The Wings of War: Books 1-3: The Wings of War Box Set, Vol. 1

by Bryce O'Connor

  Syrah’s stomach twisted. “What a sick way to live,” she breathed angrily.

  Talo chuckled beside her. “Is it?” he asked, turning away from the window and limping to the far bed where his steel staff lay across the thick blankets. “I would ask you to think about something, then. Your family gave you to the temple because they loved you. They wanted you to have a better life than the one they might have given you. But what if you’d been born to a different place, Syrah? What if you’d been born into a home that would never have considered giving you to Laor, because you would be warm, wealthy, and content just where you were?”

  Staff in hand, he made for the door. “I’m going to meet with Jofrey. Don’t leave the inn, and think about what I’ve said. Would you—would any of us—if that were the case, be any different from the people down in that street?”

  And with that he gave her a knowing smile, opened the door, and left.

  For a long moment Syrah sat silently in the warm breeze by the sill, contemplating the man’s words. Would she? Would she be any different from the couple down in the street? She tried to imagine herself living lavishly, having anything she wanted, doing anything she wanted. She smiled a little, thinking of her cool room in Cyurgi’ Di. While it was far from petty, with its deerskin rug thrown over the stone floor by the bed and its plentiful bookshelves and candles, it was so much farther from lavish. For a moment she felt some odd sliver of what might have been joy as she thought of having her own marble-cut fireplace, or maybe even an expensive glass-paned door that led out to a private garden, its small pine grove and stream covered in snow. She could eat on a carved cedar bench and watch the water flow, warm under her thick furs, sending for more of anything she happened to finish too quickly.

  Abruptly, Syrah stopped smiling.

  Would she be able to give that up? If she had those things, would she be able to just throw them all away?

  Lying was not a sin to the Laorin. It was frowned upon, and punishment was administered for lies of import, but Laor understood that there was no such thing as flawless character. To be human—even when it came to his followers—was too often to be untruthful.

  Still, while she could lie to her instructors about studying for a lesson, or to Talo about where she’d been all night, Syrah couldn’t lie to herself. And her conscience was telling her that she didn’t know if she would be able to give such wonderful things away as easily as she dispensed of her copper coins…

  Syrah felt her cheeks flush with anger at the thought. What kind of person was she, then? If she couldn’t give away overly extravagant comfort in the name of the Lifegiver, did that make her any better than the wealthy sneering at the pleading faces of the beggars in the street below?

  No, she thought bitterly. It didn’t.

  She had to leave, she realized. She had to get out, to clear her head, if only for a little while. Talo had told her not to go anywhere, but even as she stepped away from the window the walls of their wide room seemed to warp, tightening around her. Making a decision, Syrah crossed the floor, lifting her robes off the dull iron hook by the doorframe. Stripping out of her cotton shirt and pants, she tugged the silk over her head, letting it fall to the floor. Grabbing her gloves and veil from the cupboard in the corner, she practically ran out the door, letting it shut behind her with a bang.

  CHATPER 18

  The North and South are so called because never at any point in recorded history have the two great lands been more than a divided rabble of smaller governing forces individually struggling to consolidate their own power. There are those to this day, in fact, who believe a mistake was made with the eradication of the slave rings in the mid and late 800s. Even now, a hundred years later, some say it would be better to be united under a ring of murderers and thieves than separately ruled by politicians who are weak, greedy, and corrupt…

  —The Cienbal, by Adolûs Fenn

  “—and here’s for the nopales. It was a good season, so they shouldn’t be more than a baron a dozen, at least if you get them from Jillia. See if you can find kindling, too. We’re running low, and I don’t want to dig into our reserves for the summer season too soon.”

  Raz nodded, accepting the handful of coins his father dropped into his palm. It was common enough that he be the one asked to do most of the weekly shopping, but he still leapt on the chance. He was ever keen to get out of the camp and explore the markets. The pickpockets and beggars didn’t bother him, or at least hadn’t tried to yet, and if he finished early his parents let him wander a little deeper into Karth, near the wealthier quarters of the city. He always loved to see the marble fountains and colored-glass windows, the steel gates enclosing manicured gardens. They, and so many other things, were small marvels that the Cienbal would forever be lacking.

  “Nopales, bread wheat, a carving knife, meat, and kindling if I can find it,” he repeated the list. “Got it. Anything else?”

  “Not that I can think of,” Agais said, shaking his head before he and Jarden went back to repairing one of the Grandmother’s wagon wheels. Rot had gotten at the old wood, cracking it. “Get yourself something to eat if you’re out late. Dinner might be cold by the time you wander back, knowing you.”

  Raz stuck his tongue out at his father, who laughed. Jarden smirked, reaching under the makeshift table they were working on and pulling out his staff. He threw it to Raz, who caught it in surprise.

  “Not that you need it, but it’ll keep those wandering hands of yours busy.”

  Raz snorted. It was a common joke amongst the Arros. Barely a few months after they’d adopted him he’d apparently tried to steal half a dried ham from a neighboring clan’s tent, not understanding the concept of barter and trade. He’d been too young to remember the details, but the story went that in the end Agais had to pay for the meat in full and then some just to settle the matter without issue. No one had ever let Raz live it down.

  Still, the bleached wood felt good in his hands and—even with the long knife strapped to his thigh—it never hurt to be prepared. He nodded his thanks, pocketing the coins before turning and heading around the small horse corral out of the wagon ring. He wore simple clothes, the white silk mantle around his shoulders serving more of a practical purpose than a pompous one. Just because he was better suited to the heat didn’t mean he liked it any more than the next person. The silk was perfect for blocking out the sun without making him feel like he was standing in an oven. It draped behind him a little dramatically but—considering the alternative was walking around in the broiling glare all day—he could suffer it.

  It was a twenty-minute walk to the market even not weighed down with a hundred pounds of goods and coin, but Raz didn’t mind. He liked this time, this brief privacy. It gave him a moment alone to think and take in the city around him. It was interesting, for example, how there was no steady change in the buildings drawing closer to the slums. The houses were all tall and solid, well maintained and cared for. Most of them were two stories high, unlike the structures beyond and around the market street. A few even had faded murals decorating their walls, or brown tendrils of some Sun-resistant vine hanging from iron-wrought balconies.

  But as Raz left these small middle-class parts of the city for the shantytowns and market, it always made him sad to see the line appear right before he reached the busy shopping streets.

  The alley was twice as wide there, as though the quarter’s architect had aspired to erect a deliberate, tangible barrier between the slum dwellers and the wealthier citizens. On one side were the grander homes, tall and clean—if not so regal as the estates in the eastern parts of the city—and on the other were the shacks and hovels, the decrepit buildings that were only currently falling apart if they were lucky. Most were worn down by the elements or age, and crumbling walls and ceilings were more common than doors. The people were no better off. They were shells, empty husks all starving or sick or both. Even when Raz tossed a baron or two to them, they didn’t leap for the coins until after
he’d rounded the corner.

  The slum dwellers frightened him, in a way. Not because they themselves were threatening, but rather because every year the Arros returned to any particular city the number of beggars lining the streets seemed to double.

  His mind elsewhere, the walk to the markets took no time at all. When Raz finally stepped into the busy street, he pulled down his thin hood, welcoming the coolness of the scattered angular shadows from the shops and covered stalls and colored ribbons that overlapped and crossed overhead. He sniffed, making a face at the reek of sweat and unwashed bodies mixed with the smells of food and perfume and fire.

  The trouble with Jillia, the vendor the Arros bought most of their supplies from, was that she was always moving around. A nomad from the Ashani family before she’d married a trim, she was superstitious about staying in one spot along the market street for more than a few days, claiming her business eventually waned if she did. Raz always had to stop a few people and ask if they’d seen her before he had any luck, and today was no different. After nearly a quarter hour and a dozen dirty looks, an old woman pointed him in the right direction, offering a rare smile when he thanked her. Turning west down the street, Raz made his way through the crowd, cutting his usual swath, people hurrying to get out of the way. The few he recognized he nodded to, but mostly he just kept his eyes out for Jillia.

  He was so preoccupied with his search, in fact, that he almost missed the eccentric figure walking calmly along the left side of the road.

  She was a tall woman. Or girl? He couldn’t be sure. Her face was covered by a faintly opaque shroud of pale silk, and her robes, their wide hood pulled up over her head, were much like his cape, white and light so as to fend off the Sun. Had he been able to raise an eyebrow he would have, though, when he saw that her hands were gloved and her feet booted in the same bleached leather.

  He could only imagine how much she was sweating under there…

  Suddenly the girl’s face glanced toward him, and he turned away quickly, unsure of whether she was looking at him or not. He thought he saw her stop and watch him pass, but it was at that moment that he caught sight of Jillia’s tent a short distance down the street. Keeping his eyes resolutely forward, he kept walking, ignoring the figure in white.

  A nun of some kind, probably, dressed like that. Or a madwoman who suspected she might be a Star. Whatever the case, Raz wanted nothing to do with it.

  Syrah was feeling much better.

  Then again, she’d expected it. This was almost always how it was with Talo’s teachings. At first she would be hit with the blunt end of his lesson, and for a while the blow would throb. Then, once she’d calmed down, what Talo had actually been saying would come to the forefront.

  Do you see the relation? he had asked her. The difference?

  No. She hadn’t.

  But now, her eyes on the ground as she headed back to the Ovana after nearly two hours out on her own, exploring the sprawling market street, she was starting to.

  It didn’t matter what she could have been if things were different. They could have been. Maybe that was the relation. How Syrah felt now, in the present and in the eyes of her own conscience, that was what mattered. How she hated the fact that she couldn’t do more. That she prayed every night for the ability to give these starving people what they needed. These were the thoughts that counted, not the false greed of some daydream.

  The difference was she was not, in reality, that twisted version of herself.

  Smiling slightly, her mind clear again, she lifted her head.

  And stopped dead.

  Talo had told her more than once not to stare, but this time there was no helping it. Syrah gaped openly at the back of the tall reptilian figure that had passed her with barely a curious glance at her shrouded face. He—for she could only imagine it was a he—moved on without looking back, but Syrah stood her ground, turning to watch him pass. His blunt, tapered snout gleamed in the bright sun, several needlelike teeth protruding randomly from beneath his upper and lower lips. His skin was scaly, black with a hinted tinge of mottled green, and his webbed, spined ears were clear blue with just the faintest suggestion of fiery orange along the base. Some kind of loose crest hung against the back of his head and neck, shining the same color as his ears, as did the leathery membranes of the great wings tucked tight to his back. He wore merchant’s clothes, dressed almost like some of the traveling traders that frequently bartered with the city folk along the road, and a long cape of similar white silk as her own robes hung to the heels of his feet. Not only did Syrah see with a shock that he walked on the ball of his clawed feet, but when the mantle shifted she realized that a tail extended from the base of the lizard-man’s loose trousers, held above the dirt, swaying like a thick snake with each step. He walked with a staff in one hand, the tall piece of white wood looking much shorter than it was in his grasp, and when he stopped to speak to a woman selling all kinds of food from her stall, Syrah saw the simple iron chain that hung from his right ear to right nostril.

  So he was a nomad?

  “Miss? Misses?”

  Syrah jumped, turning around. A man was standing behind her, bent over and cowering, seemingly afraid to come any closer. One of his eyes was bandaged and bloody, and he held his right hand close to his chest as though it were hurt.

  “Y-yes?” Syrah gasped. Her mind wasn’t completely off the fact that a giant walking—and apparently talking—lizard was standing not twenty paces down the road.

  What other surprises did these southern lands hold?

  “You’re the one who’s been helpin’ all the slum folk, ain’t ya’?” the man asked hopefully, looking sideways at her with his one good eye. “Miss, please, please help. My wife and me—we got jumped by some a’ them streeters! She ain’t doin’ too well, miss. Please help!”

  “Oh,” Syrah breathed, suddenly concerned. “My Priest-Mentor would be better. I don’t know much about healing just yet, I’m only—”

  “Tell me where he is and I’ll go get him!” the injured man squeaked pleadingly, taking a step forward. “But please! Please come see her! She needs help!”

  Syrah was torn. Talo would be mad enough when she got back, since he had undoubtedly realized by now that she wasn’t at the inn anymore…

  Still, he would probably be madder if she risked a life by running to him first.

  “Where is she?” she asked, making up her mind and bending down so she could get a better look at the man through her cowl.

  His face brightened. “Follow me!” he positively squealed, turning and hurriedly limping along the edge of the throng, back up the road. Syrah followed, hiking her robes and jogging to keep up, dodging around a lady juggler and the half-dozen spectators that were watching her. They kept to the side of the crowds, people giving them coy glances when they brushed past. It wasn't long before they stopped in front of a decrepit old hut right along the side of the market. Dodging into a narrow alley, the man tugged aside the shredded old rags that served to cover the entrance, holding them open for her. Syrah ducked her head and slipped in, happy to be in the shade and looking around. The house was made up of two small rooms separated by a single wall, with little more than a large hole in it to pass as a door. It was dusty and stale, with the dead air of a place that hadn’t been used in years. At once Syrah got the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

  Too late.

  She only had time to realize that there was no sign of an injured woman on the dirt floor that she could see when a thick arm clamped around her waist and a hand covered her mouth over her shroud. She screamed, the sound muffled, kicking out. In response she was lifted clear off the ground. Several men appeared from the other room, all smiling and a few laughing quietly. The man she’d followed stepped out from behind whoever it was that was holding her captive, no longer stooped. Grinning, he pulled off the bandages to reveal a perfectly healthy second eye.

  “You’ll be proud to know, no doubt,” he said, stepping for
ward while Syrah continued to struggle, his eyes raking her body, “tha’ you’re the first fish ta’ bite on that bait in a good long while. Most people just give me the boot. Or a copper, if’n I’m real lucky.”

  Syrah kicked out, trying to catch him in the face and screaming again into the hand that covered her mouth. The man laughed, jumping back out of reach. Then he darted forward and slammed a fist into her gut.

  Hard.

  All the air whooshed out of Syrah’s lungs, and she gagged, almost throwing up. She was struggling to inhale when the silk veil was ripped from her face, revealing it, but before she could take a breath to scream again the hand was back, clamping her jaw shut. Her eyes watered. She struggled to breathe, fighting the arm around her waist.