story - part 7 - memory -1461 words

The pains kicked in when I was thirteen, the unpleasant sensation of bones shifting and morphing, muscles slowly reforming. Bone sliced through my skin, tiny tufts of down that grew in a matter of months into long, sleek black feathers. I ached constantly, as they stretched and grew. But they were worth it.

This was barely a year after I was sent away to be schooled, to be hidden from the public eye. Delivered unwittingly into her nimble hands, into her grasp. She was furious, when I first arrived, when news of my brother's birth spread through the kingdom. I was already a failure, in her eyes. Already she was calculating how best to use me, how best to make me obey her. I was no longer her beloved first and only child, but a tool against her brother.

The lessons I learned there were far different from those secular classes I had taken before. Theirs leaned toward teachings on poise and control. The avid priests, the Inspired, taught me how to make people believe what I wanted them to, how to coax people into awe and fascination. How to pitch my voice just so, to make it sound hollow and whistling, like the wind. It was all posturing and poising, there was no substance beneath it, no truth to the religion they claimed to believe in so strongly. It stole what little faith, what few beliefs I had, away from me.

She taught me skills with more substance behind them. She taught me how to mend bones, to treat illnesses, to write official letters. While they taught me how to stand out and command attention, she taught me how to stoop and disappear into the background. How to take care of myself in cities, how to survive in the woods. She taught me how to seem common, how to lose that haughty edge and bow.

On occasion she would dig out huge tomes that she treated with reverent care. When she opened them, it was a slow and careful process, turning the pages with shaking fingers, as if afraid they would crumble to pieces. Diagrams were sketched neatly on the pages, I recognized it as her handwriting. I remember the ink as a rusty red, something faded and dark. At the time, I thought it was blood, though I never asked. These were forbidden books, books of dark arts that were meant to be long dead, books of blood and magic. She did not teach me much from these - only enough to show me how strong she was, how powerful.

Most importantly, she taught me to obey her before anyone else. Sometimes this was done with quiet words, the soothing smile of a mother and a gentle nudge in the right direction, but this was rare. Usually I was dragged along like a rag doll, swept up in her wake.

I could not go against her will. Perhaps it was because she was the only person who ever loved me, even if it was in a twisted, mad kind of way. Or perhaps it was because I knew the consequences of biting back. I did not have any secrets, or any choices of my own.

Imagine him, this grey-eyed boy, at the age of fifteen. Again, friendless; again alone in the world, except for her. Those long black wings, while not new, are still fresh enough to be exciting. Perhaps, with training and effort, he will be able to fly. The Inspirare, the great winds that sweep through the country, are strong enough on occasion to catch in feathers and to draw the weight of a person upward.

She is understandably bitter. Her own back is marked with a pair of twin scars [stunning in their own right, they speak volumes about her past], her wings a thing of the distant past. Her shoulders are designed to support more weight. Her spine has settled into something crooked and stooped, it makes her shorter and he can tell that she always aches. She hides it well, but he has seen her wince with a gesture that is too sudden, or down far more valerian in her tea than is healthy. He worries, sometimes, but does not mention it. He doubts she would react well.

Sometimes, he sneaks out at night to climb partway up the massive mountain the city of Verra is built into. He does not get very far, he is too afraid of the fall to get to any dangerous heights. When he is several body lengths up, he waits for the winds to whip past and throws himself out and up, spreads his wings wide into the flow. Twice, he has managed to catch the gust, to glide back to the earth. Other times, he has tumbled his way down the mountainside, ended up bruised and battered at its base. He tries anyway.

This night, this imaginary night, he returns with a long scrape up the side of his neck, ragged scratches against his cheek. He ducks his head as he slips past her rooms, so dangerously close to his own, but she sees him anyway, drags him to a halt with a single word. He is trained to school his expression into something calm and superior, but it is hard around her. She is different.

"You have hurt yourself." As she inches idly up to the doorway, comes to rest beside him. It is strange; she barely reaches his shoulder, she has to crane her head up and back to peer at the blood against his throat, but she makes him feel three inches tall.

"I...I fell. It's nothing major, I just...fell." With a flinch. Her fingers have settled cold against the side of his neck, brushing over a particularly deep part of the injury. She does it on purpose, she smiles tightly as his eyes shift away, as his nervous fidgeting.

A pivot on her heels. She does not have to tell him to follow, her very posture and the way she moves is an order. She is so beautiful - he has thought this before, it echoes in his mind, it brings to the surface thoughts that he knows he should not be thinking. He has heard some of the other boys talking about the servant girls they have conquered, their language crude and their tones snickering, but he does not think that way about her. He just thinks she is beautiful, and wishes he could touch her.

The way she sits him down on the edge of her bed is almost affectionate. A physician's kit is opened and sanitizing tools produced with an air of familiarity. Her hands are steady as she wipes away the blood, cleaning that wound slowly and carefully [they know how to mend what is broken]. He is careful to sit very still, not to make a noise, even as she smears iodine across his skin. It is not bad, it is not deep.

A soft rustling of cloth as she perches beside him on the bed. He still cannot look her in the eye, but he can catch glimpses of her expression, still settled into that tight smile. There is something dangerous about it, some threat that he cannot put his finger on.

"What were you doing?" Her tone sharp. It is not a voice that he wants to lie to, he can sense something bunched and angry about her. Perhaps her back aches tonight, or perhaps she has been thinking about unpleasant events. Whatever the reason, she is coiled like a serpent, prepared to strike.

But he cannot bring himself to tell her that he was trying to fly, not after having seen the puckered scars that sweep down from her shoulders, twin crescents. He stares down at his hands and chews on his lip, watching uncertainly as her long fingers twine in between his own. A rough pressure, it is uncomfortable but it does not hurt. "I was...I was just out for a walk, and there was a loose rock," and abruptly that explodes into a flash of pain, his mouth tastes coppery as bone bends and finally snap, he dissolves into a soundless noise. She is still passive, watching his face, gripping the broken finger in her own palm and watching him attempt to curl in on himself, to make that pain fade away.

"Never lie to me Corbett. Never." Her expression is still calm as she sets the bones back into place and begins the careful process of splinting and binding it.

"I am smarter than you, child, and I am not afraid to hurt you. Do not forget."

She is right. And he never forgets.