed was rage. She had never seen his wings so combat ready, so rigid, as they were now. No wonder the two men were terrified.

Kaylin said, “I think they’re safe.”

The familiar whiffled.

“Is that a yes or a no?” she asked him as quietly as she could, and with no hope at all that it would go unnoticed.

“You are hesitating.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

The familiar lowered his wing and hissed. He was laughing.

“I don’t understand what I’m seeing,” Kaylin began. “But...you know how the familiar’s wing works, right? Well, according to what I’m seeing through his wing...there’s nothing wrong with the wings of these Aerians.”

“And as a healer?”

Chapter 7

Kaylin blinked. This was not a subject that came up often, and never in full view of the rank and file, unless the only rank and file present was Kaylin herself. She swallowed. She looked at the terrified Aerians and had no desire at all to touch them.

“Can you ascertain whether or not what you see is relevant to us?”

She swallowed.

“Private.”

Rolling up her sleeve, she exposed the ancient bracer that had been a gift—a dire, mandatory gift—from the Imperial Court years ago. She wasn’t, in theory, allowed to take it off. In practice, it inhibited the use of the magic that had become hers when the marks that covered so much of her skin had first appeared.

The Emperor who had issued the orders was in the Imperial Palace. The man who was responsible for her livelihood was standing a couple of feet away, wings spread and eyes a study in fury. She took the bracer off. Severn took it before she could toss it over her shoulder.

The captive Aerians regarded her with both hostility and fear. At the moment, she deserved it. She wondered if this was how the Tha’alani felt. Healing was not supposed to be invasive or unwanted.

Clint came with her, as did Severn; weapons were leveled at the Aerian prisoners, the warning in their presence clear, but unspoken.

She reached out and very gently placed a hand on the forehead of the slightly older man. His wings were as they appeared through normal vision. They weren’t the result of an old injury. They were his body’s actual shape.

Kaylin couldn’t give sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf, unless either condition was caused by an injury that had occurred fairly recently. She withdrew her hand and touched the second man, who was staring up at her in misery. Like the first man’s, his wings were complete in their damaged form.

These two hadn’t flown in a long time, if ever. Until today.

“They’re clean.” She turned to the Dragon. “Whatever you sense, I don’t. Shadow?”

“Not now, no. But it was faintly tangible when they were invisible.” Her eyes were a very vivid orange; they hadn’t yet descended into red, but it was a close thing. Bellusdeo’s experience with Gilbert had softened some of the edge of her hatred of Shadow—but it was a pretty hard edge, and the blunting wasn’t terribly obvious at the moment.

“Is it possible that the Shadow formed wings?”

“Clearly. You think the wings are still present.”

“Yes, but I don’t understand how. Maybe it’s an afterimage, an aftereffect.”

“Lord Bellusdeo.” The Hawklord’s terse voice interrupted what might have become a rather long-winded theoretical magic discussion. “Do you feel that the threat of Shadow incursion is present? The Halls are very heavily protected against magic we understand, but they are not a Tower otherwise.”

“I wouldn’t take the risk,” Bellusdeo replied in Elantran. “Would you have any objections if I roasted them for the sake of certainty?”

“Yes. You consider it an actual risk?”

“I consider it a theoretical risk. Shadow magic is chaotic and unpredictable; we could defend against much of it, but it’s always more inventive when it pairs itself with the living.” She looked vaguely disgusted. She didn’t, however, breathe fire.

The Hawklord appeared to be considering a matrix of unpleasant possibilities. “Very well. Take them to the holding cells.”

* * *

“Weren’t you supposed to be in the infirmary?” Teela asked the gold Dragon once the Hawklord was safely out of hearing range.

“I considered this to be the greater danger to Moran,” Bellusdeo replied. “Also, I’m not on the payroll.”

“Fair enough.”

Kaylin glanced at Clint. Some of the other Aerians’ eyes had shaded into a more natural gray. Not Clint. His eyes were still blue. He wasn’t as angry—or as combat-ready—as the Hawklord had been, but he was close. Kaylin wondered if anyone was going to use the front doors today if they had any other choice. She certainly wouldn’t.

Kaylin, Bellusdeo and Severn made their way to the infirmary and found Moran behind a locked door. The door was unlocked after some muffled conversation, which, on Moran’s part, included a few choice Leontine phrases.

Kaylin forgot what she’d been about to say when she saw Moran’s eyes. They were a pale shade of blue, too dark to be gray in any light. It was a color she hadn’t seen all that much of until after the attack on the High Halls; she knew it now as sorrow, the natural response when people you respected and fought beside had perished.

Moran said quietly, “I’ve applied for a leave of absence.”

It almost broke Kaylin’s heart. Her mind, however, was still intact. “Did you recognize them?” she asked.