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Chapter Ten

Alicia

Following Tsawo’s hurried directions, I threaded through the dawn-dark trees that surrounded the guest houses until I found a wide, flat path. A shadow fell across it: Tsawo, flying so his shadow led me. At first he flew slowly, but when I caught his shadow he sped up, and when I caught it again he sped up again. Eventually I ran all-out, almost floating across the ground with the long strides possible on this light world, his wing shadow just too far ahead for me to catch. The morning air, still damp with dew, cooled my skin as blood thrummed through my body and my strides lengthened.

A flier! A flier with me! And to run without a circle of metal around me, without anyone but Tsawo watching. Maybe Induan was right and I had Space Ship Shock. Whatever it was, I felt fully, gloriously alive for the first time since Induan and I had saved the babies from the mercenaries.

What would Tsawo be like? He felt sexy and wild and winged. That excited me, too. Perhaps that’s what I liked—powerful men. Like Joseph. Like Tsawo. I nearly stumbled. Best not to get confused. I added speed, and for a moment I outran the flier’s shadow, and then he caught me and started slowing down, so my own strides shrank to keep me near his shadow.

The grass beside the path shortened and changed color, as if I’d just run into a park. I noticed three long, low buildings to the right. A wider road ended beside the buildings. Small humped hills scattered across the shorter grass, and here and there bright green grass grew in perfect round circles. Thin strips of red and yellow flowers created straight lines on the field. Designed to be seen from the air!

Tsawo put on a burst of energy and changed direction above me, turning me off the path and onto the ground, putting the sun forty-five degrees to my back. Then he came down, his shadow and feet joining as he landed a few meters in front of me, laughing with exertion. The look on his face suggested he knew how polished his landing was, and how it awed me to see him put down so smoothly. I was breathing too hard from the run to say anything, but I gave him a thumbs-up.

He grinned, gasping, too, although not as noisily as me. “You’re fast!”

I used the back of my hand to wipe sweat from my forehead. “Could you have flown faster?”

“Only for a while.” He laughed, and I heard a hint of jealousy in his voice.

“You’d like to run like me, wouldn’t you?”

“Who wouldn’t? Welcome to Fliers’ Field. We’ll see if you can fly as well as you can run.”

“I want to fly like you do.”

He raised an eyebrow, studying me, not responding.

“Really. I want to have wings. I want to know about the mod.”

Now he shook his head. “You are clearly made to run like I am made to fly. As well switch a cloud with a river.”

“A river is water, and so is a cloud.”

“Perhaps, but the river is too heavy to fly without evaporating first.” Now there was laughter in his voice—not cruel, but not companionable either. Perhaps he thought I was a child.

“I am willing to try.”

He started toward one of the buildings, gesturing for me to follow. “Most who try what you’re asking evaporate, and never become clouds. I wasn’t hired to change your form, but just to teach you.

He opened the door. Inside, row on row of olive and off-white and brown contraptions hung on pegs. He pointed at them. “Your wings await.”

Oh. “There aren’t any pretty ones?”

“You can make something better after you pass some tests. We want to spot students from a distance.”

“Will it take long?”

“It usually takes years. But maybe if you fly as fast as you run, it won’t be so bad.”

I would. I’d fly really well. But I’d imagined looking like the fliers, graceful and kissed by sky. Everything about these wings looked awkward.

“How come there’s no one else here?” I asked.

“There will be. We’re early.”

Here and there, fliers touched the sky with color, but no one appeared to be heading our way. “Are you going to teach other people, too?”

“Right now?”

I nodded.

“No. Just you.” A puzzled look crossed his face. “Why?”

My cheeks heated and I looked away. “I’m just curious. I’m still trying to learn what Lopali is like.”

He started walking down the row of hanging dead wings, his own ebony wings making them into a mockery. He walked less awkwardly than most fliers, but even for him, the ground wasn’t comfortable. About halfway down he plucked a set from the wall and gestured me close. “Hold out your arm.”

I did, and the wing he held up to it was almost twice its length. “These’ll do.” He plopped them into my arms. I tensed, expecting weight. As big as the wings were, they were as light as my shoes. “What are they made of?”

“Carbon cloth, coated with temperature-regulating nanomaterials.”

At least they were probably more elegant in design than looks.

He grabbed a different rig from lower on the wall below the hook he’d plucked the wings from, and started back toward the door. I flipped the lightweight wings up so they rested on my shoulder and followed him, noting that from behind he really looked like nothing more than a pair of wings with a set of long feet below them. He even waddled a little.

That didn’t stop me from noticing his chest muscles and his long, strong fingers as he fit the wings carefully to my arms. He smelled of air. He smelled of sweat and the oil on his feathers and something musky, like sex but not quite that. Maybe it was just the difference between man smell and flier smell.

I didn’t want to feel so swayed by his nearness.

I loved Joseph.

I forced my focus back to helping Tsawo put the wings on me. Once all the parts were buckled and tightened and fitted to my shoulders and back and arms, and my fingers curled around the grips on the ends, and my legs fastened into fluttering cloth, I felt like a chicken trussed for dinner. There was nothing light and airy about the wings. Nothing beautiful, nothing comfortable. My shoulder blades itched with dried sweat from my run and there was no way I’d be scratching that itch until I got all of this stuff off.

I trotted a few steps and raised my wings.

Behind me, Tsawo laughed. “Not yet.”

But I wanted to fly.

“Remember, if you fall out of the air, the ground is hard.”

Duh. But I held my tongue and didn’t tell him what I thought of that sentiment.

“Follow me.” He sounded like Liam talking to Caro. Be patient. Do what I want. Well, I wasn’t a three-year-old, and he was my teacher, and so I followed him. Four steps in, I tripped over my own toes and almost fell, pinwheeling my arms to stay up.

He smiled. “Come on. It’ll be all right.”

“Can you help me?” I asked.

“You’ve got to learn to walk before you can fly.”

I listened for warmth in his patient voice. I’d heard it when he admired my running, but now his words sounded rote. Like words he used with students every day. Now that I was all dressed up in awkwardness, I was probably ugly.

I needed to peel my stupid self away from thinking about how Tsawo affected me. I was here, where I wanted to be. I was on Lopali, with a beautiful flier, learning to fly even before Joseph or Kayleen or Chelo, who were learning how to save the world.

I toddled forward, keeping my head up, determined not to fall before I reached wherever it was Tsawo was taking me.

More sweat poured off my face than when I ran to Fliers’ Field. A lighter sheen beaded Tsawo’s angular face, and his feathers glittered in the noonday sun. Two other students with another teacher had come, flown off, returned, and left, all while I stood in the sun being corrected, and corrected, and corrected. “Okay,” he barked, sounding like Jenna or Marcus forcing us to exercise on the ships, “Last ground exercise. Bend.”

I bent my knees so deep they screamed, holding the ever-heavier wings out to the side.

“Thrust.” I stood up, pulling the wings down gently, feeling a touch of lift at the top of my stand. This time, I managed to stop the downbeat before the wing tips brushed the grass.

“Very good. Bend.”

I thought he said one more. I bent.

“Thrust.

“Bend.

“Thrust.”

And then silence for three breaths while I stood there, thighs and butt clenched for strength, knees slightly bent for balance.

“Very good.”

I spoke through teeth clenched with the effort of standing just right. “Can I fly now?”

“No. Your wings aren’t part of you yet.” He glanced up. “Besides, it’s too hot. Your first flight should be a morning.”

Which morning? But I held my tongue, since I knew anything I said now would result in a third lecture about how flying could get you killed. I thought I did well, but the look on his face suggested maybe I didn’t. I didn’t ask. “Can you fly in the heat?”

He glanced up. “Almost no one flies this time of day. We fly in the morning. In the middle of the day the sun bakes our crops and flowers and the Keepers work and we sleep, and then later on we fly again if we want to.”

The sky was empty of fliers.

“So now you sleep,” he said.

I didn’t want to sleep. But I didn’t think he was going to give me a choice. “So do I go home?” I didn’t relish the trip in this heat, and I didn’t want to be done with Tsawo yet, even though I should.

“No. There are rooms here. I’ll put you in one.”

And him in another. I could hear that. I was a chore to him. “And then?”

“Then Marcus asked me to show you the general layout of the town.”

He didn’t sound thrilled about it. He sounded patient, like he’d sounded all morning. Hopefully the rooms had running water so I could get the salt and sweat off my face and neck before we went anywhere public. If I couldn’t fly in them, I wanted the wings off. I slid a hand out of the wing-tip grip and reached it toward the other arm. One wing hit the other, and all my careful balance fled as I struggled to stay upright at all.

“Do you remember how I said you should get them off?”

I held them in front of me, and slid just my wrists free, using my right hand to unbuckle the left forearm fastening, and the left, awkwardly, to get the right fastening loose. Now I could bend both arms at the elbows and free my biceps. Except the wings slammed together again and this time I fell on my butt.


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