by Jae Waller
“Yiro!” Nili flung herself against the bird, her hair dark against its snow-white breast. “Wala, wala. Yiro, dayomi—”
My skin went cold. No one had attuned to a kinaru in Rin memory. It took me ages to calm down after I first attuned, but we didn’t have time. Glowing embers drifted toward us. I smelled smoke. Down the shore, blazing trees crashed into the bulrushes.
The kinaru swung its head, shrieking. Blood stained its wings where branches tore into it. Nili clung to its sleek feathers. “You’re still in there, Yiro. It’s just a different body, it’s still you—”
He curved his neck down, peering at her with a huge red eye, clacking his bill. For a second I thought he was calming — until his wings thrashed again, taking out a small alder. Leaves spun past me onto the water.
I split my focus in half. I pulled a wave from the lake and threw it at the burning forest. “Nili!” I tossed Yironem’s muddy bow to her and slung his quiver over my shoulder. “We have to go!”
I fixed my gaze on Yironem’s eye even as I flung wave after wave onto the flames. “Yiro! We need your help. Fendul could fly the first time he attuned. Trust your wings. Trust us. We’ve been through this.”
“Kako’s right,” Nili soothed. “You’ll be fine. We trust you.”
His wings stilled. I leapt onto a fallen tree and vaulted onto Yironem’s back. Nili ducked under a wing and I hauled her up after me. She sucked in a breath, swearing at the arrow in her leg.
“Come on, Yiro,” she said. “Come on, little brother. Today we fly.”
He lunged forward. Water erupted around us. We shot across the lake, black wings beating, bulrushes streaming past. The spearman’s horse lurched out of the way—
—and we soared up through smoke into clear air. The sky blossomed above us, such a thick blue I could almost touch it.
“West!” I shouted over the rush of wind.
We pitched to one side. I clung to Yironem’s neck, Nili’s grip tight around my ribs. We dropped suddenly. The world rushed up toward us. My insides wrenched — but Yironem caught himself on a billow of hot air, steadied, and glided toward the ocean.
I felt a stab of guilt for leaving the horses. The one in the lake might survive, but the one back on the path couldn’t escape the fire with a broken leg. I should’ve given it a quick death.
Clearly visible from above, a black burning crescent glowed among the deep green of South Iyun. The crescent reached to the coast, enclosing a bluff where tiny figures darted among copses of spruce. Endless blue ocean sparkled beyond.
Riderless kinaru circled the bluff like wolves around prey. The soldiers we ambushed must’ve forced the battle to the open coast where kinaru could drop off the Corvittai rearguard. The fire kept our side from retreating. I cursed.
The kinaru themselves didn’t attack. They swooped through the haze, their trembling calls like cloth snapping in the wind. Then I saw the orange glow. One bird carried a white-masked rider. The air shimmered around them.
Not a jinra-saidu. A jinrayul.
There had to be fire-callers other than Tiernan. Ingdanrad was full of mages. Aeldu knew why one might side with the Corvittai, but it couldn’t be Tiernan. I ignored the creeping doubt of why Rhonos refused to fight.
My mind raced. Yironem couldn’t attack another kinaru — the taboo seemed far worse now that he was one. Nili couldn’t use her bow without falling. And I didn’t dare, not until I knew—
“Hold on tight!” I yelled. “Yiro! Take out that glowing person on the kinaru!”
He wheeled, flapping hard. Cool air streamed past as we rose. The world dropped away. He banked again, soared toward the other kinaru, and dove. By the time the bird saw us coming it was too late.
Yironem slammed into the rider. We spun away, the horizon vaulting. Arrows slid from the quiver on my back and fell toward earth. Nili’s hand caught my shirt, the fabric yanking against my chest.
The other kinaru rolled, plummeted, and caught the falling jinrayul in its bill. We streaked after them. The bird dumped the jinrayul on the ground and took off. My guess was right. The kinaru were torn without Suriel here to command them. They’d carry Corvittai into battle but refused to fight Rin.
Yironem spread his wings, soared over a thicket, and landed with a whump. I hit the dirt, my breath bursting from my lungs. The world spun. Nili gave shallow gasps nearby, holding her calf.
I pushed myself to my feet and dropped Yironem’s empty quiver. “Look out for each other.” I ran back toward the jinrayul, ducking behind boulders and splintered stumps. Salt spruce burned like bright flowers in the distance, forming a flickering red and gold wall straight to the cliffs. Heat washed over me.
Shouts and clangs echoed from the north. I stumbled on something and reeled back. A Rin woman sprawled in a pool of blood, her stomach torn open. A Corvittai lay beside her. His arm was three paces away.
I crouched behind a jumble of mossy rocks. The jinrayul grabbed at the reins of a rearing black horse. His mask had come off in the fall. He had a similar build to Tiernan, a scabbard at his waist — but through the hazy glow I saw darker skin and short black hair. I sagged against a boulder.
I reached for Nurivel and found an empty sheath. “Kaid,” I muttered. It was back in the lake, buried in an archer’s neck. I drew my hunting knife instead—
—and someone grabbed my braid. I screamed.
I twisted around and plunged the blade into something soft. It came out bloody. I stabbed again and again, writhing, kicking. The soldier let go of my hair, struck me in the face, and threw me on the ground. My knife flew from my hand. He put his boot on my chest, crushing me into the earth, and raised his spear.
So this is how I die. The sky spread out behind him, perfect deep blue woven with smoke. The drifting birds looked like white petals. I wondered if there were kinaru in Aeldu-yan.
The man’s head jerked aside. Something huge and brown plowed into him.
I rolled the other way and scrambled up, scraping my palms. The world tipped like I was still flying. I spun back toward the soldier. He’d landed on the rocks. Blood flowed from his head, dripping down mossy stones like a waterfall.
A sleek horse cantered back around, thudding on the hard soil. It stopped in front of me and tossed its black mane.
“Anwea!”
She whuffed air from her huge nostrils. The fire must’ve driven her back here. I grabbed my knife, leapt onto a boulder, and swung onto her sweat-lathered back. Her spine dug into me. Good thing I learned to ride without a saddle.
The jinrayul sat astride the black horse watching me. He was young, maybe early twenties. Grey smoke drifted between us. I gripped the rawhide cord on my knife handle. It wasn’t weighted as well as Nurivel. I couldn’t count on a good throw.
Only then did I notice how ragged he was. His shoulders slumped and sweat shone on his skin. The orange light flickered. He wavered in the saddle.
“Are you Nonil? The captain?” I called.
“Yes.” His voice was flat, with a slight Ferish accent.
This was it. A missing iron link in the chain. For three years, Suriel had been killing people to keep them away from Dúnravn Pass. In three years there’d been no reports of a fire mage — because Nonil hadn’t helped guard the pass. He was being guarded. Suriel couldn’t die, but the mage serving him could.
“You helped Suriel raze the Toel Ginu shrine.”
“Yes.”
“And it didn’t work, so Suriel wanted Tiernan Heilind instead. A proper rift mage.”
“Yes.”
“Why are you here? Doesn’t Suriel need you still?”
Silence.
“Why do you want the Rin dead?”
“It is safer than letting you live.” He drew his sword, but it seemed heavy in his hand.
I spat blood. “You should’ve killed me in Toel.”
>
I threw my blade. It sliced his arm as it sailed past. His sword thumped to the ground. The second the knife left my grip, I drew my flail and dug my heels into Anwea.
We were on him before he could dodge. The flail’s iron spikes bit through leather, spraying out blood. I heard his ribs shatter. Nausea rose into my throat.
I whirled Anwea back around, my flail rattling on its chain. The black horse bolted. Nonil lay broken. His hand twitched and went still.
Four lives.
The glow faded like a sunset. The wall of flames dimmed. The crackling quietened.
Horses still galloped across the bluff to the north. Screams shattered the air. I had to keep going, keep fighting, but all I wanted to do was throw up.
A hawk screeched. My head jerked up. Ospreys, ravens, geese, and owls shot overhead like winged arrows, all heading for the battle. Anwea shied.
I whipped around to look south. Frothing waves rose over the cliffs and slammed onto the burning forest. Steam billowed into the sky like a cloud bursting to life. Deer bounded over scorched logs, foxes darted around blackened bushes, a grizzly bear plowed through blazing grass. A coyote tumbled over a ridge and veered toward me.
Airedain shifted back to human, stumbling from the momentum. His eyes skimmed the blood dripping from my flail, Nonil’s crushed ribcage, Anwea tossing her head. “Kateiko—”
My flail thudded into the dirt. I slid from Anwea and crumpled against Airedain.
“It’s okay. We’re here now.” He brushed damp hair from my face and wrapped an arm around me as animals thundered past.
He stood with me, keeping watch over the bluff. Water flowed over the cliffs in clear ribbons, following Iyo antayul into the depths of South Iyun Bel. The only Corvittai who fled our way fell with an Iyo woman’s javelin in his back. The sounds of battle faded. Horses ran past. The water ribbons cut off and slithered back into the sea.
“The healers will be here soon,” Airedain said. “You should get those wounds cleaned.”
“Not yet. My family . . . I have to find . . .”
“Come on then.” He picked up my flail and slid his hand into mine. He led me north, weaving between spruce and twisted pines. Anwea trailed behind us.
The dead lay everywhere. I saw Taworen with an arrow in his eye. A Tamu woman crushed by a horse. Yironem’s friend Umeril riddled with arrows. A seventeen-year-old Rin drummer I grew up with, sprawled across a Corvittai with her dagger in his stomach. The canoe carver I was caught kissing long ago, now too torn apart to tell what killed him. I vomited in a thicket after that.
I forced myself to look at them all, even the Corvittai. I wanted to see the faces of the people who did this to us. But there were no answers in their staring eyes or mangled bodies. Nonil’s words scratched at my mind. How could letting us live be worse than this?
A huddle of people had formed near a tangle of rotting logs. I pulled away from Airedain and forced my way through. Fendul knelt in the dirt. Relief washed over me — until I saw him cradling his father’s head in his lap.
Behadul stared up at the blue sky. His body was a mess of arrows and wounds, as much blood as skin. My chest suddenly felt too tight.
“Fen,” I whispered. I was supposed to call him Okorebai, but in that moment, he was just my friend. My family.
He looked up, his eyes hollow as the logs around us. I knelt and put my hand on his arm. The crowd trickled away. I heard voices, footsteps, wailing kinaru, but ignored it all until I heard Dunehein shouting.
“Go,” Fendul said. “I’ll be all right.”
I kissed his hair. “I’m sorry, Fen.”
I followed Dunehein’s voice until I found him on the far side of a copse. A broken spear jutted from his thigh. He towered like a bear, huge hands balled into fists.
“I have to go back!” he yelled at Mereku, the Iyo woman who’d helped us plan the ambush. “You don’t know for sure!”
“I saw her. And you can’t go like this. Not while the fire’s still burning—”
“Fuck the fire! That just means I have to get her out!” He curled his fists toward his chest like it took all his strength not to hit something.
“Dunehein—” Mereku reached out.
He twisted out of reach. “I just got her back! Nine years and I just got my mother back!”
My stomach wrenched. As he spoke, two women carried a body from the forest. A grey-streaked braid trailed in the dirt. I recognized Isu’s reddish-brown clothing. Everything else blurred into smudges of colour.
“Dune.”
He turned to me, then to where I pointed. His voice scraped like broken glass. “Nei. She can’t be — she can’t!”
I didn’t remember walking to him, only crumpling against him. I knotted my fingers into his long hair, unable to stop my shaking. The whole world was just the two of us clinging to each other.
“Kako.” He rested his chin on my head. Droplets landed on my hair. “It’s not fair. We just got her back—”
“I know.” The air clouded with mist, but I felt dry inside.
She was gone. Like losing my mother all over again. Isu had comforted me after the Dona war, kept me safe during the Storm Year, held me when I woke as a wolf. She suffered, too, but she locked away her grief and helped me carry mine.
I still heard her voice, the way she drew out my full name. I saw her smile as she spun warm summer rain into soaring birds. But I’d never hug her on my wedding day or hear her laugh as she played with my children’s tiny fingers. She gave her life so I’d have the chance Emehein never had — but she wouldn’t be there to share it with me.
Tears streamed down my cheeks when her words came back to me. I love you whether I’m with you or not.
33.
BLOOD & WATER
I had no idea how much time had passed when someone pulled me from Dunehein. I felt like a submerged log, buffeted by the ebb of footsteps and voices. A terrible weight kept me under. There was light somewhere, but I didn’t have the energy to reach for it.
It wasn’t until fire stabbed my leg that I broke the surface.
I clenched my teeth to stop from crying out. I was sitting on the ground against a boulder. A grey-braided man cleaned a palm-length wound on my thigh. He had a dolphin tattoo on his arm and a fan-shaped antayul mark on his chest.
Blood had painted flaking tracks through my mud camouflage. The healer ran a stream of water over my thigh, nudging it deep into the gash. Fresh blood began to flow. I held out until he started to remove bits of leaves and bark with a bone needle, and then a gasp escaped my teeth.
“I have tulanta, if you need something for the pain,” the man said.
“Nei.” My throat grated. “I don’t want the visions.”
Airedain took my hand and offered a lopsided smile. “You helped me at Skaarnaht. My turn now.”
I focused on his warm, calloused fingers. He hummed some familiar tune. Everything felt muted — the sticky air, the rock pressing into my spine, the crunch of evergreen needles as someone passed.
To stanch the bleeding, the healer packed a gauze bag of bogmoss into the gash. It smelled like seaweed and damp wood. He bound it with cottonspun bandages, and then repeated the process on a deep cut on my arm that I didn’t remember getting, shouldered his wicker carryframe, and moved on.
“Oh. Forgot about this.” Airedain stretched past me and took my flail down from a ledge on the boulders. “I cleaned it for ya.”
Sunlight gleamed on the iron spikes. I slid the flail into its leather sheath, but its weight on my belt was no longer a comfort. I already knew what to name it in memory of the first life it took. Antalei — waterfall, destroyer of fire.
Airedain sat back on his heels. “They’re still pulling people out of the forest. I should help, but if you need me to stay . . .”
“Go ahead. But can you . . . do on
e thing for me?”
“Yeah. Anything.”
I drew a shuddering breath. “There’s . . . three dead Corvittai in the lake, just off the main road. By a dead horse and kinaru feathers on shore. They don’t deserve to be left there.”
His mouth twisted, but he nodded. “I’ll get Jonalin to help me.”
“My dagger’s there too. It . . . it was my temal’s before he died.”
He nodded again and brushed dirt off his breeches. “Hang in there, Rin-girl.”
Once he had left, I glanced around. Twenty or so people rested on sun-browned conifer needles — a patchwork of purpling bruises, white and red bandages, auburn bark splints. The hastily-made camp was a triangle bordered by bluish salt spruce, rocks speckled with rust-orange lichen, and a wind-thrown cottonwood with green moss on the underside. Smoke turned it all into a haze of smeared colour.
Fendul leaned against a stump, talking to Tokoda. She sat cross-legged so they could see eye-to-eye. A gash ran from his left shoulder to his bottom right rib, sealed with gobs of sticky pine resin. The clear golden layer was rippled with red. Mereku and an Iyo man held Dunehein down while a woman worked the spear from his leg. He might’ve been cursing, but other people’s groans drowned him out. Hiyua’s arm was a bloody mess. She’d never fire a bow the same way. Orelein had bandages across his stomach.
Rin, Iyo, Tamu alike refilled waterskins, shared woven baskets of berries, passed around ice to numb wounds. A sombre excuse for a reunion feast. I knew who’d taken tulanta by their flickering eyes and trembling hands. An axe sang as a man cut saplings for stretchers. In the distance were rows of bodies, the Corvittai set apart from ours. I shuddered at how many there were. Flies buzzed past, lured by the stench of death.
I rested my head on the boulder and closed my eyes. Even the sun felt faint on my skin. I was sinking again, my lungs filling with water, the current threatening to pull me under. Should’ve taken the tulanta. Should’ve asked Airedain to stay. Should’ve died back in the forest.
The patchwork of bodies grew. I could tell without looking. The acrid reek of burnt hair and flesh overtook the mouldering smell of bogmoss. I heard hacking coughs, moans, a flurry of wings as scouts landed. And all the while, only the faintest of breezes nudged my skin.
