Ayanakalia

My name is Ayanakalia, or “light bringer of the gods.” I was born on the island of Halonnesos, and my destiny is to end its curse.

When I told my mother this, she carried me to the last living priestess on the island. The elder covered me in holy symbols and left me in a cave to test whether my words were true, or whether they were tricks of the unsettled, vengeful spirits who haunt our deadly waters and prevent any outsiders from reaching our land. It is because of them that we have dwindled, both in importance and in number, and it’s why now, two decades later, we have no priestess or even an acolyte remaining to guide us.

If I could truly end the curse, they thought then, it would give them hope, something that doesn’t come often on an island such as ours.

But we are living in a time when magic has seeped from our ordinary fingers and retreated deep into our bones. We no longer hear the voices of gods, no longer see dark spirits flame out at sunrise or watch monsters frolic beneath the obscuring waves. We are, as they say, ordinary humans, and the first to lose sight of our ancestors, the gods.

So when I toddled from the cavern with half the symbols wiped off, the old priestess only stroked my fat cheeks and pondered. “Eh, perhaps she will end the curse. We’ll have to see.”

About our curse, it’s fairly recent as far as these things go, so everyone knows the smallest details about it.

Our island was once pleasant, with swift-moving, deep water and safe passages onto calm shores. In our great house lived a proud man whose face still showed the potent traces of his demigod ancestors. He pursued a woman who was meant to be a priestess, and she gave up the gods for him, but she made all the right sacrifices to deflect their wrath. She bore him seven sons who each bore seven grandsons. The isle, and all who visited it, prospered.

But then, as is the case sometimes, they argued and grew bitter, and one day, his fury overwhelmed his sense. He pushed her off a cliff onto body-shattering rocks below.

The change came in an instant.

With her death, the love that had sheltered the great house cracked. The ground trembled. Fissures split the seabed and the safe passages drained away with the gentle waves. In its place darted monstrous currents that tore away anyone who tried to come near, and bound tight anyone who tried to leave.

Then the true curse was revealed.

The men of the great house grew ill. The proud grandfather withered. My memories of him are of a hunched-over shell of a man with milky eyes, recessed teeth, and clawed hands with skin thinner than a bee’s wing.

The wives who were with child did not produce one living baby. Those who were not yet pregnant could never become so, and any island girl who married into the house became barren.

It spread outward, to the villages, and even affected the animals.

The curse settled on us like the thick, dark fog that smothers our chilled, sun-starved crops.

And in the great house, where it began, lies the deepest pool of poison.

* * *

When I was born, our island still had four towns.

Now that I am of age, we have only one small village left.

There is also a family who clings with dogged persistence to the outpost rock across the bay. We communicate in signals. They are fiercely determined to live there, just beyond the sharpened fingernails of the spirits, and unlike us, their ships set sail on calm waters and their nets fill easily with fish.

The drawing in of our beleaguered people began before my birth, and I grew up in the shadows cast by the tall, cracked stone walls of the great house. In those shadows, I witnessed every type of death. It felt familiar, comfortable. I didn’t understand it was supposed to be a rarity.

In the indigo nights and pale underbellies of mornings the newly departed visited my dreams. The great house’s sons, their widows, grandsons. Entire branches of the great house were struck down, swallowed by long illnesses, bad luck, and strange accidents. Finally, the cavernous great house was inhabited only by the gray-haired youngest son, his dolorous wife, and seven final grandsons.

Because I knew it was my destiny, my curiosity for the empty place was insatiable. I would toss rocks into the courtyard and make an excuse to go in and collect them. The eldest grandson, Arinthos, often caught me by the dried-up fountain and sent me home.

“Don’t walk late along the sea path,” he’d warn me, his black hair slick with sweat from whatever task he’d undertaken to arrest his family’s crumbling fortunes. The house, like their lineage, was infirm, and there were too few hands to restore it. “If you miss your step, you’ll fall, and we don’t need any more of the gods’ anger.”

“I’m going to end the curse,” I told him earnestly.

He laughed and patted my head. “No, little one. I’m going to end the curse.”

Truth burst upon me in a rare vision. “Yes. You are.”

His smile faded.

This, I think, was the first time I wronged him.

Shadows have never bothered me. Like the caverns where the last priestess used to commune with spirits, I find the sunless chill familiar, the numbness welcome.

And although I can’t interpret omens as our last priestess did, I can close my eyes and see things that do not exist in our living world.

It is dangerous.

The world beyond ours is amorphous and changing, always. It slips backward and forward in time, and when I peer into it, I do not only see what is, even though it feels present and real. I am most drawn to the visions of what I most wish to see.

But I didn’t know it then. The last priestess was already dead by this time. She left no acolytes, no one to guide me.

So I faced this man, and I told him, determined, “We are going to end the curse. You’ll see.”

“Run along,” Arinthos said gruffly and turned away.

And the very next day, he successfully took himself off the island and went bride hunting.

It is possible to leave our island, but it requires passing through sacred caverns to a hidden shoreline only accessible during the lowest tides, and then crossing the violent seas to the outpost rock. Ordinary men cannot make the necessary leaps across the fissures and chasms. Older cousins and uncles, who’d also had the blood of Arinthos’s demigod ancestor in their veins, died trying. But he made it out and was gone for years.

After his parents’ deaths, he returned to assume the mantle of the new head of the great house, and he became both more divine and also more bitter. He’d wished to bring home a wife so his parents could die in peace, and he’d failed, crushingly.

“I was so focused on relieving their burdens that I missed their final words,” Arinthos told me at the dry fountain, hollow eyed with regret. “And now I’ll never see them again.”

“You can,” I corrected. During our years apart, my body had filled out as an adult, but my mind was still dangerously lacking in wisdom. “They’re still here.”

He looked up. “They’re trapped here? You can see them?”

“Yes, like all the other spirits that have died from the curse.”

This is the second time that I did him a great wrong.

I told him his parents were trapped here. I told him his whole family was confined, unable to escape to the Elysian Fields where the faithful dead may rest. I told him it was his fault.

No, I didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation. But because I was a precocious youth, I was blinded by the correctness of my convictions, the vividness of the knowledge inscribed in my soul.

His face whitened. He clenched a scarred fist. “I will go out again. Farther, to lands where they don’t know of our curse. Kidnap a bride if I must.”

“You don’t have to go anywhere.” I pressed my palm to my swelling chest. “I’m going to end the curse.”

His gaze stuck to me, eyes narrowed. “No, I will.”

“We’ll do it together. We’ll free your parents. Free everyone.”

He chuckled uneasily, told me to take care along the sea path, and trudged into the house.

The next day, he again took the route to escape the island.

But this time, he fell in the cavern and broke his leg. He walked unevenly ever after.

That was the end of his attempts to leave the island.

* * *

I came of age like a dark omen, filled with frightening confidence and strange potency. Everyone saw it. As an adult, I knew exactly how to end the curse, and I was unafraid to share the knowledge widely.

And one day, Arinthos took me at my word and married me.

“Your grandmother bore seven sons,” I told him and his six brothers urgently at the cracked fountain where we had just entwined our lives. “She stepped into the shadow world seven times and exchanged a piece of her soul to bring forth a baby. But after her death—”

“Don’t speak of that time.” Arinthos wrinkled his nose. His six brothers looked unhappy as well. “Today is a day of celebration. Soon, the bad years will be forgotten. Our era begins now.”

“—only six stillbirths were recorded,” I said, unstoppable, in my bridal finery of an ankle-length dress with intricate wildflowers and pomegranates stitched along the hem. “The last priestess told your grandfather what must happen. We’ve all known. There needs to be a seventh blood offering—”

“There will be no more blood.”

“—and I will offer it. Then, yes, there will be no more, and the curse will end.”

“Wife. Hear me.” He clasped my cold hands firmly in his gloved fingers. The leather tips were worn through, and his fingertips matched my chill. “I’ve told you time and again. I’m ending the curse. With our marriage, you will bear me seven sons and we will rebuild our great house to be even better than in my grandfather’s time.”

As he spoke, he glowed with a greenish outline of power. The blood of his demigod ancestor flowed in him, prouder and stronger, perhaps, than his ordinary human sinews could stretch to contain it.

But I only saw that his grandfather had the strength to bind a priestess truly valued by the gods. So, the proud grandson surely also had the strength to slip loose those bindings, to free the grandmother and every other spirit unjustly caught in their unfortunate trap.

“I will,” I agreed. “After the first child, which has to be—”

“The beginning of a new era.” He drew me to him. “Our first child will be born strong and live a long, happy life.”

“No, actually—”

“A question,” the second brother Hadmete said, and I looked to him, missing whatever expression my new husband must have shown me for publicly and insistently contradicting him. “Everyone who’s married into our family has become barren. Why are you so certain that won’t be your fate?”

“Because she’s marrying me,” Arinthos said. “And I will end the curse.”

“The others refused,” I said blithely, answering the question. “When they were called upon in dreams, they refused to give up their babies to the sacrifice. I will do what must be done so the curse is satisfied.”

“You will not have to.” Arinthos squeezed my fingers, kissed my knuckles. “I will keep you both safe.”

“Actually—”

“Come. This is a disagreement for another hour. For now, we begin our life together.” He drew me to the hall, where, for the first time in years, candles glowed on a sumptuous feast. The entire village attended.

It was a wedding feast exactly like my girlish dreams. Seated at the head of the great house, married to a handsome man who I thought must love me simply because we were entangled in the same prophecy, and lavished with the few remaining fineries on the island. You understand? I was blinded by what I wished to see.

My mother attended our wedding feast. She gave me hand-stitched linens, a wedding nightgown, all the cloth she’d saved, and she wreathed my hair in fall husks and winterberry. Even though she was suffering from exhaustion, she kissed my forehead, trying to call down any blessing.

“It’s unfolding just as you always wanted.” She pulled back, glanced at my new husband, and then at me. Worry filled her dark, baggy eyes. “I hope it’s enough.”

“I’ll end the curse,” I assured her. “I know how. You’ll see. You’ll all see.”

She brushed my cheek.

I thought she doubted me. I was as determined to prove myself to her as I was to prove myself to my new husband.

But now, I think, she wasn’t questioning my knowledge or conviction to end the curse. She, like any experienced adult, could see that which I could not. Or perhaps she had a touch of divinity herself. It’s said our other sight strengthens as we grow closer to the time of stepping across. Only a few months later, shortly before I started to show, my mother went quietly into her final sleep.

My husband and brothers-in-law worried about me incessantly. I reassured them that I saw my mother’s spirit as clearly as I saw them sitting around the table with me, and the only difference was the position of my eyelids. They didn’t like that at all. But my brothers-in-law were assiduously kind, and during the long, cold winter, I got to know them better.

Hadmete, second oldest, was contemplative and thoughtful, a kindly philosopher of the natural world.

The loyal third brother, Ashiren, followed my husband around and let himself be bossed into the most ridiculous quests.

The fourth and fifth brothers, Kurinthos and Larinthos, were so quick to laugh, they couldn’t help but turn everything into a joke.

The musical sixth brother, Jusitis, spent endless hours playing strings and flute in the upper windows, dreaming of journeys he would never take because we do not leave this island.

The seventh brother, Midaren, carved wood and stone with the finest skill. When I started to show, he made me a gorgeous rocking cradle for my baby. I appreciated it, of course, but I told him it wasn’t necessary, and his eyes were sad as he started a secret project for me, a treasured box to hold her remains.

My husband’s joy in our growing child was like a cloak that still has the hemming needles in, a prickling warmth that both comforts and stings. I craved it, and I drew it closer in the cold nights, but I was afraid to look too closely or else I knew I’d have to acknowledge the scarring…

He told me over and over, as if simply repeating the words would be enough, while he stroked my hair and my swelling belly, “She will be strong. We won’t give her up to just anyone. On her wedding day to a worthy prince, I’ll remind you of this time and you’ll feel silly. I’ll fight the curse with my bare hands.”

I let him talk because I wanted it to be true.

Feeling her move inside me changed something.

I understood, finally, how the past wives had felt.

Before, I’d thought, of course I’ll give up my child to the spirits who come to take her. It will be easy. I’ve seen it happen many times. What is death but a little separation?

But then I felt her warmth, her spirit, her vitality. She wanted to be born, and I wanted to hold her, cuddle her, watch her grow. I did want to honor her in an adulthood ceremony. I wanted to stand beside my husband and watch her take a husband, brush her forehead as she bore her own children. Why couldn’t my fate be her fate too?

And so when my husband insisted, with those too-bright eyes, that he would break the curse with his bare hands, I stopped contradicting him.

Demigods of old, I think, could challenge fate and alter destinies. They could escape any curse, outrun or outsmart the screeching erinyes who punish contract breakers with sorrow and madness, defeat even the vengeful gods.

But we are not living in that time.

When the spring storms gave way to summer heat, my husband found the casket.

He destroyed it with his bare hands and brought the broken pieces to me, at the breakfast table with the other brothers, and shook the fistful of splinters in my face. “Is this truly how you feel? Is this how you plot against me? Betray me? What of all my assurances, my vows? Do my words mean nothing?”

I stood heavily. “I want to believe you, but—”

“Then do!” He shoved me back into the chair.

I landed hard, shocked.

Hadmete jumped to his feet and caught my husband’s shoulder. “Calm yourself. She was just—”

Arinthos turned and slammed his fist into Hadmete’s face.

Hadmete staggered back, hands cupping his nose. Blood seeped between his fingers.

The others watched in horror.

But they did nothing.

My husband turned back to me, fist still clenched.

My shock drained away, and divine fury poured into me. I stood slowly, and I stared him down. My voice deepened as I pointed at him, and his grandmother’s terrifying spirit spoke through my throat.

“If you harm her as your grandfather harmed me, you will feed the curse instead of killing it. This house will fall to rubble. Giant waves will sweep across this land, leaving nothing but your sun-bleached bones, exposed, dishonored, and unmourned. Choose wisely, my grandson. You have a great and terrible power over the fates of everyone else on this island.”

My husband breathed unevenly.

I eased back into my seat like a queen resuming her throne and didn’t take my eyes off his.

His brows lifted as the words penetrated. He unclenched his fist, wiped spittle from the corner of his mouth.

Hadmete whimpered, still bleeding.

His other brothers watched, frozen in their seats.

And then, apparently, my eyes rolled back in my head, and I collapsed.

* * *

You know what happened next. You do. Of course you do.

In my visions, when time runs backward and forward all at once, I’m telling this story to my children. They gather around me in my husband’s lush vineyard. My older children mind the younger, keeping their fat fingers from pinching off the tender leaves along with the caterpillars and pests that enjoy the sweet fruits as we do. Smoke from the barbecue pits drifts across our baskets and makes us salivate. My eldest sons caught a great fish, and we’re celebrating the birth of yet another niece. After the feast, when we’re all full to bursting, our prayers of thankfulness drift up to the starry sky. I rest my tired head on Arinthos’s broad shoulder, and he pats me with the love a husband should have for his wife. The great house, resplendent in its glory, shelters us with pride.

Visions are dangerous things.

What actually happened is that our disagreement over our first baby’s fate grew more silent, more entrenched. It seeped into every decision like invisible fingers of poison.

As a first-time mother on an island with few births, I had practical concerns. I spent days questioning the more experienced grandmothers, hoping and planning, but when my time came, my husband denied them entry. He had even less knowledge than me, but his terror and determination to control the outcome caused him to make up tasks. If I said enough prayers, if I prayed to the right gods, if I walked in a semicircle, if I suppressed my moans, then everything would be right. We passed a whole night, much of it in nonsense, and I’m sure I had a longer and harder labor because of him.

For that, if for nothing else, I do not forgive him.

In fact, the birth went fine, as I knew it would. He was so stupidly relieved. As I rested with our newborn daughter, he said, “See? We’ve broken the curse.”

And before I could summon the will to refute him, again, he carried out the basket of bloodied cloths and sent his third brother to let the grandmothers return and clean me up for the final time.

But a birth does not end with the emergence of the child.

When he left me, I still had one foot firmly in the realm of shadows.

I tried to thwart fate, though. I did, in fact, try.

In the last moments before dawn, I held my small daughter to my chest. My breasts swelled, and even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to, I offered one to her. There was still a small part of me, I think, that wished to believe my husband. Wished for her to be mine, to keep her for more than these few moments.

If she had taken my breast, supped on the milk of the living world, I don’t know what would have happened.

But she knew her destiny just as I’ve always known mine.

She turned her small face away.

And I allowed her.

That’s when it happened.

Sunrise burned through the bare windows, bright and piercing. People like me, born after the curse, have never truly felt its harsh heat. It scored my eyes with strange shapes and colorful spots.

My daughter reached her tiny fingers up toward it and made a croaking sound.

Of course.

I inched upright, braced against the wall, and staggered, as carefully as I could, into the sunlight. I leaned against the window well. The sunlight bathed us together. I held her so gently.

She never cried, my daughter. Never took that deep breath, never screamed like a living infant. But for a few moments, she breathed the living air, heard the living insects, felt the living warmth. Lived. And for those of us who have countless moments piled on top of each other like forgetful sand, we do not realize how beautiful and precious each grain truly is. Those who have only a few moments know that every single one is a gemstone. Even one grain is a wonderful thing.

As we stood together, her great-grandmother descended and entered the room with us. I saw her with my own eyes, blinded by the sunspots, and I saw her with my eyes closed, on the inside of my eyelids. She was here, in the flesh and also in the spirit.

She stood magnificent in a rich headdress, mounds of beads and gemstones tinkling around her neck, bracelets and anklets, her dark hair glistening with strings of iridescent gold feathers, and her long gown stitched with finery. Shimmering lions with golden bird’s wings padded after her. Great eagles soared overhead, and monstrous whales in the calm, deep water blew spouts so high, they dusted us with rainbows.

She reached over to take my daughter.

I did not stop her.

She picked up my daughter’s body.

But instead of scooping up the body, all that came away in her arms was my daughter’s spirit. The great-grandmother held her spirit aloft in the sunlight. Together, they glowed, radiant. My daughter’s spirit gurgled happily and reached for the ticklish feathers. Her great-grandmother smiled and gave one to her, and the whole room filled with joy.

Then she looked at me.

Her eyes were kind but sad. She didn’t want this ending any more than I did, but rituals cast in blood must be satisfied in kind, and she had made her choices when she was brash and young, the same as I did. Her overconfidence became our sorrow.

She tucked my daughter’s soul into the crook of her arm. My daughter played quietly with the gold feather. The great-grandmother nodded to me and drifted out the window, the ghostly lions leaping before and after her to clear the way and protect them on their return journey.

I rotated to watch them, my heart twisting with helpless pain.

Behind me, in the world of the living, my husband entered our room. He dropped the tray and shouted, “What are you doing?”

Outside the window, his grandmother raised her palm in warning.

Sunlight flooded our room, blinding us both.

And then it faded back to an ordinary light. All the spirits were gone.

Including my daughter’s.

I stood at the window cradling her still-wrapped body to my chest.

It is unfair. None of us wanted this. But I know my daughter is with her ancestors, treasured and loved, and they are at peace. Someday, I will join them. Death is only a small separation. We will, all of us, meet again.

My husband repeated, in a horrified whisper, “What have you done?”

I smoothed my daughter’s birthing cloths neatly around her as I considered what words might reach him. Her cloths glowed white in the unfamiliar, bright sunlight.

A clever person would lie. Pacify him with half-truths. Say that I was cold, that I wanted to feel the warmth of the sun for the first time. Pretend I didn’t notice she had died, and wasn’t such a thing normal, common even? Babies are too close to the shadows, and the deathly winds are too fierce. Their grip on our world isn’t always strong.

But he had the green glow in him. He saw things even if he twisted their meanings. We were far beyond lies.

He advanced on me. His lip curled. “Betrayal.”

“We ended the curse.” I backed into the wall, my voice ragged. “With our daughter.”

“You killed her.”

“Look at the sun.” My knees trembled. I shifted her still body in my arms, wrapped her more tightly to me, tucked her into my own thin, stained robes. “You can finally see the sea. And it is calm.”

“You.” He grabbed my elbow painfully and dragged us through the house. “Betrayed. Me!”

His brothers exclaimed at our passage.

And then they realized.

They scrambled after us through the dusty garden and away from the great house, shouting at him to stop, to wait, to calm down.

I stumbled, and he dragged me, but I did not let go of our shroud-wrapped daughter. I would not let him treat her badly. I kept thinking, even if he does not, I will honor her. She deserves that much.

Arinthos dragged me to the edge of the cliff and stopped. He looked out over the calm sea. And then he looked down at me.

I had no breath, so it was not my voice that came from my throat. “I will curse you seven times seven.”

His face contracted with fury. “Then I’ll be the one to end it!” He threw me over the cliff.

Or he tried.

His brothers attacked him, and his murderous push turned into a weak shove as they dragged him back. Only my feet slipped, and I landed at the very edge of the cliff.

Arinthos roared as everyone fought him but his third brother, the loyal one. Ashiren stood back with hands over his mouth, frozen. And yet, despite their greater numbers, Arinthos more than held his own.

“Help her!” Hadmete shouted at Ashiren.

Ashiren’s eyes widened, but he didn’t move.

Hadmete left the fight, ran to me, and stumbled. Rocks clattered past me and fell a hundred feet, smashed on the unforgiving black rocks below. He crawled more carefully to the tilted, crumbling edge and grabbed me under my elbow.

“Hold on. I’ve got you.” Hadmete took a deep breath to pull us up to safety.

My husband appeared behind him with a tree branch. Somehow, he’d fought off all the others and picked up this weapon. I shrieked, but it was already too late. He swung the branch at the back of Hadmete’s head. Crack. Hadmete collapsed, releasing me, and my lower body slid over the side so I was half on, half off the cliff.

A great flash of lightning split the cloudless sky.

Everyone stopped, shocked.

Except my husband, who raised the branch to strike me square in the forehead.

Kurinthos and Larinthos jumped on him.

He dropped the branch, and they fought.

Hadmete breathed a terrible rattle, and his spirit sat up, above his body. Still connected to the living world by a thin thread, his spirit blinked at me uncertainly.

There is too much death on this island, and Hadmete was always kind to me. I wished there was something, anything, I could do to help him.

But if it was his time, there was nothing I could do, and anyway, the gods look unkindly on mere mortals who try to change someone else’s fate.

The crumbling earth beneath my feet gave way, and I slid farther down the cliff onto a small goat’s ledge, now beyond arm’s reach from the top of the cliff.

The ground trembled with a terrible warning.

Beneath me, the seawater flowed in strangely. It covered the black rocks, swelled over the tidemarks, and flooded the island interior.

Jusitis and Midaren shouted for me to hang on. They forded the rising tide pushing a small boat.

A rogue current tore the boat away from them. It shoved them back, pinning them to the cliff’s face. They helped each other up onto land.

My husband appeared above me again. Bloodied, wild. He swung the branch at me.

I ducked.

The branch brushed my shoulder.

I came unbalanced and nearly fell off the ledge.

He got on his knees and raised the branch to strike me.

“You were supposed to end the curse!” I shrieked at him.

“I will.” His eyes glowed. “Without you!”

He shoved me with the branch.

The branch punched my shoulder, and abruptly, there was nothing beneath me but air. I clutched my daughter’s bundle to my chest, sheltering her as we fell.

We did not fall far.

The ocean swelled up like a hand, and we landed in the outstretched palm. The water was warm and buoyant, pushing me to the surface as our elevation dropped down again, lowering us to shore level. I struggled to keep my head up, soggy clothes tangling my limbs.

The small boat gently bumped me.

I managed to put my daughter’s body into it and clawed my way onboard, then lay boneless and shaking from exhaustion. The boat sped away, carried by the receding tsunami. Silhouetted on the cliffs, my brothers-in-law gathered around the fallen Hadmete, except for Ashiren, still frozen with horror, not having done anything to help either side.

My husband stared after me, a lone figure of malice. He was my last vision as the angry black clouds descended again, like a cloak, and furious waves sprayed up to the very roof of the great house.

That was three days ago.

I do not know the island’s fate.

Now, I toss and turn on the swiftly moving boat, speeding by the gods’ hands across the unfamiliar, bright ocean.

My daughter and I ended the curse, blood for blood, and I did not die by my husband’s hand. His brothers even tried to save me, most of them. I do not think they would be cursed seven times seven. They tried.

But my husband’s treatment of me, and especially of our daughter, did not pass unnoticed.

My mother tells me this. She sits beside me on the lip of the boat and covers my forehead with a damp cloth to shield me from the fierce sun. I am used to the dense fog of Halonnesos, the chill shadows of holy caverns. Three days without food and very little water, after I’d already been through so much laboring to bring forth my daughter, and I’m still alive? It proves that my life and death are not really mine.

My mother whispers in the ancient language of the priestess, the ancient language of the dead. “It is rare for a human to follow a god’s decree so faithfully. You should be celebrated and honored. Because you’re not, the gods are dissatisfied, and Halonnesos will suffer longer.”

And me? I have another destiny.

The voices of past spirits infiltrate my feverish mind. The last priestess, laughing with her dry rasp at the follies of the living. The demigod ancestor of our island smirks at us for falling short of his divine legacy. When I most need them, I hear the happy coos of my daughter. She keeps me going, even though the sound also makes my parched throat ache and tears streak my salt-crusted cheeks.

I fulfilled a god’s orders, but my life is not over.

The magic has seeped from our human fingers, but the gods’ hands are everywhere.

It is they who carry me, on the final day, to another jagged, mist-shrouded island.

Jeren

Bafis comes in, his footsteps heavy. “It is done.”

I can’t speak. The agony is too great. I nod, keeping my shoulder toward the fire. We are trying to boil down the milky root of a plant. It supposedly saved an infant once, but this liquid is thin and lumpy, so I feel there’s a catch. A ritual we missed. A prayer that was left unsaid.

Because the gods have turned their backs on us.

The old man glances in the dim corner. “Has he awakened?”

“Not yet.”

“He’s getting weaker.”

I grunt. We are reduced to this, to watching a life slip between our fingers because others could help but won’t, and it incinerates the last honorable fibers in my heart.

I etched every name that rejected our desperate pleas into my soul. Someday, when they most need me, when they plead and cry for my aid, I will bring this moment out again with fierce righteousness and deny them.

“We should go to the humans again,” Bafis says. “They didn’t exactly say no.”

“They gave their answer.”

“It was more of a question.” He lowers his voice to a mutter, talking more to himself than to me. “You could go back…”

The look in their eyes haunts me. Disgust, contempt. “Are you sure you want our tainted milk mixing in his pure blood?” Obviously, yes, because I went there to beg them. “If I go back, they will only reject me more explicitly.”

“Ah, well. We’ll give it a little more time and hope for a miracle, then.”

Bafis positions the wobbly old chair before the fire. His wings fold in and fade away from the living world, dematerializing with only a little gleam left in the middle of his back from his five gold feathers. They reflect the firelight with a ghostly glow, shimmering where the others are absent.

He sits.

And then he stands again, gasps. “You pulled out another one?”

I tug my shirt down over the char on my shoulder, wincing as the fabric catches the raw skin. “It’s not what you think.”

“How many do you have left, Jeren? How many will you spend on your sister’s folly? If you pluck out your last gold feather—”

“I did it before.” I twist away so he won’t see the tears gathering. I have lived a very normal life up until now, and I am unused to feeling so damaged in spirit and in body. “When there was still hope. But it doesn’t matter. It didn’t work, did it?”

The pot bubbles and smokes, and I quickly return to it, trying to thicken the water into something that will save my tiny nephew, because at this moment, I think, nothing else possibly can.

He watches me. “How long after her death did you wait?”

“Before. I wouldn’t pull it after. I did it when you were scouring the island for the priestess.”

“And it didn’t work?” He frowns, pondering. “What exactly did you say?”

“I said…” The words still pain me. My voice breaks. “‘Don’t leave us. We need you. Our people need you. You’re stronger than any sickness. You have to stay here, now, for your son.’”

He shakes his head heavily. He sounds old, dry. “Some fates cannot be thwarted.”

“It’s not fair.”

“Everyone is given a time. Few can push beyond it. Even we—”

“She did everything right. We made all the offerings.”

He glances at me, his skepticism silent.

A sharp, hot kernel burns in my chest. Yes, one person didn’t make the offerings, but I tried to overcome the lack myself. Why wasn’t it enough? Why was my sister taken?

“Ah…To have a gold feather wish go unanswered…I wonder. Wouldn’t the priestess need to hear this? She would give me an audience for this.” He rises and goes to the door. “Are you sure that’s all you said?”

“All I said before I pulled the feather and she died.”

“And after?”

“After?”

“Sometimes the soul doesn’t leave right away. Some later words might have been interwoven into the wish, especially since more than one life depends on hers.”

A sharp pain stabs me in the shoulder, and I shift the fabric again, unsticking it from the char. “Afterward, I don’t remember. If I spoke aloud, it was surely something about his care. Something like, ‘How are we going to feed him now?’”

“Hmm.”

“That’s why I’m telling you, the gods have ceased to hear…”

A crash sounds outside. A tree branch cracks against rocks, but distant, echoing unnaturally up the sharp hills to my homestead. It happens sometimes. We are so high, but we occasionally hear with sharp clarity an event on the surface of the ocean.

Bafis flies out, and I run after him. If a monster has landed, we must stop it before it ascends. My white wings glisten in the misty sunlight, like the old man’s.

A boat has run aground, perched itself on a bank before our sharp rocks. Inside, a scrawny figure squints up at us.

She has wild brown hair, sunken eyes, and her dirty skin is crusted with salt. The stained clothes wrapped around her, I can smell from here.

I don’t trust my senses. “What is it?”

He glances back at me. His experienced eyes check my back, my wings, but there’s no need to count the gold feathers, and he winces at what he sees. He turns back to the gaunt creature. “It’s an outsider.”

* * *

Ayanakalia

I stare at the two men who stand, perfectly balanced, on needle-thin spires too fragile to support a bird’s weight.

Their skins are honey amber, burnt by the sun, as are their eyes. A white crescent moon sits on their foreheads. They wear tunics that expose their glimmering white wings, and the sea breeze ruffles their fluffy feathers. The elder has gold threads in his hair, while the other man’s hair is purely white blond.

I know where I am, although I’ve only ever heard of this place.

I’ve landed in Ikaria. These winged men are the icari. They accepted the gifts of the gods, but flew too close to the sun and tumbled into the sea, then escaped from the sea god’s prison. The ocean is anathema to them. They rarely leave their island, which is surrounded by a protective magic.

In fact, a magic barrier wavers behind me, so strong and magnetic I can see it without closing my eyes. Waves crash against it and slide down, rough on the outside and still as glass on the inside. Big-mouthed fish bump into it, and minnows inside dart without fear. A barrier like this prevents anything from coming in.

But I’m inside.

They look at me, nonplussed.

The younger one frowns and asks me a question in an almost-familiar language.

I shake my head.

He looks at the elder.

“Who you?” the elder asks carefully in the modern tongue. “Why here?”

“I am Ayanakalia of Halonnesos, and I have come to end a curse.”

The two men tilt their heads.

I don’t know why I said that either. I have both feet planted in the shadow realm, and the living world feels more like the dream world.

A light zips around the outside ring of their irises. The timing is slightly off. First it circles the irises of the younger, and then of the elder. Magic wells within them. It’s a strange and hypnotic peek into the sun.

“No,” the young one says. His voice has a rasp. “Bafis ask. You here. How?”

“The gods brought me.”

“Why you say that?” the elder asks gently, taking over again.

“Because it is many days to Halonnesos and I have crossed the distance in three.”

“Alone?”

“With only the company of my…” Light-headedness steals over me. I stagger from the boat, drop to one knee, and grab the side for balance. “Spirits. My infant daughter. She passed…”

Bafis flies abruptly and lands by the bow. “You, mother? Ah, that shroud… When she…?”

“Three days,” I repeat, licking my cracked lips. “Do you have any water?”

“Yes. Jeren?”

Jeren crosses his arms. His amber eyes are hard. “I refuse.”

“What?” Bafis hisses. “You must. This, your wish.”

“No.”

“It is. Look…” Bafis huffs. “Wait here.” He flies up the needle cliff, disappearing into the mist.

Jeren stares at me with barely contained fury.

I lean against the boat. I feel his rage like an interesting color of smoke, red and acrid, crossing over my skin like the unforgiving sun.

And then I close my eyes.

For the first time ever, I’m alone. The spirits have fled. Perhaps it’s the magical barrier. My mother’s gone, as is my daughter, and when I think she might be gone forever, I have to swallow the lump in my throat. This is how others experience death. They feel it as forever. I don’t feel that, usually, because it’s so present. And so, to feel it now, when I’m all alone and ill, it’s doubly painful.

Bafis reappears a short time later with a foul-smelling pot of blackened liquid. With a meaningful look, he drops the pot at Jeren’s feet. It clatters on the rocks, and even though he speaks in their unfamiliar lyrical language, I can somehow get the gist of their argument. “Stop glaring. She is the answer. The gods carried her—”

“Three days ago. Well before she even fell ill.”

“But she’s arrived now.” Bafis flies to my side, kneels with a cup of water, and switches to the modern tongue. “Drink.”

The water is warm and fruity, and in a short time, I feel better.

The two icari continue their argument, occasionally bursting out with unfamiliar words I feel like I should know. They speak an ancient language. The last priestess spoke it too, when she performed our rituals, but their accent is much deeper, syllables rounder, and unless they speak slowly, the words mush into each other, inseparable.

It’s also been over half my lifetime since I heard the ancient language on the air. When the spirits speak it to me, I know it in my soul, not in my ears. Now that I’m hearing what sounds like it again, the memories are dredged up, brought into the light.

I finally feel strong enough to stand. “Thank you for your kindness.”

“Ah, yes.” Bafis clears his throat, looks back at Jeren, then appeals to me. Specifically, he appeals to my chest. “Um. Well. Sorry, you loss…”

“Thank you.”

“But, maybe…you feed baby?”

I press my hand to my heart. My daughter never nursed. I’ve gone all this time without food, and little water. In truth, I do not know. “Whose?”

“Um…”

“Mine,” Jeren says fiercely. Tears shimmer in his eyes.

“Nephew,” Bafis insists, palms down to calm him.

“Responsibility, mine.”

“Sister, child.” Bafis speaks quickly, trying to get out all the information before Jeren explodes. “Sudden, she sick. Die. Very sad. Others scared, no help for us. But maybe you can?”

From the distant reaches cloaked in mist, a tiny baby wails.

It’s the fierce, angry scream of the living.

Stirring prickles my chest.

Instinctively, I press my forearms to my breasts. “Take me to him.”

Ayanakalia

They carry me up, through the clouds, leaving the earth and the shoreline far behind. I’m still feeling light-headed, parched, and exhausted. The world is hazy, like in a dream.

The air is crisper, and the cold mist wakes me up a little. The infant’s cry intensifies, and we zoom toward it. We pop through the low clouds. A mountainous landscape appears, and a village of unconnected houses tucked between clouds.

In the distance, nestled against the tallest peak, is a great stone dome. A dark power emanates from it. The power calls to me, magnetic, and I can’t tear my eyes away. A low voice thrums in my mind. It says, in the ancient language, “At last…”

And then we drop through more clouds. The voice fades, but the feeling of being summoned remains.

We land on flat ground before a plaster-walled house. It was originally much larger than the great house on Halonnesos, and it’s in a far worse state. The ruins of two upper floors stick up jaggedly, and a tower leans precariously against the rock it was built beside. The grand entrance is open to the elements, converted into a cracked courtyard, which, from the abandoned columns, seems like it was once tiled and covered.

Jeren releases my arm and hurries into the doorway.

I stagger, knees buckling.

Jeren turns back in surprise but the elder already has me, and I lean heavily on Bafis to walk into the dim interior.

I’m expecting a living room, a few bedrooms, and a kitchen. That’s the bare minimum for any house on Halonnesos. Maybe a toilet, and maybe a bath.

But instead, all I see is a single room.

Two messy beds take up one corner, and one of them, shockingly, is even filled with ashes. Stacks of dishes and salvaged possessions are stacked in disheveled piles. Instead of a normal kitchen with a hearth, the center of the floor has been dug out into a campfire ring. Smoke, which, of course, blackens the upper walls and ceiling, has been directed out a hole beneath the second floor. The only other breeze comes through a single back window covered with a shade.

This estate is truly destitute.

A woman kneels in front of the pitiful fire. Like the others, she has white-blonde hair and amber skin, but she seems pale in the firelight. At odds with the poor surroundings, she wears an ornate yellow gown with fine cerulean and azure stitching, as if she’s dressing up to tend the fire in her very best clothes. Gold beads clink delightfully. Instead of helping me or doing anything about the screaming infant, she twiddles her fingers as Jeren lifts the tiny newborn out of his cradle. She simply watches as Jeren pats his nephew’s back, humming softly.

Bafis leads me to an old, threadbare chair. I sit heavily. The chair shifts sideways and collapses.

He exclaims, panicky with apologies, but honestly, I barely hear him. I shiver on the hard floor near the woman’s feet. Bafis drags the splintered wood away, notes my shivers, and brings me blankets—clean ones, not ashy—and settles one around my shoulders.

The dressed-up woman smiles at me apologetically. She presses her palms together and sighs. “Sorry. That was our last chair. Jeren was going to patch the old ones, but they rotted. We don’t have a good relationship with the artisans who made them or the arborists who have wood for making new ones.”

“It’s okay,” I mutter, shivering.

It doesn’t even occur to me to ask who this stranger is. I am deeply unwell right now, and it’s all I can do to stay focused on remaining conscious.

Jeren brings me the infant. The tiny one is covered in markings, protective symbols and ones I don’t recognize, written in ash and ink. Despite the mistrust in Jeren’s eyes, he lays his frantic nephew carefully in my arms and withdraws.

I lower the blanket to offer my breast. But the infant doesn’t take it. Hmm. I push it on him, and he spits it out and screams and screams. His fists ball and his body arches, face a deep, angry red, eyes shut tight. I shift positions, try to guide him, put my finger in his mouth, try the other breast. All the little tricks the old grandmothers on Halonnesos told me are useless. He simply grows angrier.

My frustration rises with his. I feel helpless and sad.

Bafis reappears with an armful of wood. He pauses beside Jeren, who’s watching, arms crossed, from the doorway. They exchange muttered words.

I look up at the woman.

“You have to tickle his mouth.” She uncovers her breast and demonstrates, suddenly an expert. “And if that doesn’t work, you rub his chin like this.”

She watches me, breathless, as I try her suggestions, taking pointers. The chin rub finally gets him to stop arching his back, and then he begins seeking, but he barely suckles. After a few moments, he cries even harder.

“He doesn’t recognize his good fortune.” She giggles, getting down on her knees beside me. Although she looks a few years older than me, her manner is much younger, almost carefree. “He has to be tricked into taking what he wants. It runs in the family.”

She coos, sings a little song, teases him. He opens his eyes, follows her fingers, and then, finally, he latches, his sucks interrupted by mad cries. There’s a tugging sensation in my breast, and then he quiets. His little fists open, close again.

The men fall silent, watching.

Then Bafis remembers the wood in his arms and kneels by the fire, adds some and stokes it, begins checking pots and then rummaging in the shelves and stores.

The woman strokes the baby’s almost invisible white-blond hair. He sighs. She withdraws her hand and rests it in her lap with sad eyes.

“Thank you,” I tell her.

Her smile brightens.

The two men stiffen.

Oh. I’ve actually said enaksi, lapsing into the ancient language, because somehow that’s what I was speaking with her.

“You’re welcome,” Bafis says carefully and slowly, also in the ancient language. Parayalo. “Would you like a little bread?”

“It’s old,” the woman warns me in a friendly way, rising and brushing off her skirts. In the light from the doorway, the ghostly outline of white wings glimmer on her back. Two bright gold feathers glitter near the center. “Bafis’ll make a hearty stew. You’ll like it. It’s really delicious.”

“Enaksi,” I say again and take the small, hard biscuit from Bafis.

The baby grows heavy in my arms. I follow her advice to switch sides, but I think I must have done something wrong, because soon after, I slide to the ground in a heap and flicker in and out of consciousness. For three days, whenever I’m awake, my right breast feels hot, and I throw up anything but water. They shake me awake to feed the baby. The pain of that is excruciating, but as soon as it’s over, I fall right back to sleep.

The whole time, the woman soothes my hot forehead, assures me everything’s fine, insists I take my time resting.

The men hover over me worriedly.

“We shouldn’t have brought her here,” Jeren says, at the edge of my awareness. I must be adjusting to their accent. The ancient language is closer to my mind than ever. “I told you. This wasn’t my wish. It’s a false one, raising our hopes only to dash them. She’s sick now. We shouldn’t have allowed her in when the house was still unclean.”

“Let me go to the priestess.”

“And what will that do? She refused to give last rites for my sister. If she comes now, she’ll tell the council we have an outsider in the Reaches, they’ll throw her off a cliff, and it will be the same as if she’d never come.”

“When did we become so impractical?” Bafis mutters irritably. A cool cloth is placed on my forehead, calming the feverish ache. “In the Great Battle, humans fought on the ground while the icari fought in the sky. Now, we scratch out any mention of our ancestors ‘wasting’ feathers on humans. Soon, they’ll be erasing the human heroes entirely, and then our disrespect will truly bring down the wrath of the gods.”

“I always thought their deeds were inflated.”

“It’s not right to erase them entirely.” Bafis is silent. Then, “Do you think I should use one of my…?”

“No. Of course you shouldn’t.”

“I can’t take any with me when I die.”

“Save them for a real emergency. Whether she lives or dies is nothing to us.”

I wake up in one of the beds in the quiet just before dawn. My blankets have been changed, and they smell like sunlight.

The men are out, the room is empty, and the fire is barely smoking around a slow-cooking pot. The baby shifts in his crib.

I sit up and wrap an unfamiliar blanket around my bare shoulders. My old clothes have been taken. I was ill in them on the boat long before this sickness here. My throat is raw and my head still aches, and even though my right breast hurt before, now it’s my left nipple that throbs. I close my eyes.

The woman kneels at the crib, singing her little song. A sad smile is on her face.

I open my eyes, and the room is empty.

Oh.

I close my eyes again.

“We have only a little more time.” She finishes her song and rises. The edges of her beautiful gown have already started to fade. “There’s so much I want to tell you, but oh, well.”

I swallow the dryness. “Please watch over my daughter.”

“Of course. We’re linked now, you and I.” She floats close and offers me her pinkie finger. I hook it with mine. Although her spirit is insubstantial against my mortal flesh, our pinkies lock together in a promise. “I will love your daughter with all my heart, just like you will love my…”

White smoke drifts through the door and into the room. It smells like incense and funerary herbs.

Still smiling, cut off midsentence, she disappears.

Dawn light reflects off the smooth floor.

I close my empty hand and force myself to rise. The second bed beside me has been folded up and put away so there’s only bare wall. I brace against it to catch my breath. My muscles ache, and I’m so weak that crossing the small room takes all my strength. I slump in the sunlit doorway and squint.

The two men breathe on a smoking bundle of herbs. In the sunlight, their wings are hidden. They both look exhausted, with dark puffs under their bloodshot eyes and hollow cheeks. Jeren makes the swift downward motion that mimics how we all fall into the shadow realm for our final rest. As they breathe on the herbs, they murmur the intonation of safe journeys to the afterlife.

Bafis sees me, rises, and offers a cup of water. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’m here.”

He smiles faintly.

Jeren carries the smoking herbs past me and around the interior of the house. He waves it over the folded bed.

Bafis brings me a bowl of thick lentil stew. I get down a few bites before the baby cries, and Bafis carries the baby to me while Jeren finishes the cleansing ceremony.

I take the little boy. He’s heavier now, even after just three days, and filling out. I think he must have been a week old before I arrived. I arrange him on the blanket. Of all the things his mother told me, she never mentioned one thing. “What’s his name?”

“Ah…” Bafis looks back into the house.

Jeren is stone-faced and silent. He avoids our gazes.

“Ina-sera-lifayis,” Bafis says, refocusing on me. “Lifayis, for short. She gave him a pretty name, didn’t she? It means ‘hope in moonlight,’ and it was held by one of our wisest ancestors.”

I pull down my blanket. The fabric catches on my left nipple, and it throbs again. I make a hissing wince. My right breast is smooth and calm, so I give it to Lifayis. He suckles at it urgently, then begins fighting and complaining as if he’s not getting any milk. With reluctance, I move him over to the left, and the pain is immediate, as is the tingling sensation of milk being let down. I hiss again, breathing through it. His little fists open and close, and he relaxes.

“Are you all right?” Bafis asks, watching me closely.

“You brought him to me when I was not awake,” I say, but it’s a little bit of a question. I have that memory, but I can’t trust it was in this world and not the other. Visions confuse me. “Did you give him both of my breasts? Or only one?”

“I don’t know,” Bafis says. “Why?”

“It may be a problem.”

Jeren is suddenly hovering over us. “He had to eat.”

I stare up at him.

His eyes are vivid amber, the thickest and sweetest honey, dusted with gold flecks that reflect the magic within him.

His nostrils flare. He turns abruptly and storms away. The cleansing smoke drifts after him. He disappears around the side of the house, bathing the tumbled rocks in smoke.

Bafis watches him go, then draws a symbol in the ash by the fire. It’s Balance, which is familiar because of the number of times the old priestess drew it when asking the spirits for forgiveness. He wipes it away, then turns his kindly eyes on me. “What might be the problem, my dear?”

“One side has been overused, so I need an emollient, a softener. Do you have the oil of unwashed wool? Lanolin?”

“Ah. I will have to ask…”

“The more serious problem is that if one side isn’t used, it might have dried up.” I tuck Lifayis’s warm body close to mine. He’s comforting, and sleepiness steals over me like a drug. I trace the white-gold threads of his hair just like his mother did. “Then the overused breast becomes all the more important, and I only have half as much to feed him.”

“We should have paid attention.” He draws the symbol in the embers again. “I didn’t.”

“I forgive you.”

He follows my gaze and wipes the symbol clean. “I didn’t realize the human islands were so magically aware.”

“Because of the curse, I…” Sudden memory strikes me. “Where is my daughter?”

His brows draw together. He glances out the doorway, toward the sea.

Dread seeps into my unsettled belly. “Her body is still near?”

“We haven’t touched her. You will want to honor her in the way of your people?”

“As soon as possible. It’s already been too long.”

Bafis presses his lips together, then rises.

Lifayis’s mouth drops open, releasing my cracked breast, and he baby snores.

Bafis takes him and pats his back until he releases a burp, then rocks him back to sleep and lays him down in his crib. “Eat a little more, and we’ll go.”

The food sloshes in my stomach, heavy and unfamiliar. Bafis finds a frayed rope to tie up my blanket into clothes, just enough to secure it around my waist, and offers his elbow. I lean on him heavily as we cross the courtyard.

Jeren sits outside the courtyard on a rock. He stands abruptly as we pass. “You’re going? Now?”

“Lifayis is sleeping,” Bafis says with a conciliatory tone. “It’s a good time.”

His nostrils flare. The white crescent on his amber forehead glows, and his wings shimmer.

But still, I ask, “Do you have any more of those smoking herbs?”

“Yes, of course,” Bafis assures me.

Jeren snaps. “Didn’t we feed you? And nurse you out of sickness? Wasn’t that enough?”

His fury sets me back. I lean all my weight on Bafis, and my head gets too light. The sun’s warmth fades.

Perhaps this is a mistake. I’m not strong enough to complete all the rituals, especially since I’m late, and I’m missing so many necessary items.

But Bafis’s horrified whisper returns me to the realm of the present. “It’s for her daughter.”

Jeren frowns, confused.

“The rituals,” Bafis clarifies, his own voice taut. “Remember? We’re not the only ones who’ve suffered a loss.”

Jeren’s brow clears. He rests on his heels. “You’re not trying to leave? You’re coming back?”

I nod.

Light zips around his irises again, hypnotic and beautiful.

“Will you get the herbs?” Bafis asks, colder than before. “Or will I?”

“No, I…” Jeren steps back, scrubs his face. “I’ll meet you down there.” He turns away.

Bafis leads me to the side of the steep cliff, cautious. The mist seeps in again, cloaking the other spires. He squints at shadows on the underside of the low clouds, and then he seems relieved. “Put your arms around me, my dear. My wings aren’t as strong as they used to be.”

I do, and Bafis steps us off the ledge. His white wings unfurl from the edges of his tunic, and we hang in the sky like a dandelion seed. His wings do not flap. They simply exist, and that’s enough to catch a magical breeze that holds us both aloft. In the center of his back, near where his wings are imbedded in his shoulder blades, five extra-long gold feathers glisten like precious metal. There are also dark spots beneath, tattoos or scars, hinting at two bald patches.

We land on the shoreline. My boat is gone, and my heart constricts in my throat. Bafis releases me, and I sink to the fractured stones, boneless with fear. But he disappears around the coastal cliff and returns with my boat.

My daughter’s body is still tightly wrapped in her shroud, undisturbed all this time. Fear releases me. I kneel and pull her into my arms. She’s so light, completely different from Lifayis, and again, I must face the sorrow that she was not meant for this world. But this time, the thought doesn’t pain me quite so much.

Jeren lands with a basket of herbs. I pick through not only the herbs requested, but also wildflowers, white and fragrant, and some small items for infants: play cups and toys.

“Can she have the basket?” I ask.

He looks at my boat, then nods roughly and steps back. I remove the extra items, arrange a stone vase and cup around my daughter, and a small carved goat for a toy. It’s a good send-off, an honorable send-off.

We do not usually release our dead to the sea. We bury them in specially prepared chambers carved into the bedrock. But I do not have that option, I think, on Ikaria, and anyway, the gods who brought us here will take her where she needs to go.

I pass Jeren the bundle of white-smoke funerary herbs. “Can you light it, please?”

He hands it back too quickly, and I’m about to argue, but it’s already well lit. Cleansing smoke fills the air. I raise it up, lower it down, waft it over my daughter, creating a river for her body to follow after her soul. She sacrificed so much for us, for me, for our island. Every part of her should be honored. Her wispy hair, her tiny fingernails, every part. The rituals of the dead are ones that I, as a citizen of Halonnesos, know inside out. This is, perhaps, the first time I’ve ever spoken them without the help of the departed spirits. But I do it perfectly. I know it in my soul.

The smoke burns out, and then I push her basket across the still sea. I’m tired, so my push isn’t strong, but when I lift my hand to pray for wind, an unusual gust blows up behind me. The two icari, watching politely at my shoulders, exhale, and their breaths seem to fly her basket out, through the magical barrier, into the wild sea.

It is done.

I sag, exhausted.

Bafis returns my boat to shadows where I can’t reach it. This time, it’s Jeren who puts my arms around his shoulders. He is in his prime, broad and strong, and he holds me firmly. We rise from the sea, back to the room, where he lets me down gently. I make it back to the bed, and once again, I drown in sleep.

Jeren wakes me to feed his nephew. The comfort of Lifayis’s fierce amber body draws me closer to the land of the living. Then Jeren takes Lifayis away, changes him, and puts him back in his crib. I drink some water, pouring it from an old basin into the cup that I’ve been using. Jeren returns to sitting on the bare earth in front of the fire, not seeming to care about the sparks or the smoke. Bafis isn’t here. I think he has a different home, and maybe he’s gone to it.

“Is there anything to eat?” I ask gruffly.

Without a word, Jeren offers me a bowl of stew and a hard biscuit.

I sit on the other side of the fire and thank him.

He ignores me.

Other than the fire’s pop and crackle, we sit in total silence.

The icari are unearthly handsome. These two that I’ve met, at least, are not touched by the maladies and imperfections of mortal men. Even Bafis’s wrinkles, though they show his age, are not too soft.

Jeren’s nose is long and unbroken, his lips full, and his chin firm. The white crescent on his forehead makes it difficult to evaluate his brow line above his sun-bleached eyebrows.

He looks up.

The amber of his eyes is rich like honey. And the magic brightens in him, a pinprick at the top outside edge of his iris, and then sweeps around the outer edge like a sundial before again disappearing.

I feel hot, and my heart thumps. “I, uh… Do you have lanolin? I asked Bafis.”

He looks away. “No.”

“Can you get some? It will be a problem soon.”

“What kind of a problem?”

I show him the painful red cracks on my left nipple. “Any fats or oils can work, but it’s really better to use sheep.”

His jaw flexes with irritation.

“I can’t walk far now, but I’m getting stronger. If there’s a way, I can collect what I need myself.”

He moves his shoulder blade to extend his wing. Firelight reflects off the single long gold feather, and it gleams brighter than the small white ones covering his wings. They look so soft, so fluffy, like baby-goose down. He tugs a small white feather free. It lies on his palm. He moves his shoulders back, and the wing disappears.

He lifts the small white feather to his mouth, murmurs something, and then drops it on my exposed breast.

It rests a moment, almost weightless, and ticklish like a brush of silk from a spider’s thread.

Then the feather immolates, curling up on itself and blackening to ash.

As it burns, it seeps into my skin, blackening my breast. Sharp pain stabs me like a lick of fire. I gasp. Heat throbs in my char-black nipple.

I cup myself tenderly. “Why did you…?”

He prods the fire in stoic silence.

Hurt and rejection twist in my chest, braiding a rope of sadness. If that is how it is, if he’s just going to burn me when I ask for help… I’ve made a promise to his sister, not to him. I’ll do what I can to help Lifayis until he’s big enough to eat real food, and then I’ll get back on my boat and row. I understand the gods brought me here, but surely they didn’t mean for me to endure this.

My skin shifts under my supporting hand. That’s worrying. I lower my hand, and the top layer of thin, blackened skin peels off my breast and rests on my hand like an ash-blackened feather.

Underneath, my new skin is smooth and unbroken. All the cracks are gone. My nipple is supple. Made new.

Oh!

I look up and catch him studying the result. “Your feathers are healing.”

“They can be shaped into wishes.”

“Painful wishes.” I rub the healed skin. It feels fine now. “You didn’t warn me.”

“Getting warned doesn’t change anything.”

“I still would have appreciated it.”

“An outsider isn’t meant to know our ways.”

I don’t know why this hurts me, but I shove the feeling away to focus on practicalities. I cup my right breast. “Can you restore my supply?”

“I can only do small wishes. A simple cut, a surface bruise.”

“Please try.”

He extends the wing, pulls another curly white feather from the same spot. I think this must be a habit. There are so many feathers, it seems as though one regrows at the very moment it’s plucked out. He does the same ritual, whispers to it, then drops it on my right breast. This time, I’m prepared for the pain. The feather gives the faintest whiff of smoke and then catches fire, magic burning itself out as his wish seeps into my body. My skin blackens, chars. And then the top layer loosens and falls away.

I can’t see or feel a difference. If it didn’t work, it didn’t work. “Enaks—”

“Don’t.” He looks away and stokes the fire. “I didn’t do it for you. You must be able to feed my nephew. That’s all.”

And again, my chest twinges. “Do you hate me?”

“I don’t know you well enough to hate you.”

“Your friend is kind.”

He fixes on me. Countless small expressions cross his face. But he finally settles on that familiar one: anger. He leans over me and speaks quietly. “You don’t know anything. You have no idea whether my actions are cruel or kind.”

“Explain, then.”

“There’s only one thing you need to know. Do not leave here. Do not go exploring. Never step off this homestead, ever.”

“Am I a prisoner?”

He smirks. “See? You don’t know.”

“Then tell me—”

“Do you fear death? Obey me. That is all—”

“No.”

He stills. There is danger in this silence. “No? You mean you want to go stumbling around and maybe fall off a cliff?”

“I’ve already been thrown off one. And no, death is not something I fear.”

He stands abruptly and glares down at me. “For so long as Lifayis’s life depends on yours, try.”

Oh. “I didn’t mean—”

“Just another selfish creature,” he mutters and storms out, leaving me alone in the ruins.

Jeren

The things I say to this small, scrawny human are monstrous. I know, and yet, as I storm out into the darkness, a thousand worst words swirl around in my mind. They’re leaking like poison from the char in my back, tainting my blood, blackening my sorrow-soaked heart.

I storm out to the boundary of my ancestral property and walk the line like a tiger patrolling his domain.

This is all that’s left to me.

I should remain silent around the human. Ignore every limpid glance, every fluttering eyelash, every caught breath that reminds me she’s alive and my sister isn’t.

Bafis keeps telling me to be grateful because my wish has brought her here, but isn’t that worse? It was supposed to save Raqessa, not bring an entirely new person into our home. Since my wish was twisted and deformed into this gruesome mockery, doesn’t that mean I’ve caused everything to go bad? And therefore it’s my fault that Raqessa is dead?

When I think that, the bitterness wells in the back of my throat and I want to spill it all out, vomit the bitterness in words like nasty black spirits that steal the color out of everything until the world is gray and lifeless as my inner mind.

But all I’m left with is the memory of Ayanakalia’s shocked, pale face and her wide brown eyes, soft as the velvet hide of a newborn deer.

It makes me want to scream. Get back. Run away from me. Don’t you see I am a man who cannot protect anyone?

But someday she might obey my silent order and leave us. I was certain she would leave when she found out we’d made her feed Lifayis while she was tossing and sick. Someday, Bafis will tell me she’s going away and it won’t just be to the shoreline, it will be to a normal, uncursed island beyond the horizon. And then what will we do?

She speaks with strange confidence as though she doesn’t fear being trapped here with us. She is brave. I’ll give her that.

But that is all I’ll give her.

I have nothing else left in me to give.

Nothing but tarry slime and fiery demons and feelings that would be better expressed as incoherent screams.

The firelight behind me beckons. Come back. Apologize. Be the man you were mere weeks ago when the world was a little brighter, a little more filled with hope.

I turn away from it and carry on deeper into the darkness.

* * *

Ayanakalia

Bafis is kind. Unlike Jeren, he tells me anything I wish to know about my new temporary home, Ikaria.

The reason I shouldn’t leave the boundaries of Jeren’s homestead is because humans are unwelcome on this part of the island. Jeren was being secretive because he’s full of sand and thorns.

The icari live in an unforgiving mountainous region called the Reaches.

Jeren’s homestead nestles against a natural stone spire. When the sun peels back the clouds, briefly, houses appear on opposite ridges. These neighbors form a village called Janakros in the southeast, farthest from the main temple.

Also, when the sun shines, I hear him.

The voice jabbers on about retribution and suffering, about being stretched out and chewed up. Sometimes, his voice rises to screams. So on sunny days, that’s distracting.

But we stay busy. Hardy fruit trees put out tentative blossoms, almonds thrive near olives, and a brushy herb garden smells fragrant on sunny afternoons. Grapevines trellis over an old wall into the courtyard, which was actually the house proper. The second floor caved in generations ago. Its rubble was carried away to reinforce the shed, another rotted-out wing of the house repurposed to serve the current generation. Once, a bath and toilet were in that wing. No one’s been able to use them in years, though.

A small path circles the old manor, a narrow passage between the crumbling house and natural stone. There used to be a porch and gardens, but now sheer cliffs disappear into clouds. Far below, invisible in the mist, the sea echoes.

At first, walking around the homestead is an effort. I don’t want to go very far. But after a month, I’m ready to stretch my legs.

Jeren disappears during Lifayis’s morning naps. In our meals, he uses bread flour, honey, figs, and seaweed. We have no mill, no apiary, and no fig trees on his homestead. So he’s trading with neighbors near or far, and I want to see.

Bafis tells me, more gently, but just as firmly as Jeren, that I absolutely must not leave.

“We’ll keep you safe,” Bafis promises as we gather horta, handfuls of edible grasses, from shaded nooks. “Beyond the barrier marker, you might get caught. Besides, it’s too far to go to the human villages.

“Human villages?” I repeat, shocked. The old stories of Ikaria never mentioned any people living here. “Full of humans like me?”

“Uh…” Bafis’s mouth hangs open as he quests for an answer.

Below us, farther down the walking path like a grumpy gate guardian, Jeren straightens and stares daggers at Bafis.

Bafis clears his throat and looks away. “No, not like you. Not at all.”

Jeren’s glare focuses on me.

“This is enough horta for today.” Bafis ushers me up the hill, away from Jeren’s amber rage. “Let’s, ah, check on the laundry…”

To distract me, Bafis regales me with tales of the ancients.

“Long ago, everything from the smallest pebble to the infinite sky held its own magic, and there were no humans in the world.” Bafis pours boiling water over Lifayis’s soiled wrappings, which were first dunked at the shoreline so they smell of the ocean. I stir them with his big washing oar. “Only gods existed, but they were very like us today. Brash, overconfident. Announcing immutable laws only to break them immediately. And the consequences were curses.”

Curses, in the old times, ran through bloodlines, unpredictable as madness. It was possible to live a perfect life and be struck down senselessly at your wedding feast. It was possible to have nine ordinary children and then have the tenth carried away by a serpent with claws.

“Those things don’t happen today,” he tells me as we hang the wet laundry over flapping lines in the chilly, fogged-in wind.

“It’s possible to curse a bloodline today,” I assure him, and tell all the details of my own experiences.

He listens avidly. “I’m sorry your husband undid your work, but I still think a bloodline curse is less common. In the olden days, it was impossible not to have a curse. The only question was when it would strike.”

Each curse, and the gods’ fruitless attempts to twist or evade it, spawned magical and monstrous descendants, and each descendant further splintered their powers. Although the magic seemed infinite, eventually, it spread too far and couldn’t be gathered up again.

“Humans, by now, had been created,” he says, and gold light zips around his vivid irises. “They were nonmagical and thus at everyone’s mercy. You know the daedali?”

“Crafter gods of ingenuity and insight.”

“Demigods, actually, but yes, they had so much craftiness, it seemed as if they had real powers. They fashioned wings and made us their emissaries. Perhaps your people remember when we ruled over this ocean, spreading justice and enlightenment?”

I shake my head, and he seems a little sad. “But then you flew too close to the sun?”

“The jealous sun god descended,” he corrects with an epic gleam, and I’m swept away in battles that make the daily chores pass in an instant.

Too selfish to raise his own children, the sun god attacked the icari. Only darkness can stop the sun, and he was much too large to be covered with any blanket. So they chipped off pieces and ate him.

“You ate the god of the sun?” I gasp.

“You see this?” Bafis points to his twinkling eyes. The light zips around the outside of his irises. “We ate him until nothing was left. But he burned us up inside, so we drank the ocean to put it out, and drowned.”

They should have passed into the shadowlands, but a vastly powerful sea god thwarted death to imprison them. The few remaining daedali bargained for their lives.

“Life in exchange for life.” Bafis sorts through hardened vegetables, pulling out any with a whiff of rot. “But something went wrong. The sea became enraged. That’s why now the ocean is our greatest enemy.”

“Oh, I did hear you can’t travel by water. Not even in a boat?”

“If we touch the ocean, we’ll be carried off to our doom.”

“Did you ever test it?”

He gives me a look, and the mischief of long ago sparkles in his old eyes. “I once lay across a rock while my brother held my ankles, and I stuck my arm in up to my elbow.”

“What happened?” I ask, breathless.

“He fought for my life.” He shakes his head and flexes his hand in memory. “It nearly dragged us both in.”

I’m awed.

Then I glance back at the clothes flapping on the lines. “If you can’t touch the ocean, how do you dunk the clothes?”

His smile freezes, and then he glances behind him as though automatically searching for Jeren. He rises and shoos me. “This is enough. Let’s head back to the house.”

So there are a few secrets even he won’t answer.

* * *

Bafis doesn’t live at this homestead, but he’s a bright spot of friendliness that gives the cracked soil of my body the nutrients it needs.

“I used to wonder why my time had stretched,” he mentions as we enter the second month, somehow echoing the same phrase he does in his panicky screams. “Why me, when the other children of my era have long passed on? But now…” Bafis wiggles his silver-white brows at me. “I think I have the answer.”

My chest lifts.

I look forward to his arrival every day.

Jeren barely looks at me. We speak when Lifayis is hungry. As soon as I’m done, he snatches Lifayis away again as if he’s trying to keep us from getting too attached.

I never realized how enmeshed I was in the community of my old island. My notoriety preceded me. I was the girl who thought she would end the curse, and my existence was affirmed by my dwindling family, the townsfolk, and even my kind brothers-in-law. And I was surrounded by the comforting dead.

Now, the barrier keeps them out. I have to sit very still and concentrate to mentally travel into the land of the dead, and my visions there are not solid as they were. I live my average day without warmth or sunlight, and I feel terribly blind.

Bafis’s home is close to the main village, Daedakros, and the temple. He’s not related to Jeren and Lifayis, but he was close to Jeren’s father, and he looked in on the children after their parents died.

“I’m the last of my generation,” Bafis tells me as I help him chop up vegetables for his stew. “Last of several generations, in fact. I’ve been an old man for a long time. Jeren’s father didn’t mind me tagging along. I can’t say I helped him, but I never slowed him down.”

Bafis scrapes my vegetables into his cook pot, adds fragrant herbs, pats his pocket. He’s forgotten the salt again. He plucks a white feather from his left wing, whispers to it, and drops it, still burning, into the pot, stirring in the ash.

“You don’t look much older than my mother,” I assure him.

He snorts. “The privilege of bachelorhood. I was born in the Before, when we had seven feathers each, and I was much too young to spend them in the Great Battle.”

White feathers are for ordinary wishes, like turning ash into salt or healing a small cut. Gold feathers are for births and deaths and otherworldly contracts. Five are visible on his back in the dim lighting. “You used two gold feathers.”

He blushes, awkward. “It was long ago. And anyway, not even a magic feather can change fate.”

“The shape of a river is determined by the stone, but we decide whether we’ll build our house upon it.”

Bafis pauses. “Sometimes, my dear, you seem older than your years.”

“I hear ancestral voices.”

“Hm.”

“I can see and speak with anyone who’s passed.”

“Oh? Can you?” He sounds distant, or maybe distracted. I told him all about my powers earlier, when I detailed my past on Halonnesos and my failures with that curse, but he must have forgotten. “That’s nice.”

I change the subject back to his white feathers. “Can you make a flavor you’ve never tasted?”

“What’s that, then?”

“My mother used to dry a red flower from the hillside for her tea.”

He pours heated water into a cup and pulls the feather, whispers in my wish. The water tints red. He offers it to me.

“How is it?” he asks.

There’s no scent, and the flavor is basically water, but all I really wanted was the reminder. “A little different, but I can almost feel her. Thank you.”

“Parayalo,” he answers softly.

He is unfailingly kind to me. He brings me a soft scarf, a fine wooden pick for my hair, a pretty orange seashell, and a pot of tart cheese.

Every gift sparks an argument.

“Why did you get that?” Jeren demands as I munch on a sweet bread roll filled with dried cherries, chopped pistachios, and crunchy honey. “You didn’t buy it?”

Bafis holds up his hands in a calming gesture. “She’s a nursing mother. She needs richer food.”

“They’re going to talk. Ask questions you can’t answer. Did you think of that?”

“No one will question one little sweet roll.”

“It’s out of character. Again. They’ll talk.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“Why?” His face reddens and his voice rises. “Nothing about this whole situation has turned out ‘okay.’ Why do you think this will turn out okay?”

Bafis presses his lips together.

“Between this and your stories, filling her head with ideas to— If she gets scared and runs away, Lifayis still can’t survive on his own.”

“She won’t run—”

“And then, on top of that, you buy things we’ve never bought before! If she doesn’t run off, someone’s going to snoop around and catch her.”

“Your barrier will hide—”

“You do every little thing she asks without a moment’s thought.”

“She didn’t ask, I—”

“Am I the only one who ever thinks about consequences?”

There’s a long silence. Wind whistles through the gap between the crumbling manor and the natural spire.

Bafis sighs, then mutters, “It’s only one sweet roll.”

Jeren’s fingers flex like he’s going to rip it out of my hands.

I mash the treat into my mouth, gulping it down so fast, I choke.

Jeren stares at me.

I swallow it down. The delicious syrup lies on my tongue. I won. He can’t take it now.

He turns abruptly and stalks away.

Bafis gently pats my arm. “He’ll come around. You’ll see.”

I don’t care about Jeren coming around. I wish Bafis was younger and Lifayis was his baby.

In fact, Bafis treats me like a grandfather treating his grandchild, and my wish to be near him isn’t a wife’s wish to be with her husband, it’s a chilled animal’s hunger for a dry shelter and a kind head pat.

And like a wheedling pet, I’m not above twisting the owner’s emotions to meet my own needs.

It’s in the second month that I convince Bafis to take me beyond the limits of the homestead and into the world.

* * *

“The sun god is not the only creature who’s been driven mad by us,” Bafis tells me down the hillside and well beyond Jeren’s barrier. “The last event became known as the Great Battle.”

He peers up at the thick fog, keeping watch. I quickly pluck red flowers from the empty clearing, filling my skirt. These blossoms look just like the ones from my home.

“As magic disappears from the world, the remaining monsters are attracted to hot spots, of which we are one. In my childhood, we were attacked by a dracaenae.”

“What’s that?” I murmur quietly in case our voices echo in the mist.

“Perhaps you call them drakina. Many-headed serpents with wings. They come from land, sea, and air. This one was from the air.”

Unlike the earlier attacks when the icari were in their prime, this dracaenae landed after a long period of peace. And, instead of enjoying that peace or conserving their strength, the icari had become weakened from petty infighting. They were wholly unprepared to battle an ancient threat, and the adults of Bafis’s generation were unable to repel the monster.

“We thought it was our end,” he says. “Surely He Who Sleeps would awaken and come to our aid.”

A frisson of awareness slides down my spine. “He Who Sleeps?”

“Yes, in the main…” Bafis suddenly frowns, catching himself just in time. “Ah. Anyway. When the defenders realized no one was coming to their aid, every capable person threw their arms around the dracaenae and dragged it into the sea. They held tight to the monster, and our curse pulled us—and it—to the bottom. All drowned.”

He falls silent, studies the sky again, then urges me to return to the path.

“We recovered, after a time,” he says as we climb the narrow road twisting around the isolated spire. “But never to the same degree. In my early childhood, my parents flew me to Halonnesos and back in a day. Jeren’s house was filled with a hundred relatives, all bright and boisterous. We icari were fearless and complacent. Now, we hide behind a thin barrier, guard our feathers, and jump at shadows.”

The barrier of Jeren’s homestead is marked by small fabric charms fluttering from the brush and an ornate symbol carved into the sandy rock path. A few strides away, warmth touches my shoulders. The sun burns off the clouds.

Suddenly, behind us, the entire Reaches is revealed. Neighboring spires are within easy throwing distance. Each plot is tilled, and within each plot is a great house just like ours.

Far off, at the highest peak, darkness emanates from the temple like almost visible heat. It calls me again. “I’m waiting…”

“What is that place?” I ask.

“That place?” Bafis looks over his shoulder, then quickly ducks and ushers me up the hill. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

A baby’s wail drifts over the rustling grasses, and my breasts swell in response. I gather the corners of my dress and hurry.

Jeren lands by the property marker and bounces a very unhappy Lifayis. He’s red-faced himself. “Where have you been? What are those? Where did you get them?”

I shake the flowers into Bafis’s cupped hands, take Lifayis, and latch him on my right breast as I walk away.

“Her mother makes a tea…” Bafis wilts under Jeren’s fury. “We couldn’t get the right flavor, but they grow wild in the clearing…”

“You let her disobey me for tea?”

“Now, don’t be angry. I thought we’d return before the weather changed.”

“But you were wrong. Were you too slow, or was she?”

“Jeren…”

“She doesn’t care about the consequences, but I thought you did. I ought to chain her to the wall and ban you from my house.”

I go into the single room and sit in the dimness where Jeren wants me to remain.

Lifayis fights me, angry, because even after two months, there’s less milk on the right side. But the grandmothers had told me to stick with it, and so I always nurse him on that side first, and then switch to my plentiful side. At least I have enough to feed him. He is growing. And when he settles down and tries hard, he gets something for his work.

Today, he doesn’t want to settle. Maybe he can feel my swirling emotions.

I rub Lifayis’s chin, sing the little song I know, and brush his hair.

“…not going to repeat that mistake,” Bafis murmurs to Jeren in the courtyard. “I already told you, her husband—”

“So?” Jeren snaps. “I don’t care about the past. All that matters is keeping her alive. And I’m beginning to think I’m the only one who cares about it!”

Bafis enters with a pot of water to put on the fire, and he stokes the embers. Jeren follows him, still criticizing his choices to be nice to me. I sing a little louder to tune out the words I don’t want to hear.

Jeren freezes, then zeros in on me. “What’s that song?”

I stop.

He advances on me. His shadow is darkness, and rage unnaturally lights his eyes. “What was it?”

I shake my head.

“You know.”

“Jeren.” Bafis tries to push in front of him. “You’re scaring her.”

He shoulders the man away. His voice is gruff, unrecognizable. “Sing.”

I obey, quietly singing the ancient words. And then I stop.

“Go on,” he orders.

Bafis is also watching me. Worry fills his face.

“Those are all the words she sang.”

“She? Your mother?”

I shake my head. “His.”

Jeren’s gaze drops to Lifayis. “You can’t have met Raqessa.”

“I see those who’ve—”

“You can’t,” he insists, a catch in his rough throat. His fierce eyes glisten. “She was already gone when you came.”

“We made an agreement. She’s watching over my daughter.” I lift my pinkie and imitate her gesture of promise. “Just as I—”

His sob cuts me off. The burst of grief shocks us both. Jeren claps a hand over his mouth.

Bafis sighs. “That’s Raqessa, all right.”

Jeren backs up and runs out of the house. Outside, his pained scream echoes across the hillside, an uncontrollable howl of anguish that peters out to ragged sorrow.

Bafis watches him go. “He really loved her.”

I didn’t realize his feelings were so deep. He hides them well. Or maybe it’s because all the good ones are directed away from me.

“Ah, I know.” Bafis sits beside me, resting his back against the grimy wall. Even though I haven’t said anything aloud, he guesses my thoughts. “Grief does strange things to a man. We are also under a kind of curse, like your island. He handled the others’ passing so well. I didn’t realize how much strength he drew from his sister. She was unfailingly cheerful, always seeing the bright side in anything and anyone, even…”

He sighs again and looks up at the hole where the smoke vents to the outside.

“…even those who didn’t deserve her. She acted impulsively. Jeren tried to save her from her choices. Her death was sudden and terribly unexpected. For better or worse, he didn’t have the chance to panic or to scramble, or to agonize.”

I shift Lifayis to my other side. He’s complacent and heavy as he’s being fed, and he smells like warmth and hope.

“That’s still no excuse, I know.” Bafis studies his dirt-streaked fingernails. “Can you really see anyone who’s passed away? You mentioned it before, but I must admit, I didn’t take your words so literally. Can you see my old friends?”

I close my eyes and concentrate. I’m both sitting with my back to the wall, a warm baby on my breast, and I’m also tracing the threads that bind Bafis’s future to vast white fields and a glistening tree where spirits gather. “Who do you want to speak to?”

“How about… Can you see a man named Maiqen?”

I see images, shapes. An echo of a laugh, an impression of late nights and youthful candor. I open my eyes. “He won’t talk to you.”

“No?”

“You have to work out your own…move? In a game, I think.”

Bafis rocks forward, slaps his thigh. “That’s Maiqen! Did he take that to the grave?” He laughs, shakes his head, sighs. “You really do see them. All of them? They’re waiting there for me?”

I nod.

“How do they look? Really?”

“Young.”

“Ah. I guess they would.” He rubs a tear on his pants, plucks a white feather, whispers to it, and the threads melt together as if they’ve been treated with pitch. “What did your people say about this skill of yours?”

“They wished to let the dead lie. We could all feel their presence, trapped against the island, even if I was one of the few who could see them. So they never asked me.”

“You should’ve been a priestess, you think?”

“The last priestess died before I was old enough to be her acolyte.” Anyway, I have a different destiny. “Some priestesses should have been ordinary people.”

“I suppose we are all only what we are, aren’t we?” He rises and makes me a cup of red tea with the flowers we plucked. This still tastes a little different. Maybe it’s the soil, or maybe drying the leaves changes the flavor. I’ll have to experiment.

Jeren doesn’t come back.

It’s unusual that I get to spend so long with Lifayis, and it’s fun to carry him around and be present, finally, for his quiet, wakeful times. I show him baubles and make faces. He’s in excellent health, clean and oiled, the protective symbols clearly delineated, and he smells good. Jeren really does take care of him.

Evening falls, and Bafis lingers in the doorway, searching the twilight shadows. He normally leaves before now. I appreciate that he’s not leaving me alone.

A hollow whistle sounds across the mountaintop.

Bafis stiffens. His wings emerge, half-extended, and ruffle to look larger than he is.

The hair on the back of my neck stands up.

Bafis grabs a kitchen knife and looks at me. The whites of his eyes reinforce the silent warning.

I hold Lifayis close.

He holds the kitchen knife hidden against his back and walks outside. “Hello there.”

“Ah, Bafis, it’s you.” A man booms a greeting from down the hill. He sounds louder as he approaches. “I heard the cry. Is it finally done, then?”

“Is what done?” Bafis asks loudly. “Jeren’s not here. I’m making him dinner.”

“The sister’s babe. This has been a sad affair, hasn’t it? Jeren as the last of his family. Mother says the gods have really turned their backs on this house. It makes you wonder why.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Bafis says, still extra loud. “Oh, there’s Jeren.”

“Ah, Jeren,” the other man gets louder as well and more social. “Bafis has invited me to dinner.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Jeren says with his usual abrasive bluntness. I guess I’m not the only one to receive it.

“What I mean is, I’ve come to share in your sorrows and cleanse your house. Now that your nephew has died, you—”

“He’s not dead.”

“Oh, pardon, I heard your scream, and we assumed…”

“You assumed wrong.”

“But can he still be alive? It must be so difficult, getting food from milk-root…”

“Go away.”

“Well, now. I’m trying to be neighborly.”

“Are you?” Jeren dumps a dripping net of still-wriggling fish on the broken tile just outside the doorway. His gaze skates over me and Lifayis, placing us like he’s checking our location so he knows where to avoid violence, but he keeps moving so as not to alert the other man. His wings unfold as he turns and strides out, toward the stranger. “You didn’t visit when my sister passed.”

“Mother said to wait until the whole affair was ended. I didn’t expect the child would linger so long. Ah, pardon me for asking, but is he still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Really? Hmm. It can’t be much longer now.”

“He’s fine.”

There’s a long and awkward silence.

Jeren breaks it. “Good night, Furin.”

“Could I perhaps see the child?”

“Good night.”

“Ah, then, I’ll see him at the solstice festival.”

Bafis clears his throat. “We may not be able to come…”

“Everyone must participate,” Furin says confidently. “Raqessa’s child had better receive the blessing. If he’s actually still alive…”

The voice drifts away, and eventually, the hollow whistling sound disappears. It had faded from my consciousness, but now I’m aware of its silence.

The two men come to the doorway.

“Do you suppose we should go?” Bafis asks.

“We’ll have to,” Jeren mutters grimly. “Or Furin will talk, and the village elder will come here.”

“Yes. Mm.” Bafis touches his forearm and murmurs something in Jeren’s ear.

Jeren glares over my head, avoiding my gaze.

Bafis steps back, gives me a friendly wave and a farewell, and takes his leave.

He takes the warmth of the fire with him.

Jeren cooks for me. I can cook, but the men always take over the task without giving me any room to offer, and besides, their dishes are different enough that I’m not sure mine would satisfy. A familiar porridge will have an unexpected crunch of nuts, a mélange of fish and vegetables will have the addition of snails. Where I would boil eggs in the shell, they crack them in the sizzling pan or dump them in a soup. The flavors are good, but I don’t know which ingredients are common or rare, and they don’t show me. It’s another way that they keep me at a distance. Bafis does this too, even though he puts on a nice, pleasant front so I don’t mind.

Jeren makes a tasty fish fried in its own fat until the skin is crackly and the vegetables crisp seared. I wonder where or how he got the fish if the ocean is so dangerous, but I don’t dare ask. It’s much later than we usually eat, and I’m ravenous.

I eat until my stomach is fit to burst, crunching the softened fish bones and licking my fingers. Jeren eats his own share, then puts the rest into a long-cooking stewpot for tomorrow’s dinner and packs it with hot embers.

Lifayis awakens with a cry.

I move to get him from his crib, but Jeren is faster. He changes the soiled clothes and passes me the baby, then, instead of grumping away in a corner, he sits across from us at the fire and watches.

When he finally speaks, it startles me. “He doesn’t fight as much. Your supply is better?”

“Or he’s learned patience.” I rock Lifayis gently as he studiously nurses. “He’s growing strong.”

Jeren tosses a stray piece of grass into the flames. “Is Raqessa here now?”

“No.”

“But she was? You saw her?”

“She was here when I arrived. Now, she’s far away.”

“Is she happy?”

“Not happy, but accepting. She’s surrounded by friends, and she smiles even when she’s sad.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, pinches the bridge of his nose, and clears his throat. “Is she with our parents, at least?”

“No.”

He lowers his hand and focuses on me. His eyes are red, bloodshot. “Why not?”

“I don’t see them.” I close my eyes and concentrate. Other faces surround his sister. Grandparents, aunts, and friends. My daughter, of course, and even my mother, summoned by our spiritual entwining. But when I seek Jeren’s parents, there’s a blankness, a resistance. I open my eyes. “I’m not allowed to know about them.”

“You can’t tell them apart from the other spirits?”

“I can’t tell, with any certainty, that they’re dead.”

He stares at me. Then he shakes his head and gazes away, out into the darkness. “Bafis believes in you. He thinks you’re god touched, and he doesn’t question a single thing you say.”

The fire pops. Lifayis fusses, and I switch sides.

Jeren stands. Mistrust weighs down his shoulders like a heavy cloak as he leans over me. His amber eyes study me too intently. He smells like musk and darkness, and my heart pounds.

“Soon, we’ll have to go away for a few hours. The sea path is treacherous and steep. It’s not designed for human feet. Don’t try to leave. It will only cause us trouble, and we may not be able to rescue you.”

“I already told you.” My mouth is dry. “I made a promise.”

“You’re just a human.” He goes to the doorway. “Humans steal and lie and cheat.”

I grind my teeth. “Your sister has faith in me.”

He eyes me from the side. “You don’t realize how little that’s an endorsement.”

“Then believe me because you must. You need me.”

“I do.” He steps into the darkness. “And I hate it.”

Jeren

I am a monster.

My back still aches. The previous feathers I pulled didn’t hurt so deeply or so long. Maybe it’s because I only have one more, or because I pulled too many in quick succession. Bafis told me I didn’t need to, and so did Raqessa, but I can’t help feeling each one was necessary. If I hadn’t honored Lifayis’s birth, wouldn’t he have been sucked away with Raqessa when she was torn from this world? Losing both at once…no, it’s unimaginable to me, and it might still happen. If another person dies in my arms, I’m afraid I won’t survive it.

After my evening chores, I sleep outside, on my stomach, on the open second floor of my father’s house.

From here, I have a view of the road. It’s impolite to swoop down on our neighbors. Someone might get startled, and we are so few now that we can’t afford to make mistakes.

In the morning, I see Ayanakalia when she rises.

She always does the same ritual. She feeds Lifayis and carries him outside balanced against her waist. She’s a slight woman, barely broad enough to have given birth, and he’s starting to look large on her. She points him toward the dawn, touches his forehead and cheeks, talks when she thinks no one else is listening. Today, she’s telling him about his mother, how much Raqessa misses him, and how they’ve traded children so he’s always going to be taken care of. Sometimes she tells him stories of her childhood, her mother, her island. Other times, she tells him stories she can’t possibly know about mine.

That’s how I know Bafis is right, and she really does see into the other world. No one but Raqessa could be telling her these things. They must exchange the knowledge in dreams.

But then I feel bitterness in me, rising.

Why doesn’t Raqessa come to me? Didn’t I sacrifice enough? If I could just see her one more time… If I could know, in my heart, that she’s not unhappy…

Ayanakalia straightens and eagerly crosses the courtyard, the main clearing, and starts down the hill.

I fly from my position, fast as a swallow, but still too slow.

She steps beyond my property marker and therefore out from under my cloaking barrier. “Bafis. Good morning.”

“Yes, yes, and to you too.” He sees me and glances up at the clear sky. The neighbor’s visit several days ago, and what lies ahead, has made both of us paranoid. “Come. Have you broken your fast? It’s going to be a cool day, I think.”

He escorts her and Lifayis back under the cloaking barrier.

She turns, following him like a child, and stops abruptly at my presence. Her cheeks flush, and her lips part. “Jeren?”

I feel hot and awkward. I’d come to stop her, but Bafis already has, and they don’t need me. They don’t need me. I was thinking that even before she sang our mother’s song, the realization burrowing in my mind and nesting. I need her desperately, but she doesn’t need me. None of them do.

My head has been filled up with strange thoughts for some time. Losing the feathers so quickly has driven me insane.

Her soft brown eyes seek mine. She’s always seeking me, and when she finds me, she flushes, twitches, or looks flustered. Her discomfort causes a distinct itch in my spine.

She collects herself and shows concern. “What is it?”

“Lifayis. Give him to me.”

The concern deadens, as I intended. She gives me my nephew. I fasten him to my chest in a sling, carefully tucking him in so he’s entirely contained.

“Go back inside. Don’t leave. We’ll know if you do.”

She walks past me, back to the house.

Bafis watches her go. “I asked you to be kinder to her.”

“It’s only words,” I say hatefully, sticking him with the same poisoned knife I used on her and not getting any satisfaction from it. If anything, it feels like picking a scab, and I can’t stop even though we’re all bleeding. “She isn’t made of sand. She’s not going to die.”

He’s silent as I check the guard spells around my perimeter one last time, even though I do it obsessively every night. I reinforce the lines with white feathers and symbols traced in the sand or in the air.

“You always were more prone to fits of contempt,” Bafis says finally. “But since she’s come, I’ve seen things in you that I don’t recognize.”

“She’s not afraid of death.” I step outside the barrier, retrace the last symbol, and will my words into reality. They won’t stop anyone determined to enter, but they will give a casual visitor pause. “I have to make sure she’s not going to die.”

“You were never this cruel to Raqessa.”

“Maybe if I had been, she’d still be alive.”

We fly to the center of Janakros. Lifayis makes milky spit bubbles against my chest, warm and full, and his eyes are open for longer now. They’re blue, like the sky before sunset, but soon they’ll melt into the haze of amber.

“I know you’re still grieving, so I haven’t wanted to hurt you.” Bafis’s tone is unusually cold as we fly. “But you’ve really lost my respect over these last weeks, Jeren. You’re better than this. Can’t you show it?”

His words dart into my chest. I didn’t think I could hurt any more than I do, but new pains are always possible, it seems. “If you didn’t coddle her with presents, she wouldn’t always want to walk out in the open where anyone could see her.”

Bafis makes a noise of disgust.

Perhaps past me would feel the same.

But right now, I can only barely contain my panic.

It burns in my chest like a small sun.

All my words come out sharp, like knives.

They cut my own tongue.

And yet, I can’t stop spitting them. I don’t want to. All this pain and fury spills out like lava, and it cools to obsidian, the material of arrowheads and fishhooks and knives.

We land on the village square, and Bafis hustles ahead of me to the ceremonial grounds.

It is hot and dry today, and the sky is azure. The clouds that blanket my spire have burned away, exposing anyone who walks beyond the barrier.

Hopefully, Ayanakalia doesn’t take this opportunity to escape.

The solstice ceremony makes me feel painful nostalgia and ugly guilt.

Meat smokes, mouthwatering, from the covered pit to the side of the shrine. An ornate labyrinth is carved into the ancient stones beneath my feet, the weathered lines highlighted by orange chalk. I follow them, my footsteps tracing the steps of generations before me. All the lines eventually lead to the village shrine, and they glow subtly with channeled power.

Our village elder, Kayarinthos, stands at the shrine with his assistants. The ritual started last night with animal sacrifice and first offerings. Oil, wine, and honey would have been shared freely at the small midnight meal. The ritual started in earnest at sunrise.

Now we chant, funneling our energy from our small shrine to the main temple. Supposedly, it’s to empower He Who Sleeps. This chanting is the most important part of the solstice ceremony, and it’s the one thing Bafis and I have calculated we can’t skip. We’ll stay for the blessing immediately after and then we’ll sneak out.

I choose my place at the back, where I’d stand anyway, and lend my voice and energy to the ritual.

A few notice me. They nudge and point. Curiosity ripples through the crowd.

But I only feel hurt and anger. This is the community that should have stepped up when my sister died. They should’ve helped us feed Lifayis. They did not.

Furin mutters to his brother. They’re both bachelors. It’s rumored Furin took a bride from one of the human villages, which isn’t allowed, but that rule is only enforced when the council wants to punish someone. His curious gaze burns me.

I avoid it so I won’t glare.

The main chant finishes. Energy pings in my chest and fingertips. Magic, potent and sweet, eases my anger a little bit.

“Come forward for the blessing,” Elder Kayarinthos intones.

The elders are blessed first. Furin’s elderly mother, Uqilia, bumps me as she shuffles past. I clasp her thistle-light elbow to steady her.

She uses the opportunity to pull down Lifayis’s covering. “Oh! So he’s not dead.”

Her quavering voice is annoyingly loud.

I jerk back and cover him again as I whisper, “Of course he’s not dead.”

“I thought he was dead.” She chortles. “I thought you brought a dead child to the ritual.”

The muttering grows discordant.

Elder Kayarinthos holds up his palms, stopping the blessings. His voice cracks across the ceremonial ground. “Jeren. You brought death to the solstice ceremony?”

Bafis hides his face with a helpless groan.

“No, I—”

“Naw, look at him.” Uqilia yanks down my cover with surprising strength, nearly spilling Lifayis out.

Lifayis makes a startled cry. The noise echoes across the ceremonial ground.

She pinches his red cheek approvingly. “Good, strong lungs, and a lot of fat on him. How’d you do it, then? You snuck a goat up into the Reaches?”

“What? No. Why?”

“My sons said Bafis bought you cheese. Maybe the baby ate it? Goat’s milk has fat. If the babe could stomach the cheese, he could stomach goat’s milk.”

Elder Kayarinthos waves his ceremonial dagger for me to approach.

Bafis meets my eye with alarm.

My heart pounds as I carry Lifayis up onto the dais, take him out of my sling, and set him on the shiny altar. Elder Kayarinthos hands the dagger to his assistant, touches Lifayis’s arms and legs, lifts him by the wrists and watches how he lies back. Lifayis grunts and gazes cross-eyed at the elder’s gold diadem. He sticks out his tongue. Elder Kayarinthos smiles and tickles the small rolls under his chin.

Then the village elder refocuses on me. “You should’ve summoned me for his one-month rites.”

Anger strikes me hard and hot. But I manage to keep my voice steady. “I thought you would do it when you came to condole with us.”

His hand hesitates only a moment. He waves the burning incense brush over Lifayis’s face, calling down the blessings of the season onto his small body, the same prayer he will shortly give the rest of us. He sets the smoldering brush on its gold plate and helps me put Lifayis back into my sling.

“How did you manage to feed him?” he asks.

I look again at Bafis.

Bafis’s cheeks are flushed. He gestures something frantic yet cryptic.

“I didn’t.” My heart thuds, but I hold the elder’s skeptical gaze. “It was nothing I did.”

“Then how is he fed?”

“The gods fed him.”

His eyes narrow.

But then he looks at my back. The char mark is still visible from my last feather. He frowns.

Elder Kayarinthos stands us in the front for the rest of the ceremony. I lend my voice to the chants, as I’m required. Energy surges from my neighbors, my community, and wraps around us like a finely woven cloth. My anger drains away for the first time in nearly a year. I feel exhausted afterward, but cleansed, finally, and at peace.

Which is good because everyone wants to see Lifayis. Between the women carrying out food pots and the men uncovering the sacrifice that’s been roasting in the pit all night, they pause to touch his fat cheeks, poke his belly, and bounce him. They recall stories of old when the gods intervened. A child thought to be drowned actually fell into a giant conch shell and was washed onto the shore. A father bit by a nest of venomous asps sprang up again with no ill effects. A man impaled by a rampaging bull walked away just fine, then two weeks later, he collapsed, dead. They recall these stories while studying my charred back.

Perhaps we can get away with concealing Ayanakalia’s existence.

Although I had planned to sneak out before the feast, by silent agreement, Bafis and I try to appear normal by partaking in the meal. I haven’t noticed a single bite of food I’ve eaten since Raqessa died, but the energy surge from the ritual chanting has finally loosened something tight in my soul. Oily mutton and the hearty festival dishes taste good. Men strumming instruments further lift our spirits.

Lifayis is blessed. He’s accepted into our community. My neighbors appear to believe our story. I lick the last of the oil from my fingers, wipe them on my pants. Everything will be easier now.

Bafis appears at my shoulder. “I feel unease.”

Clouds eclipse the sun, and his words have an immediate chilling effect, not just on our ritual ground. “Everyone is here.”

“I know.”

“You said she would never desert us. You doubt her, now?”

He frowns.

Well, this is longer than I’d meant to stay anyway. I’m only arguing with Bafis because I hate the fears twisting my belly.

Lifayis fusses. One of the elderly women offers him cheese. He pushes it away, fists waving. His face is red and his cry is ragged.

“He’s hungry,” the lady tells me.

“He’s just tired,” I lie, and sweep Lifayis into my sling.

“Are you sure you didn’t steal a goat?” Uqilia demands, wiping spit-up from Lifayis’s chin that looks exactly like curdled milk.

“He didn’t,” Bafis promises nervously. “It was the cheese, like you said.”

“Didn’t you buy only one pot? Doesn’t seem like enough.”

“He’s small.” Bafis makes a caught face at me. “It lasts for a long time.”

“Hmm.”

Lifayis balls his fists and screams.

Furin clears his throat and tries to murmur in his mother’s ear. “He pulled a feather, Mother.”

“Eh?”

“From his back, a gold feather.”

“No, no.”

“The gods used his wish to feed the baby.”

“No, they’ve been gathering red moon flowers, which are only good for women’s tea or for feeding a goat. And they hung foreign cloth two months ago, just the right size for plucking up a goat. I saw it drying on the line.”

I glare back at Bafis. This scrutiny is exactly what I was worried about.

The village elder catches us as we’re leaving.

“I’ll come by to see you shortly,” Elder Kayarinthos says over Lifayis’s inconsolable screaming. “I’ll perform the rites for your sister.”

“Yes,” I say absently. That’s a problem for another day.

We fly furiously home. I try to comfort him, but Lifayis spits out my fingers. His agony grows weaker, more ragged.

Bafis gets madder as we soar. “You said I was coddling her with presents. I should have brought her cheese every day. Then they might have believed us.”

“They believed us.”

“But no, you didn’t want me to treat her like a worthwhile being. Do you hear him? This is all we would have heard until his death if not for her.”

I know. It’s what we’ll still hear if anything’s happened to her. Lifayis is too young to go without a mother. “Save your breath for flight.”

He huffs and catches up to me.

We land in my courtyard just as Lifayis gives up and lolls into a fitful, hungry sleep.

“Ayanakalia?” Bafis calls.

The homestead is silent.

Empty.

My unease grows.

I follow Bafis into the house.

The single room is dim and cloistered. I forgot how small it was, how much bigger the world outside is. The fish stew I made for her sits in the cold cinders, untouched.

Dread coils like a snake in the darkness of my belly. “She left. Right after we did.”

“I didn’t see her on the hills below.” Bafis lifts her blanket, as if she could be hiding beneath it somehow. He hurries back outside. “Ayanakalia? Where are you?”

Anger wells up in me. I want him to stop calling for her. She’s just another person who’s done something unforgivable. With a little laugh, touching my arm and telling me to stop worrying, she’s just another person who’s disappeared, who expects me to figure out how to go on without them. I can’t go on any farther.

But I have to.

Lifayis snores. I take off the sling and rest him in his cradle. He fills it more now. Perhaps he’s old enough to stomach goat’s milk after all.

Very well. I will steal a goat. Practicalities whirl through my head as I leave the house, and I call to Bafis, “Watch Lifayis.”

“Where are you going?”

Well, Mallonia is too close. On a clear day, a shepherd could hear its crying. “Rokastia.”

Bafis snorts. “She can’t have gone that far.”

“But she could have gone down to the shore, gotten in her boat, and be halfway to another island.”

His anger flares. “She made a promise.”

“She’s only—”

“Human or not, she’s better than that, and I’m ashamed of you.” He pushes past me, searching around the back side of the house. He peers over the sheer drop. The shore is barren far, far below. “She can’t have fallen. The tide’s not turned. We’d see her body on the rocks. And no monsters came. There were no alerts, no alarms.”

I wait for him to accept the truth. Or maybe I’m still listening because I’m trying to get myself to accept it.

“Ayanakalia?” he calls, pushing through our brushy herb garden.

The wind is strong here on the back side of the house, and fog sweeps in, low and obscuring the rocks again. Moisture beads on my clothes, my arms.

This area is too dangerous for livestock. It will have to be blocked off.

I don’t really want to steal a goat.

No one cares about what I want.

My knees buckle as the weight of my responsibilities crush me. I land on the grassy patch. Scraggly heather grips tightly to the unfeeling rock.

An odd color catches my attention. Orange, hidden in the grass, when the rest of the dirt here is darker brown or gray. I part the grass. Is that…a bead?

Bafis comes back holding something, his voice ominous. “Is this from the main temple, do you think?”

It’s a broken string of prayer beads.

Someone was here.

My heart pounds in my throat.

A metallic taste fills my mouth.

I can’t quite catch my breath.

Electricity coils in my fists.

Bafis looks at the orange bead in my palm, then peers over the sheer cliff again. “He wouldn’t dare…”

“We didn’t see her body,” I remind him evenly.

“Then he might still have her.” Bafis balls his fists and floats into the air.

“Wait! I’m the one who should go. You’re an old man!”

But Bafis doesn’t wait. “I’m just going to see if I can see her…”

“Don’t!”

He flies around the front of the house and disappears.

I leap out, wanting to chase after him, but I can’t leave Lifayis alone. I shout again, but still, Bafis ignores me. I take a huge breath to bellow his name.

But as I drift out from the cliff, my expanding vision takes in my homestead, and I see her.

More than a body’s length below the top, she’s curled up on a narrow ledge.

The breath leaves me in shock.

I zoom to her. “How in the world…?”

Ayanakalia squints at me. She reaches out a trembling hand and misses, falls forward into my arms, and I catch her hard.

Her rock ledge peels away from beneath her feet and disappears into clouds. An infinite time later, it clatters on the stone shore, the sharp noise echoing up the cliffs to us.

My heart thumps.

Truly, she is protected by the gods.

I fly her to the top of the cliff, over the manor, and land in the courtyard. Her feet touch the ground, and she sinks. I lower with her, catching her again, but she’s wriggling through my grasp on purpose to embrace the cracked tile, so I drop to my knees and pull her small body across my lap. She clings to me, shaking. I rest my back against my doorjamb. I have so many questions.

She’s soaked from the damp clouds, her hands are frozen into stiff claws, and her dark hair is plastered to her icy skin.

I enfold her with my wings and pull her slim form up against my chest, willing my warmth into her, and I make a hushing sound as I rock her. It’s the same instinctive noise I use to soothe Lifayis.

“You’re all right.” The heat of my breath is trapped by my wings, drying her. “You’re just fine.”

She whimpers through clenched teeth. “I didn’t move. I didn’t make a sound.”

“No.”

“I was there for hours.”

“I believe you.”

She makes a strangled sob and buries her face in my armpit. I rise, my wings retracting, and carry her inside. With her still nestled in my arms, I rekindle the fire and quickly warm a cup of water. The fish stew reheats. I pull off feather after feather, wrap her scraped hands and torn fingernails in fiery wishes. She sucks in a pained hiss as each white feather falls, but in the end, she stretches her hands out of the clawed shapes. My breath dries her hair, and her clothes steam beside the fire.

And then, finally, she releases me and inhales deeply, shuddering.

“Someone came,” I guess as I hand her the warmed water.

She nods, curls both hands around the mug without apparent pain, and sips.

“Did you see him?”

“No.”

I press a white feather into a long scratch across her cheek. She winces as it burns, but holds still as I carefully brush the scab away so her smooth skin won’t scar. “How did you get down there?”

“There were small footholds and handholds, but they broke off as I climbed down.”

“And then you couldn’t get back up.” Grimness overtakes me. This should have ended so differently. I see a vision of her broken on the shore, blood sprayed out, sightless eyes. I shake myself, banish the horrible vision. It’s not real. It’s not a prediction. “This person came early? Right when we left?”

“A bit after.”

“But before you could eat your meal.”

She looks at the pot of stew, then up at me. Her clear brown eyes are liquid, and the shimmer in them, for just this moment, reflects like stars. “Was that for me?”

A fist squeezes my heart. “Do we not feed you?”

“You do. Mostly Bafis does. I didn’t want to…I try to guess what you’re thinking because I don’t want to do something wrong, but it’s hard.” She swallows, looks away, into the fire, and her shoulders droop. “Everything I do displeases you.”

The fist squeezes tighter. “No.”

“Even now, you think I’m stupid and weak. I should’ve hidden somewhere else. The cliffs are fine for an icari, and I’m just a human.”

Our legs tangle. Her cheeks flush, and she skirts my eyes.

I have avoided this. I’ve avoided her.

But now her tendrils are seeking me, feminine and delicate, and I am only a man, after all.

My voice comes out low. “You are.”

“See? You’re so angry at me, and I don’t understand why.”

“I never asked for another creature to be totally dependent on me.”

“I’m doing you this favor.” She pulls her steaming cloak tighter. “It’s only for a little while.”

“I don’t want to care about another person.”

“Yes, well, you’re loud and clear that you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” I capture her chin with my thumb and forefinger. “I hate everything about you.”

She turns those liquid pools on me, depthless, beautiful. “It’s the same thing.”

“No.” My voice descends to a whisper. “Because you keep invading, like a choking vine, digging your roots into cracks and tangling around my bones. You’ll own my soul if I let you. The only way I can keep you at a distance is if I drive you away.”

Her breath hitches.

Soft pink lips part.

She’s like an abyss calling me, hypnotic. The curse that will end me. End all of us. A promise of light in dark. That’s her.

I lean forward and cover her mouth with mine.

Ayanakalia

Jeren is kissing me.

My shock gives way to thudding heat.

His sharp mouth is supple, his lips that form such bitter words are gentle against mine. He smells like sunlight on autumn days, with an undertone of musk and rutting animals, the last warmth of the season and full bellies, and the fuzzy antlers of island deer.

My hands, which he massaged with impossible tenderness as he held me, are warmer and less sore, as are my legs tangled in his. After the terrible hours I clung near death on the side of the cliff, he’s brought me back to life.

His lips part, teasing mine.

Desire pierces me from the center outward.

His taste is of water and woodsmoke and male flavors, and I crave more. My womb throbs, flooding my woman’s areas with readiness for a man. My nipples contract, and my bud swells. His teeth tease my lower lip, soft nibbles, and his tongue pushes inward, finding mine.

But I do not respond to him.

I am shaken right now. I accept, receive, and react to his unexpected kiss, but I do not respond. I am in shock.

He pulls back, licks his lips, amber eyes on mine. The gold light zips around his irises, one full rotation.

My body flushes with heat.

And then he leans in again.

I shove him back. “No.”

He blinks. “Ayanakalia—”

“No.” I draw the thin blanket tighter around myself and wriggle back. “You don’t get to do that. You haven’t earned the right.”

He frowns and pokes the fire. It’s awkward. Then he mutters, “Do all humans lie about their feelings?”

“Do all icari court their wives with thorn words and vinegar?”

His lips turn downward.

The silence is full of unspoken feelings. My confusion resurfaces. He’s made it abundantly clear how much he dislikes me, and even a moment ago, he said aloud that he hates me. Is this another way he’s channeling his anger? I don’t understand him.

Bafis’s voice carries into the room, aimed at Jeren, who’s partly visible from the courtyard. “The head priestess didn’t know the whereabouts of her son, which is—ah!” He hustles to me, kneels, and takes my hands in both of his. His eyes water. “Thank the gods. I thought the worst.”

Matching tears spring to my eyes. “I was so scared.”

“There, there.” He presses my head to his shoulder like a father, then sits beside me. “What happened?”

I tell him in detail. After he and Jeren left, I kept busy inside the house as ordered—Bafis glares at Jeren, and Jeren stirs the fish stew with a stony expression and ignores him—when a sudden whistle sounded.

Jeren looks up. “You hear that?”

“Of course she hears it.” Bafis waves his interruption away, filling my heart with warmth. “Go on.”

A man approached, his shadow filling the door. I squeezed out the back window—the smoke flue—landing on the flat grass, and I tried to stay still, but he must have heard me because he went out and around the wrong side. The garden brush caught his clothes. It gave me time to shimmy into the passage between the manor and cliff. He floated up, overhead, and I saw him from the shadows, but I don’t think he saw me. He knew I was there, though. He landed at the front of the house again and started down the passage. There was nowhere to go, so I lay down as if I were a snake and let the gods guide me until I slithered all the way underneath the brushy top of the cliff and onto a little ledge. He stood over me, I’m sure looking down, but he must not have seen me. I heard his breathing, a cough. He went back into the house and came out again a few times. And then he left. I had no way to get back up, so I waited. After an eternity, Jeren found me.

Bafis tugs on his lips, thinking. “I would like to see this ledge.”

“It’s gone.” Jeren hands me a warm bowl of stew. “When I picked her up, the ledge broke loose and fell.”

I didn’t notice that. But right now, it’s okay. I spoon the meal Jeren never bothered to tell me about. It’s warm and filling, and the world doesn’t feel quite as horrible as it did a short time ago.

Bafis inhales, exhales, shakes his head. “That was a very brave thing you did.” He pats my shoulder. “Never do it again, please. I didn’t even see it and I’m going to have nightmares.”

“I thought it was better to choose my route than to get thrown off.”

“What’s this? You wouldn’t get thrown off.” He chuckles awkwardly. “You’d be judged at the main temple first. We don’t fly around throwing strangers off cliffs.”

At the mention of a temple, the wind turns cooler and the fire flickers. Shivers travel up my arms, bumpy. Knowing passes through me. I must go there. Soon.

Jeren eyes Bafis as if he disagrees and goes back to their previous conversation. “But the head priestess didn’t know his whereabouts?”

“Ah, she was busy with the ceremony. I gave her the beads.”

Lifayis awakens with a gulping cry.

My breasts well painfully. We skipped at least one feeding. I quickly take a few more bites of stew, set aside my mostly empty bowl, and rise to get Lifayis.

Jeren is there first, and so I return to my seat and open my arms to accept the baby. Lifayis doesn’t fight at all. He gets right down to feeding. Waves of release and comfort flow through me, and I settle deeper into the stone floor. I’m all right. Everything is back to normal.

Jeren takes my bowl.

“Oh, I wasn’t done,” I tell him.

He pauses, the ladle midplunge into the soup, and I realize he was just refilling it.

I sit back. Embarrassed heat floods my face.

Jeren sets my bowl on the stone in front of me with a clink. His eyes are shadowed, and his voice is low and rough. “You made the right choice to hide.”

I flush even hotter. Is he praising me?

“We don’t have any proof it was him,” Bafis says cautiously.

I pick up the bowl in one hand, but I need to hold Lifayis to my breast, and there’s not a third hand for eating the soup. My stomach complains, but Lifayis’s hungry too. I switch him early to get equal relief, pick up my bowl, and set it down again uselessly.

Jeren scoots next to me. He picks up the bowl and holds it close to my face.

Is he…is this what I think?

I cautiously take the spoon. He looks away, disinterested, while I eat.

Bafis watches us. He looks relieved, even pleased that Jeren is finally being nice, but I’m not convinced. I don’t know how to feel about this.

After dinner, Bafis leaves as usual, impressing upon me again how glad he is that I’m okay.

Jeren walks the perimeter of his property, then disappears to wherever he always goes at night. I sleep inside with Lifayis. Everything is back to normal.

Except Lifayis fusses, awakening me in the middle of the night. We’re all off schedule. I change him and fall asleep with him in my arms, nursing. When I awaken again, he’s still there. He’s warm and sweet and a comforting baby, and I close my eyes and hold him like an anchor. This is okay, just exactly like this.

Then Jeren comes in. We eat a silent breakfast. Jeren wraps Lifayis to him and does his usual chores.

The morning passes, but Bafis doesn’t come at his usual time. I walk to the boundary markers, where they always make me stop.

Jeren is working just outside the boundary.

“Where’s Bafis?”

“He always helps at the main temple after solstice.”

“Ah.” Disappointment flushes through me. “So he’s not coming at all?”

“Maybe later.” He stands. “Why do you want him?”

I test his niceness. “Can I go on a walk?”

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

He looks up at the fog, then behind him, where the closest neighbor would be. Then he gestures for me to pass over the symbols, and he follows me down the path.

Lifayis makes baby noises from the sling on Jeren’s front. He’s getting to an age where he likes to look out, and Jeren ties the sling so his nephew can face outward.

We walk sharply downhill. I pause at the first crossroads. One fork leads to the closest neighbors, I think. The other veers to the meadow where I collected red flowers. But a third path continues down into the unknown.

“Can I keep going?”

Jeren looks up again, almost like he’s measuring the fog, then gestures for me to continue.

Our travel isn’t filled with cheerful stories or Bafis’s steady wheezing. Jeren is silent as he easily covers ground, deliberately slowing himself to my pace. But the silence is almost companionable. Maybe it would be if my heart weren’t constantly pounding, on alert for anger to cloud over his pleasantness. This truce is temporary. Any moment, he’ll veer back into his normal emotional storm.

The trail winds around the spire. It branches in multiple directions as we descend to the headland. Bleats of distant goats echo strangely in the fog. Waves crash against rocks outside the barrier.

Suddenly, Jeren presses me against the stone, facing me, his wings spread.

I freeze.

Lifayis makes bubbles in the sling, happily pressed between us.

Jeren looks behind him.

He’s larger than me, every part of him, broad shoulders taut with muscle and hard outlines that heat the space between us like standing too near a fire. I stand on a rocky rise, so for once, I’m slightly taller than him. His tunic bunches up at the shoulder. I can’t see through the spread of his all-white wings, but I can see down his shoulder blades in the gap between the bunched tunic and his wings.

Last night, those wings sheltered me so gently. The white feathers brushed my skin, downy soft, and yet cupped me as firmly as his arms.

Now, the one gold feather gleams with unnatural light. Between his shoulder blades, a raw red scar runs parallel, flaming and angry.

Thump, thump, thump. The noise echoes in the fog like the flapping of mighty wings. A bird cries with a guttural sound.

“What is it?” I whisper.

“A great eagle.” His voice is more normal, but still quiet. “They take our goats when they can get through the barrier.”

“How can they get through the barrier?”

“Some have a bit of magic. But in truth, time has stretched the barrier too thin, and if they try for any determined length of time, they’ll find a weak spot.”

The noise recedes, and Jeren steps back. His wings twinkle as they disappear. In shadow, his gold feather still glistens, visible in outline.

Whatever the danger from a great eagle, Jeren lets me continue. I’m already getting tired, but this is a rare chance, and I have to take advantage of my freedom while I can.

We reach the shore, not where I landed or sent off my daughter’s spirit, but closer to their spire. I scamper along the strangely flat, wet rocks, examining shallow tidal pools that remind me of my island, slipping on seaweed and almost plunging into the ocean.

He makes a noise in his throat. “Get back from the edge.”

“The water’s calm.”

His tone sharpens. “You really like to test me.”

“I don’t.” I meet his eye. “This is calmer than a lake.”

His voice breaks. “You understand nothing!”

“Then explain it so I understand!”

His hands clench, and he looks away, then pinches his eyes shut tight and huffs a sigh. He gestures behind me. “Do you see the darkness?”

I rotate on the rocky lip, teetering, and he makes the noise in his throat again.

The ocean water inside the barrier is still as glass. I peer into a sunless blue. The rocks are flat as plates broke clean off and plunge directly down, an underwater cliff. The landscape above matches below.

But I don’t see darkness. “No.”

“Watch.” He sets Lifayis down and takes a step closer to me. Another. “Now?”

“No…”

Wait.

Is the surface of the water bending toward me?

I kneel.

Yes, the ocean is rising into a subtle dome, like a motionless wave. On the distant sea floor, monstrous black threads coil and writhe like worms. I close my eyes, and the worms darken into the multi-jointed fingers of titans.

I open my eyes and look back at him. “Why?”

Jeren is pale. His fists tighten at his stiff sides. “It’s our curse.”

“Will it come for me?”

“The water here is very deep. If you fall in, maybe you’ll be fine, but maybe you’ll slip and hit your head, and I can’t pull you out. You could lose consciousness, breathe the water, and die. And all I’d be able to do is watch.” His voice breaks. He glares at me, furious. “Do you understand?”

I’m not going to slip, and I’m not going to die for such a stupid reason. I haven’t finished what the gods sent me here to do.

But I stand and cross the rocks back to him.

He looks down at me, bracing for my argument.

I hug him.

Small, silent tremors slide through his strong body.

I hug him harder.

He clears his throat. “Why are you doing that?”

“I’m doing it because…” I frolicked along a cliff’s edge that to him is just as terrifying as the one I spent glued to yesterday, knowing in the core of my being that if I twitched even slightly, I would die. I pat his arm, step back again, and move past him inland. “How did you get the fish the other day?”

“Humans. We have an agreement.”

“Did they dunk your clothes too?”

“Yes.”

“Does all water bend toward you?”

“Only the ocean.” He picks up Lifayis.

“Then you’re allowed to bathe?”

“There are warm springs nearby.”

“Can we go?”

He motions me to follow.

Around the cliffs, lush vines hang across a dripping entrance parted by a stream. We pass under the refreshing curtain into a humid cavern that smells odd, like rotten eggs and strange rocks.

Inside is my boat, hull up.

Jeren leads me to the altar. Of course, this is a holy grotto. It feels effervescent with the sunlight filtering through vines in the ceiling and dappling the riverbed.

Jeren pours a few drops of wine into a ritual bowl. He swirls the liquid, intones the sacred words of cleansing, and asks for the gods’ blessing, then pours it out on the consecrated rocks. His singing voice is gruff and sweet, and it tickles the nape of my neck.

Deeper inside, the stream splits into a series of pools. I touch them with my toes. The nearest is lukewarm, and the next is body temperature. Farther in, steam billows with warning.

I untie my tunic, and Lifayis suddenly decides he’s starving. My breasts swell with his anxious noises. I pause, topless, and then sit beside the pool on the damp, humid rocks and nurse him. My legs ping from the exercise. It’s a good weariness.

Jeren drops his coverings.

His body is honey gold, burned by the sun. Thicker white-blond hair dusts his legs and arms, lightens his armpits, and trails down his abdomen. A white-blond nest halos his darker honey manhood.

I’ve seen him naked from across the outcropping of his homestead, but not close. And though I’ve seen nude men all my life, I keep stealing peeks at him.

His anatomy is well formed and not an intimidating size. I could wrap my fingers around, I think, and I suddenly want to hold it in my palm to see if it has an ordinary weight and firmness.

This cavern feels too warm and humid.

His muscles ripple as he descends into the steaming pool. Four burn scars are seared into his broad back. The two inner scars, nearest his spine, are old, but the two outer scars are much more recent. In fact, the scar on his right shoulder blade is black and cracked, but the one on his left shoulder blade is worse. It’s a painful red and seeping with a tint of blood.

My stomach twists.

It’s horrible. How can he even move, much less wear Lifayis in a sling crossing the scars, and do all he does every day? No wonder he’s in a perpetually grumpy mood.

As if suddenly remembering, he twists to face me, hiding away his scars. But that only means I see him wince as the water hits the bottom edge of the newer burns, and hear the hiss he can’t suppress.

“What?” he asks bluntly.

My tongue stumbles over itself. “It looks painful. Your back. The one on your left shoulder is angry.”

He looks away, scratches his nose. “They’ll heal in time.”

“Is it always so painful?”

“No. As you pull the magic out of your body, there’s less remaining to absorb the fire. So, each one is worse.”

“What happens when you pull out the last one?”

He motions with his hands to show his wings going up in smoke. “All gone.”

I have so many questions, especially while Jeren is in a mood to tell me. Bafis is always trying to show me the best of their life. Jeren isn’t, so, I get a more complete picture, even though he’s keeping secrets too.

Lifayis fusses, and I switch sides. “What did you pull them for?”

“My wishes?” He eyes me with a calculating smirk, as if I’ve just brazenly asked a highly personal question. “What do you think they were for?”

“Your sister’s life. And Lifayis’s birth, his life blessing.”

His amusement drains. “Bafis likes to talk.”

“You don’t argue with him out of earshot.”

He acknowledges that. “The other two were stolen by equally useless wishes.”

“Someone stole them?”

“No.” He lifts a hand and drags the damp hair off his forehead to reveal the white crescent moon there. “Only the owner can make a wish with his feathers, luckily, or we’d all be plucked bald before we grew out of infancy.”

“What were the other two for?”

He looks away, done with this conversation. “Ask the wind.”

I close my eyes.

“Wait. Are you asking the wind? No, of course you’re not. You’re asking a spirit. My sister? You’re reaching into the land of death here, in the sacred grotto?”

“You said—”

“No, just… I forget, somehow.” He squeezes his eyes shut, sighs. “They were for my parents.”

“Your parents asked you to—”

“My parents disappeared when I was six. The old priestess asked me to wish them back. I was young. Perhaps I didn’t wish hard enough.”

“Is that possible?”

“I have no idea. My wishes have never come true.” He clears his throat and looks away. “Perhaps my feathers are only gold colored. I use them under delusion.”

“Lifayis is healthy.”

“So far.” He flashes me a pained smile, then washes his face with the water, rubs his cheeks. He leans an elbow on the edge of the pool and stares up at the dappled ceiling. “My sister thought if we both drew out a feather and wished at the same time, it would double our power.”

“Did it?”

“Of course not. It was a waste, again. She made up what she wanted to be true instead of what was.”

Lifayis releases my breast. He’s fallen asleep. I burp him and place him in a safe hollow on a flat rock, wedging him in with his sling. He’s growing fat. The circumstances of my arrival were horrible, but I’m glad I came. I’m glad I can use my body for its purpose and save Raqessa’s child, even though I couldn’t save mine. I stroke his soft cheek. He makes a buzzing noise as he sleeps.

Jeren moves in the water. “Are you coming?”

“Yes.” I go to the pool’s edge and disrobe, then hold the fabric in front of me. Jeren’s seen me naked. Not just at a distance, but also up close. He or Bafis had to change my ill-soaked robes more than once during my fever. But it feels different now…

He rises abruptly, the water falling off him. “The pool is yours.”

“Ah, I didn’t mean…”

“It’s fine.”

“No.” I take a deep breath. “I want to talk about last night.”

“You made yourself clear.” He steps out of the pool and scrapes off his sweat. “I’m not interested in you anymore.”

My shoulders drop. “You’re not?”

“Of course not. Only a sick man would carry on after a woman rejected him.”

I feel unsteady.

Arinthos rejected me several times before we ultimately married, but I was blinded by my mission and I barely cared about his reluctance. Only a sick man would carry on after a woman rejected him. I suppose my situation proves the opposite is also true. If Arinthos had succeeded in hunting a bride elsewhere, I wouldn’t have cried from a broken heart, I’d have lain in wait, a spider in the shadows, for my opportunity. And what if that bride had ended the curse? I’d like to believe my obsession would’ve been satisfied and I could have finished living out a quiet life in my mother’s empty house, but I can’t be sure. I guess Jeren’s right. I was a sick woman after all.

But it was only last night he said, “You’ll own my soul if I let you.” And now he has no interest…?

Jeren saunters to the inner waterfall and freshens himself under the cascade of cold water.

I sink into the warm pool. My face is hotter than the water, and a muscle pulses in my chest, like I’ve made a mistake. I’ve reached for a dangled jewel and thought I’d captured it, but my palm is empty. It was never in my grasp.

He turns, gives me the side view of his body. I trace the scars in the shape of his invisible wings, the ripples of muscles over his buttocks, his thighs and calves chiseled from dusky gold marble. He’s so gorgeous it’s unholy. He takes my breath from my body.

And he was once, for a few moments, interested in courting me.

But now he’s not.

Huh.

I soak up the warmth, drifting in and out of my feelings as my muscles loosen with unfamiliar luxury. Eventually, I feel light-headed and crawl out, sit on the side of the pool until reason returns, and pull my clothes back on. The silence between us grows like a chasm. The heat made me a little sick.

But I guess it’s not surprising. I’ve only had one relationship, and I hurtled into it without regard for my husband’s or even my own real feelings. I’m not sure I learned anything useful for future relationships.

My stomach growls.

Jeren ties Lifayis into the sling, and we head out into the cool afternoon.

I soon realize my mistake.

“Are you okay?” he asks during one of our increasingly frequent stops. “You’re turning white.”

He won’t let me walk again if I admit the truth, but I’m not good at lies. “I guess I went a little far.”

Oh, he’s mad. “Come here.”

“Just give me a moment.”

He makes an irritated noise and draws me into his arms, pressing me against Lifayis again.

“I’ll be okay,” I protest. “You don’t have to carry me.”

“Hold on and be grateful.” Abruptly, the ground falls away.

I cling to him. My palm grazes his shoulder.

He winces.

“Sorry.”

“I asked for gratitude, not apologies.”

“Thanks. And I am sorry.”

He makes a growl in his throat.

I look away, biting my traitorous tongue.

Flying with Jeren is different from flying with Bafis. Bafis always cautions me to remain still and hold on, but Jeren pulls me tight against him, and his hard body bulges against the clothes.

Heat rushes through me.

The air is cool and bright, and the mist is chilly and refreshing against his fire-hot skin. The ground peekaboos beneath us.

We land.

I stumble back.

He catches me just before I fall. I struggle, and he holds me tighter, steadying me, but my heart thuds out of control. I will never be steady as long as we’re touching. Still, I force myself to stop and take a breath so he’ll let me go.

But he doesn’t.

His breath is warm against my cheek, and his white hair tickles my forehead. He smells like the clouds.

I stay in the circle of his arms for too long.

“Ayanakalia…”

I look up.

The light circles his irises. Zip.

Heat fills me with pounding awareness.

But he said he wasn’t interested.

His gaze drops to my lips.

But he said…

He leans forward.

I hold up my hand and catch his jaw.

He stops.

We hold this position for a long moment.

His mouth moves under my fingers. “It’s not…what you think…”

“What am I to think?”

The air rustles the grasses under my feet and ripples our tunics.

His mouth softens under my hand, and his lips nibble on my fingers. Hunger radiates from the tugging sensation and vibrates through all my soft tissues. He sucks my fingers, swirls his tongue between the crevices. My bud throbs.

I push him back, jerk my hand free.

The fierce light circles his irises.

My heart thumps like I’m on the cliff face again.

I wipe my damp hand on my skirt. “Stop confusing me.”

“You’re the one giving mixed signals,” he snaps, the bitterness familiar and comforting. “How can you talk of intimate things and touch me and blush, then say you don’t understand? Did your time with your husband teach you nothing?”

“My time with my husband taught me betrayal.”

His mouth closes.

“My husband vowed to honor me. He took me into his house, touched me in all the ways a husband touches his wife, filled my womb with a child, and then he tried, very hard, to murder me. So, Jeren, what am I to think?”

“I would never—”

“You’ve always thought the worst of me. Even when your only friend begs, you can’t say a nice word to me. You ‘hate how I make you feel’ and kiss me, then lose interest the next day. Which words are lies?”

“None are lies,” he insists. “But you blush like a bride, and I forget.”

“Since when do you care about my blushes?”

“Since you suffered the same loss as…” He gestures over his shoulder, back toward the sea where we sent my daughter. “Yes, you’re right. I was angry when you came. I wanted my sister back, and accepting your arrival meant that she was truly gone. But I swear, no matter how it seems, every other action I’ve taken has been to protect you.”

“What about your words? About my being a weak, untrustworthy human who lacks honor?”

“It was mean. I am mean.” He scratches the side of his nose and frowns at the ground. “I don’t have the fortitude of Bafis to lose everyone I’ve ever cared about and go on with a shrug and a smile. I want to curl up and die. Still. But I can’t.” He indicates Lifayis and then me. “I can’t.”

“I too have lost everyone,” I tell him firmly. “My parents, my friends, my community. I refuse to give myself to another man who not-so-secretly hates me. I don’t need that kind of friendship.”

“Friendship?” He tilts his head. “Did you not love your husband?”

“He was my destiny.”

“So, you didn’t?”

“I admired him. He had great determination, even though he was wrong about important things.”

“Did he love you?”

“I have no idea.”

Jeren’s brows shoot higher. “You married him and bore his child without ever asking?”

“We were fated. Our feelings didn’t matter. There’s no changing fate.”

“I wish I could think as you do.” He steps back from me, and a cold gust whips between us. “I’d have more feathers left.”

He turns. The red of his bleeding shoulder seeps through the fabric, and his one gold feather glimmers like a lost star.

I’ve just sneered at a man who’s literally torn out his own magic trying to change fate. The red mark fills me with shame. I’ve never really thought about trying to change my fate. All I’ve ever done was go along with it.

I don’t want to care about another person. He said that last night.

I used to think Jeren was complicated. But maybe he’s actually very simple.

These thoughts distract me as I follow him up the hill, so I don’t hear the whistle. I think he’s distracted also, because he suddenly looks up.

Voices puncture the air.

“You’ve missed them.” Bafis laughs nervously as he walks an elder toward us, not realizing we’re about to cross paths. “You’ll have to see Jeren and Lifayis another…”

The stranger stops, his wings ghostly in the overcast light, his amber gaze firmly on me. Light zips around his aged irises.

Bafis slows and bites his knuckle, his wings glimmering with readiness.

The elder crosses his arms and addresses Jeren. “I thought your wish fed him?”

“I can explain,” Jeren says tightly.

“Oh, good.” The elder’s aged voice is dry with suppressed irony. “Because here I was thinking I’d have to smooth things over with one of the human villages for a stolen goat. Now? I’m only going to have to ask forgiveness from the very gods.”

Jeren

I am spitting mad.

This is my fault. I was distracted, and although perhaps I heard the whistle, I dismissed it to focus on my own anger.

Now we’ll have to deal with the main temple. We’ll have to see that man.

And I will have to try very hard not to murder him.

Bafis chuckles awkwardly. “Actually, you don’t have to take her to the main temple. The gods know she’s here.”

Elder Kayarinthos lifts a skeptical brow. “Oh?”

“She’s god touched.”

Sometimes, I feel frustrated that Bafis is able to move past a horrible shock so quickly, but right now, his easy manner is what we need most. He chats up the elder and tells him all the reasons we know Ayanakalia is god touched. The elder’s skepticism remains, but he’s friendlier as he approaches her.

She braces.

I step between them. “What?”

“Ah.” Elder Kayarinthos grins up at me and pats my arm. “Your nephew is fine today? Let’s see the little man.”

I know he means no harm to Lifayis, so I bring him out of his sling. Elder Kayarinthos holds him up, makes faces, and talks to him sweetly. Lifayis burps happily.

Ayanakalia watches the interaction, her shoulders relaxing, but I don’t relax at all.

Elder Kayarinthos rocks Lifayis in his arms and, still looking at him, says, “So you see the dead? And talk to them?”

She blinks, looks up. “Yes.”

“You will come tomorrow to your neighbor’s home.” He jerks his chin at my closest neighbor’s. “Uqilia will not see sunrise. You’ll visit, share her last words, and we’ll hold the cleansing ceremonies after.”

Bitterness stabs me. They plan ceremonies for others before death while my sister still goes unhonored? The insult burns and burns. I harden into stone.

Ayanakalia looks at me. “I can also speak with spirits before they’ve fully separated.”

“No, tomorrow is fine.” Elder Kayarinthos hands me Lifayis and, while I’m distracted, takes Ayanakalia’s palm. He studies it for a long time. Then he looks her in the eye, brushes the hair away from her forehead and neck, and tilts her chin in different directions to catch the light.

She tilts as directed. “No one has ever read my fortune in outward signs.”

“Then we shall see tomorrow.” He releases her, avoids my bitter gaze, nods at Bafis, and ambles away.

I didn’t see him put anything on her, but I double-check, rubbing my thumb across the same places he touched and erasing any hint of his influence. She endures it stoically, but instead of making me feel relieved, I only feel more irritated. How could I have been too busy arguing to notice his presence? There would have been time to hide her.

A gust of wind blows across my homestead, rustling the leaves and grasses, lifting our hair and clothes.

The whistle quiets.

Bafis hitches his tunic and sighs. “Well, we’re in it now.”

“I’m sorry,” she tells him.

“No, no, my dear. This was bound to happen eventually. I only wish…” He reconsiders his thoughts, then gives her a wrapped dish. “I’ve brought you another sweet bread since you liked the last one so much.”

She eyes me as she accepts the gift.

I sigh heavily as I turn away. There’s no point in trying to hide now.

“I should have brought you more,” he continues archly, leading us up the hill to the house. “You need your strength. Come.”

He also brought her another pot of tart cheese. She beams at him as she eats. It makes a small hole in my heart.

That night, I toss and turn, reliving all the things I should and shouldn’t have done to avoid this fate. I awaken in the morning feeling damp and stretched out and even more exhausted. No matter my wishes, no matter my desires, no matter my mistakes, sunrise comes.

Sunrise always comes.

Light glistens on the morning dew, casting illusions on the brown earth. Ayanakalia lingers in the doorway beneath me, Lifayis on her hip, and calls out, “Jeren?”

“Yes?”

She startles and looks up.

I look down.

The flush touches her face, and her lips part. She stutters and tucks her thick brown hair behind her ear. “I-Is it okay for me to walk down the hill to the neighbor’s?”

Because the sun is out. Any gaze could penetrate here.

I drift to her side. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“I want to get stronger.”

“Of course.”

Her irises are a pretty shade of juniper wood, bright and attractive like a nut hidden beneath the shadow of leaves. Her nostrils flare as though she’s taking my scent, and her pupils dilate. I feel the answering pulse of desire. And then, without either of us speaking, she turns away.

I tend to Lifayis. We’re ready when Bafis comes to call.

He hands her a small bouquet of anama flowers. She takes them with delight and breathes in the ticklish fragrance.

My inaction shames me. I stayed up all night worrying, and Bafis plucked a bouquet of protective flowers. It must have taken him some time because we’re past the height of the season. I wonder how far he roamed to find them.

Her smile to him is like sunlight. “Enaksi.”

“Parayalo,” he replies, both formal and kind. “Perhaps tuck it in your shirt, there, a little less obvious.”

I reach for them. “Let me.”

She hesitates, and Bafis looks at me with a warning. I suppose it’s no more than I deserve. I shake my palm, insisting. She hands the white flowers over, and I use her hair pick to weave the stems into her long braid. There. Now she’s subtly protected, and she looks well cared for. After I’m done, she takes my sister’s reflective glass outside and examines herself from every angle.

Her eyes are too bright as she thanks me. “This is the finest I’ve ever looked in my life.” She skips ahead of us down the path.

Bafis watches as a proud uncle.

But me? Seeing her simple joy over a few flowers, and her innocence of not knowing what’s ahead, makes my chest hurt.

Bafis glances at my father’s short dagger, which I’ve tied to my waist. “You don’t really think he’ll come to this ceremony?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

He grunts.

Neither of us dreamed Raqessa’s ex would come to our homestead. I never would have left, solstice festival or not. I don’t know why he came then, and so I can’t predict where he’ll appear next.

We reach the neighbor’s. I forget how long things take when we’re only walking. The scent of funerary incense blows over the hillside. We weave through clusters of Janakros villagers paying their respects. I add figs to the offering bowl, and Bafis has brought smoked fish from Kyrinia.

The visitors fall silent and stare at Ayanakalia. She stays close to us. Bafis keeps Lifayis outside. A room of death is no place for new life.

Uqilia’s manor was smaller than my family’s, but it’s in much better condition. The second floor is partially intact. They have a functioning hearth. Stormwater drains on the roof funnel water into their kitchen.

We pay our respects to Uqilia’s middle-aged sons, older Furin and younger Pivarin. They accept our condolences.

Furin is unsmiling. “You lied to Mother. You should be ashamed.”

“At least I pay my respects in a timely matter,” I growl.

“We gave you no reason not to.”

Elder Kayarinthos puts a calming hand on my chest, gently pushing me back. “Jeren, no more breakfasts of lemons. Today we honor Uqilia.”

“When do we honor my sister?”

The elder gives me a hard gaze, but shifts to address Ayanakalia. “Do you need to see her last resting place? Or touch a scrap of her belongings?”

“No, I can see her perfectly well from here. She’s standing behind you.”

He jumps, then presses his palms together, chuckling. “Here? You see her with your eyes?”

“Yes. She… Oh, no.”

“What?” Pivarin asks, eyes wide. “What does she say?”

“A lot of things. Fast, and… Oh!” She gestures at Elder Kayarinthos. “She’s being rude to you.”

“Rude how?” Elder Kayarinthos asks.

“She’s, um…” Ayanakalia mimes lifting her tunic as if it were a nightshirt and flashing the elder.

He chortles. “That’s Uqilia.”

“No, this is ridiculous,” Furin protests. “Mother would never—”

“She wishes you would’ve given her grandchildren.”

“Mother would never say that.”

“Okay, her exact words are ‘your shriveled balls would’ve done us more good if they’d had less pride and more exercise.’”

Furin reddens.

Elder Kayarinthos snorts.

“Did Jeren put you up to this?” Furin crosses his arms. “Speaking lies in Mother’s name when she can’t defend herself? This is bad theater.”

“She regrets raising you with too much pride. ‘This house lives on pride, and thus it will die on pride.’” She points at the younger son. “‘Your wife is calling for you. The sick ones are already walking into the shadowlands and yet here you are, wasting time on pointless ceremony.’”

Pivarin’s eyes bug. The others gape. I feel a small ripple of surprise. We always heard it was Furin who had the secret family.

Furin recovers first, stammering. “L-Lies! Degrade our house with a human wife? We would never…”

Pivarin goes to their medical cabinet and packs. At the doorway, Pivarin holds his older brother’s gaze. “Sorry.”

Furin shakes his head in wordless denial.

Pivarin leaves.

We follow him out.

Clouds roll in, low and misty, and shroud us in cloaking darkness.

Pivarin spreads his wings and flies off, into the fog, to the north.

Well, then.

Uqilia has much more to say, but much less of substance. When she begins commenting on the fashion of the bereaved neighbors, even our elder has had enough.

“You may begin the cleansing ritual,” Elder Kayarinthos tells Furin.

Furin gathers the bundles as he argues vehemently with anyone else who will listen about how Ayanakalia besmirched his mother. I’m not sure that it’s having the right effect, though, as everyone who looks over our way seems more convinced of her authenticity.

Ayanakalia puts her shoulder to the crowd and shields her eyes. I think she’s shielding herself from their judgment, but then I realize she’s cringing as if she’s seeing something she doesn’t want to see. Heh. I guess Uqilia is giving vent to her feelings for certain neighbors. Perhaps I’ll do the same when I die. If they can’t sense me, though, I don’t know as I’ll get much satisfaction.

Elder Kayarinthos takes her palm again, traces invisible lines, and frowns. “You speak with the long dead as well, I’ve heard. Are there spirits you can’t compel to communicate?”

“I can’t compel anyone. But I don’t have to. They no longer care about earthly things like reputation or pain.”

“Hm. I heard that you can compel spirits to do your bidding.”

“No.”

I feel uneasy. “Bafis said that?”

“No, no.” Elder Kayarinthos waves me away. “Someone else.”

My unease grows. “You only learned of her existence yesterday. Who’s been speaking about her powers?”

Elder Kayarinthos hesitates. “It’s just a rumor.”

“From who?”

Elder Kayarinthos eyes me like he’s coming up with a lie.

“Ayanakalia!” Bafis waves her over awkwardly with Lifayis tucked in the crook of one arm. “We’d like to address Uqilia if she’s still here.”

I block Elder Kayarinthos from following. “Did you hear it at the main temple?”

“Jeren…”

“Did you?”

“I had to tell the priestess—”

“Don’t you care about us? If not me or my sister, what about Lifayis?”

He looks away.

“You gave Lifayis your blessing.” My voice breaks. “You wouldn’t doom him—”

“I didn’t tell the council.” Elder Kayarinthos touches my shoulder and lowers his voice. “But you know this can’t remain a secret. An outsider can’t live in the Reaches.”

“If that’s the only problem she can live on the shore. Or in a human village.”

“Yes, if they will have her. I suppose whether she lives with you or in an open field exposed to monsters, the gods will protect her.”

I hate everything about this.

“Anyway, Jeren, have no fear. A god-touched woman will surely pass any judgment and then she can live with you in the Reaches without question. The sooner the council knows of her, the sooner they can judge her, and this will all be over.” He nods, smiling as if he’s convincing himself as well as me, and pats my shoulder.

His fingertips brush the edge of my scar, and I try not to wince.

Elder Kayarinthos strides away. He wiggles Lifayis’s toes, then takes his turn cradling my nephew. Lifayis is a bright and smiling infant, but so fragile in the elder’s arms. How can Elder Kayarinthos smile kindly at the infant he may have doomed? There is no fairness. I want to tear Lifayis out of his arms and shout.

Ayanakalia finishes communicating with Uqilia. She stands away from the crowd, off on her own, and meets my gaze across the hilltop.

All the things out of my control make me sick with worry. She has even less control than I do, and yet, she seems unconcerned. I envy her calm.

She starts to walk toward me.

An icarus streaks across the hilltop, flying low to the ground, and slams into her.

She cries.

My heart stops.

The icarus snatches her and launches straight up.

They disappear into the clouds.

* * *

Ayanakalia

A man snatches me like a great eagle stealing a lamb.

His musty odor fills my nose with sour incense. Orange fabric flutters around me and beads clatter.

I shriek.

His arms cinch around my middle as he veers into the damp clouds.

An eerie wind whistles, and clouds envelop us in cloaking mist.

Unlike with Bafis or Jeren, this man strains to carry me. His wings beat the air, loud and heavy, and with each thump, my clothes bunch up around my armpits and I slip through his grasp a little more.

I struggle to draw in any breath, my legs kicking helplessly over the clouds.

He hitches me higher to get a better grip.

My braid whips in front of me as we change direction. Bafis’s small white flowers, which Jeren threaded into my hair, glow blue like a beacon in the darkness.

I manage to tear one out and drop it.

It flutters beneath me like a torn butterfly wing, a lost wish, and disappears.

Beneath me, in the same place, Jeren bursts through the clouds. His wings pump and his face hardens with fury.

I wriggle through the man’s grasp.

“You want me to let you go? Fine.” My attacker laughs and releases me.

I plummet.

Jeren’s expression changes to shock. I slam into him. He clasps me hard, and we tumble.

The man above shouts with surprise and anger.

Jeren steadies us.

My attacker lands on Jeren’s back, tearing at his clothes to expose his shoulder blades. His last gold feather glistens.

Jeren flashes a dagger at him. The attacker bats it away. Jeren’s dagger falls, disappearing into the mist.

The attacker scrabbles again for Jeren’s last feather.

Jeren twists away.

My thick single braid swings and whacks the man in the face. My tie loosens, and my hair flies. He makes a spitting noise, bats my hair away, and releases Jeren.

Jeren dives.

We fall through the clouds, drop past the funeral party on the exposed hilltop, and keep falling toward the ocean. Jeren spreads his wings. My stomach sinks into my feet as we soar upward again, gliding back to the neighbor’s homestead.

I gasp for breath. Jeren’s body is solid and warm. I bury my face in his shoulder. He smells of wind and fire and breakfast, ordinary mornings, and safety.

Our attacker drops out of the clouds before us with a furious scream.

I jolt.

Jeren dives away from him, hurtling to the ground. He lands at a run and shoves me at an alarmed Bafis, who can’t quite catch me as I stumble to my knees. Bafis pats my shoulder and shelters me from the renewed attack.

Jeren squares up to face our attacker, who abruptly veers away and circles overhead with a growl of frustration.

“Councilor Siqaris!” Elder Kayarinthos bounces Lifayis gently in his arms as he steps forward. “This is a funeral. What are you doing?”

Councilor Siqaris checks himself. He lands, straightening his voluminous purple robes and orange sash. An orange, beaded belt is cinched around his waist. He composes his expression into a superior smirk. “You’ve concealed an outsider in the Reaches, Elder Kayarinthos. I was taking her to judgment.”

He has a deep and sonorous voice, compelling like a decree.

“That’s a lie,” Jeren snarls, his hand hovering over his empty knife sheath. “He carried her up and then dropped her.”

Malice flashes across Siqaris’s face, quickly suppressed. His dismissive tone doesn’t match the hidden emotions. “She struggled.”

“You were trying to throw her—”

“If I did, she deserved it.” He needles Jeren like a viper weaving before its victim. “You know the punishment for bringing a human up here.”

“She’s no ordinary human,” Bafis breaks in, trying to be a voice of peace.

But the men ignore him, locking deeper into their mutual hatred.

“You do know what’s coming to you?” Siqaris sneers.

Jeren’s hand brushes his empty knife sheath again. He balls his hand into a fist. “Remind me.”

“Not now.” Elder Kayarinthos’s voice rings out. They have a public audience. “Do not disrespect the dead, Jeren. Of course Councilor Siqaris will not do so either…”

“He tried to kill her. You all saw it!”

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation…?”

Siqaris smirks and straightens his robe again, and he finally steps back. “I had intended to take her to the temple privately, Jeren, to save you the embarrassment of being outcast even further than you already are.”

“Lies.”

“We all know which of us is the honest and trustworthy man.”

Jeren twitches, every muscle taut from holding himself back. “You’ll be unmasked.”

“I am beloved of the gods and untouchable by mere mortals.” Councilor Siqaris turns his back as he walks away. His wings glisten, and five long gold feathers glimmer in the center. “I don’t fear the empty threats of a cursed man.”

Councilor Siqaris greets the better-dressed neighbors. His purple robes stand out from the sandy yellow robes everyone else wears, including Bafis and Elder Kayarinthos.

Jeren tenses to run at the councilor’s unguarded back.

But Elder Kayarinthos pushes in front of Jeren and hands him Lifayis. “Your child.”

This breaks the spell. Jeren looks away from Councilor Siqaris and takes his nephew with a deep, shaky breath.

Councilor Siqaris glances back, does a double take, and stares at Lifayis as if he’s mesmerized. His hands uncurl and curl into fists again. “I…” His undertone of malice changes into…hunger? “Will take…”

“No, she will come,” Elder Kayarinthos interrupts. “Publicly. It’s better that way, don’t you think?”

He refocuses on the elder. “Huh?”

“She came from Jeren’s wish. She’s under the protection of powerful gods.”

Councilor Siqaris blinks rapidly.

“So, you don’t need to take her anywhere,” the elder continues. “It will be no problem for her to answer the summons. Another day? Because this is a day of mourning for us.”

He nods slowly as though talking himself into a new course of action. “Yes. Fine. Tomorrow, she will come to the main temple to be judged.”

“There, now—”

“And you as well.” He gestures at Jeren and Lifayis, his eyes wide and rolling as he lifts into the air, pointing at them in accusation. “See what happens when you defy the will of our gods!”

He disappears into the clouds.

But in the wind over this hilltop, I hear an echo of distant laughter. It’s coming from the direction he’s disappeared in. The barest whisper of delight rumbles on the air.

“At last…”

Ayanakalia

Jeren and Bafis argue outside the sacred grotto. Their voices rise as I wash my hair.

“He tried to kill her,” Jeren insists. Bafis sounds largely supportive, but Jeren gets louder and louder. “I should have… This is exactly what I was trying to avoid! This is why I didn’t want you to take her out or give her suspicious gifts. From the very beginning, when she arrived, I knew… It only ends in tragedy!”

“It will be all right,” Bafis murmurs.

“How?”

“Lifayis is bigger. He may yet survive on goat’s milk or—”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

They grow quieter again. But the words plant a small seed in my chest. Jeren’s not worried about Lifayis. Or, not only. Finally, he’s also worried about me.

I should be worried.

But I’m not.

I’m anxious. Excited and nervous. Maybe judgment at the main temple will be painful. I wouldn’t like that. But the river of my life is curving toward this destination, and I won’t swim against the current. The pent-up relief of the mysterious voice from the hilltop swirls toward me again. I hear it like I heard the voices of the dead on Halonnesos, clear and present. At last…

Jeren finally enters and sees me in the medium-warm pool. He carries the hair pick Bafis gave me and a small jar of oil, and he folds his lips and looks away. The sunburn on his cheeks deepens, and the crescent moon on his forehead gleams white in the dim light.

“Bafis suggests we change your hairstyle to one of ours. It may make you less of a target. Do you know how to style it?”

“No.”

“May I?”

I start to get out, but he orders me to remain where I am, rolls up my tunic as a neck rest, and tells me to lie back. He brushes delicate oil through my hair, using the pick as needed to disentangle the knots, then glides it from my tingling scalp all the way to the tips.

I breathe deep and relax.

His fingers look blunt, but they comb through my hair with tantalizing gentleness. Waves of sensual awareness flood me. It spreads outward like a tree taking root. My lips tingle.

He parts my hair into sections and weaves the hair around my face into intricate ropes that unite and part again in a crosshatch net pattern. They unite at my nape and go down my back in a single braid. It’s more complex than my wedding hairstyle and it takes a long time, but his fingers are deft and the water is a pleasant temperature. I feel cozy and well.

I examine one of his long, narrow braids. The weaving is even and neat.

“You’re skilled.” I hand back the small braid to get woven in. “You practiced a lot?”

“My sister made me do hers. She said it was crooked if she tried it herself.”

How funny. But this shifts my perspective of them. “Was she older or younger?”

“Older.”

“But you were the one asked to pull feathers when your parents disappeared?”

“Yes…” He’s aware that it seems strange. “Maybe the priestess thought Raqessa needed hers more, like if she had multiple children, or…or maybe I seemed more responsible, even then. Raqessa lived in a kind of fantasy world, and she drew others into her fantasies. You knew they were false, but you wanted to believe. It made things easier. I wondered if that’s what drew him in, because otherwise…”

He lapses into silence.

I shift positions on the neck rest. “The man who attacked us. Was he—”

“On the council,” Jeren confirms, although that’s not what I was going to ask. “And the only living son of our head priestess. That’s why he gets away with so much. I hate him.”

“Was he also—”

“The one who came on solstice and drove you off the cliff? Yes. He had duties that day, important duties as a councilor and son, and instead, he invaded our homestead. What was he expecting to find?”

“Lifayis?”

“He should’ve known Lifayis would be at the solstice celebration. If he had a responsible bone in his body, he would have been presenting Lifayis to the gods himself and offering the filial blessing, not me.”

“Then…” I finally ask the question I intended to from the beginning. “He is Lifayis’s father?”

“Yes.” Jeren finishes my braid and meets my eyes. “Not that anyone will do anything about it.”

The sound of the grotto is soft, hypnotic.

I rise finally and turn to face him. My fingertips almost brush his shin.

His pants stretch across his thighs. A bulge shows that he’s affected by our nearness. He doesn’t want to like me, but I make him forget himself when I blush. I’m not blushing now, though.

“How?” I ask. “Why?”

He shakes his head softly. “I begged Raqessa not to go around with him. But she lived in that fantasy world…” His brows draw together, and he leans back. “Siqaris denied their relationship, but everyone knew about it. I thought he’d be forced to acknowledge his son, but then Raqessa fell sick, and he claimed her death was a sign the gods were on his side. Are they? Even now, he avoids his responsibilities and gets away with it.”

“Why reject his son? Does having children prevent him from being a councilor?”

“No. I don’t know. I think he just doesn’t want to be tied to a family like ours, one said to be cursed with misfortunes. I’m sure he wishes Lifayis would have died with my sister.”

“Ignoring responsibilities doesn’t erase them.”

“I know.” Jeren eyes me. “A councilor knows. The son of a head priestess certainly knows. He still rejects it. And then, when I speak the truth, I’m told to quiet down, that now’s not the time. Because he’s an important councilor, and I’m just a…”

I cup his cheek.

He refocuses on me, and even though his face is a mask, I understand now he’s not shutting me out. He’s feeling so much and so deeply that he’s just trying to keep up his ability to have a normal conversation.

“You’re right.”

He closes his eyes, slumping with relief. One person in this world is on his side.

Then he opens his eyes and draws his brows together again. “I shouldn’t believe you. Even if it’s true, it doesn’t change anything.”

He tilts my chin one direction and the other like he’s examining his handiwork, then scoots forward and drops his legs into the water on either side of my waist. The water soaks up his pant legs. He hooks his calves around mine under the water, trapping me in a cage, and brushes loose strands back into my hair.

“In death, does an ordinary man receive justice?”

“I don’t know how to answer.”

He tilts his head. “Why not?”

“I’m not all-knowing, and you are no ordinary man.”

His gaze drops to my lips.

My lips part.

The light sizzles around the inside of his irises in a circle.

A drum beats in my center.

He cups my jaw in both hands and brushes my lips with his thumbs. His body is so warm. He follows with his mouth, and pulls me into his kiss.

I’ve been kissed before.

But never like this.

His lips move against mine, firm and intriguing, like he’s eating me, and I want nothing more than to be eaten. I move with him, biting and suckling, my lips throbbing from our fierceness. He nips at me and draws a moan from deep in my belly. It feels like there’s a string tied from my mouth to my soul.

I open to him, and he makes a broken noise as his tongue hunts mine. We tangle, wrestling and gliding in a warm, wet sea, and then he soothes my frantic pursuit, stroking my inner crevices, and everything about him is gentleness and heat. I’m being led into a dance that I thought I knew, but I now realize I’ve only watched. He imprints himself on me, male and musk, seeking every bit I’ve hidden away and drawing it all out.

I lose grip on everything but this sensation, our mouths uniting and separating, our tongues rolling. How can a body feel such aching heat from only a kiss?

Jeren releases my mouth and kisses my chin, up my cheekbones, across my forehead, over my fluttering eyelids. I sigh like my soul is leaving my body, floating overhead, and returning because it recognizes him as its match.

I rest my hands on his forearms for balance.

He suctions his mouth down my neck to my collarbone. My breasts tingle and squeeze, not like when milk is being let down, but a deeper, more primal sensation of a woman’s body contracting rhythmically and preparing herself to accept a man.

I slide my hands along his protective forearms. Small scars roughen his male skin to his pointy elbows. I brush the nearly invisible white hairs up to his rippling shoulders.

He makes a noise and pulls me out of the water, rolls me onto my back, and kisses down to my belly button.

But the cold rock on my throbbing skin hits me like an icy shock.

The light of the grotto overhead shadows Jeren’s features. Even though they’re so different, I can almost interchange Jeren’s face with my husband’s. Arinthos was dark with wild eyes and vivid determination. Like Raqessa, he lived in a fantasy world, but unlike her, he did not draw others in. He forced his fantasy on them. On us.

My body still throbs, but my heart grows heavy and cold.

Jeren slows, comes to a full stop, and then looks down at me. The white crescent moon on his forehead glows softly. “Ayanakalia?”

I search for words. “My husband…”

“I’m not your husband.”

“You’re both under a curse.”

“Am I?” he murmurs softly.

“A curse that affects everyone on this island. One which, for better or worse, I am destined to end.”

He surges out of the water beside me, his sopping pants splashing. “Our ancestral curse is beyond the reach of any human.”

I follow him out of the pool. “This island is beyond the reach of any human.”

He glances back at me, dries off, and breathes on my damp clothes. His own clothes steam from contact with his skin. The sun burns inside him. “I brought you with my wish.”

“I hear a voice. On clear days, he calls to me, and soon, I will go to him and do something unforgivable to you.”

Jeren lowers his cloth. “He Who Sleeps? You hear…? You can’t awaken him.”

“He’s already awake. He’s just waiting.”

“He only awakens at the end.” Jeren’s eyes flash. “When our magic is gone and there’s nothing left for us in this world, he’ll break the island barrier and lead us in the final battle, unmaking our race.”

“Tomorrow—”

“It can’t be the end tomorrow. Tomorrow is another morning. It’s the fourth day of the millet planting. Lifayis has to grow up. He’s just starting to live his life, and you have to…” He breaks off, gazing into the abyss of predestiny, and then refocuses on me. “Don’t.”

“It’s not up to me.”

“Make it up to you.” His amber eyes glow fiercely. “Choose.”

“But I don’t… I can’t…”

“Forget it.” He orders me to precede him from the grotto. I carefully pick my way over the rocks. Behind me, he mutters about giving up. “Dishonoring our ancestors…not even trying…” His words sting.

“We’re not living in an era when a single person can fight the gods,” I argue. “And we’ve never lived in an era where destiny is decided by one human. Have we?”

He presses his lips into a flat line.

I turn around and nearly walk into another woman.

She hops back and, like an icarus, seems to hang in the sky before floating gently down to the rock. We both gape at each other. She’s as startled as I am.

We wear similar clothing. Her hair is done in a variation of the icari style, but covered with a dark green scarf to match her robes. She has a crescent moon on her forehead but no wings, not even an iridescent outline. No gold or white feathers either. And aside from her forehead mark, her coloration is totally different from the icari. She has olive skin like mine and a hair color even darker than my shade of brown. Although she floated after her surprised leap, she generally walks as I do, heavily and not buoyed by magical winds through invisible feathers.

“Oseli essus,” I tell her, bobbing my head. Excuse me, the fault is mine.

She blinks at my fluent use of the icari’s language, then responds in kind. “Intariya.” It is nothing.

Jeren stomps past, ignoring her.

I hurry after him, tripping over the uneven rocks while staring back at her. She watches me too, until the path takes me around the cliffside, cutting off our view.

“Who was that?” I gasp as I catch up.

“Some human from Mallonia or Rokastia.” He waves dismissively. “They come here sometimes. They’re not supposed to disturb us.”

“She had a mark on her forehead.”

“Yes, and?”

“She lost her wings?”

“No, you can tell by her coloration that she never had them. She’s likely one of the daughters of…” He frowns suddenly. “Bafis didn’t tell you?”

I shake my head.

He tsks. “He keeps silent on the strangest things.”

I follow again, but Jeren lapses into introspection. He notices I’m lagging and scoops me up. We lazily drift toward our homestead, and I feel completely contained in his arms. His breath is hot by my ear. His form is hard against mine, and the throbbing in my body comes awake.

We land, and still he holds me in the circle of his arms.

I don’t look up, because if I do, I will be swept away by him. “Why is it different with you? And Bafis?”

It takes him a long moment to respond. His voice is gruff. “Flying?”

I nod into his warm tunic. “When Siqaris grabbed me, I was like a weight, but when you do, I’m like air.”

He looks up at the sky, searching there for how to explain. “We are not beasts of burden. We can only hold as much as we can carry. But there’s a little bit of magic in living things. If you fight me or Bafis, we’ll struggle to hold you too.”

“So you can’t carry off any old sheep, then.”

“I would struggle.” A hint of laughter touches his voice for the first time all day, and warmth kindles in my chest.

I feel for Jeren. He tries so hard to change destiny, ever alert for the storm. But can’t he understand that one does not fight the rain?

But perhaps if my ancestors had eaten a god of the sun, I too would feel more confident about fighting off the other gods of wind and water.

Perhaps.

He follows my gaze, then brushes a tiny escaped hair from my cheek. “Do you hear the voice now?”

“It’s cloudy.” I turn back to say more, but he’s leaning in. My lips graze the corner of his mouth.

The fire reignites like it was never banked.

He cups the back of my neck, centering me on his possessive mouth, and delves into my interiors, tasting and branding me. My knees go weak.

“Jeren!” Bafis’s voice grows louder, urgent.

Jeren breaks off, nuzzles my cheek, and turns to face Bafis.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” The elder hurries to me, pulling me away as if I’m in danger. “This way, my dear.”

I let him guide me into the room. My center throbs. I have already been active in the marital bed, and yet, I never felt so much urgency to wrap my legs around my husband as I do for Jeren now. Certainly I never felt it from only a kiss.

This urgency was missing from my last relationship.

Lifayis tosses restlessly in his crib.

Bafis hands me dried stems of the pretty white flowers. “For your safety.”

I clear my throat, try to focus. “Should Jeren braid these into my—”

“It might be better if you did it.” Bafis tries to smile, but the expression doesn’t quite reach his old eyes. “I need Jeren for the moment. I’ll be back with something to eat.”

He disappears.

Lifayis makes a sleepy complaint. I touch his pudgy foot stuck out the bottom of the blanket, and he sighs and goes deeper into sleep.

Lifayis has to grow up. He has to live his life.

I want that for him.

I wanted it for my daughter too.

I made promises to faceless gods without knowing their cost.

But even if I knew the cost, I would pay it. Death comes for everyone. Me, Lifayis. Jeren. All I can do is try to make it meaningful, so we don’t live our lives in vain.

But I understand the pain. It’s unfair. Everyone deserves to live a full life.

I sit and weave dried flowers into my hair.

* * *

Jeren

“What is this?” Bafis demands, his voice low as he stands over me. The air is swollen with the threat of rain. “I asked you to be nice to her.”

“I am nice.” I trace the protective symbols with a thin, old dagger to secure my property again from any interlopers. My main dagger was lost in the fight with Siqaris, and I didn’t see it just now when flying near the area with Ayanakalia.

If the island barrier is torn down, I’ll have to make this small barrier around my homestead even stronger.

If I even can.

“This is not nice. You’ve found a new way to bully her. She’s utterly dependent on us here, like a child.”

I stab the ground with my aged dagger. “She had a husband.”

“And? Will you take his place?”

For one brief moment, I allow myself to imagine it. She stays with me, with my mark on her. We rebuild in the daylight and entwine as lovers in the night, and we raise Lifayis together.

The image is almost too painful. I’m afraid to reach for it only to find it’s a reflection luring me into the poisoned water.

“And you’ll perform the duties of a husband?” Bafis continues, shattering my idle fantasy. “You’ll spend your last feather, losing your wings and everything you value, to make her your official wife?”

“What do you want from me?” I growl.

“I only want you to think about what you’re doing. The gods brought her to Ikaria, but we brought her into the Reaches. Don’t make her regret helping us anymore.”

I stab the dirt.

Bafis sighs at my long silence. “I feel like I’m talking to Raqessa.”

“Don’t,” I say sharply.

“If you don’t honor Ayanakalia, she’ll be taken from you, and you’ll deserve it.”

I bolt to my feet. “What do you know? You never courted anyone.”

He stiffens. “There was no one left for me.”

“There are three human villages!”

He licks his lips, open his mouth, closes it again.

“You made your choice,” I mutter, pulling free the thin dagger and moving to the next section of my protective barrier.

“Then are you making yours?” He looks pointedly at my remaining feather. “Are you going to abandon your family home? Give Lifayis to another family and take up fishing?”

“What if…” I gesture at the clouds. “What if the gods truly did bring her to Ikaria?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Her destiny is to ‘end our curse,’ and we’re taking her to the main temple.”

His lips pull to the side. So, Ayanakalia did tell Bafis. Although he’s passed on more details than I want to hear about her past, he didn’t bother to pass this on because he doesn’t believe it.

Normally, I wouldn’t either. It’s just too unbelievable. But in the sacred grotto, when she looked at me, there was the reflection of truth in her eyes. That truth rooted in my mind and is now unfurling into uncomfortable belief.

“What if she ends our curse?”

“If she awakens He Who Sleeps, I will be the first to join the final flight,” he says as heavily as a man who was old when my grandfather was born. “I will leap into the black sky. I will cavort in the falling ash. And I will dive into the water and meet the monster in his lair.”

“What about us?” I ask softly. “What about Lifayis?”

Before he can answer, a low whistle sounds.

We both rise.

A guard from the main temple lands on the road just outside my protective border. According to the stitching on his purple robes, he’s from a good family in Daedakros and bears the markings of nobility beneath his simple guard’s sash. “Come to the main temple in five days for the judgment. Bring the human.”

My belly churns as I nod.

He leaps into the air, his voice cracking against the cloudy sky. “You have been summoned!”

Lightning flashes against a black cloud.

His words, and the magic behind them, send a shiver down my spine. I can’t penetrate the mist to the main temple, but distant lightning prickles my arms.

“Now we’ll see.” Bafis’s shoulders slump. He flies away to his house, leaving us alone on my crumbling hilltop.

Jeren

The final days pass, and the air around the island takes on an unreasonable heaviness, as if an invisible monster is hovering over us and the only thing we can sense is its too-warm, dank breath.

Bafis comes every day, bringing Ayanakalia some new treat. He glares at me defiantly every time he hands her a sweet roll, a bag of wool, or a small tub of crunchy honey candy.

I honestly do not care what he brings her now. I only cared when I feared it might expose us, and now it’s too late. Ayanakalia has been exposed. Bafis can buy her all the treats in the world and I won’t have an opinion. But she and Bafis don’t believe me, and hence, the defensive glares.

She and Bafis decide to make a doll for Lifayis.

“Seriously?” I say. “Will any of us be here to see it finished?”

And again, Bafis glares. “It doesn’t hurt anyone, so what do you care?”

I hold up my hands in a peace offering.

Ayanakalia seems resigned rather than angry. As always, I’m the only one who’s practical. They diligently wash and felt the wool, sand wooden legs, and stitch the felt. Bafis sticks close to her, an unofficial chaperone, but I haven’t approached her romantically since our talk. He’s right about what he said. When I think of the things I can’t give her from what a husband should give to a wife, then it’s easier to stay away.

The night before the judgment is the same as any other night.

I finish my work, pluck scented flowers, carry them into the hut. Bafis has already left. Ayanakalia finishes feeding Lifayis and gives him to me. He bounces happily. Her eyes catch mine, dark, and the memory of lying with her beside the pool—soft skin, needy cries—floods me with engorging heat.

Maybe because her hairstyle is now like ours, visions from an absent future knock me off-balance. Her in my family home with our crescent mark on her forehead, snug against my side, smiling down as our children frolic. The illusion cuts like obsidian. It’s impossible, something that will never be.

I harden myself for what is real. She is a visitor here, one I barely know, and this is her last night.

I take Lifayis silently.

She looks away.

We pass the evening in awkwardness. Lifayis makes his baby noises, small gurgles and oofs. I get out a jar of my father’s summer flower liqueur and divide the last drops into two tiny cupfuls. She drinks without question, then makes an amazed face and licks out the inside of the cup. “What is this?”

I savor the mellow sweetness. “The last thing my father left us. He had a talent for converting old fruit into wine.”

She frowns, examines her cup again, and looks up at me. “Why now?”

“If the world’s ending tomorrow, it doesn’t seem like there’s much point in saving it anymore, is there?”

She traces the symbol for Balance in the ash. “I thought…you’ve been mad again…”

“Bafis thinks I’ve lost my mind.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

She smiles, the expression darting across her face like a fish, then holds the cup and her mind goes somewhere sad. “About tomorrow…”

But whatever she was going to say, she remains quiet.

Thus the world ends, I suppose.

Night passes. I lie on the roof staring up at the clouds, my back aching from the pain, but it’s a dull constant rather than a stabbing tenderness.

Ever since I showed her the ocean’s monster and she not only listened but also apologized and hugged me, I’ve known that I misjudged her. She listens to reason. When we disagree and the old helpless impotence wells up in me, she puts a hand on my arm and shows me that we don’t have to be at war. For the first time in years, I feel calm. Listened to. Heard. Funny how rare that trait is, and how precious.

And it’s all about to end. There’s nothing I can do about it. Whether I sleep or whether I toss and turn, the sun rises.

In the morning, I feel stretched out and stiff. Bafis arrives earlier than I’m expecting.

“Another judgment is happening today as well,” he tells me with a knowing look.

“How grim,” I murmur.

“We’ll try to go as late as possible, then? To spare her.”

I nod.

He takes off to do reconnaissance, and I busy myself with a few pointless morning chores, then warm up last night’s stew as this morning’s breakfast.

Ayanakalia’s eyes are shadowed this morning as if she too couldn’t sleep. She looks endlessly toward the clouded main temple. I really do think she can hear our great ancestor there.

Because Bafis is still gone, I take an ashy stick, check that it’s cool to the touch, then open my palm. “Give me your arm.”

She obeys.

Inside her elbow, I trace the protective symbol of my family’s homestead. Although it has not protected us as much as I’d wish, it’s what I can do, so I do it.

She studies it curiously, twisting the skin to see.

I pull a small white feather. “May I?”

She tenses, then holds out her arm again.

I blow my wishes into the feather. So many wishes pile up on top of each other and jumble, confused, that I keep blowing until the wish clarifies into something the magic can actually carry.

Keep her safe from unnecessary harm.

With a wish this small, a feather this fragile, the only unnecessary harm would be a stumble or a scrape. She might avoid stubbing her toe and still be thrown to her death. But again, it’s what I can do, so I do it.

I lay the white feather on her skin.

The magic zips up the ashy symbol, glows an incandescent white, and then sears into her skin like a brand. She sucks in a breath through her teeth. The ash falls away, and the symbol glimmers in the dim lighting, a ghostly reverse shadow.

Bafis lands outside, bustles in, and helps me put Lifayis in my sling. “They’re dispatching the guards to collect us.”

His gaze catches on the symbol afterglow on her elbow. He softens for a moment and pats me. Finally, I’ve done something he approves of. He steps back and collects Ayanakalia’s hands. “It’s been a privilege, my dear.”

She beams, tears glistening in her eyes. “You’re a good man.”

His own eyes grow damp. He clears his throat. “Yes, well. I try.”

She wraps her arms around my neck.

I rest my hand at her waist. She is soft and small and slight. We were always told that the end would come with cataclysms and monsters, not with a slip of a human woman who smells like dried flowers and woodsmoke.

I take a deep breath, nod at Bafis, and we rise and fly to the main temple.

* * *

Ayanakalia

Jeren is his usual solemn self as we fly through the thick, misty clouds. I appreciate his solid warmth in the chill and snug him a little tighter. Nerves twist in my belly, excited. I can’t wait to meet my destiny.

He holds me confidently, his wings bright and full of magic.

These past days, he’s been taciturn, but unlike our earliest times together, I no longer feel like his anger is directed at me. Our passings have been pleasant, our life peaceful. He would surely one day have made me a capable husband.

But that is not our destiny.

On either side of us, I catch glimpses of other icari. They wear orange sashes and beads, like the man who attacked me, and sour fear taints my excitement. I snuggle closer to Jeren.

We break through the cloud cover directly over Daedakros.

This is a city of dreams.

A silver icarus statue stands in the main square. Two fitted cobblestone roads split the fine manor houses like spokes of a wheel.

The houses span multiple stories with rooftop gardens, stormwater cisterns and pipes, and smoking chimneys. Their walls are painted in bright colors and mirrors reflect light into the lush interiors.

We bank away toward the largest mountain on the island. Here lies the main temple complex. Smaller buildings line the intricate cobblestone footpath. The biggest temple is built into the mountain. Its peak rises hundreds of feet.

He is inside.

But for the moment, his voice is silent.

Cyclopean columns and ancient plinths are carved into the very mountainside. Ancient steles of heroes battle monsters, some I almost recognize… Jeren banks closer, and I get a shock.

“The stone men are alive!”

“Their eyes open and close,” he confirms. “They react to our shadows. The daedali created simulacrums in stone and metal, even wood. They’re images without the spark of life.”

He says that, but my heart pounds, the evidence of my eyes overriding his reassurance. Each stone carving is the height of four men at least, and the monsters are even larger. As our nearly invisible shadow passes, their eyes open and rotate to follow me.

Before the main entrance, the icari of the island gather.

There are three or four hundred, white blond, of course, and of all ages, their white wings out and visible. Five or even six gold feathers gleam in the elders’ wings. The icari cluster according to robe color—faded red robes from the northern Reaches village of Nikellios, purple robes with blue accents from Daedakros, or sandy yellow robes that match Jeren’s village of Janakros.

We land closest to the temple by orange-sashed guards. They take Jeren’s and Bafis’s daggers, leaving us unarmed. Elder Kayarinthos comes to stand behind us. He nods formally to me.

Our arrival has interrupted some kind of blood ritual.

On the stone seal before the temple entrance, an older icarus lies face down. Only one gold feather remains, like Jeren. The rest of his back is raw and charred.

“You disgusting thief.” Councilor Siqaris strolls in front of the collapsed icarus. The councilor is older than Jeren, but not by as much as I would think for having such great authority over real elders like Kayarinthos. He wears the purple robes of Daedakros and an orange sash of the temple. His white-blond hair curls attractively over the crescent on his noble brow.

Siqaris jerks the prone icarus up by the hair, and I see the pained face of Pivarin. Oh, no. “How dare you steal our precious medicine for a mere human?”

Bafis leans back to mutter to Elder Kayarinthos, “Since when is giving out medicine a crime?”

The elder presses his lips together.

Bafis sighs in disgust. “What a time to be alive.”

“Will you condemn the human who consumed our precious medicine?” Councilor Siqaris removes his dagger. Unlike us, he’s still armed. “Or will you choose exile?”

His blade glows in the overcast light as if it’s made of an unnatural material.

Excitement rumbles through the crowd.

Another councilor even younger than Siqaris steps forward. “Councilor Siqaris, you go too far. He committed petty theft, not murder, and he’s already left the Reaches. That’s punishment enough.”

Councilor Siqaris pauses. “What if you needed that medicine, Ruqen?”

“I would be fine. We have no shortage. I question this judgment.”

Councilor Siqaris wheels around to a woman standing in the center of the councilors. “Does he object to my decision?”

She closes her eyes and touches her gold-adorned temples. Unlike the others, she alone wears a pure white gown adorned with gold. Her hair braids are threaded with gold and gemstones, and her fingers drip with rings. I think she must be the head priestess.

The voice is silent.

She opens her eyes and smiles. “Of course not, my son. He wants you to strengthen our people by any means. We are his special children, and only we deserve his care and protection.”

Councilor Siqaris turns away, triumphant. “Then Pivarin will be judged!”

More than half the crowd cheers.

The head priestess smiles proudly.

Does she know she’s lying? While I’m staring, her smile fades. She turns and looks directly at me, hard. Yes, I think she knows. The voice didn’t say anything. She doesn’t care.

“We must purify our blood and return the might of old. We, chosen of the daedali, will fear nothing and rule the ocean!”

His words echo in the stones. They have a compelling ring, calling down power from the ether, and it stirs my heart even though I know it’s false conviction. Arinthos did the same when he ranted about his family’s curse. It was a compelling lie then, and it’s a compelling lie now.

It’s unfair that loud men can grasp power more easily than reasonable men, but all the old stories agree. Power is taken by those who can, not by those who are right. The luckiest and strongest can evade any consequence.

The crowd now reacts to his compelling words, and its support for Siqaris grows louder and louder. Councilor Ruqen frowns and steps back.

Councilor Siqaris looks down at Pivarin. His smile sharpens. “You will not identify the true thief? Then I take no pleasure in removing your wings…”

A human shrieks and stumbles forward, falling to her knees before Siqaris. “Please! My husband has pulled too many feathers already. One more could kill him.”

Siqaris intones the equivalent of a shrug. “If our ancestor wills it.”

“I…I know who consumed the medicine.” She looks behind her. Four young children with her olive skin and light brown hair are held back by guards. None of them look well. She looks back at Siqaris and straightens. “It was me.”

“No,” Pivarin objects weakly. “Not her.”

Councilor Siqaris releases Pivarin. He drops to the dirt, coughing. She holds him. Councilor Siqaris signals to the guards, but she stands before they can reach her and strides across the grounds toward the massive, closed doors of the mountain temple.

The doors are flanked by two gargantuan icarus statues. She passes between them and stands before the closed door, fists balled, shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. The area falls silent, and a clicking noise sounds.

Pivarin moans and hauls himself into a slump.

Jeren shifts in front of me. I’m about to protest, but he’s covering Lifayis’s eyes too, and my surprise keeps me quiet. Even though I’m about to cause massive upheaval to his race, he’s still trying to protect me?

The clicking stops.

Abruptly, both statues lower their swords and swing. The blades hit her in the belly with crushing force. She folds over and flies backward, landing in a motionless heap.

The crowd cheers again, excited by blood, and Siqaris basks in their adulation.

“Flat blade,” Elder Kayarinthos notes. So, sometimes the statues use the sharp side…

The clicking resumes, and the two door-guarding statues return to their original position. Wind whistles across the loud mountainside.

“No!” Pivarin crawls to his wife and eases her onto her back.

The wife lets out a death rattle.

Her children break out in sobs, screaming at the guards holding them.

“That’s what you get!” A loud voice echoes over the rowdy crowd, derisive. “Should’ve chosen an icarus wife, traitor!”

Pivarin reaches behind him and yanks out his last feather.

The crowd gasps, the celebration abruptly silenced. Jeren stiffens.

“Too late,” Bafis moans. “She’s already gone.”

Except she’s not, actually.

Pivarin heaves with pain. His spirit partly exits his body so it overlays his movements. His last gold feather beats like a heart in his hands. He grips it tight. “Numinthos, Daminthos, Qilinthos es.”

My blood outside my veins, my heart outside my chest, my soul outside my body.

He lays the feather on his wife’s chest.

The gold melts into her skin. Gold streaks across her body like metallic lightning. Her body blackens and is engulfed in violent flames. His wife arches with a pained shriek.

Pivarin collapses beside her. His all-white wings enfold his body, then immolate him.

Overhead, the clouds swirl. Tingling makes all my hair stand up.

Lighting strikes the couple.

The flash is deafening. Spots dance on my blurred eyes.

Jeren tries to shield me and Lifayis, but he’s much too late. My ears ring.

The crowd backs up, screaming.

Pivarin’s wife lies arms out as if she’s embracing the sky, nude, because the lighting burned off her clothes.

Pivarin collapses on ash.

His wife sits up, sees his lifeless body, then screams horribly and collapses on top of him, sobbing. The lightning made an unusual black tattoo on her back like the skeleton of wings without any feathers, inked in scars. “No! I told you no. No…”

A sudden rain pounds down on us, shocking.

The children break free from the guards and huddle around their parents.

Jeren pulls me beneath the shelter of his wings, wraps me in his steaming-warm robes, and covers my head. Water rolls across his feathers and drips onto my sleeves. Many ignore the rain as he does, steaming it away with their own radiance, but others take shelter in distant buildings. Councilor Siqaris shouts over the deluge for his guards, but it’s hard to get anyone to listen.

“I suppose we can’t make a run for it, eh?” Bafis asks us, rubbing his ears and squinting as the rain pelts his head. He barely makes an effort to shield himself with his wings. “Fly to freedom, away from this nonsense?”

“They’d catch us before we hit the barrier,” Jeren says with the confidence of a man who’s thought of a hundred plans and discarded all of them.

“You’re not going to do anything rash?” Bafis looks pointedly at Jeren’s last feather.

“No.” His tone turns acrid. “No point in wasting it, right? Since mine never change anything.”

I feel sad for him, for us. He’s always fighting fate, and I’m always resigned. The river leads to the sea. There’s no point in fighting the bend.

Pivarin’s spirit rises from his body. He looks dazed. Sparkles of his divinity leave him, traveling upward from his soul like a reverse rain shower.

He floats toward me. Jeren doesn’t register him, although Lifayis squints. Babies are still dangerously close to the other world.

Pivarin only looks confused. “Why did it end like this?”

Because I shared Uqilia’s last words, he died. Every time I share the words of the dead, they have unintended consequences, first with Arinthos and now with Pivarin.

We are all, throughout our lives, acting without knowing where those actions will lead. Perhaps one choice will result in a man’s death, a wife’s widowhood, a child’s loss of their father. Death is too familiar to us. But that doesn’t make this situation any less sad.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, because I am. My voice sounds funny in my head, and the whining ring, like an insect’s noise, continues. The skies themselves weep.

Pivarin’s spirit looks back at his family. His soul is connected to his body by the thinnest thread.

Oh! That means…

No, I shouldn’t interfere.

But then again, it was my interference that led here…

I shouldn’t act against the will of the gods.

What if the gods have no strong wish? Can’t I just act on my own desire then?

The moment of choosing slips away and the thread of his soul stretches to the snapping point.

I reach out from under Jeren’s wing and touch Pivarin’s ghostly arm. “You’re not dead yet.”

He looks back at me. “Without my wings, what am I?”

“A father.”

He blinks.

“Stay.”

The rain lessens.

Acolytes race out, waving cleansing herbs. They draw smoke symbols on the air to urge his spirit to pass on, and Pivarin’s spirit disappears.

Did I get it wrong? Maybe he was supposed to die. Did trying to stop his death cause more harm?

Jeren looks down at me. He heard my words, but couldn’t have seen the ghost, and so he says nothing.

Suddenly, Pivarin’s wife and children exclaim. Pivarin weakly clasps their hands.

He’s alive! I brought him back. Well, he still made his own choice, but I helped convince him. I changed his fate!

Guards converge around the family. They help the battered couple rise and stagger away. Their soaked, wailing children follow.

My exhilaration ends in a pulse of anxiety. This is the first time I’ve acted without an outside urge, without a god or prophecy compelling me. I pushed Pivarin’s spirit to go back into his body because I wanted him to live. Not because anyone else decreed it.

Was it right? I can’t know, and I’ve done it now. I’ve changed one person’s destiny, at least for a few moments. What will he do with it?

The rain stops.

Councilor Siqaris glows as he steam dries his clothes, as Jeren does to me. The icari assemble once more.

My heart thumps.

It is time.

Ayanakalia

Councilor Siqaris jabs an accusatory finger at Jeren. “You’ve been concealing a human in the Reaches. Step forward and answer.”

Jeren reluctantly lowers his wings, revealing me.

Before he can say a word, I step forward.

The councilor blinks in surprise.

I continue across the blackened stone to stand in the center of the lightning strike, facing the councilor and the crowd behind him with my head held high. Although he says nothing, still, I feel his silence like a held breath.

“You wish to be judged first? Fine.” Siqaris smirks as he stalks around me. The crowd mutters in support, their anger amplifying his confidence. “So, Jeren hid you away to feed his sister’s bastard. He collected you and treasured you in secret, didn’t he?”

“No.”

“You will not evade my inquiry with pointless lies, human.”

“Jeren didn’t ‘collect me’ or ‘treasure me in secret.’ He refused to take me in and then was constantly hostile. From the beginning, and many times since, he said he wished I’d never come at all.”

“That’s a lie.”

“No, no, it’s quite true,” Bafis affirms, arms crossed, over the rumble of the crowd. “He’s had no gratitude whatsoever for what the gods brought him. I had to insist he take advantage for Lifayis’s sake. Then he treated her worse every time I turned around. It’s disgusting to recount, but it’s the truth.”

Jeren flushes, but throws his shoulders back, accepting the harsh words.

Councilor Siqaris frowns. He doesn’t believe us but also can’t figure out why we’d lie about this, of all things.

“I have heard some of those harsh words myself,” Elder Kayarinthos mentions, and others from the funeral agree, which is interesting because I don’t remember Jeren being particularly rude in front of them. Perhaps my standard for his behavior is quite a bit lower than theirs is.

The crowd falls silent. Wind whistles over the lonely stone.

Councilor Siqaris lifts a finger and paces in front of me. “But Jeren did bring you to Ikaria.”

“No,” I say.

“He must have.”

Bafis again shakes his head.

Siqaris stops. “Someone brought you through the barrier.”

“We found her already inside,” Bafis says.

“She didn’t go through by herself. Who carried her?”

No one answers.

“Who?” he booms.

Bafis tries to calm him. “Sometimes, Siqaris, there is no easy answer. Only the truth.”

He glares down at me. He’s taller and broader than Jeren, and his thick fingers flex over the unholy dagger at his side. “Who brought you through the barrier?”

“The gods,” I say.

“Which gods?”

“He Who Sleeps,” I say.

He blinks and looks at his mother, the head priestess and therefore only person on this island who they might expect to be in communication with their ancestor. Her gaze cuts at me more sharply than the knife he carries. She finally tears her eyes from mine and gives a little shake of her head.

He swings back to face me. “Another lie.”

The crowd roars in support, making Jeren and Bafis flinch, but ironically, Siqaris himself doesn’t sound convinced. I want to laugh. From the first sentence, I’ve pushed him off-balance. Although I’m supposed to have no feelings about what’s coming next—the river of my life must run its course—anger wells in me. He didn’t have to hurt Pivarin’s family. I’m glad now to see him struggling.

Siqaris storms to Jeren, the true target of his anger. “You concealed her existence.”

Jeren puts a sheltering hand over the baby sling. “Lifayis needed to be fed.”

“That is of no consequence.”

“I won’t let my child starve.”

While they argue, I study the lightning pattern on the stone beneath my feet. It makes a spiky labyrinth of jagged pathways and dead ends. I squat down and touch the stone. The black soot smears, but my fingertips detect faint grooves and channels. The lightning followed an existing pattern lost to weather and time.

I follow it with my eyes, then with my feet, twisting and turning around the courtyard toward the closed temple doors. The eyes of the carved monsters and heroes follow me from the mountainside. I stop in front of the doors.

Steam from the sudden cold rain evaporates off the two soulless icari statues. Old blood rusts on their sharp blades. A snatch of sunlight reflects off their armor, blinding.

My heart thumps.

“Then she will be judged!” Councilor Siqaris’s announcement breaks my concentration, and the crowd buzzes again with excitement. “Where…? Ah! You… What are you doing?”

“Getting judged?” I say hopefully, standing exactly between the statues. “How do I trigger the clicking?”

He looks utterly confused.

“The judgment,” I clarify, but it doesn’t help. “Make them move? Or can I just go in?”

“Go in?” he repeats dumbly.

“Okay.” I shove the huge doors, but they don’t budge, cold and immobile beneath my palms as the mountain.

Click-click-clink.

The two icari statues bend over me.

I shrink back. Did I mess up? Jeren says they’re not alive, but I have a terrible sensation of being inspected.

One straightens and lifts his sword, tip down. Bam! Sharp stone smacks my forehead, piercing the skin and thumping my skull. Ow! I sit hard on my butt, stunned for a long minute, then clamp my ringing forehead. Blood seeps between my fingers.

What did I do wrong?

Overhead, my blood drops off the tip of the sword. The icarus statue flips the sword in a full rotation and slides it into the door’s seam.

Click.

The two doors swing outward, massive stones parting. I scramble back to a defensive crouch. They glide past on either side of me.

Behind me, the icari gasp in shock.

I did it? I opened the doors?

The doors slow, stopping at the halfway open mark.

Then they tilt, falling off their hinges and collapsing outward. Pulleys snap and gears clatter, bouncing across the ground. The stone doors crash into the two icarus statues, flattening them.

Behind me, the crowd screams.

A cloud of dust billows across me.

I stand.

Dust blows away to reveal a steep descent to a stone labyrinth. The walls are carved with mysterious, glowing symbols.

I bunch up my sleeve and press it against my throbbing, bleeding forehead and walk to the open doorway.

The head priestess lands in front of me, wings spread, palms out. “Stop!”

Siqaris and the other councilors land on the debris behind me. I’m surrounded.

“How did you do that?” Councilor Ruqen demands, toeing a splinter of crushed silver armor. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“I’ve been summoned.” My head pounds. “By your god.”

My faint voice echoes inside the temple, whispering the words over and over, and then gusts out like a wild exhale, hissy with magic. Little hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and the councilors shiver.

“My destiny is to end your—”

“Never!” the head priestess shrieks.

The clouds swirl overhead with a dark energy. A low grumble emerges from within the mountain, but only she and I react to it.

“I mean, not now.” She smooths her gold-stitched white gown and arranges her holy bracelets. “Not like this. A person summoned by our ancestor must be bathed and anointed, prepared and dressed, even trained in the proper methods of approach and address. A simple human bleeding all over can’t enter. Sending you in as you are now would be embarrassing. An insult.”

I rest on my heels. “I don’t think he cares about any of that.”

“Of course he does.” She smiles, and her eyes are empty, then she waves to the guards. “Bring her to my shrine.”

They drag me away.

I look back at the dark passage. My destiny gets farther away even though I’m ready for it now, and the voice remains frustratingly silent.

Ayanakalia

Guards haul me across the cracked stone and through the unfriendly crowd.

Jeren stands by, watching me pass.

He sees the blood, and his eyes widen. He tries to say something, but the guards rebuff him along with everyone else.

We enter one of the smaller buildings at the complex, which is still larger than Jeren’s manor even before it fell into disrepair. Thick steps lead up to a massive stone stoa fringed by stone columns. We pass through the ornate entry. Light bounces off mirrors and sconces to illuminate the interior shrine.

At the far end of the room a gold bird statue, like a crane, looms. Rain drips off its joints and edges as it moves, flapping its wings and clacking its beak. The water pools around the floor drain, evaporating with steam.

The head priestess anoints her wrists with oil from a jar shaped like another bird. She dots my hands in silence, then orders me to the back. As we pass, the bird statue abruptly straightens and rotates to watch me with unblinking metal eyes.

The private living area is lush and carpeted with soft wools and silks. The gentle air is fragrant with incense. Gemstones twinkle and catch my eyes.

“Keep moving,” the head priestess orders, surprising me and the acolytes here, and I continue into her private chamber.

The head priestess’s chambers are grand and regal. Exotic flowers bloom from silver mechanical boxes, marble abuts smooth tile, and her bed nook is decorated with sacred symbols. Fine clothes overflow her closet, and small jewels and bangles clump between tubs of makeup, perfumes, and oils.

The head priestess sweeps off the pile of fine clothes and has me sit on a stone bench.

She snatches my blood-streaked palm and studies it, first one and then the other. She draws runes on my skin with my own blood, rubs Jeren’s almost-invisible ash marks from my inner elbow, and draws her runes in their place. Her eyes are amber, like all the icari, and the white crescent on her forehead is framed by a gold diadem in the shape of a full moon.

She eventually releases me and stands. “Are you really destined to awaken He Who Sleeps? I’ve received no warning. Perhaps you got lucky at the entrance.”

Fear quickens my heart, but I keep my voice steady. “Then let’s go back and test my luck.”

Her nostrils flare. She suddenly brandishes an ornate dagger crusted with multicolor gemstones. The blade is etched into the shape of a crane’s beak. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t end your life right now.”

“My destiny has never been obvious from looking.”

“Why not? If you’re meant to have such a momentous fate, why isn’t it obvious?”

I have no answer.

She flashes me a look of pure malice, then tosses the dagger aside, stirs the coals around her clay kettle, and pours herself a cup of warm tea. She drinks it, brooding. “Do you know the punishment for defying He Who Sleeps?”

“No.”

Her fingers flex. For an instant, I think she’s going to throw the cup at my head. She abruptly turns away, sets the cup down with a clink, then turns back with a false smile on her face as she wipes a tear from one eye. “Sorry, it’s just that I’m only trying to protect my people. My children. Won’t you please help me? You care about us too, clearly. You’re a mother.”

I don’t trust her at all. “How am I supposed to help?”

“Never enter the temple. Leave this island and forget you ever came here.”

“Do you really think my leaving will stop anything?”

She nods, trying to hold the friendly mask, but she can’t even hold it for a full five seconds before she wipes her face with a sigh, removes her ceremonial jewelry, and places it into sacred boxes wrapped with fine purple fabric. “Perhaps I should murder you.”

“Why—”

“Because I already interfered!” She clutches a ruby pendant the size of a giant water beetle. “We both know better, don’t we? He speaks and you answer. If you dam up the river, it overflows the banks, and by stopping you from entering his temple, that’s what I’ve done, but how could I not? I, and everyone before me who tried to prevent this moment from coming…”

I twitch because this is how I feel down to the “river of fate” sensation. “Then, you do hear him?”

“Yes, of course. I’m the head priestess, not an idiot farmer.”

“But you lied.”

“When did I lie?”

“Your ancestor said nothing about punishing Pivarin.”

“Pivarin?” She packs the ruby neatly into its ceremonial treasure box. “My son targeted him. There was nothing to be done.”

“You could’ve told the truth.”

She titters. “Do you think he is the only otherworldly being on this island?”

Shock filters through me.

“There are many. Monsters, often, but also men positioned directly by the gods. My son is one of the gods’ special emissaries. You can hear it when he speaks.” She presses a hand to her chest. “It makes a stirring in your heart.”

What?

“No,” I say firmly, shocked that she, a holy woman, could be so wrong. “Any man can speak with a god’s tongue. That doesn’t mean his speech is true, only that he’s capable of grasping their power.”

Anger closes her face. “You don’t hear it.”

“I’ve heard it many times. My husband—”

“But my son is special.” Her eyes glitter. “He’s never wrong. Everyone he loves prospers and everyone he hates dies. The gods ensure it.”

“It doesn’t count as the gods’ will if his hand grips the dagger.” A new thought needles me. “Did he kill Raqessa?”

“No!” She sits beside me, eager once more. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. He swore he never lay with her, that our own memories were lies, and she who refused to honor his proclamation was taken by a sudden childbed fever. See? The gods value his words more than truth. That’s why someday, Jeren will succumb. He, like his sister, refuses to bow to my son’s words. But he’ll see. Everyone my son hates dies.”

“Pivarin lives.”

“So far.” She clasps my hands. “You could leave the island. Take Jeren and that child with you. You’re a human, so you can touch the water. Save them from going against my son.”

The temptation to agree tickles my tongue.

I don’t honestly want to destroy the icari. I don’t want to steal the future from Jeren and Lifayis and Bafis. Could leaving delay the end of their world or make the finale worse?

But even as I’m thinking it, the truth anchors me down.

Arinthos tried this. He didn’t refute the curse; he just insisted that only he could end it when he should have accepted that it would be shared between himself, me, and our daughter. The end result was the same. The curse wasn’t ended properly, and Halonnesos remains in shadow.

“I didn’t choose to come here,” I tell her carefully. “So I can’t choose to leave. I will complete my destiny with your help or without it.”

“You are confident.” Her eyes reflect the fire, amber and dangerous, and the white light zips around the outside of her irises. “We’ll see which is stronger, your so-called invisible destiny or my son’s. And when the time comes, you’ll know how to serve us.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up again. Between the two of us, she’s the monster.

She rises and goes out through a small side door. I hear water pouring out, and then she tosses her dress back through the doorway. Is she taking a bath? I wait for instructions, but she doesn’t return, so…

I walk out.

No one stops me. The acolyte chambers are empty. They’re busy with the shrine. The bird statue again stops moving and watches me exit. It’s creepy, but I keep moving.

On the stoa, I interrupt a loud argument between Jeren and two councilors. He breaks off when he sees me, then stands red-faced and awkward as if he doesn’t know what to say.

“Where’s the head priestess?” one councilor demands.

“In her rooms,” I say.

“Then are we supposed to take you back to the temple now, or wait?”

“Ah…” I’m not sure how to answer.

“Wait.” Jeren shoves a crying Lifayis at me. “You have to feed him.”

Honestly, Lifayis looks damp and miserable, not hungry, but I sit and offer my breast. He makes distracted noises and plays with his hands, but then my milk flows down, and he focuses.

With my arms full of the baby, blood slips down my forehead and drips off my nose. Ugh. It just won’t stop.

Jeren uses his tunic to wipe my face, then applies a white feather to my forehead. It stings, and the ashes fall away. Blood continues to drip out, but slower now. He frowns and tries again.

The air is brisk and filling, and for the first time in I don’t know how long, I can breathe. The crowd is gone. Guards work on lifting the fallen doors and cleaning up the debris. A few others linger to talk.

I look down at Lifayis. He looks up at me, so trusting, and my heart swells. This, I want to protect. I just don’t know how.

Councilor Ruqen lands in front of the shrine in fine raiment and battle armor so polished, it reflects the light. Other councilors similarly dressed assemble around him. The ones with me stand heavily, resigned.

Lifayis, excited by the movement, breaks away and looks around. I hand him back to Jeren as I stand and use one of my hands to stanch the bleeding.

Councilor Ruqen straightens. “You’re ready?”

“I am.”

He gestures for me to descend the steps and return to the mountainside temple.

“She’s not ready!” The head priestess rushes out frantically, her robe bunched up and her diadem askew. “Not ready. Whew!”

Councilor Ruqen frowns. “She’s here.”

“Well, she just left. Snuck out without saying anything. Does that sound like a girl ready to serve a god to you?”

“How much time does it take to train a human to behave properly?”

“In her case? A lot of time. Days and days.” The head priestess arches a brow. “She’s an exile, you know. And she wasn’t raised with proper spiritual guidance.”

“And you’ll do that now.” He huffs a sigh. “Days, you think?”

“Weeks even. With frequent breaks for her feeble brain to absorb the information.”

He sighs again. “Is it really that important?”

“Human girl,” the head priestess addresses me. “Make a proper obeisance for entering a shrine.”

Ah. I saw the acolytes do some kind of movement, but I didn’t pay that much attention…

“See?” The head priestess beams. “She doesn’t know the first thing we teach a child.”

“Fine.” Councilor Ruqen motions to Jeren. “Clean her up and return her tomorrow.”

Jeren pulls me in and extends his wings.

“Wait!” She puts her hands on her hips. “She should stay here where I can oversee her.”

“That will be inconvenient for the baby, who still requires night feedings,” Councilor Ruqen says.

The head priestess blinks in surprise.

“You may go,” Councilor Ruqen tells us, and Jeren doesn’t hesitate another second. He pulls me against him, squishing Lifayis between us, and lifts us abruptly.

Far below, standing alone in the center of the black soot labyrinth, Siqaris watches us.

Daedakros recedes. We duck into thick clouds that smell like electricity, and when we land on the summit of Jeren’s homestead, I can’t stop shivering. Jeren pushes up my damp sleeves and clasps my forearms. His warmth seeps into me. I look up to thank him, but the words die on my lips. His eyes flash, broken, and then his mouth covers mine.

Liquid heat sears me.

His tongue pumps into me, questing and seeking, and he’s like a hot drink that I feel all the way down into my curling toes. My woman’s area throbs, brought to life.

He breaks off and looks at me again like he can’t believe I’m still alive. We weren’t supposed to have this time. I wasn’t expecting to come back here, but here we are. We both feel the fragility.

Lifayis, between us, gurgles, and his warmth glows.

Jeren chuckles, a small laugh that is too close to a sob. He sobers and tugs me toward his home.

I hesitate.

If I go in with him, when both of us are feeling fragile like this, I just know he’ll lie with me as a husband lies with a wife, and I’ll give myself to him completely. Is that the right thing now? In time, I’m afraid, it won’t be. There’s too much unresolved between us.

He tugs me again.

Well, I…

A low whistle sounds.

Jeren pauses, alert.

“Ah, excuse me?” Walking up the path is the woman I saw the other day outside the sacred grotto. Her eyes are bright. “I’m sorry to bother you… Ah! Are you okay?”

Jeren growls. “What do you want?”

She flinches, but focuses on me. “There’s been a death. A young boy. Will you come?”

“What’s she supposed to do about it?”

The woman puts one foot behind the other, awkward. “Sharing his last words would give the parents peace…”

“Are you sure?” I ask her. “Uqilia’s last words nearly destroyed a family. They cost an icarus his wings.”

“Some of us appreciated the reckoning,” she replies, flinty. “Some children go a lifetime never acknowledged in public.”

Well, all right, then. “If a family wants last words, I will convey them.”

Jeren grimaces. “Wait.” He goes inside the house.

We wait.

She studies me curiously. I must look crazy with blood spattering my robes and dried on my face. It’s mostly stopped oozing, but my head still throbs.

Jeren returns with a cup of water for me, and I drink it gratefully. I didn’t realize I was thirsty. My headache abates. Lifayis is wrapped in a new, clean swaddling cloth and bounces happily in his sling.

Jeren glares at the woman. “Shouldn’t you go ahead already? We’re flying.”

She pushes out her chest. “I can keep up.”

He pulls me to him, gruff and muttering, and takes off. Below us, the woman races straight down the mountain spire, leaping like a mountain goat, nimble and light on her feet.

Jeren floats under the low clouds as the island unfolds around me. His spire is on the southeastern tip. The lowlands spread out below in rolling grasslands where sheep herds dwell. Tended orchards hem in fields. The houses of the human village Mallonia spread to the edge of the harbor. Tiny single-person boats bob against spindly docks. The water is shallow and glassy until the barrier, where the rough waves crash into an invisible wall made of sky.

Jeren veers toward one small house. Outside, people are preparing a feast, but the mood is somber, the voices muted. The humans have olive complexions, crescent forehead marks, and are unnaturally light on their feet.

The woman arrives only a little bit later, gasping and sweating, and they greet her as Marine.

Marine leads me inside. The windows are blocked off, and a crowd of sniffling Mallonia villagers hold candles. A young boy lies on the table. He’s dressed in neatly stitched clothes and protective symbols are brushed on his feet and arms. He’s pale, lifeless.

“When did he die?” I ask Marine quietly.

“Yesterday. They did the rites, but hadn’t finished with the cleansing smoke, and we heard about your work at the funeral.”

His mother sobs into her hands while another woman rocks her. The father sits by the boy’s head, tears streaming down his cheeks. He brushes the boy’s dark hair.

Something is odd.

I look around the room, in all the corners and everywhere, for what’s missing.

“He snuck out in the early morning to fish with his father, and unbeknownst to the fishermen, he fell in the water,” Marine murmurs, as if the manner of his death matters. “When they got him out, he was already sick. It got real bad last night.”

“Darkness is when the river between our world and the shadowlands swells its banks. It’s easier to get swept away.”

She listens avidly. The others murmur quietly.

The father makes room for me.

I touch the boy’s chest, his face. If they haven’t cleansed away his spirit, it should still be here. But it’s not. I close my eyes to trace his spirit into the land of the dead, but my eyes snap open again. I remove my hands.

“I want you…” The father’s voice breaks. He kisses the boy’s forehead. “To tell my son…”

“I can’t.”

His mouth opens and closes. “But they said you can talk to the dead.”

“I can, but your child is only sleeping. He isn’t dead yet.”

“What?” The father touches the boy’s cheeks and rubs his lax hands. “Son? Son, are you still alive? Son…” He stares for any sign of life.

The boy’s eyelids tense, and a very slight sigh emerges.

The father chokes and grabs him, sweeping away the incense and death markers. “He’s alive!”

The cry echoes outside, and abruptly, many people rush in. The crowd pushes me out. There’s another loud cry as he gives some other sign of life.

Jeren stands outside, looking uncomfortable. “Not dead? So this was a wasted trip.”

“Perhaps.” Although life or death shouldn’t matter, I’m happy that they get a few more moments with their child, and maybe he’ll even recover. I’ll be hopeful.

Marine squeezes out. She takes my hand, the one that touched the boy. “How did you bring him back to life?”

“I didn’t.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. My mother used to get frustrated because as a child, I didn’t understand why anyone would bother trying to stay alive.”

“Do you understand now?”

“I’ve grown up a little. But I have no talent for healing the living. Call me again if he loses consciousness.”

Marine looks like she wants to ask a million more questions. Another cry of amazement draws her back to the door.

Jeren makes an impatient noise. “Now can we go?”

I assent, and he pulls me close. We rise.

“Did she wrong you?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“She didn’t help.” He touches Lifayis’s head. “Anyway, the icari are unwelcome in human villages.”

I follow his glance backward.

A man with a white-blond coloration looks up at us. No wings shimmer. No gold feathers remain. A scar appears on his back where his wings once were. He watches us until we disappear into the clouds.

Only one feather remains between Jeren and that fate…

“Pivarin nearly died after pulling out his feathers,” I murmur.

“He pulled too many at once. An injured old man can pull a single feather and die. A healthy young man could rip them all out in a big handful and survive.”

Jeren’s last gold feather gleams in the damp clouds. “What about you?”

“I’d live.” He glowers. “There are worse fates than death, and I don’t want them.”

Ayanakalia

We land at Jeren’s homestead again, and the strange feeling of not rightness lingers. I am not supposed to be here, but here I am.

Jeren’s warmth is surreal, and I drink it in like a forbidden liquor. I’m not supposed to be allowed to have this, but I have it. I have him. He stands with me, quiet, for a long moment.

And then the moment passes. The wind kicks up, Lifayis shifts in his sling, kicking his fat baby feet, and my stomach grumbles. Life moves on.

“Are you hungry?” Jeren asks with an amused rumble.

“Starving.”

He links our fingers as he crosses the familiar ground.

Bafis comes out from the house, giving me a small jolt. There was no whistle warning, but now that I think of it, there never is. He’s an accepted member of Jeren’s family.

His gaze lingers on our linked fingers, but Jeren doesn’t withdraw. “Where were you? I was worried.”

“Mallonia,” I tell him while Jeren brushes past.

The cups we left out last night have been cleaned up, and there’s a nice warm fire and the start of a stew.

“Ah, if I’d known you were going to the human village, I might not have…I mean, you might not need or want this, since you can buy it from them.” Bafis hands me a pot of yogurt.

I take it from him with tears in my eyes and eat it immediately. “Delicious.”

He watches with a worried smile. “You’ll have to try it with diced cherries.”

Bafis goes back inside, but Jeren leads me to a sheltered area of the courtyard and has me change out of my bloodied clothes. He helps me wash, cupping water and warming it in his hands before pouring it over me. I scrub vigorously and feel like I’m coming back to life. We unbraid my hair and wash out the dried blood and dirt, leaving it in a wild halo, then boil the laundry, and he hangs it while I wrap myself in a nest of blankets and settle in by the fire, exhausted.

Inside once more, Jeren touches my forehead gently and tsks. Bafis examines it as well. They both frown.

“Is it a bad scar?” I ask meekly.

“No…” But Jeren isn’t convincing.

Bafis notices my concern. “Don’t worry my dear. It’ll heal in time.”

They go back to their chores, and the unusual evening settles into a pleasant night. We’re jovial, and Lifayis is in a good mood. The men have made peace.

Bafis spends much of the evening talking with Jeren about the judgment. Not about me knocking down the statues, but when Pivarin almost died in front of his whole family.

“All that ‘return to when we were great’ talk makes me so…” Bafis huffs a frustrated sigh. “When I was Lifayis’s age, these skies were filled with icari. You couldn’t get away from the sounds of singing, yet, it’s been silent here for I don’t know how long.”

Jeren pokes the fire. “After the Great Battle, there might not have been anything to sing for.”

“Our songs were mournful, but we still had them. They died out after. I can’t remember the reason. Now we’re silent.”

A melancholy mood takes him. Jeren has to grab something from outside, and Bafis turns to me. “Do you really hear him?”

“Not right now, but when it’s sunny.”

“Hmm.” Bafis studies his hands. “I don’t know why I should live to see this moment. What was the purpose of giving me this long life? So I have to watch our ending? Is it my destiny to see the end of us? But then today, all I saw was the near end of Uqilia’s line.”

“I shouldn’t have shared her words. They weren’t for the living. I’m bad about knowing what will happen when I share.”

“In my youth, there weren’t rules about humans. That happened during Jeren’s grandfather’s generation. Somebody wanted a better homestead, and the greedy council leader—a different one then—made up a rule that no humans could live in the Reaches, all so he could steal a nice house. It caused a huge stir because humans were working all night in the pottery kilns and metallurgy workshops, or living in our houses as wet nurses and servants. Later, the rule was used in an inheritance dispute, and now we’re here. The councilors say they want to go back to our grand past, but they never look back, and they should.”

He prods the fire.

“We’ve always worried about our dwindling feathers. It’s easier to blame the humans intermixing with us than to blame ourselves, but the truth is, our magic is running out. Whether the parents are full-blooded icari or mixed, the child will have fewer feathers. That is the truth.”

“I have no magic,” I tell him. “My only talent is seeing and hearing things. So even if you have less magic than before, you still seem magical to me.”

He softens and pats me, then looks at Lifayis. “Yes, well, I suppose we’re not done quite yet.”

The hour is late, so when Jeren gets back, Bafis stands. Jeren walks him into the courtyard and wishes him a good night, then returns to me. He banks the coals around the overnight pot for breakfast. Often, he does this much earlier, even cooking days in advance, and it strikes me again that he was completely willing to take my word that there would be no tomorrow, to the point that he didn’t even prepare breakfast.

Now he takes the ash stick and holds out his hand.

I give him my wrist. “Is there any point?”

“You’re going back to the temple.” He traces his family’s symbol up my inner arm to the elbow, then adds protective marks, an intricate pattern. He duplicates it on the other arm as well, then drops feathers on both designs. I suck in a breath as the pain of his magic burns into me, then soothes to a throbbing. The lines change from ash to ghostly iridescence.

“What does it mean?”

“My family’s crest?” He tilts my arm toward the light. “This part, here, is ‘determination.’ And that, there, is ‘heart.’ There are other symbols mixed in, but those are the main ones.”

He rests the stick in the fire and examines his work with a pleased hum.

“You’re cheerful.” It makes my chest hurt somehow. “Even though you really do believe me, don’t you? I’ll awaken your god and end your curse.”

“I believe you.”

“This is only a small delay. The head priestess can’t stop it. Even if I go away, another will take my place. The river flows to the sea.”

“The river may always flow to the sea, but there’s plenty that men can do to slow it down.”

“Then it overflows its banks and—”

“We can lengthen the river, add a new bend to give us a little more time.” He rubs the marks, and they glimmer like his ghostly wings. “Even I, with my ill-fated wishes, can hope for that much.”

He’s determined like Arinthos was, but instead of raging and closing his eyes, Jeren surveys the full landscape and makes a plan. He’s used to being reviled, punished, and avoided because of choices others made. Unintended consequences have pierced him like needles, torn out his feathers, burned up the magic from his soul. And yet still he tries.

I cup his cheek. Stubble rasps against my thumb. “You’re not like my ex-husband at all.”

He stills. The light zips around his irises.

I hold his gaze, fearless.

He moves over me.

I lie back on the floor, and he crawls on top, pressing me into the nest of blankets with his unnatural sunlit warmth. His arms cage me on either side, and his hard male length presses against my hip-thigh crease. His firm mouth meshes with mine, hot and liquid and sweet, and his fingers thread through my messy hair.

I breathe him in. Autumn leaves and dusk, rutting deer and scraps of velvet, and hot, hot sun. His scent makes me dizzy, and I hold onto his bulging arms for balance.

He drops kisses to my jaw and throat, suckling and sensitizing my cool olive skin to his hot mouth and nibbling teeth.

I want to make him feel good as well.

My hands quest beneath his robe and are rewarded with his taut warmth, his male member flexing with power. I explore its shape and length, teasing my fingertips from the broad shaft to the soft head. His skin slips up and down his length, and he makes a noise low in his throat that sends tingles down my spine.

He knees between my legs, and his weight settles against my groin. His skin is delicious fire. His hard member brushes my mons.

Embarrassment suddenly floods me. I rise up on one elbow. “I, ah…may have a problem…”

He pauses.

“It might be nothing, but it might… After the birth, things changed down there, and it still feels… And I don’t…haven’t had anyone to ask. Is it normal? Because I don’t recognize myself.”

“Do you want a midwife?”

My heart squeezes. “Can I visit one?”

“Now?”

“Daylight is fine.” I exhale with relief and collapse onto my back. “Thank you.”

He kisses the “determination” mark on my inner wrist.

I’m only a little worried. My bodily functions are okay, but what if my appearance horrifies him? I’ll never recover my vanity.

He kisses up my arm to the elbow, then between my breasts, massaging them in his palms, careful of my nipples. An ache different from the let-down of milk tingles there, and arousal streaks to my throbbing center. He continues down my belly, swirls his tongue around the dimple, and nuzzles the dark hair at my mons pubis.

As he descends, his hard length pulls out of my empty hands. I catch hold of his shoulders, his silky white-blond hair.

He cups my aching womanhood. Relief mixes with sheer need. And then he lowers his mouth to kiss my—

I catch his wrist. “What are you…? I don’t know what you’ll see.”

“Me neither, but…” He strokes my inner thighs. His white feathers glimmer, made visible. He moves a wing over my leg, pulls a white feather, and hovers it over my woman’s area. “Did you want me to try?”

Did I want him to try to heal me? There? It will hurt, though.

I swallow, nod.

He cups the white fluff, whispers to it, and drops it on my entrance.

The feather turns black as the magic curls up on itself.

A sharp nerve twinges as the magic seeps in painfully. I grit my teeth. Then my skin warms and throbs. He pulls another white feather, whispers, and places it lower, and again the sharpness causes me to suck in my breath, then the area floods with heat. He pulls another and another, searing me with painful wishes, but there’s also a sense of relief, like tearing off a crusted bandage and washing away sickness, rebinding it with healing herbs. It throbs but feels better. I rest my head on the blankets, sweaty and trembling, as heat radiates up.

Then he palms my mons, promising the pain is over.

I take a deep, shuddery breath and let it out.

His gentle pressure moves in a sensual circle.

The ache returns. Throbbing turns to pounding need, and rivulets of pleasure leach upward into my core as my breath hitches.

He pulls away his palm.

A mewling protest escapes my lips.

He rumbles, amused, and then his lips brush my inner thigh. “Relax for me, Ayanakalia.”

My name on his gruff lips pierces my very soul.

I obey, opening my thighs. He kisses across my feminine core, his tongue trailing hot and wet strokes across my petals to my sensitive nub. I shiver. His fingers part my skin, and he delves in, licking and exploring. Each confident stroke increases my ache while also releasing a sweet burst of pleasure. He finds my favorite spot and latches on, tonguing me steadily, soft, and then, as I moan, with increasing pressure.

I clutch empty air, then brush his hair back from his forehead. The white moon-emblem glows. He links his fingers with mine and sups on me, giving pleasure to me with his full concentration.

My husband never attempted anything like this, and I never thought to ask. Our only goal was to have a child.

Jeren sees me.

He sees me, tastes me, gives me pleasure.

And when I think that, he strokes my nub, and the pleasure explodes. My core contracts, trying to pull him in more deeply, and I arch my back as the release rolls down my spine. My toes curl up, and I break apart under his insistent mouth, his unrelenting tongue.

He would keep going, I think, keep trying to gift me more, but I fist his hair, drawing him up to me.

His gaze meets mine. A damp smirk curves his lips. Arrogance looks so beautiful on him, and well-earned pride.

I feel cozy and gooey and flooded with relaxation.

He wipes his mouth, then crawls up my body and curls around me from behind. He tucks blankets around us, rests his chin on my cheek and palm on my waist, and snuggles me close. His body is so hot that it doesn’t matter that I’m sleeping on the floor with him. I barely need a covering. Exhaustion draws us in together. His hardness pressing against my buttocks goes slack, and then he falls to sleep.

And in the coziness, my heart squeezes again.

Arinthos saw me as the vessel to undo the curse, and I accepted that role. He gave me his body so that we could fulfill our roles.

But Jeren gives me pleasure for no reason. It doesn’t benefit him or his nephew. He gives me his body because of our connection. He sees me as me. And I’ve never received such pure, selfless giving. No one has ever focused on my pleasure.

He makes these plans about diverting the river, but I am floating in the river. Maybe, even, I am the river. Right now, an eddy has swirled me back a step, but it will eventually continue on. I will hurt him. I’ll hurt Bafis and Lifayis.

If there is something I can do to help them, I will. Some stick I can grab, some rock I can dislodge…

The protective symbols on my arms itch, as does the cut on my forehead.

Do I have to betray Jeren to serve the gods?

* * *

Jeren

The days pass strangely.

On the surface, all appears normal. I wake before dawn and begin the morning chores, finish the previous day’s washing, weed, and chase pests from the garden. Small things, ordinary things, while each morning grows hot.

Lifayis awakens Ayanakalia. She feeds him, begins the washing pile anew, and brings him outside to me while I harvest and dry fruit. Our eyes meet. A shy smile tugs her lips, and I feel an answering tug in my groin as we reach toward each other.

But before we touch, there’s a sudden gust of wind. Leaves rustle, kicking up dust between us, and sunlight spears through the clouds, suddenly illuminating a warning pattern on the edge of the road.

We both check, turning slightly away from each other.

I go inside, dish up overnight oats with chopped figs and cream, and bring a bowl out to her. She sits with me, nervously watching the distant temple, hearing words that only she can hear.

After breakfast, I leave her with Bafis and do my allotment of work in the fields. If I were more artistic or aristocratic, running a studio, then the humans would work for me, but instead, I work alone exchanging my labor for a share of their flour, wool, and meat.

During the hottest part of the day, I fly Ayanakalia to the main temple.

This is calculated.

The head priestess is sleepy and snappish, but I insist that it’s the only time we can come, and then I sit in the vestibule with the doors open so the hot wind can blow through, and I eavesdrop on their conversation.

The head priestess does not teach Ayanakalia much of anything. Instead, she probes the extent and potency of Ayanakalia’s powers. It’s strange. We icari have more true magic in a single feather than Ayanakalia has in her whole body, yet she’s clearly much closer to the gods. But like Bafis and me, the head priestess too is transfixed by the oddly shaped scab forming on Ayanakalia’s forehead.

The injury from the statue is scarring into a bloodred crescent moon.

Although Ayanakalia wasn’t born on this island, she’s now marked as one of us, at least in blood. Has this happened before? Bafis thinks so, but even he doesn’t remember.

When the evening cools the air and the councilors and acolytes stir, I interrupt and draw Ayanakalia away. The head priestess protests, but not strongly. We return to my homestead, finish chores and dinner, bid Bafis farewell, and prepare for the next day.

Then, in the quiet after Lifayis falls asleep, Ayanakalia’s hot eyes focus on me.

I go to her, cover her with my protective kisses, worship her body. I can’t get enough of her taste, of how she writhes beneath my tongue, helplessly gasping my name. She fists my hair, cries out with pleasure, and then collapses in a heap. Pleasuring her with my mouth is endlessly fascinating.

Yes, I want to bury my maleness in her and release my seed. The midwife I took her to said it’s normal for her body to feel different after birth and there’s nothing wrong. So now Ayanakalia often slants her eyes at me afterward, when I’m resting my head against her thigh, and she strokes my hair. She spreads her legs, silently offers herself to me.

But if I take her as a husband, I’ll break this fragile mirror world. This limbo place, where nothing has happened yet, but we’re all holding our breaths. I treasure her and deny myself the satisfaction, and this, somehow, binds us and keeps her safe.

I can’t tear out any more of my magic without losing everything.

Our fate is only having a small delay, and no matter what I do or don’t do, the reckoning will come.

The days are normal but strange. Red dawns, smoky night skies, and the wind blows hot. The air is heavy with warnings.

Ayanakalia

I enjoy these days with Jeren and Lifayis more than any other time in my life.

Jeren keeps himself busy from early morning into the late night. Then Bafis gets a summer cold, a mild sniffle, and stays away for a few days, so Jeren takes me with him during his mornings.

Despite his anger at the humans, he’s contracted to do certain work for them to earn communal grain. He goes up on sheer roofs when they’re building houses or flies over the tops of trees. The humans are brave, scrambling up cliffs and hanging off unsteady scaffolds, but some tasks are best done by an icarus.

I sit around in the shade and wait for him. The older women sometimes give me tasks. Elders hand me a basket to shuck peas or have me grind dried fish into paste, mindless things I did at my old village on the direction of my mother, but often I sit idle with Lifayis as he rolls over and wiggles his arms and feet, miming the urge to crawl.

Marine plops down beside me. “So what kind of creature are you?”

I snort-laugh at her bluntness. “I’m a human.”

“No.” She points out the deep footsteps I made crossing a patch of muck, then her nonexistent ones. “You’re nothing like us.”

“That’s because you’re not really human. On any other island, you’d be magical. I’m normal.”

She narrows her eyes as if I might be lying to her, but then leans back against the trunk. “We do see traders sometimes, but we have to go outside the barrier, and a while ago, our healthy young men got taken away by the traders, so that ended that.”

“They were kidnapped?”

“Or convinced to go, I don’t know. The rumors went both ways.” She rests her hands behind her head. “You realize pretty quick your marriage rival is a girl from Rokastia, but that’s okay because there are two boys, and then they end up in a triad leaving you on the outs. It’s isolating.”

I understand that too well. “Halonnesos had large villages in the past. My mother told me that there were so many people, once, there were families you avoided, village rivalries, and even a scandal when a daughter from one village married a son from a different village.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of that.”

“Plus, before the curse, we had traders coming and going, settlers and escaped slaves, and, of course, raiders and pirates and threats of warrior-kings. By the time I was born, though, there was barely anyone.”

I didn’t worry about it much, though. I’m sure the other girls did. I already knew my destined husband, so I never thought about it at all.

“Isn’t it funny you got a red forehead mark?” Marine points at her own iridescent white crescent. “Was that statue calibrated wrong, or did it mark you as one of us?”

I touch my scab. The edges feel jagged and rough. “I don’t think it was on purpose.”

“Lucky you’re short, then.”

“Yeah, if I were any taller, I wouldn’t be alive.”

“Maybe it was expecting you to be an icarus, huh? Or at least from our island. We’re all descended from the same gods. My blood is more diluted, though.” She flips her dark hair tied with crimson ribbons. “The last winged icarus in my family line was my great-great-grandfather. I’m four removed on my mom’s side, and six removed on my dad’s, so I’m basically an ordinary human.”

“You still have inhuman strength and speed.”

“Do I?” She awkwardly combs her fingers through her hair, removing stray leaves from one of her headlong sprints. “My father called it the recklessness of idiots.”

“If you were in a contest on any other island, you’d win by a mile.”

“Hmm.” She leans back against the tree trunk again. “I believe you. It’s just being anything other than the lowliest, ugliest, slowest person is hard to imagine.”

Jeren passes by, shirtless, carrying a load of long roof struts. His naturally sunburned skin glistens with sweat as he strains, flying up onto the roof. He carefully sets the load on the scaffolding for the humans to secure it, spreads his wings, and floats to the ground. His last gold feather glimmers like a fallen star.

Marine sighs. “I would do anything for wings.”

“What would you do if you had them?”

“Oh, everything. I’d visit all the villages three times a day. I’d pick the ripest cherries before the birds, and I’d fly off this island to get a husband and have a family.”

In fact, she was engaged a couple of years ago, but a string of bad luck—her father died, then her uncle, then two of her sisters’ husbands—made her fiancé accuse her of angering the gods and he backed out. Or, at least, that was the excuse he gave.

“Then he married my younger sister.” She chews on a bit of resin, offers me a hunk. “I don’t blame him. She’s cute and sweet. They have two kids and another on the way.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Oh, I’m furious, but it’s a small island and I love my family, so…” She shrugs.

“That could make family gatherings more awkward.”

“Yep, well, it’s worse on the other side. My aunt snuck into her daughter’s marital bed, so the daughter chased after her with a big stick and broke her leg. I only think nasty thoughts about my ex and sister. My cousins have a blood feud.”

But she says it with such casual cheeriness. The contrast is a shock.

I giggle.

She grins and wiggles her eyebrows.

And then we both laugh.

Marine’s a bright spot in my day, and talking with her gives me a better understanding of island economics. The human villages provide seafood, grains, goats, and sheep to the head priestess, who blesses their fields and flocks quarterly and redistributes the goods across the island. High-class icari provide artistic and mechanical works, but the studios have human laborers to stoke the fires. At night, humans have to leave the Reaches.

Now that I know what I’m looking at, on a clear evening I often see them heading home on the roads by the temple.

My afternoon hours at the temple are the least enjoyable part of the day, not only because I’m sleepy, but also because I occasionally overhear things I don’t want to.

On one afternoon, I lean over a scroll in the private acolyte study area struggling to make the shapes into something that they’ve taught me when I feel eyes on my neck. I look up and glance around.

The head priestess makes an irritated noise as she stands and hurries to the door, her long white robe swishing.

“Keep reading,” she tells me, and then she disappears into the main part of the small temple.

But moments later I hear an outburst.

“Why not?” Siqaris demands, his voice rising in the middle of an ongoing argument. “Why not let her die at his feet like the others?”

“Because she’s not like the others,” the head priestess hisses. “She’s dangerous to him.”

“Impossible! One small human—”

“Please hear me. She enters the main temple, and it’s the death of us.”

“Then I’ll kill her right—”

“No! You can’t kill an emissary of the gods. They’ll know, and we’ll all suffer.”

He makes an impatient noise. “How much longer?”

Her tone turns wheedling. “I’m still examining her. Once I figure out how to avoid reflecting doom back onto us, you can certainly kill her.”

“Fine. But there’s not much time until…”

Their voices fade.

Then the head priestess casually strolls back in and returns to her scroll, reading it silently like she wasn’t just plotting aloud how to kill me.

It’s not anything I don’t know. The head priestess hasn’t bothered to hide her feelings, and Siqaris’s dark gaze follows me to and from the small temple every day. But it makes the hot study room feel even more stifling.

“Head priestess?” A middle-aged acolyte respectfully approaches. “The head of the pottery studio is here again. He says if Councilor Siqaris doesn’t stop kicking out his humans, they can’t finish the consecration vessels in time for the fall equinox.”

“Yes, and?”

“Ah, maybe you could talk to Councilor Siqaris about it?”

She rests her wrist on the scroll and addresses the acolyte brightly. “My son speaks the will of the gods. If the gods have shown him this path, I can do nothing to block it.”

The acolyte glances at me and clears her throat. “Not all his announcements sound godly, if you beg my pardon.”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

“I’ll go ask Councilor Ruqen, then.” The acolyte shuffles off.

There’s a long, awkward silence.

The head priestess muffles a yawn, rolls the scroll down, and reads.

“Speaking with confidence doesn’t make a man a god,” I say.

She touches her brow, chuckles, then rolls up the scroll. “You know nothing and speak too much.”

“But he doesn’t—”

“I took a vow.” She eyes me hard. Her ghostly wings glisten like reflected starlight.

Then she stands abruptly and leaves.

When I first met her, she seemed like a snake to me, but now that she’s begun training me personally, she looks at me more cautiously, like I am the snake that must be placated.

But only to a point.

When the time comes, you’ll know how to serve us.

When she said that to me in the small room, I felt the sizzle of power in the words, the premonition of something. When the time comes to undo the curse, I’ll know what to do. But it also felt like something else. A warning of how it could all be subverted, cursing this island seven times seven and dooming the inhabitants to something worse than death.

Do I really have no choice?

The fog is pulling in. These symbols mean nothing. I am running out of time.

* * *

Jeren

Twice more, a human comes to my homestead seeking Ayanakalia’s talent.

A man in Kyrinia dies after a hot day’s work. He was young and healthy, in his prime. She confirms the death and passes along his last words, but his kin are terribly disappointed. They were hoping she would bring him back to life as she was rumored to have brought back the boy in Mallonia, even though she’s been clear that she can only communicate with spirits, not compel them.

The third time, she’s summoned by the family of an elderly woman convinced death is clutching at her skirt hems. She’s believed this for years, and her family is hoping Ayanakalia will allay her fears by foretelling her time of death to be far in the future, but Ayanakalia can’t, so they’re disappointed as well.

In the nights, I draw my symbols on Ayanakalia. Up her arms in trailing lines, across her bare shoulders, down her back, and across her breasts. I breathe every symbol to life with a feather, sinking my magic deep into her cool olive skin like a mesh net. Her spirit is water, uncapturable, but still, I try. I am a man who has lost everyone I have ever cared about. Most were taken from me before I realized they could be gone.

Ayanakalia is the opposite of eternal. She’s clear about her destiny, and I hate that it’s out of my grasp.

And yet.

In the darkness, I brand her with my protective symbols and my magic, and then she lies back in the blankets and I brand her with my mouth, my tongue. I lick her sweat and lap her flavors. I take her mouth and swallow her moans.

And I trail kisses down her body, silently labeling her slender limbs and soft curves as mine, until I nestle between her thighs and eat my fill.

This is the time when I let go of all my fighting impulses and simply exist. She responds to my every lick and suckle, gratifying me with helpless whimpers and shudders. For this time, I act on her, and she begs of me, hungry and desiring what only I give her.

And in this time, there is no outside world. There is only her hitched breath and soft honey and my tongue lapping her sweet flower.

She is woman.

When she’s wrung out, her tone changes and she shifts away, and I cover her with my wings, pressing her back to my chest. Sometimes she accepts that and goes to sleep.

Tonight, she encircles my bursting member with her small, delicate hands and looks up at me with limpid eyes. “I can give you pleasure.”

“I’m fine.”

“With my mouth, or…I’m healed enough now. We could lie together.”

“You don’t need to.”

“At least let me…” She encircles my hard member with her slick hand.

I moan. “Don’t. You don’t…have to…”

She uses both hands, licks them, and the slickness steals my mind. I tremble in her hands fit to burst. I have to tell her, explain to her…

She kisses me.

I cover her, putting all my unspoken words into her mouth with my tongue, thrusting into her damp crevices as my hips rock into her wet palms. And I erupt, my balls drawing up as they release my fluids into her sticky palms, her wrists, the blankets. I pant, shudder.

“I knew I could do it.” She smiles at me. “You always make me feel good. I could do the same for you. I could even… I could be your wife.”

My heart cracks. “No.”

Her smile drops. “No?” And then she glances in the direction of the main temple.

But it’s not her destiny that stops me. “I can’t take a wife. Not a human.”

She lifts up on one elbow. Hurt crosses her features. “Why?”

“When an icarus loses his last feather, he must leave the Reaches.”

“Pivarin had a family. Several icari have families in the human villages. Women and men.”

“Siqaris would use it against us as he did with Pivarin, and I couldn’t protect you.” I trace the protective symbols on her bare shoulder. Every day, I add one, covering her skin. “Plus, I can’t leave Lifayis.”

“Lifayis will grow up one day.”

“A very long time from now.”

She frowns. Her chin wrinkles, then she clears her throat. “After Lifayis no longer needs me, what will happen?”

“I don’t think the main temple will make you leave right away.” In the dim firelight, the end of our race seems impossibly far. “Is there a human village you like?”

She’s silent for a long time. Then she clears her throat again. “Yes.”

“I’ll visit you. Lifayis will want to come every day.”

“Okay.”

My chest squeezes. “Ayanakalia…”

“Hm?”

I press a kiss to her shoulder, and she turns toward me. Her mouth tastes like heat, but there’s a hint of salt, and it makes me want to take it all back. If Ayanakalia were an icarus, it would be different. She’d have her own feathers.

But it’s only me.

And instead of honesty to her, I pile on lies.

I lie to myself.

This is only for comfort. I’m thanking her for what she’s done, and this cuddling is otherwise meaningless. We’re simply enjoying our last hours together. The end of the world will come soon, and none of this will matter. I lie and lie and lie.

The truth is I will not have children I cannot bless. I will not spill my seed in a woman I cannot marry. I will not commit to her as a husband, losing the last of my magic and my wings, and exiling us from the Reaches.

So long as I do not take her body as a husband takes his wife, then I can live in this in-between.

Ayanakalia allows my hands on her body and my tongue between her thighs, rising up and crying out again as I bring her to another beautiful climax. And she lets me tuck her against me, my pants on and blankets separating us. I swear it’s for her comfort, but really, it’s mine.

This is how the hot, dry season goes until the morning I hear her exclaim.

Lifayis is sitting up.

“Look!” She points excitedly. Today, the glistening outline of his wings has appeared.

“Wow, already?” I help spread them. He has four gold feathers in the center of his back. It makes me choke up. Only four makes me feel as though he’s been robbed. And he has been. He has one less wish than me.

But she’s awed and touches the gold quartet.

He giggles as though it’s ticklish, and that makes my chest ache for a different reason.

We go about our daily routine, leaving a little earlier than usual in the afternoon for the main temple, but the head priestess is elsewhere.

“She’ll be back before you leave,” an acolyte promises.

She and the others coo over Lifayis, spreading his wings and admiring him, just like everyone else who’s seen him today. Even the humans admired his wings. The acolytes touch his four feathers but don’t comment.

Finally, the head priestess shuffles tiredly toward our temple.

I stand. “Lifayis has his wings.”

“Already?” She brightens and calls me inside, leaving Ayanakalia on the outside stoa. In the back chambers, she unwraps Lifayis. He’s soiled himself, and she simply wipes it up, humming, and lays him on his belly. She spreads his wings. “Such a big little man, and four gold feathers, good work, beautiful treasure…”

Once, she refused to order anyone to nurse Lifayis after Raqessa died. If Ayanakalia hadn’t arrived with exactly what we needed, that refusal would have contributed to Lifayis’s death. So, I hate that her words make me happy.

“So, the little one has his wings. What time was his birth? We should match the hour. Acolytes, bring me the calendar for scheduling holy days.”

The acolytes bring it over. Both suppress their yawns.

“One week from today should be fine,” the head priestess murmurs. “There’s another baby in Nikellios almost the same age. And an adult ceremony coming. Hmm. Let me see…”

“What about the father?” one of the acolytes asks furtively, glancing at me.

“I take that role,” I growl.

“It will be no problem.” The head priestess clears her throat, her smile placating us. “I’ll give the blessing on behalf of any absent family members.”

“That’s not good for the spiritual health of the absent one…”

“Yes, well, there’s nothing to be done. I can’t do a single thing about it.” She sighs.

The acolytes record Lifayis’s name and wing measurements on a tablet, then dip his feet and his hands in bright yellow ink and press it to the clay. He’s an official member of our community now. The head priestess wipes off his little fingers with a cloth, then plays with him. He gives her a big smile, his toothless mouth gummy, and she melts.

She carries him out through the main worship area to the stoa and bounces Lifayis with a sigh. “Now it becomes harder. No matter what you do, you can’t change destiny. Parents are leaves caught in a stream.”

“Ayanakalia says that.” I pick up my sling, which I took off because of the heat. “Why have magic if not to change destiny?”

“Mm, there are consequences.” She touches Lifayis’s fingers, matching his eager grin. “Always consequences.”

Speaking of Ayanakalia, she’s no longer on the stoa. I look around the temple complex as I unfold the sling, but the area is empty.

I lower the sling again on the stone and ask an incoming acolyte, “Where did Ayanakalia go?”

“Ah…” The acolyte glances at the head priestess. “Councilor Siqaris took her.”

I go cold. “Where?”

The acolyte starts to point.

“No!” The head priestess shoves Lifayis at her and leaps off the stoa, her wings erupting in flight.

The acolyte struggles to hold Lifayis.

“Where?” I insist, ignoring the head priestess’s theatrics.

The acolyte points with her chin, her arms full. “The main temple.”

The ground beneath our feet trembles.

Ayanakalia

A short time before…

While Jeren is waiting for the head priestess, the acolytes linger in the cooler breezes by the doorway and gossip.

“Don’t you think Jeren looks different recently?” One acolyte tilts her head. “He was all kinds of gross before. Mopey, depressive.”

“Caring for his nephew is attractive,” another agrees.

“Strangely attractive, yes.”

“I met his eyes at a feast a couple of years back,” a third chimes in. “And I quickly found another partner before he could get any ideas.”

“Same,” the first says. “Right before everything happened with Raqessa, he was desperate and weird, but now…I don’t know, ladies, I wouldn’t mind having that man make me a son.”

They giggle.

He does look handsome in profile, a soft smile tugging his lips as he handles Lifayis expertly and tirelessly. He is a proud father, capable and protective and loving. It’s how I imagined Arinthos with our future children, the ones who will never be born because he threw me away.

My heart thuds.

The first one glances at the other side of the room, missing me behind them. “You don’t think he, with a human, would…?”

“No. She couldn’t give the blessing. He would never.”

“Pity about having only one feather left. I’d be sad never exchanging vows.”

Their words shred my heart.

I can’t take a human wife.

Maybe he’ll take one of these women.

I will never bear his child.

The head priestess arrives, and Jeren shows Lifayis’s wings. Her eyes widen, and she glances behind her at the councilors’ temple, then quickly ushers them inside, leaving me alone on the stoa.

I sit for a few moments feeling twitchy and anxious about all the futures I can’t have. They’re taking forever inside. It’s so hot, and I just can’t stand it.

I jerk to my feet and storm down to the stone labyrinth seal. The temple yawns, open, and the crumpled statues have been tidied to each side. Flowers and candles and figurines ring them, honoring them even in their desecrated state.

I start at the outside edge of the labyrinth, retracing the pathway I walked weeks ago.

I’m not supposed to have these worldly feelings. Jealousy, desire, despair. I’m supposed to be above all this, an emissary of the gods, eagerly running to my fate. But, right at this exact moment, I would give just about anything to have a gold feather of my own to…

Councilor Siqaris stands behind me.

Shock jolts me to a stop.

Fear stabs me in the chest. I gasp as I stop.

“Why does everyone protect you?” His tone is cold, measuring. “The acolytes say you’re too stupid to be a holy woman, and I don’t sense any specialness. All you’ve done is fatten up Raqessa’s brat. I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”

My heart races. “You can’t touch me.”

His smile sharpens. “I can do anything I want. I’m beloved of the gods.”

I turn to run.

He knocks into me, lifting me off my feet, and flies through the great doors. The pale sky winks away to darkness.

Beneath my feet passes a real labyrinth, stone walls fitted together and marked like huge gravestones. My feet drag across the stone.

“Let me down!”

“So you are afraid of death, just like every other human.”

“I’m not afraid. It’s disrespectful! And you can barely carry me.”

He tsks. “Imagine a human lecturing me on respect.”

At the far end of the maze is a low door. My feet catch on the rock path, and he drops to quick walking, hauling me into the final shrine.

It’s a dome covered in stone figures. At the zenith, the angry sun god throws icari down the walls into the sea. Our entry doorway is at the level of carved waves. Here, the fallen icari battle a stringy seaweed monster. The stone beneath my feet is tiled in another labyrinth pattern that ends abruptly in a broken-off cliff that falls hundreds of feet down to oddly shaped rocks.

Siqaris drags me forward.

On the other side of the rift is the statue of a sitting giant, and I suddenly realize those rocks below are toes. He wears ancient armor. His face is way up in the ceiling. I might be the same size as his nose, and his mouth could easily stretch to eat me whole.

It’s a daedalus. One of the original creators of the icari, carved full size in stone.

Wind whistles across the large gap between the broken tile and the lap of the statue.

“Why the scared face?” Siqaris smirks, fists my robe at my collar, and drags me toward the crevice. “Weren’t you supposedly brought here by the gods? Then you won’t die, surely. The gods will save you—”

“Siqaris, stop.” Jeren’s voice rings out across the temple room.

Siqaris checks his movement. I catch his fist and peer over his shoulder. Jeren lands beside the head priestess.

“Ah, the cursed brother.” Siqaris holds me, on my tiptoes, at the edge of the crevice. “Congratulations. You’re in time to see another of your women die.”

“Harm her and you die.” Jeren’s threat echoes with truth.

The hair on my arms stands up, and the head priestess rubs her own arms.

But Siqaris laughs. “You can’t curse me. I’m the one who’s god touched. All my predictions come to pass. No one on this island has as much power as I do.”

“Son,” the head priestess whispers. “Won’t you please come here? With the girl.”

“The true god of this island is me!” He shoves me into the crevice.

Jeren shouts.

I fall for an instant, landing almost immediately on a hard gray ledge. The rock shifts and crumbles uncomfortably beneath my bruised feet. The pebbles sparkle like mica, black underneath.

My ledge rises a hundred feet into the air, changing shape, fingers cupping me in the palm of a hand. Gigantic eyes look down on me. They’re liquid black fire. The stone statue breathes.

Fear drops away, and my body swells with ghosts, ancestors too powerful to be cleansed away by mortal smoke.

“Finally,” the god-statue says in booming resonance and a tongue more archaic than the ancient language used on this island. “Why did it take so long for you to come?”

In my ears, the words and accent are almost incomprehensible, like, “Ayawait even-hour ere your countenance grace me, whyfore ’twere me agonies unanswered t’ese eves foregone?”

But the ghosts of the past overlaying my body hear the more direct meaning, and I speak the words they put in my mouth, confident and true. “I was delayed, Great One.”

“By whom?”

“Your own children.”

He heaves a sigh.

The ground shakes. Stone slabs drop from the ceiling and shatter the labyrinth tile as he rises into the sunlight. It seems his back formed half the mountain. The stones aren’t just carved in the shape of feathers, they are feathers. Fabric moves naturally on the giant’s body, but the fabric is also some kind of flexible stone, and where it scrapes against the natural stone, it gouges great holes.

Jeren and the head priestess disappear in the disintegrating temple. I’ve already lost track of Siqaris. Outside, the ground seems to buck and shake. Statues overturn. Icari flee collapsing houses.

Blinding rain suddenly pours down on the island, but in the halo surrounding this god’s body, it evaporates to steam without getting close.

On his palm, I soar up hundreds of feet high. The wild ocean batters his stone ankles as he wades away from the destruction.

“I stayed behind,” he booms morosely, and again, my ears hear a very different thing from what the ghosts inhabiting my body understand. “I gave my life force to my children until even my last breath ran out, and still I gave to them. And they delayed you? Were they not grateful for the extra time? I sacrificed my living hours for theirs.”

“It is the way of children, Great One.”

“Come, then.” His fingers tighten. The gray stone flakes off to expose rough black skin like cooled lava. He holds me securely and leaps into the air.

We hang, pinned in the sky, and the world itself seems to warp around his form. Storms and seawater flow in circles around us.

“I gave them all this. A grand island, all our knowledge, the tools to build monuments. Did they not live as kings? Considerate, just, and fair, beloved by their subjects?”

The tips of his great stone wings catch fire. He flaps them, oblivious to the trailing smoke and crumbling ash falling away from his body as it’s consumed.

“Did not my children give thanks for the magic that, until this final hour, I have dripped from my own cavernous, empty veins? Where are their uplifted voices? Their celebrations?”

“Much has changed since you gave them life, Great One. They miss the early days.”

“Sadness can exist with gratitude. Selfishness cannot.” He flaps again, and the fire travels up his wings, engulfing more stone in acrid black smoke. “Come, we will see this changed world together.”

He soars across the sky, covering huge distances with a few magnificent wing flaps.

We pass over mist-shrouded Halonnesos. Waves surge, conjured by his passing, and crash over the cursed island. He turns south and the sea follows him, surging up river valleys and deeply flooding the mainland. He soars over leaning forests and shifting sands. Dry earth crackles beneath us and blows up into a monstrous storm.

Mortal creatures run from the lightning sparking off his wings. Fire blackens the skies.

He flies to the horizons, over snow and ice, across desert and water. The earth itself bends unnaturally toward him.

“It seems,” he says thoughtfully as we flatten passages through mountains with the weight of his air, “this world can no longer contain even my depleted magic.”

Beyond the horizons, monsters as large or even larger than the daedalus burrow in or silhouette the fiery sky.

Finally, he lands. His sandals gouge up cliffs, and great cracks buckle the shattered earth. He looks down as his feet sink into the rock, melting it with a hiss.

“Once, I could walk the earth, but now I sink in. I could fly over the ocean, but now the ocean is dragged with me. I am, perhaps, too heavy for the world as it is now. If you had never come, I would have fallen through it in my sleep.”

Across a gulf, a monstrous wolf lopes toward us. Lightning crackles from its black fur, and like the daedalus, it’s both stone and on fire. Their magic is so strong, it can’t be contained by flesh, only ancient elements, and the modern equivalents melt away. The wolf sinks into the ground, and seawater hits its paws with a dangerous hiss. It backs away, stuck on the other side with a whine.

“We tussled often,” he calls to the wolf. “Did we not?”

It whines again and raises a paw.

“Now, I cannot.” He lifts off again, leaving behind chunks of his sandals and feet embedded, flaming, in the ground, and flies away. “The world would not survive.”

He flies into night. The air shrieks by, and snow pits his stone hide. Part of his helmet disintegrates, the stone fabric growing ragged as it tears free. He continues into day, banks away from other distant monsters, and returns, instead, to Ikaria.

Beneath us, pacing us underwater, is a dark shape I suddenly realize is not his shadow. It’s black and green and almost as big as the ocean itself. The surge of water isn’t only caused by his passage. He’s stalked by something that’s connected to him like a magnet.

“So you still live, eh? My old enemy.” He chuckles, and the sound is like a shrieking gale. “What a schemer you are, offering life for life, then going back on your terms. You tried to break the bargain, but we were faster. He who takes the power receives it. Shall we finish this argument once and for all?”

He halts in the sky, flattens his palm, addresses me formally. “On the third moon of the fourth season, I pledged my life to protect my children. I have withstood the agony of eons and am a mere echo of what I once was. Tell me I have fulfilled my oath, contract holder. I have waited so long to be released from this torment.”

The voices of hundreds well up in my throat.

“You have fulfilled your oath,” I intone in his ancient language. “And you are released.”

He laughs.

A great whooshing sound roars across the ocean. The water beneath us thins.

Wind steals away the hundreds of voices filling my body, and suddenly, I’m just me, now, balancing awkwardly on his gravelly, windswept palm.

In the distance, the barrier around Ikaria drops.

Great waves crash against the helpless seaside villages. Black tsunamis smack into the high reaches.

A mass of dark seaweed surges onto the land from all sides, oozing larger until it looks as if it’s going to consume it whole.

The daedalus screams. The noise shatters reality.

Terror shoots through me. I fall to my knees and clap my hands over my ears.

The sky overhead cracks in half. Stars appear in the middle of daylight. The ocean drains into a fissure beneath us, and the retreating waves suction the seaweed monster off Ikaria.

Small dots fly toward us. They are icari summoned by their god’s battle cry.

The seaweed monster bubbles beneath us. It throws massive ropes around the daedalus’s legs and arms. One wraps around his ankle and tears it fully off. The disintegrating foot pelts the monster, and his body parts hiss, burning so its screams also fill the air. Flaming stone craters the black muck.

The daedalus tilts to face his old enemy and dives with another brutal scream.

I slide off his palm, scramble for nothing, and tumble into the air. The world rotates. Wind rips away my tears, and I can’t breathe. The frothing black-red sea flips to a terrible star-bright fissure in the cloudy sky.

Jeren snatches me at the crest of a violent wave. Water sloshes across my ankles, and with it, black seaweed entangles my feet. Panicked, I kick, but it slithers around my calves and up to my knee like cold, black snakes. I gasp.

Jeren strains. The black seaweed streaks toward him.

Icari in full battle garb dive, full speed and daggers out, into the water. Leading the charge is Councilor Ruqen. Lights burst with his entry and are extinguished by the ocean’s blackness. The deeper red light of the daedalus erupts in terrible red flames. The ocean smokes.

Suddenly, the black seaweed shudders and goes limp, releasing me.

Jeren pulls me free. He flies up, away from the fight.

The ends of the black seaweed dangle beneath me, smooth, cut free, and they fall off.

Jeren presses me close. His whole body shakes, especially his arms. He pants as he flies, then coughs. Ash tumbles down from the sky, filling our mouths and choking us. It dusts my body and pools in the folds of my ragged robe.

The head priestess flies to meet us. With her are a few councilors and an acolyte holding Lifayis, who’s sobbing. The acolyte gives me the baby.

The head priestess trills, “Where’s my son?”

I shake my head.

“Didn’t see him,” Jeren pants.

She makes an impatient noise and flies on, but cautiously, toward the red sea.

Lifayis roots in my robe, gives up too fast, and howls. I help him latch, and he sucks furiously. Milk flows with a tingle, the familiar sensation settling both him and me, and he opens and closes his hands, then curls them around my ashy-black finger.

Jeren flies over Ikaria.

It’s pure devastation.

Water drains from the remnants of the leveled Mallonia into the retreating sea. One house stands in a watery field, another on its side, and much farther inland, a capsized boat crowns a hill.

Survivors huddle in the upper foothills, and icari help humans. Bafis and a guard pull a lone sheep up to waiting shepherds. He finishes and flies to us.

“Where were you?” he demands, wiping his old face. “An earthquake destroyed the barrier, and waves broke through. We could’ve used your help. Kyrinia fell into the sea. What were you doing away from the island?”

Jeren looks at him strangely. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

He points. From this angle, it’s hard to tell what’s happening. The darkness in the center of the ocean, the red of fighting and smoke is little more than an evil glow. “That’s our ancestor. Ayanakalia awoke him. He’s fighting our enemy.”

Bafis’s jaw drops. “He didn’t summon us…? But we’re not supposed to live beyond…” He looks at us sharply. “We’re still alive.”

Jeren nods, his arms trembling. He’s cut up and scraped. I think he’s hurt, exhausted from escaping the collapsed temple and digging survivors out of the damaged Daedakros and temple complex, and now, having saved me.

Bafis looks confused, then angry. He flies off in the direction of the fight.

“No!” I cry, but he doesn’t turn back. More quietly, I tell his back, “Your ancestor doesn’t want a sacrifice. He only wants you to live and be grateful.”

My voice breaks in my ragged throat, and I cough horribly. Lifayis, his nursing disturbed by my convulsions, breaks off and wails.

Jeren flies us the rest of the way to his homestead.

A great fissure threatens the hilltop manor, more of the back hillside has fallen to the sea, and the hairline fracture at the lintel is now a great crack. All the shelves have overturned to the floor.

Jeren wades through shards and splinters, clears an area with his feet, and dumps me and Lifayis on solid ground. He pulls the overturned wooden shelf off the fire. Our dinner pot is cracked and the stew ran out, flooding the coals, which mostly extinguished the danger. Lucky.

The ground trembles with aftershocks.

Jeren tosses the broken stewpot outside and returns with stores of nuts and dried fruits and jerky. He feeds me. The ash on my fingers gives all the food a bitter taste, and even the clean water I drink tastes painful and metallic.

Jeren puts the now-unconscious Lifayis in his crib, then disrobes me. The shreds flutter away. With intense concentration, Jeren sponges me with a cloth as I flicker in and out of consciousness, dozing. He changes the darkening water three times. The fourth time, the water runs clear, but my hands remain black. He frowns, moves his cleaning supplies aside, pulls a white feather, and wishes health onto my hand.

The feather turns black and melts into my skin. For the first time, I don’t feel anything. And, also for the first time, his feather wish seems to fuse with the ashy char instead of falling away.

Muscles around his jaw tighten. “Can you make a fist?”

I try. My fingers don’t quite touch. “No.”

He pulls a handful of white feathers, breathes wishes, and wraps them around my hand. They sizzle up to my wrists. There, I feel a deep, dull ache. I moan.

He rests his forehead against mine, a silent apology, and continues working on me, tearing out whatever magic is left in him and infusing the healing balm into my ravaged body. My hands are the worst, but my knees, shins, and the tops of my feet are also burned. Based on this pattern, I’m guessing that this burn is from touching the daedalus. He somehow shielded me during our long flight, but the moment I released him from his curse, his magic burst through, and every part of me touching him got scorched.

Finally, Jeren sits back on his heels. He’s bedraggled, gaunt, and guzzles water as though parched. Then he just stares at me.

I cup his cheek. His exhausted amber eyes find mine.

“Sleep,” I tell him.

“If I take my eyes off you, you’ll disappear.”

I draw him closer, press my lips to his.

He sucks in a breath and moves, covering me. His arms tremble as he rests on his elbows. His hands cup my cheeks, and his waist fits against mine, separated as always by blankets and cloth. He smooths the flying hairs from my forehead, tenderness softening his normally harsh face. His voice, barely above a whisper, breaks as he asks, “Are you the one I get to keep?”

My heart swells in my chest. Neither of us expected to live through this, and yet, here we are. I was afraid he would hate me for what I’ve done to his people, to his island, and yet, he does not.

I kiss him, opening to his hot tongue and giving him back my fierceness. Each stroke of his tongue is my promise. I have done my duty. I fulfilled my destiny. The future is mine.

And if it’s mine, I want a future with him.

He parts the blankets, pulling them away so his honey-gold skin rubs against my hip.

His arousal is smooth and lovely, and I want him between my thighs. My female center throbs. Normally, he draws away, but this time, he presses me firmly into the bedding. My liquid pulses hot and ready for him.

He kisses down my jaw and neck, then circles back to my mouth. Our bodies align, and his hard member presses against my mons. “Do you want me within you?”

I weave my stiff fingers in his hair, twine my calves around his. “Yes.”

He makes a suppressed moan. “Are you sure?”

“Even if you will never be my official husband, yes. You are the one I choose.”

He draws back, stroking my eyebrows with the pads of his thumb. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? I do choose you.”

“No, that I will never be your official husband.”

“You were the one who—”

He kisses me deeply, stealing my words. “We will be husband and wife in name, and that will be official.”

My breath catches. “Will it?”

“Somehow, yes. I’ll make it true.” Amusement curves his mouth as he kisses me. “Why are you surprised? You’re so determined. How does anyone stand against you?”

“You do, easily.”

“Not easily.” He nuzzles me and then shifts his hips forward so his member rests at my liquid entrance. “And not anymore.”

I tighten my calves around his, pressing him forward.

His maleness glides into my female channel, filling me to the brim. It’s wonderful and sweet and so, so hot as I stretch to contain him. He releases his breath with a gasp, shuddering from the completeness of our connection. His amber eyes seek mine.

I kiss him reassuringly.

He makes a broken sound deep in his throat and responds, chasing me and plunging his tongue into my mouth as his member surges deep into my channel. He pulls back and glides forward again, slow and beautiful, and I moan against his mouth. His member taps into a pleasurable spot within me, draws back, and presses me there again, slow and rocking and exactly what we both need right now. We come together gently in the ruins of our world. In this room, there is only the two of us, our bodies tangling and twisting, rhythmic gasps of pleasure until he strains, bobbing right there, and sweet climax washes over me with a long, wonderful shower of pleasure. He follows, groaning as he releases his seed into my plowed earth, shuddering and trembling all over.

He collapses over me. I stroke his sweaty temple, my thighs quivering as I still contain him, afraid to let him go.

In the dimness, he traces invisible lines on my forehead and down my cheek. “After you left the island, it took hours to get free of the temple collapse. You were long gone. Lifayis was, incredibly, not hurt at all, and the smaller temples still stand. I helped the rescue efforts for the icari trapped in the main town. Then the daedalus passed overhead without stopping.”

“I don’t remember that,” I say with a yawn.

“He went by too quickly for anyone to follow, but I began to think I might have a chance to see you again. And I was right. The next time, he stopped, and I flew out immediately. That’s how I was there to catch you.” His voice breaks. “It was a very close thing.”

I hold him. “You did it, though. You saved me.”

He swallows. The dark bruises under his eyes are only partly from exhaustion. “What now?”

It strikes me that he’s spent all this time healing me and has done nothing for his own injuries. “I wish I had wings so I could heal you.”

“I’m not hurt. I feel hope.” He strokes my cheek with one ragged finger. “What’s your destiny now, Ayanakalia?”

And for the first time since I was born, I truly do not know.

Jeren

What happens the morning after the end of the world?

Sunlight warms the doorway, and a breeze rustles the trees. Birdsong, quiet and tentative, floats in.

Ayanakalia shifts in my arms and sighs.

My heart swells.

She’s fully contained within my circle. Her slim back presses against my chest. Her dark hair has come loose and tickles my nose, my bare legs tangle with hers, and her soft scent kindles my desire. If I could awaken with this warmth every day, this is all I need. There is no other definition for happiness.

She stretches, sighs. Her lashes flutter, and she rubs my side down to my hip. Her fingers brush my hardening member, and she pauses a moment, just breathing, then tips her head back to see me.

I cover her mouth with mine as I slide against her thighs, and she encircles my hard length with her fingers, squeezes. My member pulses in her hot hand. She parts her legs, and I slip into her welcoming, liquid channel. She moans against my tongue. I hold her tight as we rock, swallowing her increasing gasps, until she shudders with a delicious cry. And then I lose myself in her, releasing my seed deep into her endless well.

As we return to cool and calm, I stroke her gentle curves.

She looks back at me again, then away, then back at me again.

“What?” I murmur, nibbling on her ear.

Her cute smile flashes, and she lifts her shoulders at my ticklish teasing. “You don’t regret last night?”

I pause. “Do you?”

“No, but I thought you might.”

I trace her lines, the points of her shoulders, and the flare of her hips. “All the things I said before are still true. Although I can’t pledge to be your husband as an icarus does, I will make this vow hold.”

“That’s okay.”

“Everyone I’ve ever loved has gone away. Whether I’ve taken them for granted or agonized over every instant, they’ve left me. You were supposed to go too, but you’re still here. I don’t know what to think.”

She looks back at me. “I don’t either.”

My heart aches again. I squeeze her tight to me. She strokes my forearm, cinched across her chest, and together we breathe.

Lifayis makes a loud “goo” noise. His little hands and feet wave at the ceiling. He twists his fingers like he’s discovering them again for the first time. “Ooo. Goo. Oooooo.”

She gives a breathy snort, and I also chuckle. I guess Lifayis too wants to have a serious conversation this morning.

I kiss her once more, hot and sweet, and then drag myself out of the comfortable nest of blankets and get Lifayis. He smiles at me, cheerful. I change his wet night covers, then bring him to Ayanakalia. He latches all by himself, and she smiles down at him, stroking his wispy blond hair. He very seriously pats her chest with his little hands.

My chest tightens even more.

I breathe through it, and then I tear myself free and focus. She’s taking care of Lifayis, but I must take care of her.

I am needed.

First, I stoke the fire, breathing it back to life with my hottest breath. Sparks awaken embers to a crackling warmth. I sort through spoiling food. Here’s a fish that’s actually still in good condition. I fry it up in its own juices. While it’s cooking, I sift through broken jars, shaking off what can be salvaged and tossing out what can’t, building a refuse pile out in the center of the homestead.

The damage to my long-term stores is more obvious in daylight. Part of the building was staved in, and grain has spilled out, making a feast for birds. Considering what happened yesterday, I’m unspeakably lucky. That cracked lintel needed to be replaced anyway.

I check on the fish, sauté greens in the fat, and dig the turnip dish out of the fire from where they were roasting overnight and serve the fish mixture over a sweet turnip mash.

Ayanakalia takes her bowl in both hands. “My mouth is watering.”

Her hands look a little better today. Her fingertips are only cracked and gray up to her first knuckles, and she can’t quite hold the spoon properly. I pour her meal into a narrower bowl. “Drink it.”

She gives me a grateful look and tips it into her mouth, chews the pieces, then closes her eyes with rapture.

My worries fall away. There’s nothing better than seeing my efforts being appreciated, feeding and caring for my wife.

A warning whistle comes faintly, then suddenly too close and too loud, as if the outer warnings have been wiped away and I get only a last-instant warning. The hair stands up on my neck.

I leap for the doorway.

“Hello!” A guard limps into the courtyard wearing dirty clothes and a bedraggled uniform sash. “The head priestess is hosting an evening meal in the plaza to discuss watches.”

“Watches?”

“Our most critical security measure now that there is no barrier.”

I look to the edge of the world. Waves crash against our shores, scooping out the cliffs after a millennium of calm, and I can see too clearly and too far in the harsh daylight. We’ve been cloaked so long, and now we are dangerously exposed.

“Do you have any water?” the guard asks, his voice breaking. “It’s already hot.”

I get it for him. Normally, one in his position wouldn’t take anything from a cursed family like mine. We’ll see how long this friendliness lasts. “Have you seen Bafis?”

He gulps and waves over his shoulder. “Caught him at breakfast too.”

Ah, then Bafis doesn’t need the portion I cooked for him. “Did you want what we’re having?”

The guard accepts the crispy fish and vegetable mash gratefully, licking his fingers as he gobbles the meal. He chats about who he’s seen and who’s presumed dead.

“More of us are dead than should be,” he confides. “The waves didn’t strike the Reaches. The head priestess says they were enchanted by our ancestor’s battle cry.”

Far off in the distance, the sea bubbles with dark shadows and redness, deep underneath the water, smoking.

Ayanakalia sits with Lifayis in the doorway. “What about the human villages?”

The guard eyes her, and his friendliness cools. “I don’t know.” He hands me the empty bowl with thanks and continues on his rounds.

I sort through the exposed grain, saving what can be salvaged, and make a pile of the dampened waste. I have a strong urge to cook it up even though we can’t possibly eat it, and that will only waste more work. Cooking this amount will require a trench.

Ayanakalia listens to my debate. “Can we take it to them?”

“Who?”

“The human villages.”

“It’s not enough for them.”

“How do we know?”

It’s grim that so many people might have died. But she’s right. Their villages were at sea level, and although I hope they went to higher ground when everything started, maybe this is enough to feed whoever’s left.

She helps me scoop the damp excess into a sack, but a lot of the pile remains. I guess I was wrong about just how much is here. I gather up Ayanakalia and Lifayis, balancing them with the heavy sack, and fly to Mallonia.

The village is simply gone. A few sheep run rampant in the steaming-dry fields. The human survivors made a temporary shelter on a stretch of high ground, and they’ve stationed a lookout to watch the sea for danger.

The village elders accept my damp grain with formality, then immediately gouge a trench and scrounge large pots and pans. Their workforce is mainly children and exhausted old men. I pull a shovel out of someone’s weak hands and dig. Although I have no love for them, I can’t stand by while others suffer when I could do something.

My thin old knife clatters around in my too-large sheath. I keep wearing it in the hope I’ll yet stumble upon my lost dagger, the one which Siqaris knocked out of my hand during our fight above Uqilia’s funeral. I pull out the knife and set it on a rock, then dig in peace.

While we’re working, Ayanakalia asks an elder about her friend Marine.

The elderly woman shakes her head sadly. “Dead, gone.”

“She’s not dead, though,” Ayanakalia tells the woman.

“Huh? She’s alive?”

“I don’t know, but she’s not dead, that I can tell you.”

Sudden realization breaks across the elder’s face. She grasps Ayanakalia’s hands and asks after their missing, one name after another. The others gather around. Most of the missing are dead, but a few aren’t, and they beg her to go to the other villages and convey the news. She looks at me.

I hand back the shovel with a sigh.

“You are a good man,” the elder tells me.

“The grain would’ve gone bad,” I deflect. “Anyway, I’m not generous. It was her.”

“You are still angry.” The elder nods slowly, then clasps her hands in a gesture of peace. “An icarus can’t demand when he should ask.”

“It was an emergency.” My head is hot, my chest panicked just like all those months ago when I stood before them asking for milk for Lifayis. “And I didn’t demand, I begged. He would have died.”

“How many of us have been turned away, begging, from your head priestess and council? How many of our children have died?”

“So it was revenge?”

“We are not chattel, Jeren. My breasts are old and dry, and I could not promise that which I myself had to seek on your behalf.”

My heart thumps. “Would you have? If I’d begged harder?”

A faint smile curves her lips. “The question is, ‘Did I?’ and the answer no longer matters.” She bows her head briefly. “Thank you again for the grain.”

I mutter something in acknowledgment, rubbing my still-thudding chest. I’m sweating all over, and not just from the hot sun.

Then the humans did try to help me? They never told me. Of course, they’re not very welcome in the Reaches, and I never went back…

Eh, she’s right. It doesn’t matter now.

I reach for Ayanakalia.

She bids the other humans farewell, and we fly back to our home, refill our sack with more spilled grain, and descend to Rokastia. A landslide covered part of the town, in addition to the tsunamis sweeping it, and fallen rocks have created pockets and trenches. Marine is among the desperate, exhausted humans still searching for anyone left alive.

Ayanakalia can tell quickly if the people thought to be buried in a house are already ghosts. The search concentrates then on the few that she can’t be sure of, and they reach a few last survivors, causing rescuers to break down with grateful crying to find life in the final ruins.

The hot afternoon deepens. We return home one last time, scoop the last of the grain into the sack, not quite filling it, and fly to the north village. But there’s no point. The rocky promontory the village was on has utterly collapsed into the ocean and been swept away.

Our island has irrevocably changed shape. Pieces are simply gone. There are holes where once there was life.

The daedalus made up the back half of our main mountain. When he stood up, he casually brushed the top with his stone elbow, causing it to tumble down and create a new rocky point in the crashing waves. The inner walls have fallen like children’s blocks.

But in spite of the devastation, there is an undercurrent of normalcy. A ceremonial fire burns in the central pit. The head priestess and the remaining temple staff have cooked up a huge cauldron of comforting porridge. Probably this is their solution to dampened stores, but it gives an unnatural feeling of celebration to the emergency meeting. She blesses us with ceremonial wine from a cracked, leaking amphora.

“What’s this?” the icarus in front of me asks, indignant, as an acolyte hands him a full drinking cup. “It’s not a festival.”

“And yet, you are reborn.” The head priestess makes a holy sign, drawing light down from the heavens to his forehead. “Did you not hear the words of our god as he sacrificed himself to battle our great nemesis? He wishes us to live. We shall do so. Give thanks for your life.”

The icarus takes the wine in consternation, looks back at the sea that’s still black and smoking from the daedalus’s battle, and then goes to take a seat among the others. They sit in clusters, subdued and anxious, but a few laugh with cheer. It all just feels very strange.

The head priestess sees us and chokes. “You were supposed to come immediately to—” Then she starts, grabs Ayanakalia’s hand, and drops it with shock. “Your hand!”

Ayanakalia opens and closes her fingers. She can almost curl the blackened tips into a fist. “His magic burned me.”

“Oh. I didn’t…ah. Wait, no, you were supposed to come here right away,” the head priestess says, recollecting herself. “Last night.”

“No one told us that,” I point out.

“You’re a member of the temple complex,” she tells Ayanakalia. “It’s obvious.”

I step between them. “Since when?”

The head priestess blinks at me. “Since she awoke our god! She has to tell me everything he said and—Ah, never mind, Jeren. You stay here with Lifayis.” She clasps Ayanakalia’s wrist. “You, come and talk.”

I stand my ground.

Ayanakalia pats me, assuring me that it’s fine, and walks away with the head priestess. They cross to the stoa of the small temple and sit together on the cracked benches there, so I can still see them. Ayanakalia motions with her hands. I guess she’s retelling the story of the flight.

Nervousness twinges in me.

I call her my wife, but I haven’t given her my feather, so we’re not connected according to the gods. When I told her I would make it real somehow, I still have no idea how to do it.

In the temple, I was so furious with Siqaris. I told him, “Harm her, and you will die,” and I felt larger than my own body, as if the gods of the past were filling my lungs and strengthening my limbs. It’s the same feeling when I pull a gold feather, although that’s more intense because it’s a contract signed in my own soul.

But when I told her I’d become her husband, I didn’t feel anything but ordinary awe and hope and fear.

I want to tie her to me. I want to affirm our connection before the gods. Not doing so is dangerous, isn’t it?

After I pulled out my second-to-last feather to bless Lifayis, Raqessa showed me a hurt expression. She asked, “What about your child?” and I lied and said it wouldn’t matter because I’d never have a wife. She said I was being overly responsible, but in truth, I pulled the feather because I was scared not to. And I do believe if I hadn’t, Lifayis would’ve been taken away from this world with Raqessa. My blessing tied him to me, and I anchored him in life.

As Ayanakalia speaks with the priestess, an echo of that same feeling warns me that somehow, soon, I must do something. She’s survived the daedalus, but we’re not safe yet. Not until I figure out a way to bind her before the gods…

“Porridge?” an acolyte asks me, and then smiles tiredly and squeezes Lifayis’s chubby foot kicking in his sling. “Savory or sweet? Or both?”

I shake off the bad omens. Negative thinking doesn’t always come true. I should know that better than anyone. “Yes.”

She hands over two full bowls, half-savory and half-sweet. The tables in the main area are full already of icari, so I find a seat on an overturned, broken column facing the temple stoa.

Many families are missing entirely. Other family groups are halved or quartered in size. Councilor Ruqen’s wife sits with her two young sons, her hair mussed and eyes haunted, eating dully.

The food is delicious. The savory porridge is flavored with hearty chunks of fish and seaweed, and the sweet side has a chunk of honeycomb. How is it that two different feelings can exist at the same time? I offer some of my bowl to Lifayis, but he’s too interested in wiggling and pointing at the icari who pass us by.

We are solemn, and yet, the scattered icari drawn together by this tragedy are kind. Furin nods at me, and I nod back. I guess his anger from the funeral has lessened with time. The councilors and others who once ignored me stop to ask me how we are, and smile at Lifayis.

I respond cautiously. It’s hard to predict how friendly they’ll remain knowing that Ayanakalia is now my wife.

Bafis plops beside me on the overturned column. He baby talks to my nephew as if today were any other day. “There now. Who’s a happy man?”

Lifayis beams. “Goo.”

“Oh, very good.”

“Oo-oo. Woo? Goo!”

Bafis chuckles. “So much to say today.”

Ayanakalia finishes with the priestess and sits on my other side. I give her the second bowl of porridge I saved.

She takes it, bites in, and closes her eyes. “Mm. So good.”

“It is, isn’t it?” I kiss the crescent-shaped scar on her forehead.

She looks up at me with loving eyes, then eats more. “Is the food always like this at your festivals?”

“It’s always good,” I agree. “At a festival.”

“Not after a disaster.” Bafis lowers his voice. “Normally, it’s quite bad. I hope everyone understands how much worse it could’ve been.”

We all look at the head priestess arranging icons on the stoa of the small temple. Although, I guess the small temple is the largest one now.

Across from us, Councilor Ruqen’s wife stops eating. She lowers her hand. Her face shows grief, and then she collapses onto the table, sobbing.

“She was trapped with her children for nearly a day,” Bafis murmurs quietly. Her older son worriedly rubs her back. Her younger son wriggles into her lap, sharing in her sobs.

“He flew to join the daedalus,” Bafis continues.

I remember. It may have been Ruqen’s own sword that freed Ayanakalia’s ankle from the tentacle of the sea monster, so I am grateful for his sacrifice, but it also confuses me. I could never have left Lifayis behind as he left his wife and children.

“Did you hear the summons?” Bafis asks me. “It seems he screamed a battle cry yesterday.”

“I heard it, but I was focused on something else. It was easy to ignore.”

“I didn’t even hear it.”

“No?”

He shakes his head. “How is it that I have lived to see ‘the end’ of our kind, sheltered the very woman of prophecy, and I missed the summons completely? How is it that I slogged around rescuing sheep while others went to battle and joined his final glory?”

Apparently after we spoke yesterday, Bafis flew to the red boiling sea and circled the black smoke, but couldn’t see a way down to reach the battle site. It was already too deep, or he lost his nerve, or something. To me, these questions are as discordant as laughing and celebrating right now.

Ayanakalia clearly feels the same way. She tries to smile with sympathy. “You have a different destiny.”

“How? I mean, don’t you see that it should have been me?” He looks more worked up than I can remember ever seeing him. “I should’ve died long ago in the Great Battle, but I was too young. I should’ve disappeared with Jeren’s parents instead of agreeing to look in on their children because ‘they might be home a little later than usual’ and I thought nothing about it when I agreed. I should’ve died any number of times, and now I’ve missed the summons of my own god. Truly, why am I still alive?”

His bitterness ignites a similar bitterness in me. He’d stopped this talk after Lifayis was born, but I used to hear it from him all the time, and I’m suddenly furious.

I want people to live. As much as I feel uncomfortable around the humans, I’ve just spent all day with grieving people who would do, give, be anything to have their loved ones returned to them. And he’s bitter about not being among the dead?

It makes me say evenly, “He’s still out there. You can go and join him.”

Bafis looks shocked. “But I didn’t ‘hear’ his call. Don’t you think if he’d wanted me to go, he would’ve summoned me directly? I would go, if I thought…Isn’t it too late? It’s nonsense now.”

“You’re the one who’s mad about it.”

“Because I wasn’t summoned. I wasn’t called when it mattered…”

Lifayis makes a face at him.

Bafis softens and pokes his chubby cheek. “Yes, who could believe it? I’ve been waiting my whole life to do something important, and I’ve lived through two of the greatest battles of our time, yet both times, I was left behind while better men than me died. Ridiculous.”

“Goo,” Lifayis says, and kicks his feet.

The sun nears the horizon.

The head priestess calls for our attention. “Yesterday, our great ancestor awoke and walked among us. He strode over the living earth and found it unable to support his greatness, so he dove into the sea. Even now, he battles our greatest enemy so that we may live and be free. Glory to the icari who answered his battle cry. Let us be silent for those souls.”

The wind blows, constant and sorrowful, across the dusty plaza. Lifayis bounces on my knee. His wings glisten, a reminder that no matter who dies, there is new life to carry on.

Ayanakalia glances around.

I take her hand, and she smiles softly at me.

I still can’t believe she’s here. After everything we’ve lived through, I’m glad to have lived through it with her.

The head priestess continues. “Our great ancestor summoned only some of our people to his side. This was on purpose. For us, his survivors, he orders us to live on as his beloved children, accepting his sacrifice and spreading his wisdom and justice. Now, as children grow into men, we must go forth in his memory. Will our councilors come forward?”

Only half the council remains.

Siqaris stands at the far end. I didn’t see him until now. I think the head priestess was hiding him. He stares at Lifayis and picks at his lip, but doesn’t say a word to anyone.

“And will the elders of the villages come forward?”

The elders gather on the stoa with the councilors.

Elder Kayarinthos is not there.

It’s strange. He was a fixture my entire life, like the main temple, like the shape of the island, and now he’s gone.

“Will every icarus born before the Second Moon Fire please come forward and be recognized as an elder?”

Bafis stands and straightens his robes, surprised, and hurries up to the stoa. Like me, he’s always been passed over, but unlike me, he’s said it never bothered him. He’s one of several new elders, all surprised, but solemn as the head priestess swears him in.

“We will now appoint new members to the council,” she intones.

The new elders conference with the existing elders and councilors, and the head priestess calls up their choices and swears them to service. Ayanakalia shifts away, her gaze on the ruins of the temple, then shields her eyes.

I lean toward her to murmur in her ear. “Do you see the dead?”

“Yes, some.”

“Only some?”

“I don’t see the ones who joined the battle.” She looks out to the sea. “Councilor Ruqen entered the water while you rescued me. I don’t see him, and I can’t sense him.”

“Like my parents?”

“A bit, yeah.”

“Interesting.” I take her hand and rub the rough, blackened skin, silently willing her to heal. “They’ll get around to the cleansing ceremonies after we’ve discussed the security of the island, and then the spirits will pass on. It’ll be tranquil for you.”

“Yeah…” She frowns and scoots closer to me. “Actually, I think—”

“Jeren.” The head priestess makes a formal motion to me. “You are nominated to the council.”

Me?

I’m nominated to be a councilor?

The head priestess motions to the raised stoa where I’m supposed to stand. The other councilors and elders, too, look resolute and not at all dismissive.

I can’t believe I was even considered. Is this Bafis’s work? I stand slowly, little shocks vibrating through my body, shifting Lifayis higher.

“Ah, just you.” The head priestess smiles.

I check myself, still feeling hot and confused, and hand Lifayis to Ayanakalia with numb fingers. She takes him with an encouraging smile. Lifayis makes a happy goo up at me, then starts a baby conversation babbling about my elevation.

I can’t believe it.

But I stumble up the steps to the stoa and repeat after the head priestess, vowing to protect, honor, and uplift our people. Echoes of greater power stir in my chest. The head priestess seals me formally to the council, and I stand at the end, as far away from Siqaris as possible. I’m the last one chosen.

We are not the councilors our people wanted a week ago. We are who’s left.

But I’ve always desperately craved this recognition. I’m finally not a cursed son or weak brother, but a man capable of protecting our island, and I will live up to this responsibility.

We elect a new head councilor. Siqaris does not receive that honor, and I am glad of it.

“My fellow icari.” The new head councilor, Varis, clears his throat nervously as he addresses us for the first time. “The barrier that has protected our island for millennia has been torn down. Already, we have felt the effects. Catastrophic waves decimated our flocks and destroyed our fields. We are vulnerable now to any creatures, magical or otherwise, who target our island. The passing men we formerly ignored can now reach our shores.”

“The first order of business is securing our island from outsiders again,” one councilor says.

“Securing our island won’t do any good if we have no food to eat,” another argues. “We should allow them to approach enough to explore trade.”

“We used to cultivate fields on nearby islands. Before risking trade, we should check if those still exist and bring back any excess.”

“This whole discussion must involve the humans,” another argues, and immediately, the meeting devolves into chaos. He shouts, “Like it or not, they are a part of this island, and unlike us, they’ve already started a watch!”

I have strong feelings about what we should do, but no one can hear above the shouting.

Councilor Siqaris’s voice cuts through the noise. “Who cares about the humans? We are icari. Our great ancestor ordered us to rule over them. After we make our plan, we’ll tell them how they can serve us.”

There’s a silence.

The wind changes direction, and smoke from the ceremonial fire makes us cough.

“That’s a bit strong,” Councilor Varis protests weakly. “But I suppose it’s inevitable. We are the chosen ones.”

“Precisely. So…” He points at Ayanakalia. “Get out of here, human.”

Fury bolts through me. “She’s more than a human, she’s—”

“She did her damage,” he snaps, stepping forward with his hand hovering over his dagger, and I suddenly realize with a dangerous shock that I don’t have mine. I left the old knife on a rock in Mallonia. “She’s brought this upon us.”

“You’re the one who forced her to enter the temple—”

Shouts drown me out so I can’t even hear myself yelling. I’m spitting mad, but the others stop the fight.

Councilor Varis approaches quietly and murmurs to me, “Maybe, for the sake of keeping the peace, she can leave until we’ve finished our plan…”

“Fine.” I storm to her, away from the smoke. My eyes water from it and from anger.

She stands to meet me. “Should I go?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t mind.” She hands me Lifayis as she adjusts the carrying sling, tying it more securely around her narrow waist. “Lifayis is tired anyway.”

He does have bright eyes.

“While Jeren’s gone…” Siqaris’s scheming voice deepens with malice. “We’ll discuss the proper place for humans and how to eject them from the Reaches permanently.”

Rage crackles up my arms and makes my face hot. My heart thumps. I know he’s just saying this to anger me and the discussion won’t actually be about that, but his taunt is working. “I’ll be back before you can say anything.”

Siqaris grins. His face is bruised and he’s missing teeth. “I suggest that any icarus who has a human companion cannot be a councilor. They’re too biased.”

There’s a pregnant silence.

Then suddenly, the other councilors urge him to drop it. Even the head priestess looks annoyed. But Siqaris has already gotten the new councilors to bend to his will once. They’ll get rid of me in my absence. I’ll have been a councilor for less than an hour, and then I’ll be a cursed nobody once again.

Ayanakalia shifts Lifayis into the sling and bounces him. “I can walk.”

“No,” I mutter. “The walk back from here is too far.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve been resting.”

Well, hmm…

“The distance isn’t that far,” she says. “Didn’t you say it’s like the walk from our home down to the shore and back?”

“A little farther. And you couldn’t make that walk the first time.”

“I’ve made it plenty of times since.”

“You’re still hurt.”

“My feet aren’t that bad. Most of the trip is downhill.”

And the trail is visible from here almost the whole way. There are only a few short passages where it dips or folds behind an outcropping. The sun hasn’t quite touched the horizon. There will be at least another hour of lingering twilight, perhaps longer. I could walk the distance in an hour.

If she walks, I can stay here, on the council, and fight back against Siqaris, ensuring her future safety…

“Sure?” I ask.

She nods.

“Okay.” I pull her into my embrace, kiss her. “Be safe.”

Her eyes brighten, and she rubs her damp lips as she nods again and turns away.

I watch her as she walks across the ruined temple complex and then starts onto the trail. Bafis and the others watch her as well.

Bafis catches my eye, and he nods slightly. He thinks I’ve made the right choice.

Unease twinges once more.

We’re not protected by the barrier. I haven’t bound her to me as my official wife.

She could get taken from me just like everyone else.

Siqaris smirks as I flit back to the stoa with the councilors.

I will stop him.

I keep an eye on her as I ensure her protection.

* * *

Ayanakalia

I trudge down the path that I have flown over innumerable times.

In truth, I am tired. I lied to Jeren about that. He looked so happy to be recognized as a councilor. He and his sister were always treated badly, and now, finally, his people are seeing his value. I couldn’t take that away from him.

Anyway, the main road to Jeren’s village is wide and well marked and easy to follow. Jeren’s house is visible before me, and the temple gathering is within sight behind me. It’s hard to believe that I could remain hidden from the rest of the icari for so long. Without the fog, I can see almost every part of the property.

Plus, I’m not making this journey alone.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Raqessa floats beside me, dancing around Lifayis. His sleepy eyes follow her, and she brushes his fuzz. It moves in her soft wind. “Much of the fog was magical, I guess. We won’t be able to hide anything now.”

Her spirit is one of many that flutter around me, keeping me company on my walk like butterflies. On my old island, the recently dead flowed around me, comforting. It’s the same now. Raqessa, long dead, has been summoned by my idle thoughts.

“Why him?” I ask her. “Were you harassed into having his child? Did you ever have feelings for the father?”

“Yes, of course.” She floats beside me and seems to kick her feet, her dress disappearing around her. “He’s so handsome. Everyone looks up to him. He’s a councilor, and he’s going to be the head priest someday.”

Her childish self was awed by romance and blind to the real qualities of the man. Or maybe she was always this way. Like the head priestess, Raqessa has a sense of fatalism.

I used to feel fatalistic as well, but now, I’m strangely free. I’ve floated down the river, and instead of reaching the sea, I’ve ended up on a sandbar. I can see everything flowing around me, but I don’t know what it is that I’m supposed to do next. My destiny is finished. I’ve fulfilled my duty and I’m at loose ends.

Is this how others feel?

Can I too do whatever I wish?

What is it I wish?

The twilight is clear and warm, and I sweat a bit as I carry Lifayis in the sling. On Jeren, it barely stretches, but on me, the long ends hang down.

My feet turn into the first of the hidden sections, where the main temple disappears from sight. Off in the distance, the sea glows red in the path of the descending sun. Battle is still being waged there.

A loud flapping noise beats the air overhead.

“What’s that?” I ask Raqessa.

She looks at me, frozen. Mouth open. Nothing comes out. Then she disappears.

The dead can’t influence the living.

All the spirits disappear.

My heart pounds with fear.

I press myself against the rock as Jeren did once.

A great eagle flies over me. Its powerful wings hold its huge body aloft. A goat corpse hangs from its talons. It’s more than capable of taking away a woman with a small child. We had to watch for them occasionally on Halonnesos. It’s no longer kept away by any barrier.

It flies off toward the red glow of the ocean. Power will always attract other magical creatures.

I hurry with Lifayis held tight in my sling. He’s drowsy, dozing, as I hurry faster down the trail and my legs start to burn. Darkness falls swiftly, and even though I come out to where I can see the temple again, only the brightly burning ceremonial fire is easy to see. I can’t make out any people now that the sun is below the horizon.

Another creature flaps over me. Softer, more dangerous.

There’s nowhere to hide!

The hair on my back and neck stands up.

Bafis lands in front of me with an oof. “Ah, my dear. Your eyes are wide as plates. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Relief makes my limbs tremble. “It’s dark.”

“Dark, and no barrier, and I don’t know if you saw it, but a great eagle flew past just now. My anxiety got the better of me, and I decided to slip out and see you home.” He walks beside me, stretching out his old limbs.

I turn away, hiding my face. I am embarrassingly close to crying with relief and gratitude.

“And I thought to give you an apology,” he adds.

I clear my throat. “For what?”

“Not standing my ground. Siqaris always talks about ‘the old days,’ but I lived them! I let him say too much, even now. It’s increased our rift for no reason.”

Oh. “The icari really don’t like humans.”

“We asked to be their guardians, and now we bully them. It’s sickening. And then there’s you.” He pauses and takes my hands. His are old and thin. They seem even weaker. His eyes glow amber with magic like the gold feathers on his back. “Our ancestor was supposed to awaken long ago. Everyone knows that. Him aside, you really have saved us. You gave Lifayis life, and you gave me something to look forward to. A friendship that I haven’t had in a long time. So, if I didn’t make it clear, thank you.”

My heart swells. “Sure.”

He pats my hand and continues walking me through the main village on the final leg of the journey toward Jeren’s homestead. “Jeren tells me you’ve made friends with some humans. Do you want to go live with them after all this is done?”

“Ah…” Well, since he’s asking for the truth, I answer truthfully. “I’d like to stay with Jeren.”

“Mm. Even though Jeren can’t acknowledge you as his wife?”

I nod.

Bafis sighs. “I have noticed your closeness.”

We walk in silence. An almost-full moon rises, giving us plenty of light, and it’s companionable, like when I used to travel with my mother from the main village on Halonnesos to my great-aunt who lived in one of the last houses at the far end. Bafis’s breathing is labored, like mine, and I don’t feel any pressure to go faster. I appreciate that from him. Yet another kindness.

At the edge of Jeren’s courtyard, he stops to catch his breath. I peel off sleeping Lifayis, change him, and lay him in his crib, then unwind the sling, leaving it in the laundry pile for tomorrow. Bafis is still wheezing, so I offer him a cup of water from our pot. He accepts with a grateful gulp, checks my fire’s embers, and blows on them with his hot breath until they burst into crackling flames. So kind! Now I can decide if I want to start something for breakfast or just go to bed. I’m awfully tired.

Bafis pauses in the doorway. “Humans used to live in the Reaches. Perhaps this is why I’ve lived so long. When they try to get rid of you, I’ll say, ‘I thought you wanted to return to the good old days!’ and then they’ll let you stay.”

I snort. Would that really work? Probably not, but I appreciate the effort. “Thank you.”

“It’s the least I can do.” He gives me a small bow of respect. “Well, here you are, home safe. Jeren may be late tonight, so don’t wait up.”

“I won’t.”

“Good night, my dear. Sleep well.” Bafis walks across the grounds, still following the old rules of not swooping down over another icarus’s property. The almost-full moon shines so brightly, I can follow his shadow, but the afterimages of the fire cause spots to blind my eyes.

I turn away.

A strange gargling noise comes from the edge of the property where he disappeared.

I check myself, peering back into the shadowy darkness. Danger prickles my consciousness. “Bafis?”

The brush shakes. Rocks clatter, and a shadow moves toward me.

A low whistle sounds.

Danger!

The shadow approaches.

I back away from the door.

Siqaris strides boldly into Jeren’s room. His hands are empty, but covered with blood. “Now it’s your turn to die.”

Jeren

An insect stings me at the base of my neck. I smack it and then scratch absently at the bump.

This discussion is taking forever. I’m glad Ayanakalia went home, if for no other reason than she’d otherwise be sleeping on the stone column out of boredom.

At least Siqaris gave up on his stupid idea. The instant I took my place with the other councilors, they launched into a discussion of security and didn’t let him talk again.

But now we’re stuck on the logistics of mounting an icari-only watch and are deadlocked.

“How can we rotate watches at the temple?” one elder demands. “We barely have enough people to set a watch for our villages.”

“We must involve the humans,” a councilor insists.

“Why are you like this?” the elder asks him. “Do you have a secret wife in a human village?”

“No, but if humans patrol the shoreline, we halve the area we must protect.”

“We can’t trust our safety with humans!”

The prickling sensation causes me to scratch again.

Bafis isn’t here. After the sun dropped below the horizon and a great eagle flew overhead, he caught my eye and took off. He knew I was about to go after Ayanakalia, so he went for me. Ayanakalia will surely appreciate his company. I look forward to him returning soon. His voice could sway the discussion so we can move on.

At least Siqaris isn’t making things worse. He flounced off to get something from the council chambers a few minutes ago. I saw him go in, and I’m expecting him back any moment now, but honestly, I hope he has a long temper tantrum alone.

“Ask Jeren.” Councilor Varis gestures at me, jolting me out of my thoughts and recalling me to the present. “He’s been living with a human.”

“That makes him biased,” the elder argues.

“He can explain their weaknesses. Tell them, Jeren.”

“There are some weaknesses,” I admit. “Yes, they can’t fly, but Ayanakalia says Ikaria humans are faster and can jump higher than humans from other islands. So perhaps a tiered alarm system, or a partnership…”

* * *

Ayanakalia

I shrink from the door.

Siqaris smirks at my obvious fear.

My heart races.

This isn’t my destiny.

Is it?

When Arinthos threw me over the cliff, I felt scared, and I knew his actions were wrong. When I walked toward the main temple following the labyrinth, I felt death surge toward me, and I opened my arms to embrace it. But now I feel only fear. I feel lost and confused and very, very scared.

The distant blaze of the ceremonial fire at the main temple is bright in the dark night, and far away.

Beside me is a much smaller blaze and a few sticks with glowing embers.

“We’ve done you no wrong.” I ease backward. “If you kill us, the erinyes will hunt you until you go mad.”

“Do you think I’ve never heard that one before?”

“You are a father—”

“I was never a father! Raqessa tricked me. She lied. He’s not mine.”

“The gods know—”

“No, it’s not true.” His eyes widen, showing the whites, and he bares his clenched teeth. He’s missing some after the temple collapse. Dark pits are in his mouth. “I am the son of the head priestess, and soon I’ll lead the council. I’m first among the icari, and I have never been a father!”

He snarls at the smoke-blackened ceiling as if enough volume could erase his soul’s binding connection.

“You’re allowed.” I kneel by Jeren’s fire and curl my hand around the sturdiest-looking stick. I plunge it directly into the flames. “Councilors and priests are allowed to have children.”

“I know.” He curls his lip in contempt. “And I will. I’ll have the most beautiful, respectable, subservient wife, and together, we’ll produce legendary children. They’ll worship me, and we will all, as a family, ascend to the stars like the demigods and heroes before us.”

“But—”

“And my legacy will not be sullied by a momentary insanity with a cursed woman. The gods agree. That’s why they punished her. They killed her for daring to get in my way. Her weakling son was supposed to die as well. You interfered.”

“The gods brought me here to save him.”

“Jeren’s stupid wish defied the gods, and I, their emissary, am finally going to correct his mistake.” His gaze falls on Lifayis. He hesitates, and a new expression takes root. “Is he really…?”

He leans over Lifayis, studying him with fascination.

I hold my position, taut.

But then his features soften. “…mine?”

Perhaps we’ve all been wrong this whole time. Siqaris looks at Lifayis like he’s never seen a baby before. Perhaps he just needed to see his son to understand his destiny.

He reaches out a finger, stops shy of Lifayis’s cheek, draws back. Then he sighs, and the moment of tenderness passes as he tsks. “Too bad. If you weren’t born to that woman, I might have kept you.” He reaches toward Lifayis with fingers spread, his intentions full of violence.

I spring forward and smack Siqaris with the firebrand.

His wings suddenly appear, solidified, as he stumbles back in surprise.

Hitting him knocked the branch out of my weak grip. I duck down to grab it. The fire stick rolls between his feet as he spins in the tight quarters, knocking over stacks of clutter and sweeping one wing tip through the fire. Lifayis wakes up with a cry, and Siqaris’s wing ignites. He stumbles back, out of the room.

I grab another branch in both hands and follow him out into the courtyard.

Behind me, Lifayis sobs.

Raqessa’s spirit floats by my side. She watches sadly.

My dread increases. Maybe she wasn’t summoned earlier because I was thinking about her. Maybe she came here because she sensed the end of her son’s life, or mine.

Siqaris pats out the fire on his wing. The feathers look even brighter in the moonlight, as though the fire whitened them. He sees me brandishing the smoking stick and stops abruptly.

Then he laughs. “Are you really trying to stand against me? I’m touched by the very gods.”

“You’re not even as magical as my ex-husband,” I snap, although my voice wobbles with fear. “He could at least see the truth before he chose to ignore it.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Raqessa is here.”

“Oh?” He scans behind me, then returns to me. “Cursing me?”

“She’s watching you.”

“Then she can watch me kill you.” He unclasps his dagger.

I brandish the stick.

He grabs the fiery end, and flames leak between his fingers. His amber eyes light with crazed truth. “I ate the god of the sun. Do you think I’m afraid of a little fire?”

Fear slices into me.

Siqaris yanks the brand out of my hand and throws it in the dirt.

I shrink back.

Raqessa floats beside us. She can do nothing to affect the living. Perhaps she doesn’t even want to. She’s here, in our last moments, to help us transition to the other side.

Behind Siqaris, a living figure drags himself from the darkness.

It’s Bafis!

His clothes are torn and his face is bloodied, but Bafis flies at Siqaris and clings to him with a weak gargle.

Siqaris shrieks. “Raqessa!” While Bafis holds on, Siqaris stomps into Jeren’s outdoor pots and kicks over the grain pile as he loses his mind.

I run back inside and scoop up the frantically screaming Lifayis. We can’t go through the courtyard. I pull back the stick barrier and shimmy out the back window. This is where Siqaris chased me to last time. The cliff is much closer to the house now. Heart thumping, I stand on the edge.

Lifayis sobs in my arms.

I lean against the stone house. I’ll have to go around to the front and try to run.

Siqaris bursts through the back window, the shade splintering. He grabs my arm and throws me off the cliff. “Die!”

I hurtle toward the jagged rocks below.

* * *

Jeren

“Leave aside the issue of watches for now,” one councilor interrupts. “What’s the status of our food?”

“All the north stores are lost,” an acolyte says, checking her scrolls. “But so are all the north village people, so it’s a wash.”

“I want the stores read out,” he insists. “All of us should know what we have.”

“Councilor, even if we’re low on grain, sheep, and goats, we can forage in the sea.”

“And? Is there any proof that our ancestor has destroyed the great evil there? Or is the sea still dangerous to us?”

The elder next to me mutters under his breath, “It’s a shame Councilor Ruqen isn’t here. He always kept things moving. The best are always carried away, it seems.”

I agree.

The acolyte sips from her cup of tea, then reads off the long scroll of food tallies.

Boredom and impatience have set in. I’m grateful to be a councilor, but I wish I were back in my hut sharing the blankets with Ayanakalia.

I will hug her tight as soon as I see her.

* * *

Ayanakalia

I curl around Lifayis, trying to shelter him from the rocks.

We slow midair.

The blanket falls away. Lifayis’s small wings glisten like spiderwebs in the morning dew. They’re much too small to support our weight, and so we glide, still too fast, away from the rocks and over the water.

Overhead, Siqaris screams in frustration. “Why won’t you just die?”

I think he’s talking to us, but then I see movement overhead, in the moonlight. He’s fighting with someone again. Bafis? I hope he’s all right.

Lifayis smiles at me, bubbling saliva in his mouth as we float away from land.

Uh-oh.

“Ah, back toward the island,” I tell him, twisting and pointing to the shoreline a few strokes behind us. “This is too far.”

He blinks and then bounces.

We descend into dangerous whitecaps. Waves smack my feet. I windmill my legs back toward the shoreline, but I make no progress, and we crash into the cool salt water. Waves smash over us.

Lifayis gasps and bobs in alarmed baby-swim shock.

I struggle for the shore, pulling him with me. My waterlogged clothes drag at me, and the rough waves make me seasick and slap my face to steal my breath. Still, I try. Since reaching Ikaria, I haven’t touched the water, but I am a child of the islands. I know how to swim, even in darkness like this. The shore behind me gleams in the moonlight.

An unnatural darkness pools beneath us.

Oh, no.

Slick black seaweed wraps around Lifayis.

No!

I grip him tightly as it pulls us under, and beneath the surface, in the pitch blackness, I fight for his life.

The monster is more visible in the darkness as ghostly spirits are more visible in shadows. It drags Lifayis toward its open maw.

I tear at the cords around his little arms and his legs. My fingers sink into the black slickness, and I tear it free. Lifayis twitches, jolts. My ears squeeze, pop, and squeeze again. The monster wraps more cords around Lifayis, tightening around his chest and neck. I can’t dig my fingers underneath. Wild currents sweep away my tears, and my lungs beat like panicked wings.

Lifayis goes limp in my arms.

No!

This is not his destiny. This is not his!

Suddenly, a gold light glows from deep beneath us. Councilor Ruqen swims at the head of an army of icari, some I know and some who wear odd clothes and seem much older. They dwell between the living world and the worlds of the dead, and they fill the ocean with light as they set upon the creature.

Councilor Ruqen opens his mouth as he slowly raises his sword. The voice that comes out is the daedalus, deep and rumbling. “Not this one.”

His sword snicks through the black strings.

Lifayis is cut free.

The monster turns with a scream and battles its attackers.

I kick for the surface, my diaphragm spasming with warnings, and burst through. I gasp for breath at the exact moment I’m hit with a wave. I choke, gasp, choke again as I drag Lifayis toward shore.

Humans wade into the water around me. “We’ve got you. Hold on.”

They haul us up onto the shore. I collapse, coughing and shuddering, and they cluster around Lifayis. Black cords still wrap around his neck. Someone uses a small knife to cut them away.

He doesn’t inhale. Lifayis is pale and still. His spirit no longer resides in his body.

A wave of grief wells up in me.

The Mallonia villagers turn him over and hang him upside down by the feet, thump his back, try to shake the water out of him. They sweep his mouth for more cords, muck, anything. An older woman, I think her name is Vinalia, intones the protective spell for children. It’s better to do this before an accident, but still effective during or even after.

A lookout runs over, cutting off the ritual. “He’s coming back!”

The Mallonia villagers take Lifayis and run.

The lookout and Vinalia help me up. We stumble after the others. The moon lights our path, which means it also exposes us to Siqaris flying overhead. We hide against the shadows, motionless. He soars past. We hurry on, suppressing our coughs, up the gravel path and through the stream, beneath the holy shelter and into the sacred grotto.

By the pools, a shaft of moonlight illuminates a single patch of stone. My rescue party places Lifayis in the light, gently arranging his tiny body onto the stone. Vinalia hurries back to the shrine by the entrance and makes the correct offerings and obeisances for us, then kneels by Lifayis and starts the protective spell again. The others try, once more, to put the breath of life back into the baby.

I collapse on a rock, weighed down by my sopping wet clothes and my grief, and watch them work with a dull numbness.

“Do you see his soul?” Vinalia interrupts her protective spell to ask me. “Has he gone away with his ancestors?”

I’m afraid to look. Me, afraid of death? But it’s true. I can’t bring myself to go into the shadowlands right now. I need a few minutes to recover, so I just shake my head, shivering in the night chill.

“Keep trying,” she urges the others. “He’s not dead. We can yet save him.”

I am sure his spirit is no longer within his body. He had a strong grip against the winds of the otherworld, and he had Jeren’s blessing, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t able to protect him. He’s gone.

There’s a sudden stumbling in the entrance.

The ghostly outline of his wings means an icarus blocks our escape.

Everyone freezes.

There’s a terrible wheezing, snuffling noise with every breath. The icarus stumbles, and his wings droop. The gold feathers on his back look dull, as if the magic is bleeding out in front of us. He drags his wings across the rocks as he staggers toward us. “Ayanakalia?”

“Bafis!” I drag myself to him. “Bafis, you saved us, you…”

He drops to his knees.

A long, ornate dagger sticks out of the center of his back, between his wings.

Ayanakalia

The blade in Bafis’s back is buried to the hilt.

No. Please, no.

He coughs wetly.

The humans huddle around him.

One young man bites his lip. “We have to pull it out.” He touches the dagger.

Bafis stiffens with agony.

The man lets go.

Bafis relaxes again and shoos the man. “No, no. It’s too late for me. I’ve had my time. You and Lifayis must go to Jeren.”

Hot grief closes my throat. I snuffle. “It’s too late.”

“What’s that?”

“The child is nearly dead,” Vinalia tells him.

“No. Nearly?” He crawls to Lifayis, rubs his little arms and legs, sighs. “Oh, little man. Don’t make your mom cry.”

I hug my elbows. “Raqessa was waiting for him. In the courtyard. I didn’t know…”

“Her too. Well, then. I guess there’s nothing for it.” Bafis reaches behind him, brushes the dagger, and grimaces, and grasps a dull gold feather.

Oh no! “Please, don’t. You’re too injured. You’ll die.”

“No, I think…” He winces and yanks the feather out with a pained cry.

The gold feather glows in his hands, the iridescence glimmering like the skin of a wild creature.

He drops back to his knees, panting, and then braces himself again.

“I never was very good at this,” he wheezes. “You can’t wish for someone to live, you see. It’s too much like trying to thwart destiny. The gods don’t like it. Better to make the wish simple. Something like…” He holds the feather to Lifayis’s cold chest. Magic zips around his old amber irises. He gives his order. “Breathe.”

The gold feather glows and expands. It encases Lifayis’s body in streaks of gold, then seeps inward and turns his skin black.

His eyes fly open, and he chokes.

The humans crowd in with hopeful murmurs. The young man turns him over again, upside down, and seawater pours out. Lifayis takes a gargling breath and then cries.

Never has that sound been more welcome.

Relief seeps into me, and exhaustion.

Lifayis sobs and sobs. He’s breathing. The gold feather worked. He’s going to be fine.

Bafis collapses.

No!

I ease his head onto my wet lap. “Use your other feathers. Heal yourself.”

“I don’t think I quite have the energy.”

“I’ll help you.”

“You would if you could, I know.” He winces again as I settle him onto his side. “But it’s a tricky thing, feathers. Can’t pull them out when you’re weak, only when you’re strong.”

“If you just try—”

“It’s too late, Ayanakalia.” His voice lowers to a slurred noise, and the dull gold color of the feathers is now so washed out, they look white, like desiccated bones, in the darkness. “I’m glad I could help Lifayis.”

Grief slashes my heart. “No.”

“At least…I could do one more thing for you…”

“You did everything for me.”

“I grew up…in the shadows of heroes, you know. I saw them with my own eyes. If I could just…do one deed…that was worthy…”

Tears drip off my face. I shake my head. “Being kind is more precious because it’s so rare.”

“…sorry I…couldn’t be a real hero…”

“You were always a hero to me.”

His brows lift in surprise.

Then he spasms. I hug him to ease his passage. His spirit releases from his body with a forlorn rattle. And then, although his body shakes and contorts as it fights the process of returning to clay, his spirit departs.

I follow his journey with my closed eyes.

Bafis floats down the long river into the land of the dead.

He meets Raqessa there. She pokes him, and he teases her right back. Then they hug and dance, and rejoice.

My mother greets him formally. She thanks him for watching over me, then introduces him to my daughter. He’s delighted to meet her, holding her up and complimenting her fierce, bright soul. My mother laughs, and Raqessa ribs him. And then, across the beautiful white meadow, someone calls his name. He looks up. Joy breaks out across his face. His long-lost friends wave and call him over. He tucks my daughter into the crook of his arm, gently, and he flies across the meadow where he’s surrounded by all his old friends.

And I sit, rocking his lifeless body on the hard stone in the grotto, sobbing my heart out.

The Mallonia villagers help me let go of his body. They comfort me, patting me solemnly on the back, and give me the still-crying Lifayis. We cry together, he and I.

Bafis’s wings curl around his lifeless body like a silken shroud and then blacken. Orange embers twinkle, and then a fire bursts out and consumes him. Fierce gold light touches us like a last caress and then fades to ash.

The knife clatters to the ground.

The young man collects it respectfully and wraps the knife in a cloth. He tucks it under his arm.

I catch my breath and sigh. How funny that Bafis made me cry. When the others passed away, even my mother, I accepted it. I felt like I already lived in a dead land, and didn’t care. Melancholy lay upon my shoulders like a cloak, and I lost so many loved ones and friends in succession that I was inured to grief. Each new loss simply added a few stitches.

I’ve been happy here on Ikaria. At some point, I turned away from the land of the dead and preferred the land of the living. I want to live here, with Jeren and my new friends, and not die for a long time.

The lookout scrambles into the cave. “He saw the light and heard the cries. He’s coming.”

“There’s a back way,” Vinalia tells me as I struggle to rise. “The cataclysm made it harder to squeeze through, but it should still be possible.”

She and the young man help me up. I can’t run and nurse at the same time, so I give Lifayis my fingers to suck. He quiets as he worries them.

I look back at the patch of moonlight, fixing the spot of ash in my mind. Goodbye, Bafis, my treasured friend. Then I duck into the darkness.

Lifayis falls quiet. He’s so heavy in my trembling arms. His sling is back in the laundry pile at Jeren’s house. The villagers offer to take turns carrying him, but when we shift him, he starts to cry again. They look up worriedly. His sorrow echoes in the cave. I quickly snuggle him, and he quiets again.

They’re familiar with this cavern system. We scramble furtively in the dark. A young woman holds my damp elbow to keep me moving. I stumble, and Vinalia helps me from behind.

Aside from Vinalia, I don’t even know their names.

“Thank you,” I murmur as my still-wet robes bump my legs, tripping me. “Even though I haven’t done anything to help you, thank you for your kindness.”

“You did,” Vinalia assures me in a low tone. “My kids had their first meal in two days because of the grain you brought.”

“That was Jeren’s.”

“You made him bring it, though. Don’t deny it. We all know their kind couldn’t care less about—”

“Shhh,” the young man in front hisses, and we lapse into silence again.

The path curves up. We have to squeeze through a portion, and then it breaks out into the moonlight on a path high above Rokastia. Some people are waiting for us.

Marine hugs me. “I heard about what happened. Oh, Lifayis is alive! That’s good. Where’s the old man?”

“He died.”

“I’m sorry.” She squeezes me. “Sit tight.”

I do as she says, eyes closed, and tip my head back against the cold rock wall. I am so tired right now. She plans with the others. Based on her questions, she was only told what happened up until we hid in the grotto. So, one lookout must have come and told us to run, while a second lookout must have gone to Rokastia and raised an alarm.

I’m the reason their villages were wiped out, and they’re still helping me.

Marine kneels beside me. The mark on her forehead glows in the moonlight. She tugs my clothes. “Give me your dress.”

I ease Lifayis to the warm earth. He shifts and complains, but relaxes again. Pulling off my wet dress is a fight. Marine helps me finally get it off and gives me her dry shirt and pants. They’re big on me. Another woman sweeps back my loose hair and ties it up in a scarf. Marine pulls on my dress, straining at the chest, and gives up on arranging it. The others let her hair down and hand her a bundle of twigs wrapped up in a blanket.

“I’ll cross toward Mallonia on the most obvious path,” she murmurs to us. “Wait a bit, then sneak up to the temple.”

Marine’s taking this enormous risk for me, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to help her. All I can do is be grateful.

It’s not enough.

“Please be careful,” I beg.

She hugs me and grins, cocky. “See you on the other side.” She takes off.

Our lookout peers up at the sky, then motions for us to leave as a group.

The moon fades toward the horizon. My guides know these paths well even in the dark. They hide me in the center of their group. No one speaks.

A flapping noise sounds overhead.

Terror makes my heart pound.

“Keep your head down,” Vinalia hisses.

The noise becomes faint. He was doing a flyover and doesn’t suspect this group. Or, he does suspect us, but won’t attack while we’re together…

We finally, finally make it to the main town. Hearth fires glow faintly in the warm night, peeking between the ruins of buildings. A few icari peer out, but no one stops us.

It’s late, and the gathering has dwindled in number, but the councilors and elders talk on the stoa, and a core group listens from the stone benches.

A guard notices us approaching and blocks us. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“We saved them,” the young man at the lead says, and the group parts.

I step forward, pulling down my scarf, and shift Lifayis onto my shoulder. His little wings glow.

“Saved them?” the guard repeats, his brows drawn down and lips bunched in rejection and confusion.

“From that demon. He killed the old man.”

“Bafis,” I tell the guard.

The guard blinks rapidly. “Huh?”

My knees tremble. I’ve made it this far, and if I don’t hand over Lifayis and sit down, I’m going to collapse.

“Yes, hello?” The head priestess interrupts the councilors and peers across the crowd at us. “What’s going on there?”

“I don’t rightly know,” the guard calls back, and steps aside to point at us. “The humans are saying…”

But through the opening, my eyes finally meet Jeren’s.

Relief fills me. My knees buckle. “Jeren!”

Vinalia makes a noise and supports me under the elbow.

Jeren rises from the bench in confusion and alarm. “Ayanakalia?”

I’m afraid I’m going to drop Lifayis, and so I hand the sleepy baby to Vinalia and step forward alone. “It’s terrible,” I croak. “The worst. Siqaris—”

A whoosh of wind is my only warning.

Siqaris snatches me, flies high into the sky, and, with a great snarl, changes direction and speeds toward the earth.

I scream.

Jeren shouts, but he’s too far away.

Siqaris throws me at the last instant.

I smash headfirst into the stone.

* * *

Jeren

Right in front of me, Siqaris dives across the plaza and snatches up the human I’ve just realized is Ayanakalia.

He flies straight up, pivots, and then races for the ground.

“No!” I leap from the stoa and surge toward him.

In my nightmares, time stretches. They’re so far away. Ayanakalia’s face contorts into a terrified scream.

My heart thuds.

I can’t reach them. I can’t…fly…fast enough…

Siqaris releases her at the last moment. He skims across the stone and veers up, into the darkness once more.

Ayanakalia slams into the ground with a horrifying crunch.

Her scream cuts off.

I can’t breathe.

I land beside her, scraping and banging myself on the stone, and roll her onto her back.

Her unfamiliar Mallonia clothing tells me that it’s not her. It can’t be her. This is a trick of my eyes. She’s supposed to be home safe. This isn’t her. She doesn’t have these strangely angled limbs, blood speckling her lips, and shallow, panting breaths. Her open eyes rake the starry sky and then eventually turn to me.

But it’s true.

This is her.

She’s dying.

“I couldn’t catch you… I failed. At everything.” My voice breaks. “I’m sorry.”

Her hands are cold in mine.

I appeal to the crowd. “Please, someone help me!”

They stare.

We are alone.

She murmurs something.

I lean down. “What?”

“He killed Bafis,” she murmurs, wincing with the effort.

No.

A hard lump forms in my throat. “Don’t talk.”

“I can’t tell you after.” She pants again, forges on. “He tried to k…kill us. Me and Lifayis. We fell into the ocean. Lifayis died. Bafis p…pulled a gold feather, and Lifayis lived. But…he st…stabbed him.”

I don’t…I can’t understand this. Grief and denial rise together in a wave. I shake my head.

She tries to smile. Only a few hours ago, I saw this smile directed at Bafis. Now he’s dead, and this same expression is directed at me.

Agony opens like a chasm in my chest. I have no beating heart. I have no blood in my icy veins. There is no sunrise, no birdsong, no morning dew for me.

Her lifeblood seeps into the cracks of the old temple walkway.

It will never be morning for me again.

“What’d she say?” Councilor Varis calls.

I suddenly hate that I spent all this time here, with them, thinking I was doing something important. My friends, my family, were fighting for their lives and I was nitpicking a schedule? Arguing over a few handfuls of grain? The utter waste. It wrenches me up inside. If I could go back in time, I’d shake myself, hard.

“What was it?” the head councilor asks again.

I find my voice and toss it at them. “Siqaris killed Bafis.”

The icari murmur in shock and alarm.

“No,” Councilor Varis says, and the others shake their heads.

“It’s true, though. He did,” a young male insists. “We saw it. In the sacred grotto, you can find his ash.”

“Shut up, human.” Siqaris, overhead, drifts away from us and back toward the main crowd. “No one wants to hear your jabber.”

“Are they lying, then?” Councilor Varis asks him up in the dark sky. “That’s easy enough to prove. Send someone to the grotto.”

“That wouldn’t prove anything.” Siqaris chuckles awkwardly. “He was old. He was bound to die soon anyway.”

“You really killed Bafis?” one of the guards repeats, and a thread of horror weaves through his words. “Our most ancient elder?”

A cold silence sweeps the plaza.

Bafis was always at the fringes. He should’ve received more respect, but he was bashful and deflected attention. Still, he was a fixture in our lives. After the daedalus, he was the oldest living member of our race.

Siqaris sees the change of sentiment. He dismisses the charges. “You have no proof of that.”

The young man carries a bundle to me. He kneels and unwraps Siqaris’s dagger. “He left that in your friend’s back. We got it after the poof.” He mimes the moment an icarus dies and returns to ash.

My sick feeling crystallizes to a dull, icy point in the center of my chest.

“Lies!” Siqaris lands and strides arrogantly toward us.

The other humans leap in front of him, shielding us, and three icari fly to me, two elders and an acolyte.

Siqaris slows. “What’s the meaning of this? You can’t believe in humans.”

The acolyte nudges me out of the way and traces symbols on Ayanakalia’s chest from a cup of blessed wine, while an elder from the main town pulls a white feather and presses it to Ayanakalia’s forehead. She barely responds to the magic.

I take Siqaris’s dagger from the young man and slowly rise.

He smirks. “That was stolen from me by these lying humans.”

I brandish his own knife at him. “Get back.”

“But that’s mine.”

“Not anymore.” I stalk forward.

He eases back. “You don’t simply believe them…”

“Yeah.” My heart thumps in my ears so loud, I can barely think. “I do.”

Glancing around for support, he sees none. Even his mother remains silent.

His sneer returns, and he lifts his chin to look down on me. “So what, Jeren? You think you’re good enough to fight me? I’m beloved of the gods.”

“I told you not to harm her.” My words echo, resonant with power. “I warned you.”

“That was very childish of you.” He turns to the guard beside him and holds out his palm. “Give me your knife.”

The guard rests his hand protectively over his sheathed dagger. “Use your own.”

“Come on, just… You.” He appeals to another guard, and then another. They all block their weapons from him. He steps back as he calls on the other councilors, elders, and icari. “Give me a weapon! Mother.”

The head priestess cinches one arm tight to her side. Tears pool in her eyes. “I changed my destiny for you. I swore never to interfere. I begged you to always keep vigilant because I couldn’t do anything…”

“Mother.”

Her shoulders slump in a sob.

Suddenly, she whirls to grab a poker from the sacred implements.

But the councilors and elders catch her and prevent her from interfering.

Siqaris growls and lunges to scare the councilors away.

I pace him, stalking him like a deadly tiger.

He cautiously diverts.

We move in a semicircle into the open.

He backs away. “You wouldn’t fight an unarmed man, would you?”

“You fought Bafis when he was unarmed. You fought Lifayis when he was unarmed. You fought Pivarin when he was unarmed.”

Ayanakalia moans behind me.

“You fought my wife,” I spit. “When she was unarmed.”

“That was your fault.” He sneers at me as if he really believes this. “You should’ve known better than to drag her into your house. Not only the lintel is cracked. Everyone you touch is devoured by your curse.”

“Once, that was true, but recently, I’ve been thinking my curse isn’t my family. It’s you.” I raise the knife. “And I’m going to end it.”

He opens his mouth, surprised and indignant, to refute me.

I charge.

Jeren

I charge Siqaris.

He braces to meet me, his gaze focused on the knife. Swinging away from my attack, he grabs at my wrist. I evade and slash. He scrambles back. I slice his palm.

He leaps backward into the air and floats. Blood drops spatter the ground at my feet.

“You are weak, cursed, a bad specimen of the icari.” He clutches his hand to his chest. “We are not equal. If I were armed, you would already be dead.”

“You would be armed if you hadn’t stabbed my friend in the back.”

He snarls.

I float up to his level. “Allow me to return the favor.”

He wheels and flies.

I chase after him.

We soar over the ruins of the temple and main town, disappearing in shadows and reappearing as dark patches against the starry sky. He’s larger than me and faster, but I am determined. Below us, the crowd watches silently. There’s only the sound of us panting and the flapping of our wings as we bank and race.

“Slow,” he taunts over his shoulder. “Weak. Cursed.”

Fury burns me up. He’s taken so much from me, and somehow, he’s still getting away.

I surge and catch up to him, raise the dagger, and—

He twists abruptly to face me.

My stab misses.

He grabs my wrist in his good hand, wrenches. My fingers loosen on the knife pommel. I desperately pull back. He elbows me in the nose. Thump. Pain and heat burst across my cheeks. Blood clogs my nostrils, making it hard to breathe. The dagger falls out of my grasp. He releases me and dives for it.

No. This is not how our fight ends.

I grasp his ornamental sash, choking him. He tries to hit me, misses, grabs my foot. I kick him in the head. Clunk.

He floats aside and shakes his head.

I dive after the dagger, touch down, and clasp it.

He lands beside me, more slowly, and picks up a large rock. It’s a chunk from one of the crushed icari statues, a part of the skull and one sightless eye. He hefts it in his good hand. “Even when you’re armed, I’m the better warrior.”

I snort out blood and catch my breath. That was too close. His reach is longer than mine, and I flew right into his trap. “You’re also bleeding.”

He clasps his injured hand in a bloody fist and attacks.

I skip backward lightly, watching for my chance.

He swings at my skull.

I duck and slash at his side.

The dagger hisses through clothes, but never touches skin.

He drops the rock and wheels, too fast, and catches my wrist again.

I rotate, dropping underneath his grip and turning to avoid being pulled into the same lock. He grabs me from behind, using his injured hand to lock around my throat. Immediately choking, I drop my chin and work my free hand up the side of my neck to give me a breath.

“You are nothing,” he pants in my ear, twisting to squeeze the sides of my neck.

Darkness pounds into my eyes and covers my vision with spots. My head fills up.

I twist my head, freeing one side of my neck, and the darkness recedes.

“Nothing you’ve ever done has mattered. You protected no one, helped no one. The gods pulled a trick on you. They gave you an illusion instead of gold feathers, and I’m going to cut the last one out.”

With all my might, I strain to pull the dagger pommel toward me.

He grips my wrist tight, his arms shaking.

The dagger tip points at his torso.

I suddenly relax.

The dagger dips toward his belly.

He grunts and contorts back, loosening his hold on me.

I twist, and with my full strength, I stab him.

He moves away.

Not fast enough.

The dagger sticks in his abdomen.

He staggers.

I yank it out and dance back.

He groans and clutches the wound. Blood soaks through his fingers. “You…?”

I attack.

He puts his hands up defensively, but my body is no longer my own as I stab and stab and stab. I’m not angry, just focused. This man caused deaths. He ripped families apart. Their wrath, their curses float around him and find a conduit in me. Finally, they get their revenge.

He collapses on the ground before the old temple. His clothes are shreds across his unscarred back, wings exposed with all his gold feathers shining. He’s never spent a single one on any wish, never blessed or given away any piece of himself. I grip all five in my fist. He’s cut feathers out of I don’t know how many icari in punishment. His dagger is experienced, as if it has a mind of its own, and I barely need to guide it to do exactly as he has.

He arches and screams, manages to rise once more, and staggers away from me.

The crowd watches us. Icari, humans. Silent.

Half-naked and covered in blood, he sucks in ragged breaths. His eyes fix on my fistful of gold feathers. Horror transfixes him.

It is a horror I have seen on the faces of far too many of his victims.

“Give me those,” he whispers furiously, scuttling toward me. “Give me my—”

I throw them away.

A sudden wind carries them up into the sky. The gold glow leaches away and turns into dry and desiccated autumn leaves.

He screams in frustration.

And then his scream gets higher in pitch, a sharp agony, as his still-visible white wing tips light on fire. The fire travels inward to his back. Black streaks lick across his body, lashing him in painful flames. His wings turn to ash and disintegrate. Black scars his back like so many jagged lightning bolts.

Now he is naked and trembling in the cracked plaza where he enacted so many judgments.

“You haven’t won.” He drops to one knee before me and lowers his head, exposing the back of his neck. “The gods will get their revenge.”

I wipe off his blade, slide it into my sheath, and turn on my heel.

“Where are you going?” Fury makes his voice break. “You can’t even finish the cowardly act that you’ve started? For shame. You made so many attacks and landed not one fatal blow. Do you expect me to do it myself?”

I walk away from him.

“Don’t ignore me!” He runs after me. “I’m more of an icarus than you’ll ever…”

I fly up in the air.

He jumps, hangs for a moment, then falls back to earth. Panic flashes. He jumps again and again, but his wings are gone. He’s grounded.

“You’re no longer an icarus,” I tell him coldly from the sky. “You’re no longer a councilor. You can’t be in the Reaches. These are the rules you made.”

“So, you expect me to beg mercy from the humans?”

“I don’t care.”

“Siqaris.” The head priestess hurries down the steps to the slumping man. “Son. You can change the rules. We’ll have humans in the Reaches again. Even on the council. You can live as a human.”

He looks up, nostrils flaring, and rises to his full height. “I’d rather die.”

“If it’s your destiny, you—”

“I have no destiny.” He draws away from her, runs for the ruin, scrambles over the crumbled old temple. “I am destiny!”

Rocks break away, and he hurtles down the sheer cliff into violently churning waters below.

The head priestess flies after him, hovering over the water.

Black strings reach up toward her.

She flies up, out of its dangerous reach. The strings descend beneath the waves once more.

I cannot see the dead, but I’m sure that he’s done. The rage from the vengeful spirits of his victims drains from me. I notice a hundred cuts on my hands. Throbbing heat fills my nose and cheeks. I cough up and spit out a chunk of coagulated blood.

I float over the solemn crowd and drop to Ayanakalia’s side.

She’s still breathing, quick and shallow, but her eyes are glassy and don’t focus.

“Jeren.” Councilor Varis clears his throat. Beside him, an acolyte holds Lifayis. “We’re in a time of great change. We need a strong and worthy man to lead our council, and I believe the others will agree that the best man for leading us is you. Come here, and we will recognize you.”

All my old dreams lie before me. Not only is Siqaris gone, but I’m offered an even higher place than he ever had, and everybody’s happy. They celebrate me. Long live Jeren.

I could stay on the council and do what the head priestess suggested. Repeal the laws I dislike. Make humans equivalent to the icari.

I look at the trio tending Ayanakalia. They’ve healed all her minor cuts. She’s dusted with white feathers and anointed with oil and wine.

But the Daedakros elder shakes his head as he rises. “She doesn’t have long for this world.”

The trio move back respectfully, allowing me to come to her side.

I drop to my knees.

She’s so pale. Is she still alive? Sometimes, the spirit of a body is gone well ahead of the movement. Like the automata we were once famous for, the stone eyes blink and limbs move, but there is no life within.

I take Ayanakalia’s hand.

Her fingers are cold like that day I rescued her off the cliff. I already knew, then, that this moment would come. Somehow, in the same way that Ayanakalia could see the dead, I could see my heart’s pieces torn out.

“Ayanakalia.”

She doesn’t react.

“You told me that your destiny can’t be changed. That if I tried, I was wasting my wish. I didn’t want to hear that because I was afraid you were right. And I was even more afraid to fall, wingless, no more than a human because then I couldn’t protect you. But there’s no point if you’re not here. So I’m sorry, Ayanakalia, but I might have to waste my wish on you. You’re my destiny. Do you hear me? You’re the one I get to keep.”

I reach behind me and grasp my final gold feather.

The icari gasp.

“Wait, Jeren,” Councilor Varis cautions.

But I don’t wait.

I tighten my grip and pull my gold feather out.

It pulls out all my magic.

And a hundred thousand years.

The history of our race passes before my eyes. The first daedali creating a tiny pair of gold mechanical wings and fusing them onto a mortal’s back. The daedali are so large, it’s as if I were to glue wings onto an ant, and all the feathers are gold, and glow, blinding, with more magic than all of us surviving icari have together now. Hundreds soar in a great flock while the daedali watch over us, proud. Endless eons pass. Memories of unforgettable battles and ancient valor fly away like grains of sand, and time wears even the greatest mountain into a little hump.

And then the gold feather separates from my back, and I pull it, throbbing and shuddering, around to my front and hold it in my hand.

The gold feather pulses with my magic.

Pain spikes from the hole in my back as if I’ve just amputated my own limb. It’s agony I knew and expected, but more intense than any I’ve ever known. Like a reverse birth, crushing my body back into stone. I hunch over. Saliva and blood pools in my mouth. I can’t swallow. It hurts so much, I let the bloody drool spill from my lips and add to the stains on my clothes.

Ayanakalia says I can’t change the river.

But surely I can cast out my own boat.

When I pulled the gold feather, I was certain I was going to ask for her life, even though we’re told such things are impossible, and I’ve proved it more times than I’d like.

But now that I’m holding it in my hands, I don’t want her to live.

I want to be with her.

And if that means I have to pass this mortal world alone and then someday be reunited on the other side, I accept that penance. I will do it. Because someday, I want us to meet again and clasp hands, and the only way I can do that is to bind us now. Sew our chests together with a gold thread, one that cannot be cut even by the gods because it is deeper and truer magic, older and more potent than immortality itself. While the magic of the world slips away, this magic, like creation, remains.

I intone the words, willing my divinity into her, unbreakable. “Numinthos, Daminthos, Qilinthos es.”

My blood outside my veins, my heart outside my chest, my soul outside my body.

I lay the pulsing feather on her chest.

It glows gold and sizzles across her lifeless body, streaking over her unnatural angles.

Then it fades.

It is too late for her in this life, I guess, but perhaps there will be a chance for us to meet in the next.

Burning grows between my shoulder blades, sharp as a knife, and catches me with sudden crackling agony. I scream until my throat goes ragged and my heart stops. Pain stabs me over and over. Smoke narrows my vision. I’m not going to survive this. My final magic burns away, leaving me a hollow, shuddering shell.

And then, forever later, I take a breath.

My cheek presses the cracked stone. I’ve slumped over, my butt in the air, utterly lost and ill and boneless.

Ayanakalia remains still as death.

My fingers twitch.

I have no wings. No magic. I shift my shoulder to bring them out and they do not come because they’re gone.

I tore them away.

For nothing.

I’ve lost everything now.

One of the acolytes murmurs, “He wasted his last—”

“Shhh,” the other says.

No one else speaks.

Even the ceremonial fire is muffled.

The night is absolutely silent around us.

I guess it was a waste. But how could I go on without trying? Perhaps it is useless to stand against the river, but who are we if we don’t try our hardest to swim?

I am a sorry kind of man.

And now I’m human.

Ayanakalia is dead.

Ayanakalia

The land of the dead has welcomed me, in my mind’s eye, a thousand times. It’s only more welcoming now that I float through it, my spirit one of many flowing through the warm depths.

In my ears, I hear the echoing shrieks of battle. Jeren and Siqaris fighting, shouting. But I don’t care much about it here.

I wonder if I will see one or both of them soon.

That thought brings neither sorrow nor hope.

I am numb in the best way.

The river feels amazing. It weaves beneath rainbows. It’s very different coming here for real.

Up ahead, a waterfall rumbles.

Beyond it, the lands I’ve visited so many times stretch out to the farthest horizons.

Great white fields are fringed by jagged mountains and dotted by pleasant shade-giving trees. Beneath the trees gather the souls of all who’ve arrived before me. My cheery daughter is passed to my quietly proud mother, doted on by Bafis, and sung to sweetly by Raqessa, who has more than fulfilled her promise to love my daughter as I loved her son.

I can’t wait to reach them again.

The feeling is like meeting up with friends the night before a long-awaited trip. Everyone is relaxed. We’re all packed, and everything is done. We have all the time in the world, and we’re spending the last hours together. They’re so happy to see me. Everything is ready. I feel safe and so relieved.

The waterfall rumbles louder.

Once I go over it, I’ll be able to reach that distant shore with all my friends.

But for some reason, I’m slowing down.

I look around to see why.

My fingers glow.

In the living world, they were burned black by the daedalus’s magic, but here in the otherworld, they shine like molten gold.

As the river carries me over the waterfall, I fall slower and slower until I’m almost still.

The cliff of the falls is infinite.

Just as my time here is endless.

On the cliffs behind me are ledges, hundreds of them, festive and grandly decorated. Ancient heroes and warriors lounge on thrones.

I float to one I recognize: Arinthos’s grandmother from Halonnesos. I met her only once, when she carried away my daughter, but here she sits overlooking the lands of the dead on a throne carved with lion-headed serpents. Her finery is even more beautiful. The bands on her arms are living gold snakes with ruby eyes. Her diadem is a tiny silver hawk, and her dress is adorned with iridescent scales.

In front of her, a cauldron glows with magic.

She gestures for me to approach.

I catch the rock, half expecting my wet fingers to slide off, but unlike on the surface, my gold fingers fuse with superstrength. I grip so tightly that I dent the stone.

Her brows lift.

I step onto the ledge.

My magic-burned hands, feet, knees, and shins shine with the daedalus’s sun. It’s striking. Even my skin is many times brighter than hers.

But here, I am the guest. She is my guide and my queen. I stand before her, ignoring the magic cauldron, and bow.

“You served the gods well,” she tells me formally with a rich, sonorous voice. “They rewarded you with power. However, you cannot enter the land of the dead with this power. You must divest it into this cauldron to carry on to your family in the fields.”

The gods rewarded me with power?

I had power in my life and I didn’t realize it? I’m used to being a human who observes and listens, not one who leaps forward and acts. Could I have used this power somehow?

Yes.

Understanding wells up in me. In fact, I did use it. This power is the reason I held on to baby Lifayis in the dark ocean. I held on to him in a fight against a monster. No ordinary human could’ve done that.

It’s also the reason I was able to reach the shore despite breathing in water, and it’s how I endured the walk with Lifayis in my arms. This magic made me stronger.

I could’ve used it to fight off Siqaris. I could even have used it to break my fall. I could’ve done so many things.

But I didn’t realize it, and so I didn’t.

Ah.

For the first time since entering this land, I feel an echo of emotion. Regret. That’s what this is. I could’ve used my power for so many good things if only I’d known it was there to be used.

I wasted it.

In the land of the dead, I can see the effects of my magic. I can tear off pieces of rock and shape them into something else. This kind of power could alter the boundaries between realms and threaten those who enforce them. It’s incredible.

The grandmother smiles softly. “You have enough power to rise to the stars. Five thousand years from now, people will look at the night sky and speak your name.”

She moves her hand in an arc.

The serpents on her wrist hiss, and sparkles rise. Overhead, the sky darkens, and the greatest heroes among my ancestors glimmer. Their unearthly forms hunt and dance, rule and pass judgment. Power sparkles from their bodies out into the firmament.

My heart lifts with exaltation.

Yes! I will rise and claim my glory!

There, among Queen Andromeda and King Perseus, Queen Cassiopeia and King Cepheus, I too will…

A funny sensation tickles my chest.

All these couples can spend eternity with the one they most love.

“What about Jeren?” I ask.

Her brows lift with greater shock. Although we have met only once before, we formed a strong impression on each other. The past me would never have dared to question fate. She’s surprised to find me so changed. “No icarus has received this honor.”

It’s true. The sky holds not a single name of any great warriors, no winged leaders, not any reminder of the daedalus or the icari. Someday, they will both be forgotten.

“If you reject the great honor of the stars, divest your magic into this cauldron, and float on to your kin, your deeds will be forgotten, your name erased from history, and all you wrought will fade into oblivion.”

I peer inside the cauldron.

Magic of the ages swirls. Tiny bits dropped off by souls, as a warrior pulls off fractured gauntlets and shin guards, or a fine noblewoman removes her ruby rings and gold diadems, leaving them aside to be more comfortable for her eternal rest. Bafis’s unspent feathers swirl up to the top, stirred by my presence. They look the same as all the others, but I know they’re his, somehow.

Melancholy seeps into my chest.

“You hesitate,” the grandmother says.

“I received a gift of magic, even though it nearly burned my physical body to death, and it’s sad to peel it off and waste it.”

“Sadness and happiness are small clouds in an infinite sky.”

“But the icari wish for more feathers so badly. If I could gather these unused ones and send them back, I’m sure the ancestors would want that for their descendants. They’re not using them. They might as well benefit the living.”

“For a brief whisper of time, too short to change anything.”

“Isn’t even a small delay fine? I freed their last guardian and left them nothing.” I close my hands into tight fists. “Can I at least give the magic in my body back, somehow, to protect them?”

“Why? You received it through no fault of your own. They killed you. You want to give the great gift you earned to those who hated and killed you?”

She’s right.

Within her, there is no mercy. The fury of broken vows and violent curses carried away all her children, almost all her grandchildren, and even one great-grandchild. All she wrought in the world was swept away in a fit of justified rage.

But I am not angry.

I am different.

“There’s an innocent child. I made a vow.”

“Your vow is fulfilled. And you, of all people, should know that a child’s destiny is their own.”

“There’s also a man…”

She sounds wry. “There usually is. But again, you should understand better than anyone that the heart is more changeful than the sea before a storm. That man has made no formal vows, promised nothing of himself.”

“Because he was trying to protect me.”

Her lids half close, and her voice flattens with skepticism. “Do not fix your soul on glittering promises spoken in the darkness lest you wake to find them misted away in the morning sun. Women are a useful convenience to men. Your service doesn’t cost him a thing.”

Her words echo my own worst thoughts.

“The river flows one direction,” she intones, invoking the deep magic of this place, which will remain even when all of earth is desiccated and blown away. “You cannot reverse it. No one leaves the land of the dead.”

“But you did.”

Awareness flashes in her eyes. In the moment she collected my daughter, she was as real as the sunrise. “I fulfilled the conditions of my contract.”

“So you did leave.”

“Because I had a string tying me to life. Look back now.” A small smile curves her lips. “The string is gone. Neither of us has any contract with the living. No one leaves the land of the dead.”

I follow her gaze back the way I’ve come. The waterfall flattens to show me the river, slow but steady, fading into the sky. There is no horizon. Only the river, inexorable, leading one way into the land of death. Like a labyrinth where all walls look like unbreakable stone, I could spend the rest of eternity trying to get out.

“And some do.” She points out a faded spirit floating by. He’s so ancient, he’s lost the memory of why, but still seeks a way out. “You’re too smart for that. Go to the stars, or to the fields. Choose.”

I go to the cauldron.

She sighs. “At least one of our line should’ve been honored for all time.”

“Do you wish you’d done that for yourself?”

Her eyes flash again. She remains silent. In the end, she made her choices, and after all this time, I’m not sure that she is sorry. She chose this throne. I see it in her eyes.

I want the honor in the stars.

But I want a life with my family more.

I dip one hand into the cauldron.

The magic loosens and slides off my fingers as if I’m rinsing off dirt.

It’s sad.

The last daedalus’s face shimmers in the water. He made a Pyrrhic bargain to save his sons. His story echoes to me. The sea monster tried to trick him, and he reversed the trick and escaped. The one who takes the magic and gets away with it is the one who wins.

It’s sad, but I have no other choice. I can’t go against the river. I can’t even see which direction to go back.

Suddenly, gold streaks across my body like lightning. A single heartbeat thumps in my chest. Jeren’s voice echoes in my ears.

“Numinthos, Daminthos, Qilinthos es.”

My blood outside my veins, my heart outside my chest, my soul outside my body.

A gold string wraps around my ribs. It stretches behind me into the labyrinthine river, and there, hidden between the river and the stars, is a thin layer of haze. It’s a warm sunrise.

The grandmother exclaims. “That’s a surprise.”

“It’s not a surprise.” My heart thumps again, loud. “It’s a contract.”

She rises. The snakes on her arms wriggle and the silver hawk flaps. Her eyes widen. “You can’t. You won’t!”

I have always followed the rules and the laws, while others have broken every one and gotten away with it.

There are always consequences. Good, bad. It’s impossible to know how things will turn out until the end.

One of my hands has been washed clean.

But the other holds the magic of a rebellious god.

I flex my magical hand to lift the cauldron.

It tears free from the ground with a thunderous clap.

The grandmother’s mouth drops open in shock. “You can’t carry that…”

I tip the cauldron up—one-handed—and put my lips to the rim.

Then I pour the magic into my mouth.

It sears my throat, burns my stomach, and splashes my face.

I gulp and gulp and gulp.

Burning sizzles, and it never goes numb; it only gets more violent and painful. It’s happy to be absorbed, eager to be channeled to a purpose, and I have a mighty purpose. Even as I feel my soul disintegrating, I keep drinking it in.

The last sound I hear is the daedalus’s laughter, echoing.

And then the cauldron is empty.

I drop it with a clang and wipe my mouth.

Somehow, I’ve swelled large, like a titaness.

The grandmother stands as high as my big toe. She shrieks at me. “What have you done?”

Because there are consequences.

Always consequences.

From the hole where I lifted the cauldron, the erinyes emerge like black bats. They screech like nails on a splintered board and fly around my face like clouds of flies, trying to tear the magic back.

I’ve broken the contract, and they punish those who do so by driving them mad.

Unless I get away with it.

I clasp hold of the gold string in my chest and lift off. Great wings the breadth of the sky flap against my giant body. I am made of gold, like the string around my chest. The string tightens, pulling me against the flow of the river like a small fish being reeled by an expert fisherman.

Jeren’s magic can’t avert fate.

But my fate right now is, for the first time ever, entirely my own.

The erinyes dodge my great down drafts. They will hunt me until I die and even afterward.

The edge of reality breaks around me.

I have one last view of the stars where I could’ve been famous. It’s dark and empty in the space where I should’ve been. How would I have posed? I wonder…

Or am I once again discounting my greatness?

Although the stars will not know my name, I reach beyond the shrieking erinyes, scoop up a handful of pebbles from the river, and throw them up, into the night sky.

The erinyes veer after them. They somehow think the pebbles are me, and they fly up into the sky.

The pebbles clatter into the firmament and hang suspended into a new shape. A person with wings. Not a single person the erinyes can harry, even though they try, but the shape of a race. The icari. My destiny is theirs now. I am infused with the power of all the icari gone before me.

* * *

I come back into my broken body with an excruciating gasp, eyes flying wide.

Jeren clasps my cold hands. He makes a noise. “Ayanakalia?”

How funny. He looks shocked even though he’s just given me the unbreakable vow that led me back to him.

Light glows from my chest.

I float off the ground.

He stands. My hand pulls free as I continue lifting into the sky.

Power from generations of icari pours into my body, setting my bones and healing any damage, and it keeps coming. Massive wings erupt from my shoulder blades and fill in with black feathers. They stretch across the sky.

And still, power floods me, crackling out my fingertips like lightning. The night turns bright as day, and everyone below shields their eyes. Their ancestors’ magic flows around us, swirling and spilling out. Everywhere it touches, wild things grow. Stone twists into unnatural shapes. A mouse grows as large as a leopard and scurries into the brush.

I have to shape the spilling magic into a form, or it’s going to be a disaster.

“Give them back their wings,” I whisper.

The magic shoots out, across the island. It strikes the icari in the chests, refilling their well of divinity.

Beneath me, Jeren screams and arches. Fully gold wings burst from his charred back. The black char peels away like an old scab, leaving behind a tattoo memorial of what he once lost.

It pours into the humans, causing their first wings to shoot out in a fantastic rainbow of precious metals and making their foreheads and eyes glow with the sun.

Across the whole island, to every living person, the magic of the ancestors floods them and remakes their bodies anew.

And still, the magic wells up in me.

I direct it to other purposes. Lift rocks and rebuild the old temple, reassemble the fallen icari statues in Daedakros. The streets I walk straighten and their bricks fall into place, smooth beneath my feet. The collapsed houses rise into place and are shored up. I infuse the magic back into the place of its birth, into the stone men and the clock, the fields and fish, into its homeland.

This is Ikaria. Land of the icarus. And, for a few more generations, it will be populated by men with wings blessed by the gods.

Overhead, the night sky twinkles.

It doesn’t have my name.

But when five thousand years have passed, people will look up and remember what was.

They will look up and remember the icarus.

Jeren

Ayanakalia dies as a human and is reborn as a god.

She floats in the sky above me, her black wings the color of night, yet she glows so brilliantly that the night turns to day. The jagged scar on her forehead darkens, yet glows as an unusual black crescent moon. Magic erupts from her healed fingertips and swirls over our island.

Her voice, although it seems a faint whisper, booms to the ends of the oceans. “Give them back their wings.”

Magic shoots into me.

My skin falls off with the crackle of dried leaves, and new wing bones lance out of my scarred shoulders. I scream in shock. But the sharper pain of losing all my magic recedes as I fill with the warmth and light of my magic returning. Not only the fragments I just tore out, but all the magic I ever had back to my earliest childhood, and then even more than that. Magic surges out of every pore. My hair grows, and so do my nails. My forehead, where I have the crescent moon, aches.

I lift up, floating into the sky, coming closer to level with her.

Magic swirls around Ayanakalia, welling up like a fountain of sparkling dust. Her eyes are black like her wings and contain stars. A jagged, crescent-moon-shaped scar on her forehead shines black and yet it radiates light.

And she’s alive.

Great gold wings frame my periphery. These wings are different from what I was born with, and I feel lingering sorrow for what I know I’ve lost, but to have any wings now is an even greater joy. I guess I’m still in shock. And I’m grateful that I’ll have the chance to grow used to these wings that are strange and new.

The other icari rise with me.

We didn’t fly out and sacrifice ourselves with our great ancestor. We resisted his battle cry if we heard it at all.

But now we rise to fly with Ayanakalia.

And with us float the unsteady humans with their new wings.

Ayanakalia points a finger, and the magic pours onto the ruins of the ancient temple. All the symbols glow white gold. The mechanical men rattle as they reassemble and move back into position. She restores the buildings, the town. Not as it was, as I remember it, but as an older version, a memory held by someone who kept it, treasured, long ago.

After Daedakros, she turns and flies south.

We follow.

On the path to Mallonia, Ayanakalia hovers over a woman nursing a broken leg. She’s trying to use sticks from her dropped bundle to fix it, but it’s not going well. She squints up at us, shielding her eyes. It’s Ayanakalia’s friend Marine. Her hair and clothes are mussed, and she has a red mark on one cheek.

Ayanakalia floats before her as if the magic is rippling too thickly for her to actually touch the ground.

“Daedalus,” Marine whispers.

“Your wings?” Ayanakalia asks.

The words are both normal for her and also have an unnatural echo, a roaring of magical power that makes them bounce off the hilltops.

Marine peers at the other humans floating around us. Like me, they have huge wings, but unlike me, they’re not gold. They’re all different colors. Marine clutches a wet robe around her back. “I heard your words, but nothing happened. There’s something wrong with me. I’m not magical enough.”

Ayanakalia smiles and touches her bruised cheek. “Friend, you are worthy. Believe.”

Magic floods Marine’s body. Gold streaks across the injury on her cheek, crackling and then wiping it away. She stands straighter, as if the magic is wriggling into internal injuries that we can’t see. Her robe dries and whips around her legs, and great amethyst wings burst forth from her back.

As with me, still, the magic pours in.

Marine’s open mouth glows and fire engulfs her, lightening her hair and eyes, turning the crescent moon on her forehead a brilliant white, and then it starts to tint her wings an iridescent silver, edging toward Ayanakalia’s not-quite-natural black.

Ayanakalia pulls back her hand.

Marine shudders, staggering off the path into the brush, but her wings lift her.

She gasps and runs a finger along the purple feathers. Her eyes shine. “Th-Thank you.”

Ayanakalia flies over Mallonia. The villagers pour out of their temporary shelter to see her. She makes sure each of them has wings, and then she kneels and touches the ground. The great fields turn green with grain sprouts. She touches trees, and they bulge with flowering fruit. She touches the temporary shelter, and the driftwood hardens, stones square themselves into a grand and ornate temple for wayfarers to rest.

She flies to Rokastia and works her magic there, and even flies to what’s left of Kyrinia. There isn’t much left of the original village. It’s all fallen into the sea.

So she lifts it out of the sea and undoes the cataclysms.

At one point during these miracles, I remember to take Lifayis back from the acolyte who was holding him. She gives him up with an easy smile. He’s super excited, eyes bright, and bounces and wiggles, energized.

Ayanakalia visits each homestead in the Reaches, then finally alights on the remaining fragment of mountain and walks down. Her feet touch earth, and the sun fades to dim night. Magic pours from her fingers into the old temple, shoring and shaping and restoring the carved rock, but unworldly darkness no longer swirls around her. She’s spent enough magic. It’s finally run out.

Thank goodness.

At the foot of the restored main temple, she peeks through the open doors at the reconstructed labyrinth—open air, now, without a ceiling—and then turns her back on it. She faces us, her icari and winged humans, almost indistinguishable.

“This is the light of your ancestors,” she tells us in a voice that’s no longer booming, but still isn’t entirely her own. “It will fade. Your children will have less than you do, and their children less again, so make use of what you’re given. And look.” She points at a bright spot in the sky. “Your wings will fade, your crescent disappear, but the idea of you will live forever.”

Her inner sunlight abruptly goes out.

Behind her, the stars glow. I see the shape of a man with wings.

“A woman with wings!” Marine exclaims, and everyone agrees it’s incredible.

In the darkness, firelight glows red from the abandoned ceremonial fire.

The icari and humans touch and embrace each other, exploring and discussing the new power that surges within us, gifts from ancestors we no longer know. It gives us a new sense of hope. Someday, our ancestor may lose the fight against the monster. Like a smoking volcano that finally erupts, flooding the land with red-black lava and terror, the monster could come up onto the shore again and consume our whole island. For now, though, we are remade, powerful and strong. We will raise our children and live well until that final time.

Ayanakalia stands alone.

She turns away as though saying goodbye to spirits, then she turns back to face us.

No one goes to her. No one touches or embraces her.

She licks her lips, her gaze searching, but no one calls her over or offers her any friendliness. She links her fingers like a person who doesn’t know where they belong.

I approach.

Ayanakalia fixes on me. Her eyes are still darker than before, and her wings are like a great raven’s, black and large. She braces herself.

“My house is not very great. It’s not at all fitting for a woman touched by the gods, but…” With Lifayis on one arm, I hold out my free hand. “Will you come?”

A relieved smile breaks across her face. She takes my hand. Her fingers are slim and cool, and they tingle with lingering power. My hands are hot from the jealous sun in my body, and I push my warmth into her as I fly with her back to our home.

It’s different, both of us flying with wings, but we figure it out and keep our hands linked. Lifayis wiggles. He wants to fly beside us. Next time, little man. I keep a firm hold on him, and we land in the darkness.

My protective symbols need to be replaced. The spilled grain needs to be swept away, and the fire has been scattered and has singed the blankets. I release her hand and retract my wings automatically to tidy. They retract without any effort. I will get used to them. I turn Lifayis’s crib upright, find a clean blanket, and set him inside.

He bounces and makes an oooh-wooo baby noise.

As I look around, the chores pop out at me. I need to make dinner, to clean, repair those shelves…there’s so much to do…

Ayanakalia lingers in the doorway, her black wings also retracted so only a shadow outline remains against the lighter black of night. While I make our meager room livable, she idly touches the crack in the lintel. The stone fuses together and lifts back into place.

I stop. “Did you just fix the lintel?”

She clasps her fingers. “Is that wrong?”

“No, I’ve been meaning to get to that for years now. It’s saved me.”

“Oh. Um, good, then.”

And suddenly, I feel hot. I can’t meet her eyes. The longer she stays in the doorway, the more my awkwardness grows. She’s a living god now. Or, not exactly, but she’s more powerful than any other creature in the islands. And what am I? It doesn’t bear thinking about. I finally ready a quick meal and offer her a plate without quite making eye contact.

She sits, and we share the meal, then I put everything away. I’m not exactly hungry. The magic gave me everything I need. But I’m just trying so hard to make things normal.

Lifayis is wide awake, but he lies quietly, staring at the ceiling, so I think he’ll sleep soon.

I set up breakfast, pile on the coals, and then debate my next chores.

She remains seated.

I finally meet her eye.

Her voice is low. “Am I a monster to you now?”

“No.” I shift around the fire and take her cool hand again. Touching her gives me reassurance. So much power is contained within these slim fingers. “I’m in awe.”

“Because I’m terrifying.”

I touch her cheek. “I sacrificed my wings and all my magic to have you with me. I never thought we’d be together alive.” My hand trembles against her cheek. “This feeling is shock. And happiness. This is gratitude.”

She smiles shyly.

Warmth fills my chest. This is her. Ayanakalia, my wife. All the rest of it—the stars in her eyes, the dark magic, her black wings—none of that changes what is essentially her.

“Your wish brought me back,” she tells me.

“No.”

“I heard you,” she insists, and rests her smooth cheek against mine.

I draw her slender form to me. “My soul, my heart, my life.”

“And mine.”

Her mouth seeks me, and our lips mesh. Heat floods my lower regions and fills my maleness with hard arousal. Underneath this magic she wears like a cloak, her arms and breasts and even belly are somehow chilled. I kiss her, pressing onto her my inner sunlight. She’s the moon in the night sky and more than I will ever be. And yet, right in this moment, we are two lovers enraptured with each other’s bodies.

I peel back her unfamiliar robes, caress her smooth olive skin, and cup her swollen breasts.

Lifayis suddenly awakens with an urgent noise, not quite a cry, but a warning that he’s about to be upset.

She laughs and stops me.

I gather him up. He’s dry, but he wiggles as he reaches for her. I wonder if he was just waiting politely all this time. I’ve gotten my reassurance that she still likes me, but he needs his. She holds up her hands to take him, then gets a funny look on her face.

“What?” I say.

“Oh, I was wondering if it’s okay.” She touches her breasts, then expresses a small amount of milk. It’s the normal color. “I guess it’s okay. The magic burns a bit as it wells up, so I wasn’t sure.”

She brings Lifayis to her breast. He latches, content, and wraps his little hand around her finger, squeezing. She looks down on him, and he looks up at her, and the tenderness that passes between them makes my chest ache.

After a short time, she switches sides. Lifayis drifts off to sleep, and I put him back into his crib, settling him in his nest. He’s getting bigger and heavier. Soon, he’ll outgrow this small crib. I should start working on the next size, I guess.

Ayanakalia watches us.

“Did you see your daughter?” I ask, a sudden tightness in my throat.

She nods.

“You still came back.”

“She’s well cared for with Raqessa and Bafis.”

My throat closes entirely. I want to say thank you because I’m suddenly sure this has cost her so much more than me, but I don’t want to make her sad.

She leaves her robe off, baring her plump breasts, and opens her palms. “I want to continue.”

The warmth that left me now pours back in.

I pivot and kneel before her.

She pushes the robes off my shoulders, then brushes my hardening shaft and pauses.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, my voice low.

“No, um…” She tucks a thick hank of her hair behind her ear, and I make a note to fix her braids as one of tomorrow’s chores. “You said you were okay with me changing, but sometimes words aren’t true.”

“All my words are true,” I assure her. “I’ve never in my life gotten in trouble for sweet-talking or compliments. Usually, I’m told that I should be less honest.”

“And sometimes the real feelings are reflected in a man’s body…”

I unfasten my trousers and sit back, pulling her forward to my lap. My darker honey-amber shaft rises proudly from its nest of white-blond curls. I draw her fingers to it. “This is my true feeling.”

She takes a shaky breath, and then she grips my shaft.

“Mm.” I close my eyes. “It’s good.”

She makes a happy giggle.

I settle back as she explores me with light and deft fingers. She measures my girth, then tests my endurance with sweet, hot strokes. Heat pulses into my shaft, hardening me more than the strongest ore. Her smile deepens, and then, just as I’m about to capture her mouth, she drops and kisses my member.

Oh, incredible.

Wet heat causes my balls to draw in. I jerk against her lips as she works me, and I lean back, giving myself to her, watching her head bob as her mouth suctions my maleness. She draws my seed toward her, and then her own moan vibrates against my shaft, and she uses her free hand to touch herself. She looks so lush and beautiful. My juices build up to an intolerable pressure.

I abruptly push her back, cover her lips with mine, plumb her with my tongue.

She gasps against my mouth. “Jeren.”

“Ayanakalia.” I kiss down her chest, over her belly to the crest of her pubic bone. Her skin tastes of salt and ash. I kiss her inner thigh and work toward her cleft, my favorite place, but she catches my mouth.

“Give me all of you.” She pushes me onto my back and straddles me.

“Yes.” I grip her soft hips, and she rests a steadying hand on my shoulder. Her entrance hovers over my hard shaft. She sinks, and her liquid warmth envelopes me in tight, wet heat.

I draw a shaky breath.

Every inch of me disappears inside her.

She whimpers sweetly, then squeezes me tight. I am completely encased by her. We entwine, motionless, in the awe of this connection. No matter how many years pass, no matter how many changes come, this will remain. A man’s root encompassed by a woman’s body, spirits combining as flesh is made one. This is the engine of life, the holiest dance of creation, and we make it now, our physical vow to match our celestial promise.

She rocks slowly, wringing my member from base to tip.

I lose my mind.

Her low moans grow louder and more frequent, our rhythm speeding to rushed and frantic.

I squeeze her waist, her hips, her buttocks as she bounces on me. Magic swirls in her infinite eyes, and she pants, helpless and moaning. I draw her into my kiss. From the very center of my heart, the vow that I took radiates into her. Her lips are my lips. Her face is my face. Hers are my eyes outside my body.

And then she cries out with pleasure.

Her shuddering release draws my seed from me, and I erupt, filling her with my life force.

She collapses on top of me.

I stroke her bare shoulder.

Her black wing outlines glimmer, blacker than shadows, and then they become real beneath my gaze. I touch the long feathers. They’re so full of magic, they almost seem to smoke. Beneath the pinfeathers is gray-black fluff. I scratch one, and she shifts, giggling. So, like mine, they’re ticklish.

She lifts up and looks me in the eye. “I want to give my vow to you.”

Emotion lodges in my throat. I manage to swallow and cough it out. “Okay.”

She selects a great, long, black feather and pulls it out, then frowns. “It didn’t hurt. Do you think I only have weak, white feathers? For ordinary wishes?”

I choke with laughter. “No, I think you have no weak feathers and in fact, an overabundance of magic.”

“Oh. Well, that’s okay, then.” She holds the feather in both hands and meets my eyes. “Numinthos, Daminthos, Qilinthos es.”

My heart thumps.

She lowers her feather to my chest.

I have this panicked feeling that, at the last moment, she’s going to toss it away breezily and tell me she changed her mind. She’s not satisfied living on this small, boring, falling-down, old homestead with just me. I’m a cursed son who grew into a cursed man, and not worthy to build a life with or be loved.

Then her feather touches my chest.

Black gold streaks around my body. The magic fills me up so full, I stretch around it, struggling to accept more. Her eyes glow black with night stars. This is her love for me. She means it. She wants to rebuild this homestead and settle into a boring, steady, deeply satisfying mortal life with me.

My heart swells with our unbreakable connection.

Her thighs still straddle mine, and she rocks again, suddenly heated. “Jeren, yes, I choose you…”

I pour my essence into her, husband to wife, and she throws her head back with joy for our shared climax.

In this life, the thread will not be broken.

And in the next, we will still be together.

Ayanakalia lies against my chest and heaves a great, satisfied sigh, and then she tells me everything that happened in the other land. It’s as I thought. She could’ve had her name in the stars, but instead, she gave it up to escape with our magic. She managed to distract the erinyes and put up our name instead.

There will be a consequence for it, someday, long after our time. But the immediate consequence is that no one will ever know her name.

“They will,” I tell her. “You’re an icarus now. We’ll never forget you. As long as there are people to tell a story, they’ll know of winged men from the sky who spread divine justice from the gods. You’ll see.”

She smiles as though she knows something I don’t.

I’m used to that, though.

I snuggle her closer to me. It’s fine. I don’t mind.

Ayanakalia is a woman who ends curses.

She ended mine.

We’ll be together forever.

She’s the one I get to keep.