Beneath Stained Glass Wings Page 5
But Nalani stands, dipping down to grab something from the basket at her feet, and treads across the thick carpet to me. She lifts my hands in her own, gently removing the sabre and putting it on a table.
“Wh-what are you doing?” The words come out high and awkward.
“I won’t hurt you, or them. They’re beautifully crafted,” she says, her tone the same as before. “Where did you get them?”
“V-Vito gave them to me.” Her hands are so gentle with mine. She takes one and I finally see what she picked up—a ribbon. It’s made from a rough, tan-colored silk, but even I can tell it’s beautifully woven.
“And who is Vito?” she asks, slowly wrapping and weaving the silk around my hands. “Your lover?”
“What?” I squeak. Vito’s never been like that to me. Our relationship more intimate than it should have been, but not that. I crave being close to him in other ways. “N-no. He’s the dragon that was paired with me.”
“You’re a caretaker.” Dantea breathes the word, someone finally understanding the weight of my position as a servant to my beast.
“Caretaker?” Fitz asks, running his thumb along his lips. “Aren’t those a sort of illusionist? You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve been traveling this country for a few years, but this is my first stay in a town.”
Where was he staying, then? “Isn’t Caelum all there is?”
He laughs, something deep and full of humor. “Who would Caelum trade with, otherwise? Though not many are…pleased with Caelum for various reasons, you produce quite a bit from mining and crafting that the rest of the world covets. Now, illusionists?
Heat creeps under my skin. My father’s books were so old, I’d always thought they were before Caelum. Of course there’s another lie. “All of us with human and dragon blood are illusionists. Wingless illusionists are normally hunters, soldiers. Winged ones are usually caretakers to be chosen or paired, the only ones able to keep up with their dragons. The others are given jobs as servants and other roles that need to be filled.” Like my father, the inventor, and my mother, his assistant.
“You forget the ones deemed too ugly when they’re born, sent to the ground to be guards,” Dantea watches my face with the intensity of a hawk as she talks.
“They…what?” First there are exiles, and now outcasts? “That can’t be.”
“Then how do you explain the guards? They’re the lucky ones—if an illusionist is born with more bestial aspects than human, they’re murdered then and there.”
What is she talking about? Is she senile?
“Well, either way,” Fitz jumps in. “Don’t dragons choose their caretakers? Not get paired.”
“Ah, well…” I glance around. Nalani lets go of one hand to work on the other. “Vito and I were a…difficult situation. Neither of us wanted to pair off.”
A smile pulls at my lips, despite the room full of strangers. Young winged illusionists and dragons of age are brought into the great hall of the king’s palace twice a year, for the dragons to choose their caretakers. When my turn came, my father said I didn’t have to go; he knew I didn’t want to belong to a dragon. He had wings and had managed to escape their servitude. But I knew the hunters would come and take me, no matter what I did. He always liked to dream that there were ways around the rules.
I hid in a corner of the giant white-stone room of stained-glass windows depicting the dragons’ victories and achievements, avoiding the gaze of the dragons. If they pursued me, I would fly away and grin about having wings while the dragons were stuck in their human forms in a room that couldn’t contain that many beasts. The chase was fun for a while, but then the dragons started giving tokens to their chosen caretakers, made from their own scales. An odd pain clenched in my chest, no matter how much I tried to ignore it.
But that wasn’t what I wanted. Serving the dragons was an honor, sure. But I wanted to serve them by doing something amazing, by being an inventor like my dad.
Dragons continued to be shepherded in by their nest-mothers for a little while. Dragon-kind were raised in same-age groups by one mother and multiple instructors, their true parents normally having far more important things to do than parenting. My life would have been so much different if my dad hadn’t raised me, if I hadn’t gotten to know my mother for the little bit I did. Parenting seems pretty important to me. There are few who got to be inventors like my dad, or something else interesting like that. Though my mother wasn’t a hunter, she was able to escape droll tasks like cleaning up after the dragons or preparing their meals, instead assisting my father.
Then there were no dragons left. A few other illusionist stragglers huddled together, looking dejected and ashamed. Didn’t they want their freedom? We may have had the wings to keep up with a dragon, but they could be used for so much more than that.
With a skip in my step, I made for the doors and grabbed the handle of one—
Just in time for a nest-mother to slam through them, dragging her son along. The boy and I bumped heads. A curse formed on my lips, but I caught it before it escaped. He didn’t have any wings or horns or claws or scales. He was either a ground dweller—none of whom ever set foot in the city—or a dragon.
I took a step back, murmured an apology.
The nest-mother shoved her son forward so we nearly bumped heads again, and muttered something like, “There, this one’s good enough for now.”
And so a pair of scaled fingerless gloves were thrust underneath my nose.
Then, as my gut sank and I took the dung-colored things from his hands, Vito spoke his first words to me. “I’m sorry.”
“So,” Fitz’s voice breaks the memory, “you’ve been up there for a while to have been paired and all that, yes? How familiar are you with Caelum? What is it like?”
“It’s…” Home. All I’ve known my whole life. Gone. “It’s huge, miles wide and growing more every few years, held together and moved by the mass illusions of the dragons. Sometimes it moves so fast that flying along with it takes effort, the wind rattling buildings. We could probably go across the country in a day or two, and the continent maybe triple that—not that it’s very large. The buildings are cleaner, made of stone and with shining metal roofs for the dragons to perch and sun and keep watch on. Then there are the dens, where—”
“No, no, not that.” Fitz waves his hand. “What about how it floats?”
I blink. “It’s an illusion maintained by the dragons. That’s why the dragons are so important, they’re the only ones powerful enough to lift the city and control the clouds at the same time.”
He shakes his head, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. “No, that can’t be right. All that I’ve seen indicates one source, a single illusion…” He shakes his head again. “Anyway, thank you for clarifying your perspective. I’m surprised you still wear those gloves, though.”
I cock my head, trying to make sense of his words. “Why wouldn’t I be wearing them?”
“Well, dear,” Dantea says, rocking forward in her chair. “You have to be well over fifteen, and we all know what happens when a dragon turns fifteen.”
Wait, what? I look between the two of them, pity in the lines around their eyes. Vito stopped being able to shift forms at fifteen. Do they know why Vito can’t turn human again? No, they can’t. They’re ground dwellers.
“You don’t know,” Nalani says, stepping back as she finishes with my other hand. “It’s better that you never do, then. Where is your dragon now? Still in the sky?”
“N-no. He followed me.” Oh, she hadn’t covered my gloves. She’d twined and braided lace through the scales so that they almost looked like beads or gems in-between. “Carita found him and me, then coerced us into coming with her and Bricius, and now we’re here.”
“Fascinating,” Estes says, adjusting his glasses again.
He nearly makes me jump out of my skin. I’d forgotten he was here.
“Well, they aren’t all evil.” Dantea leans back, looking at the group.
“They come in all shades, just like us regular humans and you half-breeds. I’m well aware,” Fitz waves his hand, dismissing the new topic. “Is it so strange for dragons to come down here, though?”
“I can’t remember the last time I’d heard of a dragon stepping foot on the land below—at least, not under peaceful circumstances.” Estes walks across the room, looking ahead, but his eyes are somewhere else. “Surely something to be recorded.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “‘Recorded?’”
“Estes,” Fitz warns. “This is exactly what Carita was saying not to tell her.”
“But we can’t possibly expect to accept her story without exchanging one.”
Huh. Answers always have their price.
“We don’t even know her story, yet.” But Dantea sighs like she’s already been overruled.
“Of course not! This chapter of hers couldn’t have ended. A refugee from the city above, running with her dragon in tow?” Estes claps his hands. “Something tells me your story will be one to watch out for.”
“No one ever said I was a refugee.” I cross my arms over my chest.
“I assumed since you were with Carita, considering her own story…”
My eyebrows raise. “Carita? What about her story?”
Estes grins, and Fitz scowls.
“Well, she escaped from the great city, too, as I’m sure you must have seen. But, oh, before I start, make yourself comfortable. Take a seat, remove your mirage, relax.”
For one instant I hesitate, wondering what Carita will do when she sees it’s gone. But no. I owe her nothing. I let it go, sighing in relief at the release of the mirage. Everyone gasps at the sight of me, my wings bundles of dull, soft feathers without light, my horns curling nearly to the ceiling, but I couldn’t care less. It feels so good to drop the illusion, like relaxing a sore muscle. I really should have kept up my practice while I was in the sky.
Estes is the first to recover, motioning me toward a seat. I perch on the edge, shifting my wings as comfortably as I can behind me.
Nalani walks back to her chair, picks up the loom, and hums a melody I’ve never heard before.
“Carita was once a girl, younger than you.” Estes’ voice almost seems to meld together with Nalani’s humming, in pace and rhythm. “Her father was a dragon, but her mother was not. She was born to an illusionist as an illusionist. But once she was old enough to walk, she never saw her mother again. There was never a whisper of what happened to her, no one ever talked about her. When she’d mention her mother’s name, Carita only found pity.
“With only her father left, Carita was forced to bury herself into the life of a hunter, becoming part of the elite army of the dragons. The most worthy and nearly the only profession of a wingless illusionist.” Nalani’s voice rises, so that it’s almost like she’s singing along with Estes, weaving his words into something more vibrant, more visceral. “Her father was cruel in ways I will not put to words. He was cruel in a way that made him more a beast than a man. Though she was a prodigy as a hunter, as a half-breed, her father saw her as nothing but a worm, nothing other than the ground-dwelling blood in her veins.
“One day, she fought back. One day, she argued with the dragon. She warred. And she lost. For one argument against him, she was cast out of her home in the sky. She was expected to die in the desert, like nearly all castaways, but they had trained her too well. She fought, she hunted, she learned. And, most importantly of all, she plotted.”
He’s quiet for a moment, and Nalani’s singing rings through the room.
“What did she plot?” I dare to whisper.
He smiles. “Revenge.”
The world tilts on its side. Revenge? Against the dragons, our king? How could she ever hope to win? Why would she want to bring down our home in the sky?
“So, she found us, and gave us her story for a world of others. Because that’s who we are. That’s what we do. The illusionists and guards spread their lies, their false rumors, punishing those with the truth. They guard and destroy what little trust this world has left, create a false world of their making, punishing anyone who doesn’t live in their lies, who doesn’t placate themselves with their oppression. That’s how we fight, by spreading the truths that your city in the sky burns away. For now, it’s the only way we can.”
My ears ring. But Caelum isn’t bad, right? My father hated the rules, of course, but even he never said it was a bad place. Why would anyone ever want to hurt all of us, all the dragons and illusionists, because of one bad one?
But they wanted to kill me for caring about one being, one dragon. Is that right? Are they wrong?
“Which is where I think you come in, dear.” Estes’ voice lowers, Nalani’s coming back down to its hum.
“Wh-what do you mean?” Part of me doesn’t want to know, but I have to ask.
“You and your dragon have wings. We were never able to reach the city before. Never has anyone been exiled who could go back.”
My stomach turns. I…I can’t…
I stand. Nalani stops humming.
Carita brought me into this? My hands drip with enough blood. All I want is to keep Vito safe, to make sure he’s okay, that he’ll go back one day. That’s all I can manage, all I have to keep myself from remembering.
And what these people want, I…
“That…I can’t do that. I’m sorry. I can’t.”
They stare as I run across the room and burst out the door.
6
The Wings
The dusty stone walls and pale sky blur around me into one, as if I’ve been flung into a pit of sand and the walls are collapsing in on me. People fly by my sides, pushing away from me, staring like I’m some sort of beast. A woman screams. My mirage. I’d let it go, and my wings aren’t normal here.
I dig my fingers into my skin, bite through my cheek until it bleeds, make enough pain to focus, draw my mirage tight around me as I run.
Just in time to collide with a person.
People.
A crowd.
I hit the ground, barely realizing I was falling, the wind knocked from my lungs. No one reaches to help me up, all their attention directed at something out of my sight.
Drawing in gasps of breath, I try to sit up, try to maintain my mirage, try to focus. I get jostled as I rise to my feet, pushed into others, having to grab people’s clothes and arms to keep from falling again. But they don’t care. They don’t seem to see me.
Their eyes only hone in on the small stage I have to crane my neck to make out. It’s crudely made, barely a few planks balanced on some stones. Guards keep a semi-circle of people from getting to close to it, like it’s a show with actors that shouldn’t be bothered.
But it isn’t actors perched on that stage. There’s one of those strange illusionists, one full-sized horn and a couple of small, crooked wings on their back, who looks bored as they yell something I can’t quite hear. Next to and a little behind him are a few more guards, holding onto the chains tied to a group of people. Slaves? It’s three people, a woman clutching two toddlers. All of their cheeks are tear-stained, though they aren’t crying now, and heavy bags rest under their eyes. They’re skin and bones, a few bruises lining their bodies, and they look like they might collapse.
“What monsters they are for doing this in public.”
“Monsters for doing it at all.”
People mutter and mill, but they still don’t take their eyes off the stage.
“You’ve gotta wonder why taxes are so high when they make so much money off these outlaws.”
“Caelum doesn’t care. They only take.”
“If you keep complaining, you’ll be up there next.”
I’m about to try to ask someone what’s going on when the yelling and the clamoring gets just quiet enough for me to hear one word from the mutant illusionist’s mouth.
“Sold!”
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Everything in me drops. The world tilts.
They’re selling them.
They’re selling people.
This is what the Story Collectors want to rebel against. This is why they think dragons are evil. Thoughts seethe in my head, of the girl I saw the night before, of the cruelty of the guards to that one child. Of the ridiculous, selfish rules and lies the dragons have fed me my entire life. They destroy and they take and I’ve never noticed. I’ve never done anything. I’ve never cared, until they finally came to take something important from me.
And the faces of the people around me don’t care. They’re content, smiling, laughing, all the while bidding on the lives of other human beings. The same as I was.
The woman on the stage starts screaming, clawing desperately at the guards who hold her back while one of the children gets dragged off the stage. The child doesn’t fight. They’ve already given up, stopped struggling against a fate of abuse and neglect. How long will they survive before their owner’s done with them? Their owner. The thought roils my stomach, gags up my throat.
No.
Does no one else oppose this? Does anyone else realize how wrong it is to own another person? Heat bursts in my chest, burns through my veins as my wings spread and my hands curl into fists. I will not stand by and watch.
I push through the crowd, tearing people aside and not caring if anyone feels my wings against them. They push back. They claw and they hit, and slow me down, try to stop me. But that isn’t an option. I can’t let this continue.
I let my mirage drop and draw my sabre, baring my teeth as my heartbeat pumps fire through my veins.
That stops them.
Jumping forward, I fully spread my wings to leap and glide over them, landing in the open area just before the stage. The mother and her children cringe away from me. I don’t blame them.
A guard yells behind me and I yell back, drawing my sabre and turning to barely block their swing, sending me stumbling. I try to get my footing, but they keep swinging and swinging and I can’t move fast enough, I’m not strong enough. They knock the blade out of my hand.