“I’ll be a hero,” he replied. “Every family in this faction lost someone in the war. They’ve been dreaming of revenge ever since.”
Anna shook her head. “If anything happens to that man, you could start another war with the Ursidreans. Your faction won’t make you a hero for that.”
He turned away. “Only an Avitras could understand.”
Anna crossed her arms over her chest. “Then I guess I’m not Avitras.”
Aquilla strode out of the house. He leapt onto the balcony rail and spread his arms. The feathers stood out from his limbs, and he soared away into the rising sun.
Chapter 5
Penelope Ann came up behind Anna, and they gazed over the railing where Aquilla flew away. “You can’t provoke him like that. He could make you pay for it.”
Anna turned on her. “I don’t want to live anywhere in fear of what he might do to make me pay for it. I don’t want to live under tyrant like that. If this is what being Avitras means, then I don’t want to be Avitras. I’ll go back to the Lycaon. They’re sensible people.”
Penelope Ann shook her head. “You don’t understand him. Aquilla is sensible. He’s just eaten up by grief about his brother. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“You can’t seriously be supporting him in this, can you?” Anna shot back. “This is insanity.”
“Well, what can I do about it?” Penelope Ann asked. “Aquilla is my mate. I have to support him.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Anna countered. “Maybe if you stood up to him, you could stop him.”
“Well, what are you going to do?” Penelope Ann asked.
“The first thing I’m going to do,” Anna replied, “is find Menlo something to eat.”
“You can’t do that,” Penelope Ann told her. “What if Aquilla finds out? He already told you more than once not to interfere.”
“Tell him, if you want to,” Anna replied. “I’ll tell him myself. I’m not going along with this. I won’t stand by and watch him torture an innocent man to feed his appetite for revenge, and neither should you.”
Penelope Ann didn’t answer, and Anna turned her back. She balanced along a tree branch that acted as a bridge between their balcony and the next house. These branch bridges connected all the Avitras houses spreading through the forest canopy.
The branch ended at a platform with no house, and Anna paused there to collect her thoughts. She was flirting with disaster to flout Aquilla when she lived as a guest in his and Penelope Ann’s house. She had nowhere else to stay if he threw her out. None of the other Avitras would take her in if she made Aquilla her enemy.
Then again, the Angondran people made their hospitality to strangers a point of honor. Aquilla would never turn her out of his house to go cold and hungry in the wilderness, no matter how mad she made him. Penelope Ann wouldn’t let him, either—would she?
Anna never would have believed Penelope Ann could be so spineless when it came to doing what was right. How could she stand by and let Aquilla mistreat a helpless prisoner right there in their own house? She must have grossly misjudged Penelope Ann. She wasn’t the strong-minded, independent woman Anna thought she was. She went watery in the knees at Aquilla’s word and didn’t think for herself when injustice stared her in the face.
Anna gritted her teeth and turned away from their house. She might be homeless in this world without a friend or relative for thousands of miles, but at least she could do what was right. She might not be able to save Menlo from Aquilla’s vendetta, but at least she could make his ordeal easier. She would prove to him and everyone else she wasn’t like Aquilla. She had to find him something to eat.
Her thoughts turned northeast, toward Ursidrean territory. Her sister Emily was out there somewhere. Just two days before Aquilla brought Menlo to the village, Emily visited her here. She’d trekked south to Lycaon territory to find Anna, Frieda, and their cousin Aimee, and when Aimee told her Anna and Frieda had moved to Avitras territory, she trekked all the way across Lycaon territory to find them.
She found only Anna. Her Ursidrean mate Faruk traveled with her to support and protect her, and not even Frieda’s disappearance could induce Emily to separate from him. The Avitras wouldn’t let him remain in their territory, and Emily left to return with him to the Ursidrean capital.
Anna never saw Emily as happy as she was with Faruk. Would Anna ever find that kind of happiness? She held such high hopes when she and Frieda first came to live with the Avitras. The Avitras prided themselves on their oral histories, their advanced legal system, and their treetop architecture. They didn’t live in the mud on the ground like the Lycaon, tearing the flesh from dead animals with their fangs.
Now, Aquilla’s ruthless brutality toward a helpless prisoner made her think again. What did she really have in common with these people? Their staple diet of nuts and seeds made her stomach ache, although she kept it secret from everyone, including Penelope Ann. She found their huts in the trees flimsy and drafty, and the wind in the canopy kept her awake at night.
She’d made friends with a few village women, and their children were delightful—at least, she’d made their acquaintance. She hadn’t known them long enough to call them real friends. She thought Penelope Ann was her friend, but she couldn’t be friends with anybody who sat back and did nothing while another living creature got mistreated. Was she really the only person in this village who realized Aquilla was crazy?
None of this thinking was getting her any closer to finding food for Menlo, though. One more mental sweep of the village confirmed she wouldn’t find anything for him up here. None of the houses contained anything but nuts and seeds. No doubt they would make a meat-eater like Menlo sicker than they made Anna. She would have to go down to the ground.
She fought down an overpowering wave of vertigo and inched toward the edge of the platform. Not for the first time, she wished for Avitras’ feathers to carry her down through the branches on a cushion of air. But she was only human, and the only way down from these houses was to climb.
She got onto her hands and knees and crawled backward to the edge of the platform. The hardest part was pushing her legs out into thin air. You couldn’t see the ground so far below. One slip and that was the end of her.
She dangled by the waist and kicked with her legs until her foot hit the tree trunk under the platform. She pawed the bark with her foot until she found the first foothold. Then she lowered the rest of her body over the side. The rest was easy—or at least easier. It took her over an hour to climb down that enormous tree. She jumped down to the ground an hour later with sweat running down her forehead.
Nothing but giant tree trunks surrounded her on all sides. The forest creatures scurried and sailed from branch to branch, but she had no way to hunt them. The Avitras didn’t kill animals, so no one else in the village would have any way to hunt them, either. They would shun her if they knew she even thought of hunting them.
She started walking. She had to find something to feed Menlo. She couldn’t go back to Aquilla’s house empty-handed. Her frustration was nothing compared to what he was going through. For all she knew, Aquilla was there breaking his bones right now.
She shook that idea out of her head. She had to concentrate. Fresh meat was out of the question. The only fruit in the forest grew at the very tops of the trees around the village. That wouldn’t keep Menlo going for long. She had to find something—but what?
She sat down to rest on the bank of a stream. She splashed water on her face, but the cold didn’t solve her problem. She cradled her head in her hand in despair. All her noble ideas came down to this. As much as she wanted to help Menlo, she couldn’t do the first thing. She was helpless.
While she sat there feeling sorry for herself, a line of bubbles rose out of the water from the muddy depths. She stared at it. Then she almost burst out laughing. It was so simple, yet so perfect. She jumped up and splashed through the water.
&
nbsp; She went down on her knees in the mud and thrust her arm up to the shoulder into the water. She burrowed into the mud with her hand, down to the bottom where those bubbles came from.
All at once, her hand struck something hard, and her heart soared. Something sharp bit into her finger, and she gritted her teeth, but she only burrowed further into the stream bed where the skidhopper made its nest.
The sharp beak bit and pecked, but she didn’t quit until she found what she was hunting for. She brought three eggs to the surface and transferred them to her other hand before diving for more. She didn’t stop until she retrieved all ten eggs.
The wind chilled her saturated clothing on the way back to the village, but she was too elated to care. She made a pouch for the eggs by tying the ends of her shirt together so she could scale the tree with both hands. They bumped against her back as she climbed, and she smiled to herself. The wind thrashed through the canopy when she hauled herself onto the platform, and she shivered. Now she had another problem—delivering the eggs to Menlo without getting caught.
A lamp burned in the window in anticipation of evening. Penelope Ann would be preparing the evening meal for Aquilla. How could Anna get into the store room without being seen? Just then, Penelope Ann came out of the house and caught sight of Anna. She smiled and waved, but she was too far away to notice Anna’s dripping wet clothes. Anna held down her excitement and waved back.
Penelope Ann set off over another bridge to another platform on the other side, on her way to the neighboring house. She left her own house, with its golden square of light beaming through the window. Penelope Ann would never leave if Aquilla was home. The coast was clear.
Chapter 6
Anna cupped her bundle of eggs with one hand to steady them as she hurried over the bridge to the house. She couldn’t risk breaking them at a time like this.
She paused on the balcony to glance left and right just to make sure no one was looking. Then she ducked around the corner to the store room. She lifted the wooden beam away, and the door swung open on the lightless room.
Menlo sat in a corner. Anna cringed when she noticed his wrists tied behind his back. Aquilla must have tied him up when he threw him in the store room. When the light fell on him, he was shifting his position so his weight didn’t crush his hands behind his back, but he couldn’t move very well. He winced in pain no matter which way he turned.
He squinted into the light, and when he recognized Anna, he compressed his lips and turned away. “What do you want now?”
Anna stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. She did her best to steady her voice. “I brought you something to eat, but we don’t have much time. Here let me help you.”
Before he could react, she squatted down behind him. When she saw the knot holding his wrists together, she let out a sigh of relief. She knew that knot. She untied it, and his arms sprang free.
Menlo rubbed his wrists and regarded her out of the corner of his eye. “Tell me you brought something other than fruit.”
Anna sat down in front of him and untied her shirt. “I brought you some eggs. I’m sorry I don’t have any way to cook them. I couldn’t cook them without getting caught anyway. You’ll just have to eat them raw, but they’ll keep you going.” She held out the eggs to him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything else.”
He stared at them for a brief instant. Then, without a word, he pounced on them. He snatched them out of the pouch and cracked them with his teeth. Then he dumped the contents down his throat. Every time he swallowed, he let out a little squeak of satisfaction. Anna smiled at him.
When he finished, he sank back against the wall with a heavy sigh. Anna collected the shells into her shirt. “I guess Aquilla didn’t give you anything else to eat since he stuck you in here.”
Menlo didn’t open his eyes. He wiped the egg off his chin with his wrist. “You don’t know how much better I feel after eating those.”
Anna chuckled. “I thought you might. I’ll try to find something else for you. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”
Something between a purr and a growl rumbled up out of his throat. “My shoulders are killing me.”
She put out her hand to rub his sore shoulder, but stopped herself. What if he was manipulating her to help him escape? She shouldn’t even be here. If any Avitras, even Penelope Ann, caught her here, she would be in deep trouble. She’d done her good deed. Now she should get out of there while she had the chance.
Quick as lightning, Menlo caught her by the wrist. She yanked it back, but he held her in an iron grip. His eyes burned into her soul. “Wait.”
She struggled. “I have to get out of here.”
“At least let me thank you,” he murmured. “I wasn’t expecting anybody to give me the slightest consideration. I’m sorry I snapped at you before. I guess I thought I had to protect myself from getting hurt.”
Anna kept still and waited. When she didn’t answer, he glanced down at his hand on her arm. Then he dropped it with a shudder.
Anna moved back. Then she smiled at him again. “I better go.”
“Thank you.” He shifted against the wall. “I don’t even know your name.”
“I’m Anna. Anna Evans.” She stood up. “Now I better tie you up again. Aquilla will be back soon, and he’ll have to find you tied up or he’ll know someone has been here.”
He lowered his eyes and nodded. “Go ahead. Just don’t make it so tight this time, will you?”
She looped the rope around his wrists. “Sorry. I have to tie it exactly the way he left it.”
He flinched again when she pulled the rope tight. “Aargh!”
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
The frustration and anxiety returned to his face when he tried again to lean back against the wall. He clenched his teeth and grumbled every time he moved. “I’m no better off than I was before.”
Anna gazed down at him. “At least you’ve got something in your stomach now.”
His eyes shot up to her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Thank you for the eggs.”
“I wish I could do more,” she replied, “but Aquilla will be watching me as much as he’s watching you. I have to be careful or I could wind up....”
“What?” he interrupted. “He wouldn’t do to you what he’s doing to me. He better not or I’ll....”
Anna smiled at him. “Or you’ll what? No, he won’t do anything to me, but I’m a guest in his house and in his faction. He already knows I don’t approve of what he’s doing to you.”
“How does he know that?” Menlo asked.
“I told him,” Anna replied. “I told him I wouldn’t go along with him torturing you and starving you and getting his revenge on you. I didn’t come over to the Avitras to be part of anything like this.”
Menlo snorted. “I’m sure he loved hearing that.”
“He’s already warned me more than once not to interfere with you,” Anna went on. “If he found out I gave you food when he’s obviously trying to starve you into submission....well, I really don’t know what he would do. He’d throw me out of the house at the very least.”
“Charming fellow,” Menlo grunted.
“He and Penelope Ann have been very kind to me,” Anna replied. “I should have my head examined for repaying their hospitality this way.”
His head whipped around. “Don’t beat yourself up about doing what’s right. You’re the only person here with a beating heart. You shouldn’t have your head examined for that.”
“Were all the Guards cruel to you on the march down here from the border?” Anna asked. “Wasn’t even one of them concerned about your treatment?”
He cocked his head to one side. “Now that you mention it, there was one who seemed more concerned than the others. He didn’t go out of his way to do me favors the way you have, but I did see him talking to Aquilla once. They seemed to be arguing, and this one Guard kept pointing at me, so I gues
s they were arguing about me. After that, he came over and examined my restraints and my injuries, but he didn’t say anything.”
“What did he look like?” Anna asked.
“He was uncommonly tall, even for an Avitras,” Menlo replied. “He was even taller than Aquilla, and he had very bright blue and green feathers. He was very striking.”
Anna nodded. “That’s Piwaka. He’s Captain of the Guard. He’s a sensible guy, and he’s been in enough combat to appreciate peace. I thought Aquilla was the same way, but I guess I was wrong. I wonder...”
Before she could finish her sentence, a thump reverberated through the house. The sound of laughter floated through the open door, and Anna recognized Penelope Ann’s voice. Then Aquilla’s voice answered.
Anna leapt toward the door with the egg shells clutched in her shirt. “They’re coming!”
Without another word, she ducked out of the store room and barred the door. She had time to rush into the house and dump the egg shells into her own sleeping roll before Aquilla and Penelope Ann entered with their arms around each other.
Both flushed with delight in their own company, and they kissed right there in the main room. They didn’t see Anna at all until they separated, and Penelope Ann’s smile softened. “Where have you been all day? I’ve been looking for you.”
Anna straightened her sleeping roll. “I went for a walk.”
“You won’t believe the story Aquilla just told me,” Penelope Ann breathed. “I couldn’t stop laughing all the way home.”
Anna looked up. “Really? Was it something that happened on the frontier?”
Aquilla waved his hand. “Nevermind. I don’t want to tell it again. Let’s eat something now, because I have to meet the Guard later.”
Penelope Ann jumped. “Why? I thought you were staying home for a while. You’re not going off on another patrol, are you?”
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