The Water Catchment: fast forward to the past

(a novel manuscript and exegesis)

By Josepha Dietrich

Candidate for Master of Arts (Research) KK51

2012

Key Terms:

Hero’s pathway

Social Reality

Dystopia

Utopia

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Abstract

The Water Catchment: fast forward to the past comprises two parts: a creative piece and

an exegesis. The methodology is Creative Practice as Research; a process of critical

reflection, where I observe how researching the exegesis, in my case analysing how the

social reality of an era in which an author writes affects their writing of the protagonist’s

journey, and how this in turn shapes how I write the hero’s pathway in the creative piece.

The genre in which the protagonist’s journey is charted and represented is dystopian

young adult fiction; hence my creative piece, The Water Catchment, is a novel manuscript

for a dystopian young adult fantasy. It is a speculative novel set in a possible future and

poses (and answers) the question: What might happen if water becomes the most powerful

commodity on earth? There are two communities, called ‘worlds’ to create a barrier and

difference where physical ones are not in evidence. A battle ensues over unfair conditions

and access to water. In the end the protagonist, Caitlyn, takes over leadership heralding a

new era of co-operation and water management between the two worlds.

The exegesis examines how the hero’s pathway, the journey towards knowledge

and resolution, is best explored in young adult literature through dystopian narratives. I

explore how the dystopian worlds of Ursula Le Guin’s first and last books of The Earthsea

Quartet are foundational, and lay this examination over an analysis of both the hero’s

pathway within and the social contexts outside of the novels. Dystopian narratives

constitute a liberating space for the adolescent protagonist between the reliance on adults

in childhood and the world of adults. In young adult literature such narratives provide

fertile ground to explore those aspects informing an adolescent’s future.

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Table of Contents

Statement of Original Authorship v

Acknowledgements vi

Creative Work – a novel manuscript: The Water Catchment 7

Exegesis: Fast forward to the past 156

Introduction 156

Part one: Literature Review 158

Part two: Case Studies 166

Part Three: Creative Reflection 176

Conclusions 181

References 183

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Statement of Original Authorship

The work contained in this thesis is my own and has not been previously submitted to meet the requirements for any award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.

Signature: ______

Josepha Dietrich

Date: ______

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Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge and thank my ever optimistic and encouraging principal supervisor,

Professor Sharyn Pearce, and my secondary supervisor, Dr Vivienne Muller, who quickly

read the first, very rough draft of the manuscript and exegesis a few weeks before I gave

birth.

My Masters cohort, nicknamed ‘Youthfuls’, were a group of six who sailed the difficult

seas of first time novelists, fixing leaks and jagged holes along the way—great sea mates

all of them. And last, but certainly never least, Brett (a great sci-fi reader), for his editor’s

hat and clear-sighted critique.

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Chapter 1

The air chilled Caitlyn’s pin-backed ears; I must look like a dragon to the people on the ground below, she thought, with her smoke-breath steaming in and out. She gave a strong flap of her wings and glided over the Chrysalises that hung outside the village Tymward.

Caitlyn looked down and saw the many-slung cloth beds between the trees; the

Chrysalisean’s snuggled into their folds. If only I could crawl inside for a time, Caitlyn thought, and then yawned.

At twelve she had arranged a sling up above her bed and slept in it for a year, playing at being part of a Chrysalisean collective. At thirteen her mother dismantled it and told her

“child’s play is over now—you are a Chrysalis, my child, as your blood is in, but do not mimic common Chrysalisean habits. You are above them … I can hardly wait ’til you’re a deputy and we have another born Strymburg as head of Ethnel like me.”

Caitlyn had felt so lonely after dismantling her sling that she’d allowed her sister,

Asteria, to share her large bed for weeks just for the company.

Caitlyn glided in the dark, past the Chrysalises on her way to the arrow makers’ den, catching an occasional line from the warbling stories passed from tree to tree: “try removing your blindfold, old one” and “oh, you were given too much Straken as a child.”

Did she remember her own Straken? She reached under the Straken mandala to her breast plate of ravens feathers and pulled out her own lucky specimen of the aged branch; its sap collected in clumps like amber. She scratched at a dried clump—it gave off a medicinal, tart scent like a squashed spider.

The Chrysalisean voices caused a rush of excitement. They’ll look upon me today as their deputy, Caitlyn thought, and then glanced at them one more time. She re-checked her family was trailing in her flight path—for the first time.

7

What Caitlyn lacked in Chrysalisean closeness she’d surely get from being their

leader—they belonged to her. The thought made Caitlyn smile and it woke her senses. The

fresh cut straw from yesterday drew into her throat; she tasted its grain.

The field borders of Tymward were Caitlyn’s favourite outside of Slynblade Hall.

Like an eddy of water they swirled off into circular spaces left and right. With no trees in the centre, Slynbladians could see what or who walked on the ground. Winged ones decided long

before to build on solid earth to avoid their homes collapsing along with a fallen bough.

Slynbladians built their village sites above flood level on hilly rises.

On rare occasions over her growing years, Caitlyn had visited high-ranking family

friends in their homes. She’d take in all the details of the day to relive later when she was

bored or unhappy. Once she’d noted sprigs of straw-bale poking through the compact mud

wall and a particular male Chrysalis had passed a full circle seven times round the un-

shuttered openings of the house. The realization he was spying on her had made her flush

with pleasure.

She lowered her position over one of the village’s eddies: a field of greens. Nestled

halfway into the forest, was a single-storey stone castle. Its entrance was the start of a maze

abandoned, as if children no longer cared to find its hidden centre. Once through the entrance

the maze was open and led directly into the cool interior of the arrow makers’ dens: Shar-

rook’s home.

Caitlyn knew Shar-rook well. He’d trained her in aerial archery and taught her how to

use the modified preening comb, strapped to her upper arm, to fix an arrow that didn’t shoot

straight or to brush ruffled feathers back into shape for flying. He had the calm presence of a

mountain. If he was nearby you knew you were safe.

8

Caitlyn scattered pebbles with her three-step landing. The panelled front door stood

wide open. She heard the crunch of gravel from her family’s landing as she made her way to

the door. Caitlyn entered and Shar-rook embraced her.

“Good morning to you deputy—ready for the big day?” said Shar-rook.

Caitlyn shrugged her shoulders and jiggled on the spot. “I think so.”

Shar-rook winked at her, then looked over her shoulder. “The chambre is ready, my leader.”

Nicholaz clapped his hand on Shar-rook’s shoulders then followed Danyobe and

Asteria in the direction of the hexagonal chambre off to one side of the main entrance.

Caitlyn watched Shar-rook’s wing stumps rub left and right under his leather jerkin in time

with his footsteps. The pain and fear Shar-rook must have experienced having his wings

ripped from his body when he’d saved Nicholaz’s life made Caitlyn’s heart ache.

Shar-rook returned to Caitlyn. “Well my little dove—ready for some new plumage?”

Caitlyn rolled her eyes. “What’ll I do with you, Hawk-Father? Plumage indeed!”

Shar-rook chuckled.

Caitlyn let out a deep sigh. “Straight into it I suppose?”

“At least the first bit’s nice. There’s a meal of hot rabbit with prune waiting and your

clothes are all hung up with many a handmaiden to arrange you.”

“You can stop teasing me, thank you. I’m your deputy and you must address me as

such.” Caitlyn went briefly on tip-toe and acted haughty like a peacock shaking its feathers.

“All right, eat first then get dressed. Thulinde’s in there already checking and re-

checking all is safe.” Shar-rook clapped and Caitlyn felt the business of her coronation had

begun.

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“Look! It shimmers as if it were alive,” said Caitlyn admiring herself in the only

mirror in Shar-rook’s home. Handmaidens plumped up the cloth around her wrists and made

minor alterations around her waist with a quickly sewn gather.

Caitlyn ran her fingers over the ribbed fabric down her front. She’d longed for an

outfit like this, of finest pebble-dye. As the handmaidens fussed over the final fit, Caitlyn

thought of all the hours required to make her clothing. Every rib was created by a tiny pebble

pushed under the silk base until it formed a bubble which the sempster would tie in place and

then dye it a separate colour to the rest of the cloth.

“I heard from a Bushbird that the ghosts of your deputy chest plate miss their feathers so greatly they’ll catch you in flight and jab at your eyes until you relinquish it. You’ll find

out soon enough, I suppose. Only one more sleep until you meet the Fortedemain leaders. I

wonder if they’ll chew on their beech twigs or choke on them? Stupid pigs,” said Asteria, her

voice booming around the walls.

Caitlyn limped over to the morning table. With the Slynbladian emphasis on flight, her legs were weak from underuse.

“Be quiet with your ghost stories! This is my day and I don’t want to banter about the

Fortedemains nor the possible war that you brought upon my shoulders,” said Caitlyn.

Asteria shrugged and then picked up a whole roasted quail and sniffed. “Why do the

cooks always stuff them with thistle? It’s so bitter.”

“I like it. And anyway our parents don’t listen to your maggoty thoughts, so stop

jesting about the exchange wood. You know how father feels about that.” Caitlyn positioned

her wings tight behind her back to act as a chair’s backstay as she stepped over the bench to seat herself.

“If those scarecrows dare argue about what’s fair, us Strymburgs will show them what strength really is. What true leader travels by foot anyway?” Asteria gulped down a draught

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of watered down wine and continued. “When the Fortedemains stop to urinate they can use

only one hand at a time to fight. Can you imagine one of their smudged faces warding us off

with one hand gripping the hilt of his sword and the other gripping—”

“That’s enough!” said Caitlyn, then bent her face close to her raven’s chest to sniff at

the musty feathers. The smell of power.

“Once the war’s over someone else will be sniffing those feathers,” said Asteria slyly.

Caitlyn blushed. “You know I don’t think of him that way. It’s like you’re talking about our brother, so shut up!”

Asteria raised her eyebrows, then leant her tall frame forward over the table to

Caitlyn. “Do you think we will face them on the battle field soon?”

“I think you need to calm down. First my coronation, then I meet the Fortedemains as

deputy. Then we’ll see. Things will be different when I have more responsibilities,” said

Caitlyn.

“We’ll have to stop our game. Remember whoever collects the last bone wins and as

you’re busy-as-a-bee I’m going to get all the keepsakes for the year.” Asteria mouthed the

words ‘I’m the winner’, ‘I’m the winner’, then suddenly extended her wings to make the

bones strung through her ochre-dyed wings rattle.

Caitlyn rolled her eyes. “Well let’s see, winning at keepsakes or ruling Ethnel. I

wonder which is best?” Caitlyn met Asteria’s glare forcing her to lower her head.

The halting steps on the other side of the door made Caitlyn swivel around.

“Knock, knock woodpecker,” said Shar-rook from behind the thick, oak panelled

door.

“Almost ready!” called Caitlyn and stood, flexing her wings.

A handmaiden held out the last piece of clothing in Caitlyn’s coronation outfit. It was a half-mask worn by her ancestors from long ago and had been stored in cloves to protect its

11 fine stitching and embroidery. As Caitlyn slipped it over her head, the reek of clove oil made her momentarily nauseous.

“Good luck by the way,” said Asteria smiling. “I hope your future husband doesn’t pass his father the wrong tools—all blinded by your moonshine eyes and all.”

Caitlyn exhaled, releasing a build-up of tension. “Thulinde won’t see my eyes.

They’ll be closed.” She looked across at her sister. “I am glad you are in better spirits than two days ago.”

“I am glad you’re less ruffled, even with the upcoming event,” said Asteria, but her voice held an edge.

“Ruffled?” Caitlyn waved away the handmaidens, waiting until they had retreated before she added in an undervoice. “Funnily enough, I wasn’t feeling my best after putting a

Fortedemain carcass you killed into the great kilns.”

“Yes, thank you for helping to haul him in. Never was your calling, disposing of human bodies.” Asteria laughed exposing a half-masticated piece of quail.

“You’re developing too much blood lust. If you truly crave human bones to replace eagle ones in those creepy wings of yours, then as deputy I’m suspending the keepsake game all together.” Caitlyn turned her back on her sister. “Shar-rook!”

Caitlyn’s smile faded on seeing Shar-rook’s expression. He was silent, owl like and just stared at Caitlyn. His face was lined with a puckered knife wound on his left cheek.

Is Shar-rook seeing my mother as a child in me? The robe can’t smother who I am.

“Am I a vision of a leader in my finery?” asked Caitlyn.

Shar-rook bowed formally. “You need a stiff drink by the pallor of your flesh, young deputy,” he said. The lines on his face eased when he smiled.

Tears sprang up in Caitlyn’s eyes. She nodded for fear her emotion might reveal itself in her voice.

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Shar-rook held up a dusty earthenware bottle. “There’s no caramel colouring in this

old brandy,” he said. Shar-rook shooed away the servants and filled two fine clay cylinders,

handing one over to Caitlyn himself.

They chinked cylinders. “To deputy Caitlyn’s health and our future!” Shar-rook said.

Caitlyn sipped it gingerly, noticing that the handmaidens watched her closely.

“Drink faster, it’ll fortify you,” said Shar-rook.

Caitlyn peered into the cylinder. The brandy’s colour was apricot. She gulped it down in one to chase down her fears with its liquid fire.

Shar-rook poured again.

The strong, sweet sting of the liquor caught at the back of her throat. “Thank you.”

Caitlyn thanked all the handmaidens present, ignoring Asteria. She left the room with her head held high.

The corridor leading to the chambre was made in stone. With the sun not yet up its coolness was like an icy finger going up Caitlyn’s spine. She turned the corner after Shar- rook. The chambre door had an oiled second-skin of cow hide covering it. He opened the door without making a sound.

“Deputy Caitlyn emerges!” Shar-rook called into the room.

Caitlyn’s parents were perched along window seats with rich tapestry throw pillows behind their backs. Out of the corner of her eyes Caitlyn saw Asteria hop and skip aided by half-flight over to their parents.

Thulinde was squatting before a raging fire, stocking it until it licked up through an open vent in the roof. He stood on seeing Caitlyn, and stared directly at her. Caitlyn guessed

Thulinde wanted to protect her. “If I could carry the pain for you I would,” he seemed to say.

Sweat broke out on Caitlyn’s forehead—her body’s odour came in sharp as if she hadn’t washed. She nodded and smiled briefly to acknowledge Thulinde, her betrothed.

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“I’ve got you, you’re safe with me.” Shar-rook took Caitlyn’s arm and led her to the

instruments.

“I’m so proud of you my cherub,” said Nicholaz.

“As am I,” Danyobe echoed.

Caitlyn looked over at Asteria. Her arms were crossed and she stared ahead with

pursed lips.

The layered clothing and heat from the fire was suffocating after the coolness of the

stone corridor. She pretended to shift her Straken mandala, loosening the clothing around her

neck instead. Involuntarily she sniffed at the air imagining she caught a faint hint of burnt

flesh.

The golden stool with its headrest was positioned near the eastern corner of the room

next to a glassless window. The first golden rays of the day would shoot down the vegetable

field like travelling arrows and hit the top of Caitlyn’s head signalling the coronation should

begin.

“I’m ready, position me.” Caitlyn held her hand out to Shar-rook. She walked forward

and lowered her knees onto the padded, shot-silk yellow stool. Arms at her side and with her eyes closed Caitlyn tilted slowly forward to rest her forehead against the rectangular pillow.

The rest of her weight was supported by her own breast plate of thick bone; the strongest part of her body, made to support the movement of her wings.

Shar-rook whispered words of encouragement to Caitlyn. She was aware that the crackling fire concealed her family’s voices. If they spoke at all she didn’t know with her

face buried in the headrest.

“Breathe deeply child.” Caitlyn heard Shar-rook instruct her. As she did what he said her mind wandered away into the ceiling’s exposed beams and round the charcoal stained walls. Shar-rook rubbed her shoulders and the tops of her arms through the fine cloth with a

14 sticky ointment that tingled. Her arms seemed to disconnect from her mind. I’m drugged, she thought thickly. The brandy had been just more than a celebration. Dear Shar-rook, trying to save me the pain.

“Are you ready?” Shar-rook asked Caitlyn.

“Yes!” Caitlyn heard herself say.

It was as if Shar-rook was waking her from a deep sleep. His left hand with its three stumps from the knuckles up pressed firmly into the flesh of her left shoulder. He had lost the fingers in ‘the reign wars’. Her father had told her the bedtime story many times when she was a child. When he’d first married into the Strymburg family there had been no time to enjoy a simple life. The first action he and Danyobe took as newlyweds was to go to war in

‘the reign wars’ to protect Ethnel from invasion. Shar-rook had received a slice to his hand from a Fortedemain axe when he saved Nicholaz’s life. It was the first injury in a vicious assault. Her father always said he would never forget his life debt to Shar-rook.

Caitlyn experienced the firebrand’s heat swing near her.

A fire entered her from the right. She screamed into the cushion. The morning’s rabbit meal returned to the back of her throat. She swallowed it down again not wanting her family to witness her loss of control.

“Brandy, more brandy,” she gasped as she kneeled back from the supportive headrest.

Tears burned Caitlyn’s eyes—everything smelled like frying meat.

The sword blade pain of the dove-emblem branding disappeared quicker than she’d imagined. Caitlyn snatched the offered brandy from Thulinde’s ringed fingers, then peered intensely into Shar-rook’s face. His eyes shifted emotion: kindness, sadness, pride and love.

She winked both eyes at Shar-rook in mutual understanding. “Thank you,” she whispered. He’s protected me from the worst of its bite.

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Caitlyn re-positioned herself for the final branding. Her mother had repeatedly told

her growing up “learn from the birds who cull their young in time of draught to raise one

chick for prosperity and to save themselves. You may fly among other Slynbladians but in

battle against the Fortedemains you’ll see your fellow winged differently. I swear on the

catchment that the branded emblem of our family infuses you with a superior strength as if

the puckered scar holds a potent medicine which releases into your blood when under duress.

Lead strong, but in danger cull your young. Feel the emblem’s power for courage.”

Soon Caitlyn would fly past hundreds of Slynbladians—as many as could fit in the sky above Tymward—to witness the burnt cloth on her shoulders and red-raw, puckered scars of the new deputy.

Caitlyn stood with the aid of Shar-rook’s and Thulinde’s gentle hands. “All done now child, all done. You were brave,” said Shar-rook.

Nicholaz fluttered forward to Caitlyn and kissed her on both cheeks avoiding touching her arms. He placed a dampened cloth in her hand to wipe the sweat off her face. Danyobe was next. “You’ve got great responsibilities now, and I’m proud to have you as my offspring,” she said.

Caitlyn nodded gravely at her mother, aware of the solemnity of the situation. She remained mute with the poppy infusions Shar-rook must have added to the brandy, the opiate numbing the room’s events. Mother’s proud of me. Happiness seeped into her body lightening the pain.

Asteria stepped in and reached up to place her hands on Caitlyn’s shoulders.

“Don’t!” Caitlyn gripped Asteria’s wrists.

Asteria flushed.

“Can’t you be happy for me?” asked Caitlyn.

“I am,” said Asteria, in a neutral tone.

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Caitlyn held Asteria in front of her. Asteria’s pulse tapped against Caitlyn’s fingers as

regular as a woodpecker’s.

Shar-rook intervened. “The day Caitlyn’s dove-emblems are shoulder-to-shoulder

with the multicoloured stripes of Thulinde’s elders’ crest is the day you can face the branding

iron my dear. Such a handsome couple they’ll make. I wonder, are you asking our deputy if

Thulinde has a distant cousin?”

“I don’t think of such lowly things Shar-rook. I’m merely congratulating my sister. I

shan’t take just anyone. I’ll have a say in who I pair with, which’ll happen soon enough.”

Asteria bowed. “Congratulations again deputy,” she said.

You just congratulated my feet. Caitlyn noted that her sister’s eyes were dark and unfriendly.

“Don’t fear. Your day will come.” Danyobe placed a hand on Asteria’s shoulder and winked at Caitlyn. “Won’t she?” she said.

“Yes, of course,” replied Caitlyn. Her mother was focusing on making Asteria happy to avoid an outburst of anger.

Asteria drew a circle on one shoulder with a finger. “I’ll ink mine bright red—like new blood—so eyes go straight to my status.”

Danyobe chuckled.

Asteria makes Mother laugh and me cringe as usual, thought Caitlyn.

Danyobe pointed over Caitlyn’s shoulder.

Two handmaidens in heavily woven cloth stood half-bent behind her with a needle and thread to pin back Caitlyn’s sleeves for better viewing of the branding by Slynbladians.

The sun’s rays shot through into the candlelit room immediately brightening it.

The smell of charring meat remained in Caitlyn’s nostrils. A faint nausea permeated her belly. Her instincts told her to find cold water and salve but she wasn’t allowed. Her

17

strength and courage must show itself in her suffering. Caitlyn heard the ‘doof, doof, doof’ of

a beating drum and reached immediately for the newly sewn shoulder seams. The rough

stitches mirrored the swollen flesh of her brandings.

Asteria drew in a sharp breath. “It’s time, it’s time …”

Caitlyn saw her mother place a comforting hand on Asteria’s arm. “Calm and dignity, remember?” Danyobe shared a smile with Asteria.

This is my day! Asteria’s trying to steal my coronation away from me. Caitlyn spoke

up. “Mother, could you help me with this cloak?”

Danyobe came straight over to Caitlyn. “You look beautiful my darling. Let’s get you

in the air in front of all these Slynbladians.”

“I can’t wait to wear the Haast necklace,” said Caitlyn.

“Yes, it was one of my proudest moments as a Chrysalis—inheriting my Strymburg

status.”

“And marrying me,” said Nicholaz making them laugh.

Danyobe eased her weight onto her right foot. For a moment, Caitlyn considered asking Thulinde to bring a stool for her mother to rest her knobbled knees. Her legs were so

fragile now, from lack of use. Caitlyn bit back the request. On a day like this her mother

wouldn’t want any sign of weakness to show.

As she flew, the coronation cloak trailed behind her. The flip, flap of her cloak in the

wind reminded Caitlyn of a whipping snake’s head.

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Up in the sky she entered the snail shaped spiral Slynbladians had created in the air above Tymward. The Slynbladians were floating five deep, in well-ordered rows. On the ground they covered every possible surface that would hold them.

Caitlyn’s breath caught in her chest. What if I need to vomit? Stop thinking. Stop

thinking, she told herself.

She looked down upon Asteria who, as the younger sibling, had to circle below her on

this day. From above Caitlyn could see the Strymburg Dove crests on Asteria’s wings. The

crests were such a vibrant white they appeared to hover atop the wings. As children they used

to play games where an artist would paint a funny face onto one of the crests and then

surprise one another with it later. Caitlyn recalled getting Asteria into trouble once when she

was very young with a blind folded dove peeing on their mother. Asteria had giggled

uncontrollably and fallen on the ground after seeing Caitlyn’s picture in flight practice.

Nicholaz had punished Asteria by snipping off a tip of one of her long primary feathers—a

painful and humiliating rebuke. And also a warning to the other Slynbladian children present

that harsher punishments would befall them if they failed to follow Strymburg rule, even in

practice.

All the Slynbladians who were used to flying in echelons kept their positions in the

air. Caitlyn entered ahead of her parents. At the top of her cape were autumnal coloured

feathers long enough to catch the breeze and fly out straight. The vibrant cobalt and

cornflower blues of the coronation cape caught at the corner of Caitlyn’s astute eyes. Several

times the shock of its brilliance made her whip her head around as if someone was tailing her

too closely. The action bunched up the feathers covering her shoulder blades. Caitlyn had

stiffened their plumage with beetle shellac—their crushed leaf scent perfumed her face.

Caitlyn made her way down the thick avenues of Slynbladians. A grey haired female

flapped faster to keep abreast with her neighbours. Caitlyn tuned into what she was singing.

19

“Beauty, oh my beauty, you’ve calmed storms among us.

Don’t let the fear take thy breath,

Breathe now, my lording.”

The intensity of the woman’s war song sung by parents to their babes-in-arms unsettled Caitlyn. She moved past her fast to a young man with eyes so pale they matched the clouds.

“You’re the best of me deputy,” he said in a strong voice.

Caitlyn raised her hand in acknowledgement.

After several avenues and turns toward the centre of the spiral, Caitlyn’s arms began to throb. The scent of singed flesh had gone but a stinging had replaced it as if the branding iron was still placed against her skin and she couldn’t remove it.

She’d never been so close to so many fellow Slynbladians before.

The only time they were allowed to fly in equal position with herself was today, or in battle, and Caitlyn had never seen warfare. She reached over and touched one of the raw brandings, the edges of the wound inflamed and tender. At least if she did die in warfare, her rank among Slynbladians would now be immediately known.

The Slynbladians’ sustained exertion to stay in one place in the sky revealed themselves to Caitlyn in the release of their sweaty scents: scrubbed cloth, the acrid stink of a man after toiling a field, and sweet fragrances like crushed flowers.

Caitlyn took her final turn into the centre of the shell shape. The joyous faces surrounding her started to ululate.

The loud screams mounted as did the pain in Caitlyn’s shoulders. They barbed into her flesh. Focus, Caitlyn told herself for fear the nausea would overwhelm her and she’d faint on her most important day.

20

She was carried by the force of movement and sound into the centre. Once in position all the other Slynbladians dropped away and only her family was left, hovering behind her.

Caitlyn knew from her history lessons that generations back, the coronation of a deputy started to take place in the sky for safety with the Slynbladian flyers on the ground for protection. Now, over most parts of Ethnel, there were few places to alight on the ground, but in Tymward all Slynbladians had an equal view of their leaders in its specially cleared centre.

The chanting and stomping started. “Caitlyn for Ethnel, Caitlyn for Ethnel”, over and over.

The thunderous roar was like an updraft lifting Caitlyn’s wings and making it easier to hover in front of her mother: the one who would crown her.

Caitlyn couldn’t stop smiling. I’ve arrived. I’m deputy.

Above her, Danyobe swirled in the sky with the Haast neck wear. The Haast feathers had shiny black shafts and multiple shades of brown in their vanes.

Caitlyn experienced the air charge from the applause below. Her mother dropped to hover before her.

“Bow your head daughter,” said Danyobe breathlessly. Her glorious crown had shifted further down on her forehead.

Caitlyn could see her mother’s chest heaving with the effort of her performance.

The necklace slipped easily over her head. Its feathers itched around Caitlyn’s neck from the old, frayed twine used to stitch it together. It took a lot of control not to reach up and scratch.

“Do not fear leadership, my daughter. Soon your sister will join you and both of you may act as one again.”

21

Caitlyn stared at her mother. Act as one? That’s the last thing Caitlyn wanted. She felt

a rush of anger. This was her day. Yet her mother kept bringing Asteria up as though it was a

shared moment. It’s my day. Mine!

Caitlyn shifted her gaze to Asteria who too had the stiff upper body stance of

superiority. Asteria’s fawn eyes were wide, her chin high and her expression that of complete

triumph as if it were her coronation and not Caitlyn’s.

All the Slynbladians below would eat rich foods, drink mulled wine and dance in the skies above Tymward, but not Caitlyn. She eyed four Chrysalises cheering one another on in a game of balance—their wings drawn back as they ran across a tight rope strung between

thin branches. I could just fly down there and join in.

For Caitlyn the coronation was over and though her family would share a special meal

they would not take part in the festivities.

Nothing has changed yet. Apart from my sister hating me and I her. Caitlyn’s heart

dropped like a stone. From the exuberance of finally reaching the position of deputy to a

hollowness realizing that the very thing she thought would give her recognition in her

mother’s and father’s eyes seemed suddenly meaningless.

Danyobe pulled up beside her. “Wave to them child as we leave. A smile wouldn’t go

amiss either you know. Don’t worry too much about those shoulders of yours they’ll heal

soon.”

Caitlyn did as ordered. Nothing has changed. Nothing!

22

Chapter 2

Caitlyn perched on her wide window frame watching Slynbladian shraggers trimming the tops of her village’s great ornamental hedges with scythes. The activity of birds was like a furious hornets’ nest as they moved in and out of trees vociferating. It was the day Caitlyn would meet the Fortedemain leader as the new deputy to receive her one supply of gifted goods, and for her father in his role as King Nicholaz to demand that Strone-laid hand-over

Rizen: the bitter seed of trouble between the two communities. A cascade of thoughts ran through Caitlyn’s mind. Would her nerves remain in check, or reveal themselves in her voice? Would the truth about Asteria’s murdering one of their own reveal itself in a blush if

Strone-laid questioned her directly?

The winged ones who worked Slynblade village for the Strymburgs spent most of their time on the ground using their skills as craftsmen and women. The flyers chosen to haul the gifted goods came from the inner villages of Ethnel and were known for their large, strong bodies. Caitlyn caught sight of Thulinde, their leader for the day, slung in a tall tree like a Chrysalis. He was changing out of his night shirt, his bare chest padded with muscle and a T-pattern of brown hair. Caitlyn imagined that if a tall bull turned into a Slynbladian form it would look like Thulinde. She retracted her legs and wriggled back into the shadow of her large eaves to keep her observations hidden. Four years younger than Thulinde, Caitlyn had taunted her ‘big brother’ and ruined many of his shirts by sending well-aimed arrows through them in combat practice. One time he’d ripped off his tattered over-shirt and thrown it down at her, but his bare chest was Chrysalisean then and only showed the outlines of the male he had now become.

“Let’s descend for breakfast,” said Nicholaz. He bobbed parallel with Caitlyn’s window sill.

Caitlyn scrambled to her feet. “I didn’t know you were there!”

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Nicholaz laughed. “I’m not a leader for nothing child,” he said.

After a breakfast of hot oats, rhubarb bread and steaming tea, Caitlyn practised walking in a straight, even line along the Hall’s wall to calm her nerves before departure. She ran her hand along its surface as she stepped one foot in front of the other—heel to toe—to test her balance. The fine wooden cuts under her palm felt like a jigsaw with all the pieces taken out.

Around the Slynbladian hall, columns of pale wood were displayed, each with the water levels of a year carved into its surface. Any Slynbladian allowed entrance to the

Strymburg domain would see the physical reality of their water supply on the wall.

Caitlyn stopped at the bottom of the current column. The years were recorded from floor to ceiling all the way around the hall. Year piled up upon year. One thick striation in the wood represented the water reserve. Above the line was abundant water, below the line indicated that reserve levels had been reached. A recent recording was just under the line.

She turned around to stare through the opened louvres onto her Strymburg village.

Rain, come on clouds, rain, she thought to herself—the words loud inside her mind.

From as early as she could remember she was taught to never speak her thoughts aloud due to the excellent hearing of Slynbladians. It was a strategic weakness to give away the workings of her mind.

Nicholaz stepped down close to Caitlyn. “Follow my lead and remember no one expects you to command. Today is all about people getting used to you as deputy and having your presence felt.”

“I was born to command, don’t worry,” said Caitlyn with a grin on her face.

24

Nicholaz patted her shoulder. They walked out into a clamber of flyers being fitted

with body harnesses. The harnesses were ‘H’ shaped and flung over flyers’ heads and secured

at the front. The front chest plate on males was square; on females it was hour-glass shaped.

Caitlyn imagined she’d resent being treated like an ox if she were a regular flyer, but there

was no resentment on any of the faces before her. The flyers had reinforced straps dangling

from their shoulders and waists for attaching loads. The attachments were precious metal

clips, melted down old weaponry, which resembled bent meat hooks that snapped securely

onto the nets. The sight caused Caitlyn to grin; the dangling straps made her think of her

father’s stories about giant octopuses in the sea: a faraway place.

Caitlyn watched Thulinde and his ropey veined arms fastening the chest plates

efficiently before moving on to the next one. She wasn’t used to seeing him so serious. The

morning light caught the silver orbs of his ear cuffs and the silver of his purpose-dyed wings

of his position as Thulinde’s heir-apparent; as elder and a future commander of villages and

weaponry for the Strymburg family.

“Thulinde!” Nicholaz motioned him forward. The abrupt order startled Caitlyn.

Thulinde, used to treading the ground, was before her in four strong strides. Caitlyn

noticed his breathing was quick as though he’d run instead of walked. Nerves or excitement?

“We’re leaving now. I leave the flight in your capable hands. It’s time for Strone-laid

to meet his superior,” said Nicholaz clamping his hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder and beaming at

her with pride.

Caitlyn’s chest rushed with heat, like she was standing too close to a fire. She could

tell Thulinde was amused.

“The best of luck, though you’ll not require any, my deputy.” Thulinde made a

discreet bow.

25

Caitlyn thought she caught him wink at her as Nicholaz turned from them to set off.

She scrambled up into the air to follow her father’s tail cloth.

Their flight pace transformed the forest below into a fast, flowing green like weeds in

a river.

After hours of keeping up with her father, the broad river of the Fortedemains’ land

came into view. Caitlyn was shocked to see bald ground where the Fortedemains had felled

trees in bands from south to north. She turned her head away from the sight of it.

Some of the Mountain Dwellers, as the Slynbladians named them, stood in formation

like sapling trees planted far apart to allow room for their growth into a forest. Caitlyn

guessed in preparation to escort the empty carts home to their waiting families. Their oxen

stood nearby pawing the ground.

Nicholaz slowed down. “Remember Strone-laid snakes through trees unheard and has

a look in his eye like a stagnant pond. You’ll not be able to read him.”

“I’m well versed in their ways, father. Don’t worry about me, I’m as cool as a

zephyr,” Caitlyn said.

“All right, let’s descend.”

Caitlyn could hide her nerves using tough words but her mouth was dry and her pulse

raced. She spied a man with a quilted top under leather and wooden chest armoury. His hair

was the colour of a turned leaf before it falls off a branch in Autumn.

Conversations she’d had with her parents about the Fortedemains looped in her mind.

There had been one, precious time when Danyobe had sat across from Caitlyn breaking walnuts and talking freely about her thoughts. She’d told Caitlyn there were shadows in the

26

Fortedemain natures that made them untrustworthy. She’d said that they resented the

Strymburgs taking over Ethnel all those years ago. That they sought the Slynbladians’ water for their thirsty cattle and food fields. Danyobe had pointed a finger at Caitlyn’s chest and

said, “If we ever let them manage the water catchment we’ll all die.”

The flyers would turn up soon enough and Caitlyn wanted as much time as possible to

observe this Fortedemain leader with the still nature before the collection of her gifts took

place.

Nicholaz spoke first to the man. “There’s much to discuss this morning, Strone-laid.

Also, we’ve a carrier with Rizen’s measurements.”

Is this how a meeting usually starts? thought Caitlyn. With a threat!

Strone-laid turned to his second in command, Rizen, who had stiffened and made as if

to answer. A Fortedemain with pure blonde hair whispered into Rizen’s ear. He turned his

head at every noise to examine its maker, like a wolf’s ears would. The blonde’s presence

chilled Caitlyn more than Rizen’s.

With a raised hand, Strone-laid stayed him from talking. “This matter of Rizen is

gravely important, but surely I must first acknowledge the new deputy.”

Nicholaz snorted.

Strone-laid bowed deeply. “Deputy Caitlyn it’s an honour to finally meet you.”

Caitlyn caught Strone-laid run his eyes over her shoulders. His expression appeared respectful.

“Caitlyn, greet the commanders of the Mountain Dwelling,” Nicholaz said.

She cringed at her father’s order as if she was a fledgling again, trying to keep up with her parents.

“I’ve been near to your borders before but never had the chance to speak with you

Strone-laid. It’s a pleasure to finally become acquainted,” she said.

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A change came over Strone-laid’s face, and he raised his eyebrows as if in surprise.

Caitlyn could not read whether he mocked her formal words with a suppressed laugh or

wanted to speak further. He maintained a slight bow and peered straight into her eyes with

curiosity.

“Ruuruu!” commanded Strone-laid.

Caitlyn stepped back from Strone-laid’s call, then stopped.

An owl with a razor-sharp beak thudded down onto Strone-laid’s leather sheathed

forearm. It shuffled its wings into place until the definition between its round breast and wings was seamless.

Its eyes held Caitlyn. What a beauty, she thought

Strone-laid cleared his throat quietly. “Though you’ve the silence of its wings I’d not call you as I do my messenger owl.”

Caitlyn laughed, then flushed. He’d seen her step backwards on his command.

“A gift!” Strone-laid raised his voice so all nearby could hear him. “My beloved

messenger is a token of my welcome to your deputyship Caitlyn and as our future leader of

Ethnel’s vital liquid.”

Caitlyn turned to her father for permission to step near to Strone-laid and allow him to

pass the owl.

Nicholaz nodded at Caitlyn then sniffed the air. “Rizen, show me my daughter’s gifts.

I don’t want to tar my land with fool’s gold.” Nicholaz stepped away with his entourage to

inspect the piles of wares.

The sun was at full height in the sky, but grey clouds covered its face.

Strone-laid tied a Chrysalis sized leather guard on Caitlyn’s wrist. She concentrated

on his hands to avoid direct eye contact in case her normal self-possession wavered. He had

freckles on the backs of his hands like Asteria. Her sister’s hands were busy in everyday

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Strymburg activities but not hers—she was about to receive gifts from these foreigners as deputy of Ethnel—she was special.

Without wings Strone-laid’s shadow appeared cut-up and long like he only had a dragonfly’s body. Caitlyn banished the thought from her mind to keep a look of revulsion from her face.

He patted Caitlyn’s arm. Watch it, she thought. I’m not placated through touch like a child.

“All done!” Strone-laid smiled.

Caitlyn stepped back lifting her wings out enough to make her presence felt.

“Thank you for giving a gift so close to your heart.” Caitlyn saw her father move to join her out of the corner of her eye.

“Go,” said Strone-laid lifting his arm up with the release from his owl’s weight.

The owl went directly to Caitlyn.

Caitlyn grabbed the owl’s jesses strap so it couldn’t fly away. She smiled at her new friend, and petted its tawny head.

“Once she takes flight with you she’ll not return to me unless you ask,” said Strone- laid.

Caitlyn nodded and released her grip on the jesses.

Rizen whispered into Strone-laid’s ear. It sounded to Caitlyn like he’d warned Strone- laid to lead or be led, which made no sense. Caitlyn used one hand to move her deputy collar away from her face in case it had distorted her hearing.

Strone-laid raised his strong, melodious voice. “You demand Rizen, but what of our border warrior you killed and burnt in the kilns? His ash may feed your plants and earth, but what of us? What is our compensation?”

29

Caitlyn had never heard anyone speak to Nicholaz like this before. Strone-laid had a

commanding presence and he was the same height as her tall father —they were well

matched.

Caitlyn flushed not knowing whether to answer. Nicholaz spoke for her. “Your loss is

regrettable, but he was well into the crossover and heading toward Ethnel. He knew water

intruders faced the kilns.”

Father’s lying. He knows the Fortedemain Asteria killed wasn’t heading toward

Ethnel. For Asteria, Strone-laid’s man had been just another Eagleshaw to hunt and kill.

Shame made Caitlyn’s cheeks flush. She hadn’t expected to feel normal emotions about these

savage and foreign Fortedemains.

Rizen continued. “I’m not so sure of this, there’s a mistake about his location. He was with a companion at some distance when he was slain. The female Slynbladian who took him

did so off the river bank. No warrior would head toward your water reserve.”

“I can imagine it is hard to fathom.” Nicholaz directed his words to Strone-laid. “You who are so loyal to our exchange pact, would never step across the border, but this warrior did and paid for it with his life which he knew would be the case. Perhaps he wanted to die

for some other cause.”

Caitlyn wondered if her father referred to the so-called martyrdom where

Fortedemains created further bad blood between the worlds by giving up their life so that

their death could be blamed on Slynbladians. Added fuel to the desire for war. A foul act! thought Caitlyn.

“Who was the Slynbladian who killed our warrior?” asked Strone-laid.

Nicholaz stared hard at Strone-laid. “Let’s not forget ourselves and our history. We are in the midst of an exchange of supplies, nay gifts for my daughter. Ethnel ensures your water’s flowing solid and true. You received a loss recently, and I am sorry for this.”

30

Strone-laid nodded his head in begrudging acceptance.

Rizen cleared his throat. “But what of our great loss!” He stretched out the word loss, making Caitlyn recall the description of him as a snake.

Does he know my sister killed him?

Strone-laid signalled for Rizen to stop talking, and resignedly stepped aside raising his arm and causing his chest armoury to creak against its leather fastenings. “I hoped, young deputy of Ethnel, to meet in easier times.”

Caitlyn nodded. She found Strone-laid’s smile kind. If these people have as much pride as us, Caitlyn thought, it must be hard to forfeit a proper revenge for a clansmen’s death.

Rizen interjected. “As keeper of the seal I speak with many a working Fortedemain.

They suffer too much under the current exchange deals. Their backs are breaking under the strain of supplying your people for a water source that was once ours.”

Caitlyn saw a flash of anger in Strone-laid’s eyes. Then his presence returned to great stillness like the centre of a vast lake.

“Enough!” said Strone-laid. He turned from Rizen to face Nicholaz and Caitlyn.

“King Nicholaz, Rizen will remain on our land. I’m clear on this. I have dealt with your recent concerns about supplying adequate wood to Ethnel.”

Strone-laid’s face doesn’t match the force of his words. I should see contempt there, but I don’t. His eyes are worried, almost sad.

“You still refuse to acknowledge your keeper of the seal’s underhand posse of tree stealers?” asked Nicholaz. Caitlyn saw her father avoiding Rizen’s stare now.

“Some of your rarer species exist on our side too,” said Strone-laid.

“It seems a suspiciously large amount of it, and usually your wood supplies are not mottled with moss as your plantations don’t grow as old as Ethnel’s trees,” Nicholaz said.

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Caitlyn knew her father wasn’t using the wood’s name to catch Strone-laid out.

Nicholaz had spent many hours teaching Caitlyn about the different species of tree, their leaf shapes and which bird life they supported or what kinds of foods could be found on their branches.

Caitlyn noticed Strone-laid tilt his head like Slynbladians did when creating a wind shadow to hear another’s voice properly in flight. The action seemed so strange on a

Fortedemain.

“Of very old wood we have only a few. Some of which we supply today in good faith to deputy Caitlyn. Please cast your eyes over your gifts. As you can see there are many planks of gingko specimens, tapestries and …” Strone-laid’s voice seemed to break “… green gems sourced from far away by our elders, in another time.”

Caitlyn didn’t get to respond. She loved green gems and wanted to see them, but

Nicholaz spoke over her. “There is one gift you seem to have forgotten Strone-laid. That of reconciliation and trust. Rizen must spend his cage time on our land so Slynbladians can forgive the wood-stealing travesty. The tension between our worlds since the rains diminished is too fraught to ignore.”

Rizen erupted. “I shall not go. To leave my land in one of your carriers would be like opening my arms to the underworld.”

“You do not trust me?” said Nicholaz.

Don’t provoke him father, thought Caitlyn.

“It’s more the damage it would do to us as a people. My people’s suppressed anger would rise up and who knows what they’d do or want,” responded Strone-laid.

“Are you threatening me?”

“No King Nicholaz,” said Strone-laid. Caitlyn saw his eyes shift to the side.

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Nicholaz pointed at Rizen but faced Strone-laid. “I know you do not have Rizen’s murderous nature. To keep the peace as you and my family have done since the reign wars I expect no hindrance regarding him.”

“Forgive me—” responded Strone-laid.

“To refuse us this is to sever our agreement and declare war,” said Nicholaz.

“Are you declaring war?” Strone-laid’s voice became deeper. “I do not wish for bloodshed.”

“That’s not what I asked. Are you going against us?” repeated Nicholaz.

Strone-laid glanced at Rizen. “I must!”

“Then prepare for a storm so powerful your skies may never see sunlight again,” said

Nicholaz.

“The gifts are void! So too the burning woods,” yelled Rizen as he signalled furiously for nearby Fortedemains to cart away Caitlyn’s gifts.

No! thought Caitlyn.

“Apart from her!” Strone-laid raised his hand toward his messenger owl.

The owl tightened its grasp around Caitlyn’s wrist. Her deputy gifts—the one display of respect between the different worlds of Ethnel and Fortedemain would not happen—were lost to her. “You have one night to see sense. I have not declared war—yet!” said Nicholaz.

Nicholaz gave the signal and half of the fleet dropped down stopping near to the ground, like harriers, in readiness to protect Caitlyn and Nicholaz if a sudden attack occurred.

The wind from the fleet’s flying wings raised Strone-laid’s hair and shirt collar. Caitlyn thought Strone-laid appeared vulnerable—that wing beats could dishevel him.

Caitlyn followed the track marks of her gifts as they wheeled away from her. She looked back up at the sky. Thulinde was there. Caitlyn saw a smile start to spread across his worried features. Caitlyn quickly turned away. I don’t want pity.

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Rizen appeared to have caught the eye of Nicholaz, who locked onto him like a hawk.

The sound of feathers whipping the air for traction made such a noise Caitlyn had to step in near to her father to rouse him. “We are ready?”

Nicholaz squinted as if the noise was wind, throwing up debris into his eyes. “Don’t call for compensation while I’m leader of Ethnel.”

Rizen paled and lowered his face.

All of this was Asteria’s fault, thought Caitlyn.

Nicholaz turned and raised his clenched fist to the surrounding flyers. “To Ethnel.”

Caitlyn and Nicholaz led the return. The wind pulled the top branches of Ethnel’s

Forest in a swift direction creating a flattening effect like a coursing current.

Near Slynblade, so named for the ‘Slyn’ of Caitlyn’s lineage and ‘blade’ being a powerful instrument that protected life and took it away, the formation of flyers dispersed, as no loads were collected, to their various villages in Ethnel. Thulinde’s formation of flyers were the only ones left behind.

Caitlyn and Nicholaz dropped down into the large clearing, followed by Thulinde and his flyers.

The Slynbladian Hall servants came out to refresh Caitlyn and Nicholaz with raspberry juice.

“First I’ll get my flyers campsites re-packed with camouflage sleep slings in case we fly immediately into battle from our village. We might make camp closer to the Catchment’s river next time!” Thulinde pointed to where they’d just flown from.

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Nicholaz gestured to a servant to serve Thulinde. “Take a sip why don’t you. And don’t pack away your sleep site for flight yet. I might need you to position yourselves in enemy territory for a stealth attack tomorrow. I’d like you close by this night. A messenger shall pass this on to Shar-rook. ”

“Thank you King Nicholaz.”

“You’ll stay in a guest chambre as well,” said Nicholaz.

Caitlyn saw Thulinde’s eyes flick towards hers then back to her father’s face.

Does he have something to tell me? thought Caitlyn.

“Come with me to the eerie,” said Nicholaz.

Caitlyn wiped a raspberry seed off her lip and followed.

A-top Slynblade Hall Caitlyn had a bird’s eye view of her village.

“I’m sorry it’s not what you’d expected, but see Thulinde ordering his flyers to prepare for a battle. One day soon that fine adult shall husband you.”

“Please father I don’t wish to think of that. A war for the catchment is more on my mind.”

“Yes, you are right.” Nicholaz scratched at a day’s growth on his cheeks. “Marriage must wait until your full deputyship is bestowed upon you; once Rizen is dead and we make

Strone-laid and his people understand our superiority. Don’t fear the commitment of adults, you’ll think of Thulinde as a mate once we return from war!”

A flash of her fingers running through Thulinde’s curly hair made Caitlyn’s stomach erupt with nerves. “What about them not knowing Asteria killed that Fortedemain?”

“No! And they must never know.”

Caitlyn nodded.

“What did you mean by Rizen’s murderous nature?” said Caitlyn. “Has he murdered before?”

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“His father was part of the uprising that led to the reign wars. His lot descended from the original inhabitants of the crossover lands that butt onto Ethnel and Ethnel proper. His father was never comfortable in a subservient role. Rizen will never put our shared history to rest.”

“What happened to Rizen’s father?”

“Your mother killed him.”

Caitlyn blanched. Of course I’d forgotten.

Nicholaz continued talking. “Rizen witnessed his father’s death and afterwards he vowed to get as much of our blood on his hands as possible.”

“Why do you let him speak then? Surely he’ll avenge his father’s death?”

“He’s a snake without poison. He can harness the villagers to spin their wheels for timely deliverance of what’s ours, and he might be his father’s son in a blustering, chest beating way, but he’s as weak as a worm—Strone-laid’s the one to watch.”

Caitlyn could imagine Rizen killing for petty reasons, but Strone-laid appeared to be a man who’d only fight a battle for dire reasons. Could her father be wrong?

Her mother had killed. Her sister had killed. Could she?

Caitlyn sat, her back rod stiff, beside her father in her parents’ private alcove off the main room. Nicholaz explained his need to declare war the following day against the

Fortedemains.

Danyobe remained seated next to her reading table. After a minute of squeezing her eyes shut she stood up and threw her glass globe across the room at a row of bouquets in

36 vases. Caitlyn hadn’t been allowed to hold the cerulean globe until she was the age her sister was now—fourteen. It smashed into shards of glinting light.

Danyobe’s face was red with rage. “I hate them! Blood suckers. I want Rizen dead for this. I should’ve taken his young life along with his father’s. Mercy is ever ill respected. First thing at new light you’re to return to those pig-guts and declare war. Let’s put an end to this parleying nonsense.”

Caitlyn grabbed a sprig of rosemary from a bouquet that had fallen and handed it, with a shaking hand, to her mother to calm herself with before servants entered the room to serve food.

Danyobe wrenched it out of Caitlyn’s hand and smelt its fragrance. Then she sucked the water dripping off its stem. She turned to her ruined globe. “See what they made me do!”

Caitlyn filled her mouth with peanut bread and sat down to listen, and wait to be called upon to speak, as her parents decided the timing of war with the Fortedemains.

“I said they had one day to decide their fate. If we get over their lands ahead of that without warning and attack their guards they’ll disperse to fight us in one direction then we attack from another direction—across the river. We’ll confuse their minds about our defence strategy and where we’ll attack from,” said Nicholaz.

And Strone-laid will think me a liar, thought Caitlyn. Strone-laid’s messenger Owl was asleep on Caitlyn’s shoulder. She rubbed her cheek against it and breathed in the sap- earthen scent of its downy feathers. Will you ever get to take good news to your former master?

“Yes! When they realise and get an army organised to charge over the river at our main defence we’ll have the advantage of numbers. Exhaust them before they get into a fighting rhythm,” said Danyobe.

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Caitlyn watched her father nod in agreement. An image of a river of blood coming off the catchment flashed into her mind.

Danyobe picked something out of the gap in her bottom teeth. Caitlyn always found her mother’s habits reminded her that Queen Danyobe was a normal Slynbladian as well as a powerful one.

“That would intensify fighting over the crossover boundary and in the northern reach of Ethnel but could save relying on the girls to handle a full assault,” said Danyobe then turned to Caitlyn. “Don’t you agree?”

Thank you for your trust, thought Caitlyn. She stretched an arm behind her and smoothed down the tops of her raised wing feathers. “As deputy I’m more than well-trained to hold a defence line against a Fortedemain attack,” she said.

“Yes, yes. But this time I don’t want even a trickle to reach that far south in the crossover. In the reign wars too much Forest was destroyed—it left us vulnerable and took away any chance we had of felling the trees and floating them downstream for easy carriage to the kilns.” Danyobe took a sip of wine, and then continued talking across the table to

Nicholaz. “If Caitlyn can hold the eastern reach Asteria, with aid by Thulinde, can hold the deep Forest along the Ethnel-crossover border in the north in case the Fortedemains head west once they travel over with their pontoons to burn or try a stealth attack into our heart land.”

Caitlyn rubbed the long scar on her left hand from where she’d gone over the falls of the catchment’s river bordering the area her parents were talking about. She’d been practising water hauls as a fledgling and the weight of the adult-Slynbladian bag had unbalanced her.

“Or perhaps leave Asteria to hold the Ethnel-crossover border in the north and get Thulinde to assist you to disperse the Fortedemains once they’re over the river—drive them apart instead of attempting to maim all at once. Make them even more vulnerable to attack from all

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sides: north-west to north-east. Water them down so the numbers that make it south are so

small they’re merely weeds in the shadows—easily scooped up without others noticing,” she

said.

Danyobe turned her gold leafed chest toward Caitlyn. “Feeling a twitch for the fight

are we darling?”

Caitlyn recoiled. “No, I just want to be part of planning.”

Danyobe laughed and reached over to take Caitlyn’s hand. The pressure of the

squeeze and her mother’s hard bones reminded Caitlyn of her mother’s reputation as having a

pierce-less strength when she fought. Caitlyn wanted her mother to look at her with pride.

She smiled broadly to hide a discomfort growing inside her about going into war with the

Fortedemains. Shar-rook hit hard in training, but even if she fell to ground Thulinde or Shar- rook would not drive a stake into her belly, like a Fortedemain would.

Nicholaz laid a hand on Caitlyn’s head to avoid her sore shoulders. “This has been a long time coming child. Ever since the catchment went under the reserve line and we’ve refused to release more volume out of the catchment, Rizen’s haranguing any of them who’d listen to rise up and get back their old lands. It was so long ago in their little minds—Ethnel is more fantasy to those people than reality. Fortedemains wouldn’t know how to manage it properly. Next they’ll be chasing fairies, calling them grandmother.”

Danyobe laughed.

Caitlyn balled her fists up for courage. “Mother, shall we not allow them one day as father told them? Today was my first appearance and my future leadership could be damaged if we don’t wait for their reply. I’m only thinking of my strength in the future to deal with

Strone-laid or his sons.”

Caitlyn witnessed her parents share a smile.

“You’ve a mind like a furnace,” said Danyobe.

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Caitlyn saw her mother and father exchange a look, the bond and understanding

between them closing her out. Caitlyn imagined this was what her father wanted for her with

Thulinde. A sudden need to take-in more air came over her.

If her parents tricked Strone-laid and Rizen in battle, as a Strymburg, they’d hate her

more. Maybe they’d never trust her as deputy and leader-in-waiting. Is it fear that makes me

doubt? she thought.

“Once we win, the weirs should get raised further draining their daily supplies. Force

their hands,” said Danyobe.

“With our water supply at reserve levels we won’t flood if we raise the weirs

completely to starve them out if they take too long to surrender? Not for ever of course but to

scare them,” suggested Caitlyn.

Nicholaz gave Caitlyn a tight smile. “They’ll not try and dupe you as leader.”

A splinter of terror shot into her heart. Father might die, thought Caitlyn.

“We must kill Rizen in battle,” said Nicholaz.

Danyobe nodded. “He’s a bad seed.”

“Strone-laid’s more malleable. I’ve held some trust in his word,” said Nicholaz.

“Up until now,” responded Danyobe.

“Yes,” he said.

Caitlyn’s stomach groaned. Adrenalin was working its way through her gut.

If I got Strone-laid’s word to stop the battle then Father and Mother won’t go to war.

No one will get hurt. I’ll be known as the deputy who stopped a war. If we do go then when I become deputy proper I’ll have no course to run with the Fortedemains. I have to make my mark or I’ll keep upholding my parents’ way of rule for the rest of my life. Stuck as ruler without a chance of acting as myself. That’s no leadership at all!

40

“You’ve come over pale child, go to bed and I’ll have dinner brought up. We’ll tell

you our plan tomorrow so Asteria can hear it too,” said Nicholaz.

“Goodnight!” said Danyobe.

“Goodnight.” Caitlyn used her feet to walk out of the alcove. Her knees ached, which

reminded her she should walk more often, starting tonight.

The spiral staircase to the bed chambres wound half-way around the stone room. It

was rarely used as the space was cavernous enough for ascent or descent with wings. Caitlyn

couldn’t muster the spirit to fly tonight. She stepped onto the first, cold step. Its width fitted

one Slynbladian and their wings at a time. There was no guard rail for the servants who used

the steps while carrying hot liquids. Caitlyn watched her felted foot take step-after-step, like a

meditation.

“That’s one furrowed brow my sun,” said Thulinde.

Caitlyn clipped her toe and stumbled. Thulinde grabbed her arm and held her tight.

“Why are you walking?” she said.

“I walk to remain strong from head to foot, like my father. I might ask the same of

you,” said Thulinde.

Caitlyn felt the heat from Thulinde’s hand around her arm. “I’m thinking about someone—I mean—something else.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“No!” Caitlyn blushed but couldn’t think of a reason to disguise her reaction. She avoided the closeness of Thulinde’s brown eyes looking down upon her with such intimacy.

“This morning was disappointing,” he said.

41

Caitlyn nodded, tears clouding her vision of Thulinde’s fine features. “It’s just I had a

plan in my mind of how things were going to go and the opposite is happening. I’ve hardly

made deputy and I’m the bird at the end of a flock tailing all the others before me. I don’t

seem to have any say in my future leadership.”

Thulinde grabbed her other arm. “Clear those eyes and look at me,” he said.

Caitlyn focussed on Thulinde’s face above her. His cheekbones stood out more now

that he’d entered his twenties and left his boy years behind him. The dimple in one cheek was

more prominent. His dark skin appeared darker. Caitlyn guessed from beard growth.

“Whatever transpires you’ll feel free with me. Even if the worst emerges from Queen

Danyobe and King Nicholaz’s decision and a death battle takes place over our land, and

we’re fighting for our control of the water catchment, father and I shall keep you safe. We’ll

have your back. You and I can get married sooner which is no bad thing. You know how

much—”

“Is everything all right my lady?” said a servant below them.

Caitlyn went cold from Thulinde’s sudden withdrawal of his hands. “Yes, you may

go!” She wanted to keep talking with Thulinde without the normal barrier of etiquette that

held them at arm’s length for sixteen years. They’d rarely been so frank with one another

before.

“But your supper my lady?”

“I don’t wish for any.”

“As you wish,” said the servant and drifted away.

“They’ll be stories boiling in the kitchen along with the stew no doubt,” said Caitlyn

trying to keep the mood between them. Caitlyn saw instantly that Thulinde had withdrawn.

The warmth in his face gone.

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“Their words are of no consequence to us. But your parents are. What shall you do when the battle call goes out?” asked Thulinde.

Caitlyn noticed Thulinde had his hands behind his back. “Follow of course!” she said.

“Your hearts not into it that’s clear.”

Caitlyn shook her head. “I know the issue of Rizen lying about stolen wood pushed father and mother over the edge. But I can’t help feeling what Asteria did was equally bad.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Caitlyn shook her head. “Nothing!” No one outside the Strymburg family knew of

Asteria’s murdering a Fortedemain for sport.

Thulinde placed a hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder. “What are you not telling me?”

“I want too—so much—but I can’t.” The owl shifted its weight on Caitlyn’s shoulder.

She leant a hand against the cold stone to steady herself.

“Is Asteria up to her trick of impersonating a lyre bird; sending false calls over the water to disturb the Fortedemain cattle or steal a dog for its bones to wear as jewellery?”

Thulinde laughed.

If only you knew how close you are, thought Caitlyn. “It’s a petty matter really. Just something that came up at the Strone-laid meeting. You didn’t hear it because the wind was blowing north and carrying our words away. Best left that way,” she lied.

Thulinde shrugged. “If Asteria’s mucking up I guess your parents will need you to take a strong stance to retain the image of faultless leadership and a safe pair of hands.”

“It’s more than that! Don’t you see?” Caitlyn saw Thulinde reel back. “I can’t marry you as a bird with clipped wings. You don’t want me half-formed like a female-child always puppeting what father and mother do and say!”

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“Don’t tell me what I want deputy. Your position is above mine but my age, and status as betrothed, means I have a right to talk with you about matters. Don’t forget our

history.”

“I don’t,” said Caitlyn watching Thulinde’s fingers adjusting his stiffened collar,

something he did when upset or nervous.

“Then my deputy I must descend to supper and I hope your sleep calms your heart as

a storm’s coming. If you want to make your mark before it arrives you have little time.”

Thulinde leant his weight on Caitlyn’s shoulders and pinned her wings and back against the

wall. “Excuse me, you’re fidgety tonight and I don’t want to mistake my steps and land badly

off your stairs.”

Thulinde’s strong torso brushed against Caitlyn’s raven deputy plate. The touch was

intimate like she was naked. She jerked as if a loud gong had struck close by. In a wing beat

her pulse lifted and she wanted Thulinde to stay still so she could remain close looking at his

matured face. His dark red lips came close to hers but instead of kissing her goodnight he

wetted them then smiled and moved past her.

Caitlyn caught the scent of him—merino wool from well-felted clothing and

cinnamon her favourite spice—the smell always reminded her there was promise of a home

outside of her immediate family. The scent was almost her own.

“Good night my betrothed,” she said.

Thulinde turned sharply—wings splayed to steady himself. “Finally, you said it

properly!” He smiled broadly making his dimple deepen and cupped his hands together to

symbolise perfect union. “Good night moon shine.” Thulinde skipped down the steps two-by-

two.

44

You were steadier on your feet than you pretended dark flyer. With that thought

Caitlyn put her head close to the concealed flaps of her owl’s ears and turned away from

Thulinde’s retreating silver wings to deliver a secret message.

45

Chapter 3

Strone-laid walked into a small clearing. Each of his footfalls broke a clump of

tubular grass letting off a sharp, mildew scent. Caitlyn breathed through the strong stink,

trying to calm her nerves.

“Deputy Caitlyn, she who will one day rule—I am here!”

Strone-laid’s voice went straight into Caitlyn’s head as if delivered by arrow. Alone in

his Fortedemain woods, Strone-laid’s presence seemed larger than at the exchange day. Her

breath constricted in her chest. Can I control him? Is this safe? I shouldn’t be here.

Caitlyn forced her breathing to slow down. Even though she could alight at any

moment, Strone-laid’s magnetism dampened Caitlyn’s urge to flee.

Strone-laid stood in a shaft of moonlight with a wall of shadow surrounding him. His

long hair, tied back, seemed incompatible with his leathery face and fierce blue eyes. The

criss-cross of stiff leather strapping across his padded tunic didn’t show the expansion and

fall of his chest when he breathed, making him appear unreal in some way—like a man out of

a dream.

“Here we go,” Caitlyn said under her breath.

“Greetings commander Strone-laid!’ she said in an authoritative, low register. She

knew she was cloaked by the night on her high perch. She wanted Strone-laid to notice her

words not her Chrysalis body and young face.

“I travel light tonight,” he said. “I’d forgotten what it’s like to move without twenty

pairs of eyes following my every scratch or every stumble of my horse.” He threw his arms out in an expansive gesture.

Caitlyn looked in the direction of where Strone-laid had departed from a proud looking young man with six trained hounds. You’re not that alone, she thought. How I’d love

to blow a truth powder in your direction Strone-laid. What secrets would I learn?

46

“Yes, I’ve watched every step since you left those men.” Caitlyn tried not to smirk,

“My eyes are as sharp as an owl’s, something you can’t understand.” She didn’t know if

Strone-laid would guess her bluff. Her eyesight was superior to any Fortedemain but she could not match an owl.

Strone-laid cleared his throat. “I brought one of my sons, Thomwyn, and our dogs for protection only. Rizen’s men guard my compound now.”

“From whom?” Caitlyn snatched another glance at Strone-laid’s son. He was handsome and dark like Thulinde. What would Thulinde think of her now?

Strone-laid rocked back on his heels. The moonlight illuminated the cuisses that protected his thighs from arrows or a well-aimed kick, their design like leathery fish scales.

“Not from anyone. His men guard my compound to keep me in.” Strone-laid’s voice was strong and clear.

Caitlyn would go along with this lie. “How did you get out then?” She steadied her face from smiling and giving away her thoughts about Strone-laid’s jesting.

“I took ill tonight and required aid for a high temperature and roaring throat. It’s a good thing you keep your distance up on that bough as I’m clearly infectious.”

Caitlyn noticed that his humour rose all the way up to his eyes, bringing warmth into their sharp depths.

“I see,” she said wanting to respond to Strone-laid but her instinct told her to remain cautious. His conversation was like clouded water—hard to see the bottom.

Is he speaking like someone of lower rank —all familiar and funny—because of my age?

Strone-laid’s emotions were playing over his face—Caitlyn noticed a sudden shift to earnestness in the setting of his eyebrows. He reminded Caitlyn of her father when he’d first

47

instructed her on how to shoot an arrow around a tree trunk. “Think of the other side,”

Nicholaz had said. “As in life, there’s always another view than what you can see.”

Strone-laid was acting true to his name—the truth would need flushing out bit-by-bit,

she thought.

Strone-laid filled his lungs with air and shifted his attention along Caitlyn’s branch to

his former messenger owl. He exhaled sharply as if someone had struck his back.

Why is he emitting signs of grief?

“Why does Rizen try to keep you within your compound? Does he not agree with tonight’s rendezvous?” asked Caitlyn. She would have to keep Strone-laid talking if she was to get what she wanted tonight for her parents and her future.

“As keeper of the seal you could say Rizen has broken with tradition. He no longer has my ear, but pretends to speak for me to my people.” Strone-laid’s mouth twisted with distaste as if he had bitten down on nettles.

Broken with tradition! Strone-laid has come alone without his second in command and only his two sons for protection. What is he doing? Caitlyn glanced around in case she was in the middle of a trap, but there was no one else around. The dogs were not a threat to a

Slynbladian, so he must be protecting himself from one of his own—a ground dweller.

The truth hit Caitlyn and she gasped. “You’re not in control!” The realisation physically hurt.

Strone-laid nodded, closing his eyes.

From the throb in her throat Caitlyn knew her blood was coursing more rapidly—her body’s way of preparing for flight. “I don’t believe it!” she said.

“Please take my presence here without Rizen as confirmation. My people are at great risk.”

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Caitlyn knew Strone-laid was staring straight into her eyes even though her face was cast in shadow.

He dropped his hands by his sides and left them hanging. “It seems I’m bound to

follow Rizen’s actions into a battle with Slynbladians because of his hold on the common

man is great. For they believe his poison that the time to mount an attack on your people is

now. That if we go on your parents will let us thirst and our cattle stocks die. That your

family has forgotten the peace pact of supply exchange. That they’ve lost respect for our

wood. We’re not weak yet but after another season of little rain and a low river our resolve might fade with our body strength. If I have any chance of resuming command of

Fortedemain proper, I’ll have to do it once the war ends and Rizen’s hold is broken through blood-shed.”

This was worse than Caitlyn had imagined. She couldn’t broker a solution to the pending war with Strone-laid, and now she couldn’t hide a failed meeting from her parents.

She had to tell them that Rizen had usurped Strone-laid and that Ethnel was in deeper trouble

than originally thought. Her deputyship was already in peril, possibly her whole world. It was

like her head was in a vice and it was squeezing tighter and tighter with every thought.

Caitlyn’s foothold wavered on the branch. Her left arm shot out to steady herself. “I must sit down,” she said, almost confessing to faintness.

For eight wing beats she said nothing.

Strone-laid’s owl hunkered its large, oval head down into its shoulder-wings and swivelled its head to stare back at Caitlyn from the end of their shared branch. The bird’s

considered blink was like two moons disappearing then reappearing from behind clouds.

Caitlyn looked deep into the owl’s blue eyes, summoning her strength.

Finally, she returned her attention to Strone-laid on the ground. “How do you know

Rizen’s stolen command over your people will diminish in war?”

49

“It’s more a matter of using the mass coming together of Fortedemain village men and

women to my advantage. I’m not complete without my people wholeheartedly behind me. In

defence of our lands and people in a battle with your lands and your winged ones, I’ll return to their hearts. Rizen is no fighter. I am the true commander of the Fortedemains.”

“Your sons and those loyal to you may act like a protective ring in battle at first but

that doesn’t mean you’re immune to attacks from all sides. In battle you’ll be as vulnerable as

a dog’s exposed belly. Until your massed people see your way, as you say.”

“I have my own way of getting through, deputy—do not fear for my safety from my

own kind.”

“I don’t,” said Caitlyn.

Yes, Rizen’s word will be dirt once Fortedemain feet touch Ethnel soil and your

runners have spread the truth about the decision for war, thought Caitlyn, the perfect

opportunity to have Fortedemains turn to you with their lives in their hands begging for

guidance. They’ll want their commander to help them escape Slynbladian wrath. I think I’m

beginning to understand you Strone-laid. You’re leadership will be more powerful, your

people more loyal.

“When will Rizen call the battle? You, alone, parley with Queen Danyobe and King

Nicholaz,” Caitlyn said.

She heard Strone-laid’s leg armoury knock softly against itself; he was shifting his

weight from foot to foot—tired of standing or nervous. Caitlyn returned to her own standing position, once again in control of her emotions and beating heart. She could smell the crushed mint smell of her own sweat.

“I find it hard to believe, Strone-laid, that the chaos of war is a perfect place to wrestle your control back over your people while Slynbladians kill them,” she said.

50

Strone-laid stepped back, cracking twigs as he went. “You can leave those concerns to

me,” he said, his voice strained. “I wish for the ground to remain as untainted by blood as possible.”

“As do I,” said Caitlyn aware that once this statement would have been a tactical lie.

Now, with war so close, it was the truth. She did not want to risk her life against people like

Strone-laid. “Your worked land is what we want, not the corpses of ground dwelling

Fortedemains left behind after a regrettable war.” Her words sounded harsher than she’d meant. She softened her voice to lessen their impact. “Though you clearly want war to bring control back to your lands.”

“It is best for Ethnel that I resume command.”

“And will you command in a way that Ethnel is protected from further wasteful wars?” asked Caitlyn with a slight mocking tone.

Strone-laid thumped his chest with his fist. “I swear on my sons’ lineage that I shall meet your stock demands when I’m returned as commander. That we will, with your kind measure, accept Slynbladian control of the water catchment for good and remain on our lands without crossing over into Ethnel or raising arms against you.”

This wasn’t the conversation Caitlyn imagined having. She’d pictured Strone-laid bent on one knee promising to hand over Rizen to the Strymburgs to be punished for his pilfering and lies.

Caitlyn paused and again rested her eyes on Strone-laid’s owl. Rizen wants this war, but Strone-laid needs it.

“I cannot swear to any deal. I am sorry Strone-laid. You say Rizen has usurped your position but I see a snake with two heads snapping at one another with one body moving in the same direction. What does Rizen want—aside from power—by going to war at this time?”

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Strone-laid cocked his head. Caitlyn fancied that she saw respect in his harsh features.

Perhaps it was just the moonlight.

“Rizen wants to rule before Jader marries and places himself in position to take over

command from myself. My eldest son is in training, a little like yourself, to one day rule the

Fortedemains.”

She leant forward to allow the blue moon to illuminate her features.

Strone-laid paused and looked up into Caitlyn’s face. His smile was both warm and proud as he explained. “Jader is very popular and his marriage would be a time of immense celebration for Fortedemains. A sign of our luck turning. As a widower my leadership could be viewed—nay is viewed—in the outer villages as unbalanced as there’s no woman by my side. If I had challenged Rizen directly when his posse took away my command, he would have gone to kill my son’s future wife—to break his heart and his bond with sanity. I couldn’t allow this. And Rizen has sworn before the traitor posse that once Jader is placed in supreme command, he will step down. This was one of the binding promises that my once loyal posse agreed upon when taking up with Rizen. All they want is the Fortedemains in control of the water catchment. With that in place, Rizen says he would gladly let Jader resume rule and take back the position of keeper of the seal. But be assured he will not, and his nature is one that always demands more. He will bring war and death and it will not stop.”

“And you? What do you want?”

“I want peace for my people and free lands. Rizen has dripped poisonous words over

many years into my guardsmen’s ears.”

“Do they now see Rizen as stronger?” Caitlyn sniffed. “Perhaps that is why they

changed heads.”

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“No young deputy there are those who are loyal to me and my sons. They’ve iron

natures and have not bent to Rizen’s ear,” said Strone-laid. “I’m sure no Slynbladian guard of

yours would switch allegiance.”

“Where could they possibly go? We’re all one family—one rule.”

“And all of one mind?” asked Strone-laid.

Be careful Caitlyn, he wants secrets. Remember this man needs his power back.

“Surely this is not the only reason Rizen has gambled so much?” she asked.

Strone-laid lowered his eyes.

A kestrel’s trilling call started and stopped abruptly like a flute pulled out of a player’s hands. Caitlyn noticed its call sounded lower across Fortedemain leaves. The density of Ethnel’s forests allowed a kestrel’s song to travel further and clearer as if handed from tree to tree.

“He wants Ethnel.’ Strone-laid’s voice was level and calm as if he spoke of some everyday chore. “He plans on penetrating into Ethnel forest and capturing The Water

Catchment.”

My land! Caitlyn’s anger rose. “He wants to rule over both worlds? You’ll never take the catchment. In war you’ll lose. How can Rizen dare think Fortedemains are powerful enough to win against us?”

“Careful deputy … you mustn’t forget that long ago when your people arrived and took over Ethnel from us you won only because your people were willing to inflict far more damage on our forests than what we would allow. Your people were willing to lose so many, many lives. Things have changed. We birth more on our lands—we now have more people willing to die for a greater cause.”

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She looked into Strone-laid’s rugged face. An image of red soaked wings mangled with Fortedemain bodies flashed before her, sickening her to the quick as if she’d drunk deeply from a cup filled with blood.

“And …” Strone-laid hesitated.

“Yes?”

Strone-laid didn’t speak.

“You have no one else to turn to commander. Trust me,” Caitlyn said.

Strone-laid rubbed at his eyes. “I am not used to sharing my strategies, deputy.” For a moment he stared into the forest—an inner struggle evident in the set of his jaw—then he turned back to Caitlyn. “The timing of your coronation has been the only period in the last sixteen years that any weakness has appeared in Slynbladian vigilance: from the reduction of

Slynbladian sensors on the crossover line to checks on supplies.” Strone-laid smiled without showing his teeth then continued. “Over the last few months the Fortedemain villages across the mountain ranges have sent able young men and women to the inner villages near our growing fields—hiding them away.”

“You’ve massed an army! Why did you turn up to my first meeting and lie at all then?”

“Rizen threatened to blame the stolen wood fiasco on me if I didn’t appear and act normally. So I lied. I had to protect Fortedemains from disgrace. To have their leader fail to show to a parley with a Strymburg would show cowardice. Rizen’s plans would’ve unravelled meaning a likely ‘unfortunate’ death for my daughter-in-law. And of course your parents would have executed me if they thought I alone was responsible for the botched exchange supplies. Without my head I’m quite useless.”

“You seem an easy man to control Strone-laid.”

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By his folded arms and shifting eyes, there was something Strone-laid was keeping

back about Rizen. Caitlyn knew Rizen was keeper of the seal only because his sister had been

Strone-laid’s wife. Strone-laid’s loyalty to her alive and dead remained Rizen’s advantage.

Caitlyn decided to dig at Strone-laid’s reticence. He appeared open about the situation

with Rizen but she guessed there was more to come. “Can you not free yourself from Rizen

after all these years?”

Strone-laid peered up at the moon, exposing his neck, before resettling himself. Then

he spoke. “Rizen still blames me for her death. His doubts have rotted his already dark soul

over all these years. He thinks I should I have protected my wife—his sister—more. And he

believes one of your family murdered her. Yet I was there in the madness and I can’t

remember any dove crests.”

Caitlyn murmured her agreement, though she knew the exact dove crests Rizen must

have seen.

She’d heard the story many times from her mother about Rizen’s deep hatred of the

Strymburgs and Strone-laid’s fortitude in keeping the peace between the worlds. The eight

day war had become a legend told on nights when Danyobe wasn’t busy and had time to tuck

her daughters into bed during their earlier years when they’d shared a chambre.

“I’d concealed myself,” Danyobe always started when pressed for the story. “In a

massive nest high up in one of their trees. In those days my limbs were supple as vines and I

maintained watch for many days as Strone-laid and his wife, Margaritte, made camp in the nearby woodlands. My stomach growled but I kept my energy up with dried strips. At one point I eyed off the fattest servant of Strone-laid and Margaritte imagining his liver would cover my hunger pangs for two days or more.”

Caitlyn recalled her mother’s description of the Fortedemains lining their dug outs with freshly hewed grasses and spreading finely, woven rugs over them. How they cooked

55 nothing on a fire and ate pulverized fruits and seeds for fast energy, and fat worms for protein. Just as Danyobe kept to her nest, Margaritte had kept to her camouflaged field tent.

Over the course of the days, Danyobe had observed that Margaritte brought her babe

Thomwyn to her breast fewer and fewer times until he took his milk from a cow instead and a servant removed him from their tent altogether. The woman was preparing for battle.

When Nicholaz had blown the conch horns and made a display of entering

Fortedemain skies, Danyobe had broken with her camouflage, opened her sheep’s gut bag and attacked Margaritte and Strone-laid’s hideout before they had time to retaliate. Danyobe dropped most of the Straken poison onto Margaritte who’d clutched at her breasts staining her clothing in soured milk.

“I heard her screams of agony as I flew away. It sounded like I’d wrenched her in two. I didn’t hear her tell Strone-laid to rule over a peaceful Fortedemain for the sake of their two sons. It was Nicholaz who heard it straight from the commander’s mouth when Strone- laid had prostrated at Nicholaz’s feet, begging him to make a deal to end the war,” Danyobe had said.

Caitlyn shifted on her branch, the knowledge that her mother had killed Strone-laid’s wife bringing a wash of shame. But he would not be here now, if he knew.

“Rizen is all greed and envy,” Strone-laid said. “A dark knight riding Fortedemains’ fear until they foam at the mouth for revenge and thirst for control of the catchment. And do you know the worst of it?”

“Go on.”

“I understand Fortedemain rage at being second in this world to Ethnel. I’ve tried leading through non-violence for the betterment of my people, but war is attractive to those who come up against the walls laid out around us by your people. Sometimes even to me.

56

Rizen’s evil is his ability to make our people not see their rich soils any longer, or their

independent village life.”

“I see.” Caitlyn’s guilt stilled her tongue. I never thought I’d understand a

Fortedemain’s fear of a Strymburg—now I know all too well what it means to be cast in

shadow.

Strone-laid covered his eyes.

There’s nothing more shameful than lost stature, thought Caitlyn.

“We are at cross-roads, deputy. I need the battle to reclaim my leadership and you

need to stop the battle,” said Strone-laid.

Tears pricked at Caitlyn’s eyes. What should I do?

“I do not wish to mark our lands with blood. I can understand you see no other way

than to let this battle between our worlds run, but I believe you are wrong Strone-laid,” she

said.

“I lean on my longer years and knowledge of your people in wartime, my deputy. Do

not underestimate me!”

Caitlyn recoiled, as if she had been slapped. “I don’t commander, I don’t.”

“Will you tell your family of our meeting this night?” asked Strone-laid.

“I do not mean to Strone-laid,” Caitlyn lied.

She scrambled for ways not to tell her parents, but couldn’t. How she wished her

words were true.

“You may go into the long night of war against my people, but do so with the

knowledge that my ear will be open to you—and you alone—if you desire to parley on behalf

of Ethnel. I shall be glad for it. I see a formidable future leader in you,” said Strone-laid.

Flattery! Yes, and you want Fortedemains to see you broker that deal once our dead

are buried and you’re a hero.

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“I shall do my best to honour your honesty tonight Strone-laid. Look to the sky for

our messenger owl—you never know, she might bring welcome news.”

Strone-laid bowed deeply. The metal fastenings on his chest armoury glinting.

Caitlyn raised her hand. “Go well.” She had nothing else to say.

Caitlyn launched out of the tree leaving Strone-laid walking silently back through the woods to his son.

Out over the crossover trees with the wind travelling fast over her taut, black wings she spoke aloud to the grey night sky. “Nothing is sure, not even who my enemy is.”

Below her, Ethnel forest remained its deep emerald green. Its spirit usually calmed

Caitlyn. But not tonight. In a few hours she would be standing before her mother and father with only her good intentions shielding her from their wrath. Surely they would understand.

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Chapter 4

Caitlyn stood her ground and stared back at Nicholaz and Danyobe across the breakfast table, not daring to look away in case they thought her insincere or cowardly. She could see the rage building in her mother’s eyes as she absorbed the news that Caitlyn had met with Strone-laid without permission, and that Rizen had seized power and was inciting war to capture the Water Catchment.

The hot pumpkin scones Caitlyn was so fond of remained broken open on her breakfast plate. She breathed in their sweet smell, but any desire to eat had gone. Dread sat stone like in her belly.

Danyobe gripped Nicholaz’s arm and raised herself onto her damaged legs. Hand over hand she made her way around to Caitlyn. The wide table-planks creaked under her weight.

All Caitlyn could see were her mother’s fierce violet eyes drilling into her.

Caitlyn registered the pain in her head before her brain made sense of her mother’s blow. Another punch slammed into her left temple, the agony pounding behind her eyes.

“Danyobe be careful!” Nicholaz called out.

Caitlyn hunched over and covered her face, trying to show subservience. Her rib cage shuddered under her sobs, but she knew neither her mother nor father would care.

“Uncover yourself!” Danyobe screamed into Caitlyn’s ears, her breath rasping with effort.

Caitlyn warily brought her hands away from her face and straightened. She tasted the salty remains of tears in the corners of her mouth. Exposed, she glanced around at the servants whose cloth wrapped heads were bowed and eyes cast down. She was humiliated.

“Please listen—“

“Don’t you dare speak another foul word, you betrayer,” Danyobe hissed.

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Caitlyn scrambled to her feet to better protect herself from her mother’s rage.

Danyobe had never hit her like this. The ache in her head made her want to sit down. Her

father remained silent. Asteria simply sat, arms crossed, and stared — her brow creased.

The tension in the air became too much. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Caitlyn slid her

hand into her chest plate’s feathers as a sign of supplication to the greater order of Strymburg

rule: a disappearing hand signified allegiance—something Caitlyn was trying to show.

“Leave!” Danyobe ordered the servants away from the breakfast table. “None of you

will return to your families tonight—there will be no gossip delivered around your supper

table on this black day. Those of you who house outside of Slynblade will bunker down in the

kitchen. Tomorrow King Nicholaz and I will have new orders. You’ll be released to your

normal routine then.”

“Yes, our Queen,” the servants replied and backed out of the room.

Shaking, Danyobe sat herself down and stared directly at Caitlyn’s profile. “Don’t

look at me. Don’t address me.”

Caitlyn bowed her head. It was all much worse than she had imagined. Her heart

thudded audibly, and she saw her mother’s head tilt, listening to the pounding of her fear.

“We’ve been tricked into entering a war—our side thinking it’s about showing … ”

Nicholaz flicked his cup over spilling its contents. “ … them we control their livelihoods, and all along we’ve been Rizen’s marionettes dancing to his fantasies about controlling our catchment. I’m going to kill him myself and display his severed head on a stick until our birds peck it clean, then I’ll let you child.’ Nicholaz pointed to Asteria. “Braid his crushed skull through your perfect wings.”

Why is he addressing Asteria and not me? thought Caitlyn.

“These are my orders. Hear them and obey,” said Danyobe. She drew in a deep breath then spoke. “Asteria shall take on Caitlyn’s deputyship.”

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Nicholaz met Caitlyn’s glance then lowered his eyes.

“No!” Caitlyn screamed out, and then brought her hands to her mouth to stop her

wail. “Please,” she continued in a shaking voice, “use my communication line with Strone- laid to work out a better way of ridding us of Rizen. You’re angry and I was wrong but I’ve also discovered the truth.” Caitlyn knew that speaking out was going to sink her deeper into trouble, but she had to try to get them to re-think this war.

“Don’t interrupt!” yelled Nicholaz

Caitlyn flinched, but kept eye contact with her father regardless, in hope of finding a remaining connection. He talked to her forehead avoiding her pleading gaze all together.

“But father, Strone-laid’s in the palm of my hand. I can broker a deal to save

Slynbladian lives.”

Nicholaz screamed, “We don’t negotiate stupid child!”

Caitlyn’s throat constricted.

“Hand over the raven’s chest piece,” said Danyobe.

Caitlyn met Asteria’s eyes for the first time that morning. Asteria turned away and

pretended to pluck debris out of her wing’s knotted trophies. To mask her elation, Caitlyn

thought bitterly. I’ve given my sister exactly what she’s always wanted: power over me.

Caitlyn put her hand over her heart. “Please mother, don’t make me do this. I’ll do

whatever you say. I won’t speak another word about making a deal with Strone-laid. I’ll be

good, I promise.”

“If you speak another word,” Danyobe said coldly. “I’ll publically clip your wings.”

Caitlyn’s mouth clamped shut. Her tongue felt thick behind her teeth. She knew her

mother’s threat was real. There could be no greater shame for a Slynbladian than having their

ability to fly taken away from them. Slynbladians who committed terrible acts like violence

or theft were publically clipped then kept in cages for all to see and mock until they were

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granted clemency by Queen Danyobe, King Nicholaz or a local village elder like Shar-rook.

Sometimes the clemency never came. Caitlyn had seen the bones in the old cages.

The great hall’s engraved water markings and brightly lit louvres blurred in front of

Caitlyn’s eyes. Surely this was not happening. Yesterday she was lauded as deputy and

Ethnel’s future; today she was stripped of her pride and status—her raven’s chest.

Caitlyn rubbed her fingers over the keloid scars of her dove crests. Will Asteria get these before I even have a chance to use them?

The memory of her coronation day returned and the happiness on Shar-rook and

Thulinde’s faces as they’d peered up at her from a-top their stone turret proud that they’d helped deliver Ethnel’s deputy to the Slynbladian people. Oh Shar-rook. The thought of

shaming her union with Shar-rook’s son made Caitlyn sway. She’d prefer another punch from

her mother than have to face Shar-rook with the news that she might not be able to marry his

son. She could not bear to taint Shar-rook’s standing with Slynbladians.

“Give Asteria the chest plate. Now!” Danyobe ordered.

One by one Caitlyn opened up the fastenings that kept the raven’s chest plate in place.

Asteria walked with her reed thin legs to stand behind Caitlyn.

“You are quick, sister,” Caitlyn muttered. She saw Asteria glance over her shoulder at

their parents behind them watching the tradition altering scene of Caitlyn handing over

deputyship. This would normally only ever happen if the elder sibling was crippled in some

way—mentally or physically. Caitlyn was neither.

The densely woven raven’s feathers had come loose inside the chest piece at the

shoulders. The soft vanes brushed her neck as she brought the raven shield over her head.

Before this day Caitlyn would have giggled at the sensation. But not now. This was the last

time she may ever hold the shiny, black symbol of her authority again.

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Caitlyn watched as Asteria hurried over to Danyobe for assistance to secure the raven’s chest to her body.

“Here child!” Danyobe patted the bench next to her.

Asteria threw her arms out straight in front for the fitting.

Danyobe held the opened chest plate up as Asteria slipped her arms through the sleeve holes. Danyobe’s experienced hand wove the leather bindings back and forth through the eyelets securing it in place. Caitlyn noticed the bindings were further apart than on herself due to Asteria’s larger rib cage. I hope a flaming arrow finds its way through those slots,

Caitlyn thought as she caught Asteria’s sideways glance of triumph.

Caitlyn did not dare to move yet. She had not been given leave. Her calf muscles were cramped from holding her position for so long, and the ache travelled up her legs like snake poison. She could not hold back a grimace.

“Return to your bed chambre and change into clothing that covers your dove crests,”

Nicholaz said and Caitlyn found a tiny tone of sympathy within his voice. “You will not be party to our round table war discussions today.” Nicholaz pointed at the door from the great hall to their Strymburg quarters.

Caitlyn straightened, her loss so great her head swam. She spoke out knowing she was breaking her parents’ orders, again. “I just wanted to show my worth, mother.”

Caitlyn turned to Nicholaz. “And to you father. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” She wiped at her nose, smearing mucous across her cheek. “Please let me fight with my dove crests on display, please. Let me lead on the front line. I want to make-up for my mistake. I’ll do better—so much better—fighting Fortedemains. I’ve a better eye with weaponry than Asteria.

Let my aim count.” Caitlyn clenched and unclenched her fists.

Nicholaz again pointed at the door, “Go!” The whites of his eyes showed around his cornflower blue irises.

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Chapter 5

Caitlyn stood, knees locked, in the centre of her large chambre and looked out on a

white cloud, blue sky day. The sky reflects everyone’s mood except my own. Her body,

normally lithe and quick to action, was heavy, like cloth dragged through mud. Ethnel was

her birth right and now she had ruined it. A stiff scream was ready in her mouth, but no

energy came to let it out.

Alone, I’m alone. Caitlyn starting sobbing again, sucking at the air like a fish dying from lack of water.

She crawled onto her suspended bed and curled herself into a shell shape. Her padded

chest wrap constricted her breathing as she sobbed. Caitlyn loosened the ties, the action

bringing back the shame of unpicking the bindings of the raven chest plate.

She remained curled in a ball on her bed until the sunlight stretched shadows up the

walls. Caitlyn’s legs ached when she straightened out to lay prone on her bed. Shouldn’t

father be here by now? Her face was red, sore from crying. The room was cold and the

stoniness of her home shrank in around her body.

Caitlyn turned over letting her wings flop over the side of the bed. If not one posse of

Fortedemains break through my defence then my parents will look at me with pride. I’ll fight

harder than Asteria, I have too, she vowed.

Someone knocked at the door.

“Enter!” said Caitlyn hoping it would be her father.

Nicholaz strode in and sat with his back to the sky in her window vestibule. He didn’t

smile and squeeze her shoulder with affection like he usually did.

Caitlyn dropped from her bed and stood to attention in front of him. At some distance

behind his head a swarm of bees zipped in and out of the flowers of the tall tree beside her

window. Their activity created a haze around her father’s head to match the greying light.

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Grim humour rose in her for an instant. My father’s own thoughts are escaping—quick, catch them if you can.

“You’ll keep your status among Slynbladian fighters—however—the decision tree

will go through myself and your mother, Asteria, Shar-rook. Not you,” Nicholaz finally said,

driving away any fleeting lightness in Caitlyn. “Tomorrow you’ll tell Shar-rook and his son

in person of your deception.” Caitlyn nodded but her father’s voice twisted inside making her

ill. He kept on speaking, cutting away her authority until his words lost meaning and she

drifted outside of herself and watched her father giving orders and herself nodding assent.

Then his words came back into sharp focus.

“You will no longer be betrothed to Thulinde. Asteria will marry him now.”

Click.

Something like a key turned in her heart. That was it. The final blow. All her life her

mentor Shar-rook’s son, Thulinde, was promised to her to forge a line of Ethnel’s master

craftsman and war strategist with the Strymburgs. Now that great honour would go to Asteria.

Caitlyn had become the lowest of low: an elder child dropped to the lowest in status,

unwedded, and with no heir. Asteria, as elder in status would come first in all things now:

wedding, living heirs and respect.

Caitlyn returned to her father’s orders. Sunlight hit the side of his face brightening his

blue eyes. Did she see some warmth there for herself? Perhaps one day the kindness he’d

always shown her would again return.

“Asteria will have her shoulders tattooed with dove crests as there’s no time for a

branding ceremony. When we attack the Fortedemains you’ll be displayed as deputy—as a decoy. They don’t know what Asteria looks like and so she can issue orders and lead discreet fleets into the front line confusing the Fortedemains and their knowledge of Strymburgs’

chain of command.”

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“But father, that is against the age-old rules of engagement.”

“Be silent! You have no voice now,” Nicholaz snarled. “We’ll keep you on the south- eastern border of the crossover lands, furthest away from the northern front line so we can fetch you and bring you forward if required to parley with Strone-laid.”

“I’m not a threat,” Caitlyn started to remonstrate.

“Don’t you dare keep talking,” Nicholaz warned Caitlyn.

Caitlyn’s eyes filled with stinging tears. Asteria is the chosen one. They’re waiting to see if I survive the battle before they inform Ethnel of the deputy shift. If I die then Asteria’s ascendency to deputy will not need explaining. Her eyes widened. What if they mean to kill me in battle to maintain Strymburg honour?

Caitlyn bit down hard on her lip bringing herself back from the cascade of fear.

“Your time as deputy is over—from now on—you must do as your sister and elders order.” Nicholaz stood up and stepped through the double height window. His wings beat twice and then he was away, without a backward glance.

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Chapter 6

Caitlyn had arrived at Shar-rook’s in full daylight in order to maintain for the villagers the pretence of her deputyship and betrothal to Thulinde. All of her family were perched above her. The hexagonal courtyard was at the centre of the compound and acted as a walk- way between Shar-rook’s residence to the working end of his arrow makers’ den. The thick wooden beams joined up to a shingle roof. The open sides were laced with vines scented like new honey and cascaded down in thick clumps of white on white.

Caitlyn saw her mother turn her flexible neck to view the drilling soldiers. “That one on the left isn’t going to hit its target.” Danyobe pointed a long arm far afield.

I was supposed to lead a fleet like that today, thought Caitlyn. I should be ordering

Slynbladian soldiers into flying formation.

Caitlyn watched Asteria flip her wings with pride. How you must be aching to have your status known, she thought.

The last of the morning’s refreshments were delivered to her family and, in Shar- rook’s case, placed on a low table in front of him and Thulinde to accommodate Shar-rook’s wingless status. Shar-rook beamed a smile of encouragement at Caitlyn.

He must think I’m here to further my pledge to marry Thulinde once I return victorious as a fully-fledged deputy—to hand him my song pipe so that he can call me his own.

For a moment Caitlyn panicked and instinctively searched for a way out of the hexagon. Tangled vines covered all areas. Through one of the least matted walls Caitlyn glimpsed guards on the ground and hovering outside.

“They’ll turn and face away once you’re speaking,” said Shar-rook. “Now that battle’s eminent with the Fortedemains we’ll take no chances just in case, by some trick of magic, there’s a poisoned dart with your name on it.”

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Caitlyn shivered.

“I’m joking! Now relax.” Shar-rook smiled.

Caitlyn looked up at her mother and father. Danyobe was nestled into a thatch of vines so her legs could dangle and wings collapse. On the right hand side Nicholaz had his arm around an oiled beam and his right leg tucked under himself. Caitlyn refused to look at

Asteria again.

“Shar-rook of Tymward and Thulinde, my promised one.” Caitlyn began what she knew was going to be the worst day of her sixteen years. Her voice wobbled but she could not help it.

Shar-rook straightened and learnt forward. Caitlyn guessed to show encouragement.

He thinks I’m nervous giving my first rousing sermon. If only, if only.

“Today was planned at short notice so I could inform you of recent events - so heavy - they’d sink like stone if given form.” Caitlyn cleared her throat with a harsh cough.

“I must step away and allow Asteria the role of deputy.” She couldn’t say the words

‘take-my-place’ as Danyobe had instructed her too.

Shar-rook reeled back sucking in air audibly.

Caitlyn hurried on, unable to meet her old mentor’s eyes. “I met with Strone-laid and tried to broker a deal for our betterment, but it did not work.” Caitlyn’s body shook violently as she outlined her misdeeds. Throughout her speech she could see from the corner of her eye that Shar-rook had formed a triangle with his fingertips, and with bowed head, gazed through them the entire time as if observing his reflection on a lake.

Her shaking subsided. Finished at last, she thought. She had hidden nothing. No that was not true. She had hidden her belief that Strone-laid was not all together a bad man. It was not a fact she could bring to light, but rather a feeling, something Strymburgs didn’t trade in when making decisions.

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“Why have you done this to us?” Thulinde erupted before Shar-rook could still him

with a warning hand on his arm. Thulinde’s words were like flung rocks. They thudded to

ground at Caitlyn’s feet.

You don’t understand me at all! she thought. She bowed her head to show humility,

and remained silent.

Thulinde glared back at Caitlyn, then at Asteria; spitting on the ground with disgust.

He launched into the air.

Caitlyn shielded her eyes to watch him soar like a sunbeam. You can say hateful

things, but for the sake of Shar-rook I’d still marry you. Thulinde’s response was no shock to

Caitlyn. Instead his dramatic exit calmed her twitching stomach. Her part in the day was over.

Was that the worst of it? she wondered. She hoped.

She closed her eyes, trying to find the courage to meet Shar-rook’s eyes. When she opened them, the reproach on his face—visible in his deep frown lines, in his thin turned- down lips, and the disappointment in his dark eyes—nearly made her cry out.

“I do not have issue with informing the Fortedemains of a deputy change,” said Shar- rook. He sounded weary like he’d walked day and night from the water catchment.

Caitlyn heard him agree with Danyobe and Nicholaz’s explanation for not telling

them.

“In that case, Caitlyn should have as little contact with Slynbladians as possible. We

all need to focus on what lies ahead and not on political manoeuvrings within the Slynbladian

hall of power. As long as the change doesn’t weaken our battle on the crossover then I find

no ill in it apart from the great sadness of losing Caitlyn as my daughter.” Shar-rook stood to

leave, dusting down his oiled cloth trousers.

“May I speak with you in private Shar-rook?” Caitlyn wanted desperately to tell Shar-

rook she loved him and didn’t mean to hurt him.

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Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nicholaz shush Danyobe with a wave of his hand. Mother won’t like that! thought Caitlyn. Over the years she had heard many hot words between her parents about Nicholaz asserting his control over her public face.

Shar-rook turned to look up at Caitlyn’s parents.

Nicholaz lowered his eyes and Danyobe shook her head: no.

Shar-rook turned back at Caitlyn and gestured: no.

Anger seared its way into her heart and, Caitlyn knew, into her eyes. Her deep, exhale of breath sounded like the hiss of newly lit tinder.

Caitlyn watched his strong back as he walked slowly away into the working end of his compound. In the course of one morning she’d lost her future mate and the father-in-law she’d always wanted in her mentor. The safety of her future was gone. The pain edging its way through her chest and neck felt like a monstrous hand from the underworld pulling her down into some dark place. I’ve lost everything.

“Will Shar-rook at least confer with me when the time comes to charge the

Fortedemains?” Caitlyn asked her parents once Shar-rook was out of sight.

“You’ll be told what to do, and when, in due time,” said Danyobe then passed the servants her finished cup and handed over the empty board hanging around her neck.

So, I am to be tidied away, thought Caitlyn. The signs of her mother’s ease with the new arrangement made Caitlyn squeeze her fists hard until the sting in her wrists diverted her attention.

Nicholaz’s expression was pained, bringing fresh tears to Caitlyn’s eyes. He pointed at Asteria who alighted in front of Caitlyn. Two long bones strung high in Asteria’s wing knocked together.

Fortedemain spawn, thought Caitlyn.

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She observed a new addition to the slick raven’s feathers of her former deputy chest

plate: tiny snake skins threaded in stripes over Asteria’s left breast.

“So, you’re clearly comfortable in your new role!” said Caitlyn. Maggot breath.

“Stop blabbering. It’s your entire fault, anyway. I know you said you didn’t want to think of marriage, but really the lengths you’ll go to forestall things by playing hard to get,”

replied Asteria, brushing her peacock feather earrings away from her neck. Her mother gave a

soft laugh at the joke.

Caitlyn held onto her clenched, sweaty fist to restrain herself from smacking Asteria’s

face. The desire to tear the dead snake out of her raven’s plate made Caitlyn lean toward her

sister.

Asteria ignored Caitlyn’s attempt at a splintering stare. Instead she smirked. “I need

you to check my chain mail tunic is properly fitted with quick release ties in case the battle is

so fierce I must retreat to put it on in a hurry. I guess our speed at slaughtering them won’t

warrant such a move by me, but you never know. Though I will need you to collect my

cuisses, sharpened talons for ripping eyes out, shoulder reinforcements and leather leggings

and chest armoury from the sempsters and tannery people,” said Asteria.

“You mean our family tailors?” corrected Caitlyn.

“Whatever! And another thing. I want the last keepsake we fought over,” said Asteria.

“Yes, go into war rattling like a stone in a clay jar, that’ll work,”

“I’m denuding my wings before flying out of course. I simply want the keepsake for my collection.”

Caitlyn swore she heard Asteria say ‘suckerfish’ under her breath.

“I’ll collect it before I go.” Asteria added, “alone, into discussions after dinner with our parents. And now, you must go and nestle in your quarters only showing your face when we tell you to.”

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Asteria clicked her fingers and twin Chrysalises, towering over both sisters, brought forward two intricately beaded cylinders. They were of such bulk and ornamentation that they were used solely for show and storage of the long, sharpened battle arrows, not as carrying quills.

“Take these with you to my chambre, sister,” Asteria ordered. “As I have to go and have my dove crests tattooed by Shar-rook.”

Caitlyn experienced a drop in air and had to open her mouth to get more breath. Shar- rook’s preparing the needle right now. Thulinde’s probably assisting. That’s as close to a proper branding as she will get!

“My legs aren’t made of honeycomb bones you know!” Caitlyn snapped. “Unlike the birds, I’ve a full body to lift skyward. Carrying both of these means I’m managing twice the weight I’m used to.”

“You’ve long prided yourself on your upper body strength Strymburg, so prove it.

Make like a bird and forget your legs—just use those slick wings, sister,” Asteria mocked.

The twins lifted up the quills holding them out, straps first, for Caitlyn to climb into the harness. She would be hauling like a commoner.

“How am I to fly with these?” Caitlyn asked the large twins.

But they communed with the ground and did not answer. Caitlyn made to speak again but was pulled up short when her parents dropped down heavily beside her.

“Follow Asteria’s orders,” said Danyobe pointing a finger directly into Caitlyn’s face.

“And don’t give me that sullen fox look.”

Caitlyn nodded.

Nicholaz stepped forward in front of Caitlyn and rested a hand on Danyobe’s shoulder. “You’re to return immediately to your quarters and stay there until one of us tells you otherwise, understood?”

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“I told her that father!” said Asteria.

Nicholaz cast Asteria a quelling look but said nothing further.

Caitlyn watched both her parents leave her behind. Her mother’s long cloak flapped in the wind trailing its own line through the air. Nicholaz was dressed in black, without

adornment, as if in mourning, and made a dark shape against the sun.

She secured the oversized quills onto both shoulders then tried to alight into the air,

but failed. Her wings couldn’t get enough lift because of the bulk of the quills.

“Wait!” said Asteria holding up her hand and whispering into the ear of one of the

twins.

Both Chrysalises hurried off out of the hexagon and returned dragging between them

a training ramp used by very young Chrysalis to learn land starts.

I do not believe this—I’m the better flyer within this hexagon and Asteria makes me

launch off that. If Caitlyn stayed any longer she’d burst into tears again. Without saying a word Caitlyn ran and leapt into the air off the training ramp.

“False-sun!” said Caitlyn as the bulk shifted sharply to her right. The last thing she wanted was to fall to earth in front of her sister.

The beads covering the quills squeaked together as Caitlyn forced her mighty wings,

twice the length of her body, forward and back to get lift. As she struggled to get away from

Shar-rook’s compound she swore she heard Asteria laughing.

To reach proper position in the sky Caitlyn forced her wings to perform at an uncomfortable rate. The three overlapping layers of her feathers flew up exposing the pale of

her wing’s underskin. Caitlyn gritted her teeth against the humiliation of becoming a supply

flyer.

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Back in her chambre Caitlyn took a turn around her room. She opened the cupboard

that stored her private things. Her ‘coat-of-a-ruler’ sparkled as fresh as sunlight on water.

She’d had her family’s tailors sew the hundreds of multicoloured beads when her first blood came down. At the time she’d had a powerful dream of standing proud with Shar-rook’s son as absolute rulers of Ethnel, wearing this coat—more iridescent than any pheasant—draped over her slender form. The coat had taken a full year to complete. Under her hand it was cool

as rock.

Near the back of the cupboard was her first bow: its belly came up to her knees.

Caitlyn leant forward and marked her initials in the dust.

I have become as good a shot as I’d planned, thought Caitlyn, moving her eye from

the old bow to her hanging cloak. But now I will never get to shine in my beautiful coat

beside Thulinde.

The dried sweat from her flight made her skin itch. She had no idea what the overall

strategy of her people would be once the war began—she was now a minion doing what her

superiors bid. Her future starting tomorrow was a blank slate. The uncertainty of her new

lowly position made her gut clench. Her bowels loosened.

A sudden grumble in her belly made Caitlyn rush out of her chambre to the circular

balustrade and drop down to the reusable pit positioned on the lower floor of her quarters.

If I can’t control my body, how will I control my mind? She was experiencing the

adrenalin of real fear for the first time in her life. She would face hardened scrapers like

Strone-laid; warrior men and women who had battled many years before and did not have to

get over the shock of their first kill of a human form. The image of a snarling Fortedemain

with blood lining his teeth flashed before Caitlyn’s eyes.

Caitlyn shoved open the sealed door of the washing room and headed for the reusable

pit. The retching started before she made it across the room. Part of her morning meal

74 spluttered out of her nose. The acid pain of it made her eyes water. She vomited the rest of her stomach contents over the stone floor.

Panting, she tore off an extra panel of cloth she habitually tied around her waist and tried to scoop up her mess. She shoved the soiled cloth down the drop hole, closing its lid against the sight of her past ablutions.

She crawled over to the nearest wall and collapsed against it, the acrid shame of her emptied guts still strong in her nose. The damp coming off the walls went straight through her tunic top. She drew her knees up to warm herself and looked up at the room’s narrow air slots. Strone-laid was her only hope now. And that was no hope at all.

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Chapter 7

“I’ll bury you myself!” yelled Strone-laid.

Caitlyn bolted upright in her bed, chest pounding. In her nightmare, the wailing winds outside had turned into Strone-laid’s strong voice. She whipped around to look behind her just in case. “No one’s here,” she said out loud, the sound of her own voice bringing some solace.

She pulled her damask covers tight under her chin. The night was lifting into dawn.

The day had come: her first battle. She stared at her favourite cross-bow hanging on the wall.

After everything that’s happened, I may not even see action.

Her family had been true to their word. After each meal she’d retired to her chambre when they’d laid the linen maps out for strategy meetings. Caitlyn was allowed out during the day only to put her fleet through drills and practise her mode of call commands and hand signals. Her fleet became her closest companions.

The rise of the sun brought her handmaids and the breakfast cook with her morning meal. Caitlyn drank the offered vegetable juice down in one gulp. Its beetroot flavour tasted like earth. She plonked it down on the engraved tray held by the cook.

“Is that too tight on your calf, Deputy?” asked one of the handmaidens lacing up her boots. Caitlyn was behind her dressing screen getting fitted into sheep-lined leather boots.

The title ‘deputy’ made Caitlyn grimace. “No, it’s fine! But no tighter, or I’ll topple over.” The handmaiden’s tugs lessened on the leather bindings.

The physical tension building in Caitlyn’s body made her periodically shake. She tried to control the involuntary shivers; the last thing she wanted was to appear skittish before battle in front of servants.

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Caitlyn took a bite of her folded, berry pancake, and then looked up catching the cook’s admiring gaze. The cook was cross-eyed which made her interesting, instead of unattractive. Caitlyn had never noted this before.

“Would this be your choice for a last meal before battle?” asked Caitlyn.

A sweat broke out on the cook’s forehead. “Of course deputy.”

“No, I mean really what would you desire?”

The cook shuffled her feet before answering. “I’d like my childhood meal of soaked oats and dried fruits deputy. But a pancake would be just as good, though I’d not last long in battle like your good self, deputy. For you fly higher and faster than any of us. Your wings are sealed with the luck of the Strymburg doves. No Fortedemain will get past you.”

“No,” said Caitlyn dully, turning her attention to her armoury.

In warfare, Fortedemains targeted Slynbladian chests and wings as legs were too difficult to strike at distance. For this reason, and the scarcity of metal, neck and face

armoury were the only places Slynbladians wore full protection. Even as a Strymburg

Caitlyn’s legs remained free of any metal fastenings, apart from the shining talons jutting out

from the toe of her boots.

“Have you sharped them again?” Caitlyn asked pointing to her talons.

“Yes, deputy,” both handmaidens chimed.

Caitlyn slipped on her final piece of war costume—silver gloves spiked with tiny

needles over the backs of her hands. She could ream the skin off an enemy’s cheek in hand-

to-hand combat or cross her arms and bring the spiked backs of her hands together to rasp

against an exposed throat or open a wrist’s vein.

“Are you ready, deputy?” asked a broad-faced servant genuflecting in the doorway.

Caitlyn looked at the handmaiden in front her, who nodded.

“Yes, I’m ready,” said Caitlyn.

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“Then you better take this!” a strong male voice came from behind her chambre door.

Caitlyn knew that voice anywhere. “Shar-rook!” Caitlyn ran over to him and held her

finger tips out for him to hold. Her mother’s harsh words flooded back about Caitlyn’s

requesting an audience with Shar-rook before going to war. “If you return having proved

yourself, you’ll resume equal footing within our family and may have whatever audiences

you want. Not before I think.”

“I’ve come to provide last minute advice from Queen Danyobe,” said Shar-rook, his voice heavy with authority.

Caitlyn saw in Shar-rook’s manner that he was telling a white lie, indicating he needed to speak alone with her. Caitlyn turned to all in the room. “Depart! I’ll join my fleet shortly.”

She nodded to her servants as they left, accepting their good wishes graciously. As soon as she and Shar-rook were alone she turned to him with a hesitant smile.

“Here, I made this for you,” said Shar-rook opening his hand to reveal a miniature device of swivelling tools: saw, knife, and fork. He smiled.

Joy reared up in Caitlyn. “I thought you’d forsaken me. I didn’t get to tell you my side of the story, and that I’d still marry Thulinde once I’m supreme ruler of Ethnel.” Her voice caught with tears.

“I guessed as such, relax child. Don’t lay a course for your future before it’s had time to make-up its mind. Marriage to my son can wait.”

Caitlyn nodded emphatically keeping her entire attention on Shar-rook’s eyes and words.

Shar-rook lowered his hands into his pockets and dropped his chin. The lines on his face eased as he let out a sigh. “I can’t imagine it’s been easy for you. New leadership never is, especially one taken away before it’s begun.”

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Finally, thought Caitlyn. At last she had a chance to unburden herself to Shar-rook.

“Do you think my parleying with Strone-laid was wrong?”

“I can see how you found no other avenue to try and make things right.”

Caitlyn nodded. “It’s so good to see you Shar-rook. When you walked away I thought

you hated me. I’m so very sorry—

Shar-rook stopped her with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t fret. It was just that we could

not speak properly at your recent hearing. I am of the same mind as you, child. Peace is where we need to be.”

“So, if you could make a deal with the Fortedemains, what would be the terms?” asked Caitlyn.

“Oh something along the lines of another deal that sees Ethnel as the carers of water and Fortedemains as recipients of our clean liquid.”

Caitlyn found Shar-rook’s voice flat as if he was reading a line from an ill-favoured book. “Well, that’s unlikely,” she said.

“Why?” said Shar-rook with humour in his voice.

“Rizen rules the simple Fortedemain masses through lies and a false head. He wants to make his mark as an emancipator, not a follower of peaceful water deals like Strone-laid.”

“Strone-laid won’t allow a war with Ethnel.”

“I think he will Shar-rook. He needs help to regain his command and my parents won’t give it to him. War is all he’s got to work with.”

“What do you want?” asked Shar-rook.

The question was so direct Caitlyn coloured and stepped back into a wooden table dislodging some dressing tools that clanked together. “You’re the first person to really ask.”

“Does all this sit well with you?” Shar-rook lifted his hands up and spread them wide as if encompassing all of Ethnel.

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Caitlyn shrugged. “I’m trained for it. I just wish I wasn’t cut off from Strone-laid. I think he is a man of reason—we should be able to speak to him without poison in the air.”

Caitlyn’s whole body went hot, aware her free thinking was blasphemous.

Shar-rook raised his hands. “Ease back. I see your thoughts sway to peace, that’s enough for me. What can you do for your family and Ethnel then?”

“What can I do?”

Shar-rook nodded and smiled. The first show of respect Caitlyn had received in a long time.

“Fight well?”

Shar-rook drew his finger across the top of his scar. “Remember I got this protecting

Ethnel in the eight day war. Let alone this!” He pointed over his shoulder at his missing wings.

Caitlyn shuddered. The pain and fear Shar-rook must have experienced when his wings were ripped from his body made her heart ache.

“I—I am,” Caitlyn stopped.

“What is it?” Shar-rook asked kindly.

“I am frightened of hand-to-hand combat. I know I’m stronger in my upper body than

Fortedemains but the instinct to kill might desert me. If I falter, I die.” Caitlyn placed a hand over her heart for comfort.

“Then make sure you lead with your brain and heart. Don’t expect to descend to ground. If you command that fleet well and don’t risk your life, then you shouldn’t fall.”

Shar-rook laid a hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder. “I’m worried about you. Not how you’ll fight—I know you’re agile and well skilled—but what this battle will mean to you when it’s over.

And for my son.”

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Shame flooded Caitlyn. She lowered her eyes to the floor. “I’ve tried imagining myself after this war and I can’t. All I keep coming back to is will I get to rule instead of

Asteria? With Strone-laid back in command, he and I could make things better—easier— between our worlds.”

Shar-rook clapped his hands. “I know Thulinde wishes to stand next to you and not

Asteria on that fateful day. It would be a fine day!”

“It would, wouldn’t it?” Caitlyn swallowed hard.

“Stay safe my child. You’re the last to lead out today. When you think of Slynblade

Hall don’t be worried. I’m here—think of me when you think of home. Agreed?” Shar-rook wiped tears off Caitlyn’s face with his calloused finger. “I believe you’re our future. Keep that mind ticking over and hop to now.”

Caitlyn straightened, cracking her spine in place. Her nerves had eased.

“Right!” Shar-rook said bracingly. “I’m off like a creature with three heads. As battle chief, think of me as a bear with a brain …” Shar-rook paused, raising his eyebrows.

Caitlyn giggled. Shar-rook was playing their old game of what animal fits the scenario.

“This is serious, deputy … as overseer of medicinal remedies I’m a finch who can speak, but if I were to organise relay teams between the crossover and Slynblade—I’m what?” Shar-rook mimed stroking a beard.

An image of her mother on the crossover boundary came to Caitlyn. “You’re a boar pummelling branches out of your way.”

“Yes! I am a brave boar. As you are too.” Shar-rook opened his arms. “Good luck and light’s speed.”

Caitlyn nodded looking at the open embrace her armour wouldn’t allow her to fill.

“Thank you.” Seeing Shar-rook had quieted her chattering mind.

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Chapter 8

As she headed away from her home towards battle, Caitlyn drew a circle in her mind

and dotted her family around its circumference, considering the strategy that was being put in

place. Nicholaz stationed his troops on the northern divide of the crossover, Asteria was to

their father’s right on the eastern front, and Danyobe was relay coordinator, as her crippled

legs made fighting impossible, on the north-western reaches where Ethnel proper ended and

the crossover started. Even though Caitlyn was airborne and on her way to war, the idea that

Danyobe had so much contact with Strone-laid worried Caitlyn. I bet Mother’s not singing

my praises right now. The thought twisted in Caitlyn’s mind to an image of Asteria handing

over her song to Strone-laid’s son, Thulinde, on their wedding day.

Caitlyn glanced back at her silent fleet. Focus Caitlyn, she told herself meeting her

silent messenger’s oval eyes. Behind them Slynblade Hall’s stone turret and weather vane

stood alone against the early morning sky. The dusty scent of burning kilns filled the air.

Caitlyn drew her right shoulder muscles back to shift further south-east.

A quick check with Slynblade’s weather vane confirmed Caitlyn travelled in the right direction. She surged forward away from her home and toward her battle position. The cool air bit through the mesh of her Bird mask.

After many wing beats they were over the eastern reach. She sought cover to wait for

their prey, despatching her fleet in the surrounding trees. They hid in position behind high

leaves, collapsing their wings and arranging themselves in the crooks of high branches. Their

armoury was clothed in brown felt, a bark-like second skin.

Caitlyn chose a strong perch on a branch behind new growth that reached out like a

snake in mid-attack. The lighter foliage allowed the better view. Her messenger owl chose

lower branches to search for rodents. Light shafts striped Caitlyn’s chest. A broken twig stuck

82 into her thigh. She slowly twisted it off without noise, the action releasing a fragrance of dry spearmint from the tree wound.

After a long period of grey clouds trailing overheard, the sun shone through. Caitlyn looked at the sun spots on the ground, her eyes skipping from one patch of bright green to the next searching for the first sign of an enemy’s shadow. Our trees are so dense I can’t imagine a Fortedemain negotiating a line through them, she thought.

Caitlyn could feel the presence of her surrounding soldiers as if she carried them on her back. The weight of commanding them into a hail of their enemies’ arrows made her fears play out before her on the swaying foliage.

Caitlyn imagined the piggies arriving first into the crossover. They were half-wolves, starved for days by their masters to let loose on Slynbladians who fell or flew too near the ground. Danyobe had told Caitlyn that piggies were buoyant swimmers and were used to crossing the catchment’s river ahead of a Fortedemain army bridge or floating pontoon to test the accuracy of Slynbladian weaponry. The thought of the dogs conjured a faint sound of a bark in Caitlyn’s right ear: the one that received higher frequencies. She twitched her head, double-checking. Nothing.

A bead of sweat ran down Caitlyn’s spine cooling her as the wind chilled it.

She imagined Piggies crouched in submission, eager to consume the large birds they were trained to feed on. When she was very young, Nicholaz had once told her, “Piggies are ground scum, but fight like fire if they get their jaws into you.” At which point he’d grabbed her arm and pretended to rip it off and eat it, Caitlyn squealing with delight.

Caitlyn shuddered. She saw the Piggies’ lips set in a snarl as they rooted out the scent of her people on the air. She wrinkled her nose imagining the stink of decayed meat emanating up from jaws.

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The Piggies’ mad yelps will be the perfect distraction from the sound of Fortedemain men and women coming in fast on foot onto my land, thought Caitlyn. I wonder if Asteria will notice this, and keep track of Fortedemains rigging up trebujais?

Caitlyn stared at a variegated leaf until its distinct lines of yellow blurred.

Out of the corner of her eye a flyer held out a large piece of dried meat. Caitlyn took it without turning her head. We’ve waited here all day and all we’ve managed to do is eat and shit, she thought. They didn’t leave droppings from where they perched otherwise the

Fortedemains could track them. Instead waxed cloth bags were used then taken in bundles to bury and conceal.

A zephyr was travelling off the forest’s undergrowth cooled by the fading sun. Caitlyn sniffed. It smells like ice.

“Peep, pau, peep.”

Caitlyn recognized the pan-piped call. A messenger.

Caitlyn turned to a Slynbladian soldier and signalled for cover. The tilt of his head in response was barely visible. He fitted a poisoned arrow to his bow without disturbing the surrounding leaves.

Caitlyn thrust the low branch in front of her aside and propelled herself warily into the sky above the canopy to receive her first contact from the frontlines.

“King Nicholaz sent for you deputy, Asteria’s injured. He wants you at the front,” said a male Chrysalis out of breath and clearly panicked.

He removed his mask to speak with Caitlyn and revealed a shaved head. His appearance was of a plucked hen. Before today the thought would’ve made her giggle.

“Tell me everything.” Caitlyn double-clicked her fingers at a nearby scout; her signal to down the bow and prepare her arsenal of Straken poisons and nets. She gestured for the

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messenger to rest on a top branch. He alighted heavily rustling the leaves. Any Fortedemain with a view of the clearing below them, she assessed, would have spotted their hideout.

The messenger appeared oblivious to Caitlyn’s wincing on first hearing his high-

pitched voice. “Asteria struck like lightning into a mauling struggle between one of ours and

one of their piggies,” he said.

The dogs are there, just as I’d imagined, thought Caitlyn. This is going badly. “Go

on!”

The shaved messenger appeared possessed by the story he was recalling: his eyes

were glazed and he used his hands to illustrate the turn of events. The flat cadences of his

speech placed him from the foreshores of an ocean village. “Your sister held onto the female

soldier with the strength of two, but the dog dug its teeth into the soldier’s leg. So Asteria poked her slim fingers into that dog’s wet eye like a spear through a fish.” He jabbed his fingers in the air. “It shuddered from a flick of Straken poison onto its mouth but it scrambled up from the earth possessed and bit Asteria’s face.”

The messenger’s face flushed red and urgency quickened his movements and words as if time was speeding up. “You see, the Fortedemains weren’t thick on the ground like ants at this point, deputy Caitlyn. That’s why Asteria was fighting so. That damned dog’s teeth

must’ve delivered a licking of poison into the gash as Asteria’s face went numb. She tried

calling your name, but her words were slurred proper-like.”

Caitlyn felt a rapid pulsing of blood in her throat. Strymburg blood’s been spilled. It’s

happening. They’re going to call for me.

“Asteria’s mouth was like a limpet prized off a rock. There was nothing to form it no

longer. She cleared her throat to give orders and pink bubbles escaped instead. That dog

must’ve torn a wound into her layered cheek so deep it opened up like a shucked oyster. Our

Asteria injured by such a cretin!”

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Caitlyn twisted her mouth, repelled by the description.

“King Nicholaz, who ordered me here is in charge of your sister’s return to Slynblade,

deputy Caitlyn,” the messenger added.

Caitlyn dared not speak straight away. Asteria felled so rapidly? “Was the piggie so

large, that it took my sister by surprise?” asked Caitlyn.

The messenger shrugged his shoulders. “No my deputy, but there was mention of her

suffering heats and chills from an infection.”

The tattoos!

“But other than that I’m not certain of Asteria’s state, deputy. Other than she was

mighty brave.”

“Of course!” Caitlyn turned to where she knew her concealed fleet waited. “I’m to

lead Asteria’s fleet on the north-eastern border. You’ll protect Ethnel from strays under my scout’s orders. I must leave now, but my messenger will reach me if you send it. May our trees protect you.” Her heart beat double-time.

Caitlyn’s fleet did not speak back nor show themselves. Caitlyn nodded, proud of her soldiers. Their skill and loyalty buoyed her up. I won’t make the same mistakes as my sister;

I’ll do so much better. My chance to lead has come, at last!

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Chapter 9

The messenger stayed a league behind Caitlyn’s fast pace. Caitlyn knew, from her

training, that leaving a fleet without a supreme commander created havoc with morale. She needed to replace Asteria as soon as possible.

The nock of Caitlyn’s two-strength arrow pressed in hard against her thumb. Far off battle cries rang in her ears.

Over the eastern reach she slowed for one wing beat, and then headed forward into the thundering rawness of warfare. This is it. We finish this battle with our water safe or our livelihoods ruined, thought Caitlyn.

She positioned her back to the sun to monitor what was afoot before she acted. Any

Fortedemain would have to squint up at Caitlyn, blinding themselves in the process of trying to fight her. With the sun at its mid-day height she was almost invisible from the ground.

Her comrades were garrisoned among the trees. She saw their splayed wings atop the

trees’ branches. Their arrows were flying out silently through the trees striking the men pulling thin wagons laden with weaponry. Caitlyn called this tactic of creating a camouflaged wall of defence ‘The ghost that wants you dead’.

You’re passing into our world soldiers. You’re not welcome.

She breathed-in the stink of exposed flesh and looked down to find a Fortedemain lying nearby with his bowel exposed. A piggie was licking the dead man’s intestines. Caitlyn sniffed in disgust.

A Fortedemain scuttled under a crooked branch. Caitlyn wrenched her arm back and volleyed an arrow through the greenery. A yell of shock, and the runner fell out from under his cover; the arrow broken half-way along the shaft spilling Straken liquid from near the fletching into his wounds.

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Caitlyn nodded as if Thulinde and Shar-rook were behind her telling her she’d hit

true. She watched the dead man for two wing beats, momentarily thrown by the difference

between her training when flyers would leap up and comment on the accuracy of the hit, and the Fortedemain lying so still. Her doing.

“There’s the murderess,” screamed a feral sounding voice. “Lash it, lash it.”

Caitlyn’s fingers shook on her arrow. Get out of view. She raced up higher in the sky.

Her chest straining under the effort of drawing her wings quickly together and back.

“I’ll beat you back like rats out of a dark den,” she screamed back.

Caitlyn took a heart-beat to calm herself then flew fast to Asteria’s second flyer who

was darting in and out of trees overseeing the laying of Straken line traps. “Your deputy is

here!” she yelled down at him.

The relief on the faces of the fleet soldiers below lifted Caitlyn further up in the sky.

They want me.

The fleet were blocking out the sky in a phalanx. She glided down to the first layer

position of her sister’s fleet. She held up her hand and flew the line of Asteria’s carriers.

“Warning shots will be fired first,” she ordered. “I repeat, shoot warnings first, maim second.

Only retaliate if they encroach deeper toward Ethnel.”

All eyes were on her; the fleet lifted up on the air’s current away from the action

below.

Are they questioning my command already?

“Stay to attention!” she roared. “I will check what Fortedemain numbers have reached

us. Try to capture not kill them. Treat them with honour and we’ll turn them and their war

efforts to our favour. We will have something to bargain with. The Fortedemains behind them

will absorb time penetrating into our forest trying to free their captured comrades. Their

exhaustion will make our work easier. Kill only the ones in the lead giving orders.”

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The Slynbladian soldiers nodded, rigging up their bows and firing.

The ricochet from the bows’ string release created a thudding “tink”, “tink” in

Caitlyn’s ears. She turned to the second line of soldiers floating behind the shooters. She covered her right ear to give the order. “Net them!”

A line of nets dropped down into the battle. Caitlyn followed.

A big-boned shield maiden stood resolute, her shield high and turned up toward the

Slynbladians. Her eyes were slits from looking directly into the light. Behind her was a narrow wagon heavy with weapons, surrounded by Fortedemains shooting stout arrows straight up into the air.

Closer now, Caitlyn saw the shield’s crest was a right hand, palm stretched wide, with the criss-cross of fate lines cut by a rough blade. Caitlyn knew the hand was a threat: kill us, and kill your supplies.

“Return and live,” Caitlyn shouted down to the shield maiden. Her voice rasped. It didn’t sound like the command of a leader. It sounded like a young girl.

The shield maiden turned her head and yelled to the surrounding comrades, but her words were lost in the din of weapons firing. Then the maiden pointed up at Caitlyn.

My dove crests! She thinks I’m deputy, she thinks I’m deputy. They’re going to kill me.

Focus your ears, damn it.

“It’s her! Get that one down. It’s her first fight!” ordered an unknown voice.

Caitlyn forced her vision back, shifting vision from individuals on the ground to the whole knot of warriors around the wagon. A javelin flew past her body.

Their numbers are breaking through the netting. Panic rose up into her throat. She dropped a wingspan and pulled a heavy cross-bow off one of Asteria’s weapons carrier.

A large rock whistled near to Caitlyn’s head. “They’re rushing Ethnel— attack!”

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Caitlyn traced the direction of six to eight Fortedemain warriors holding the dead above their heads like upturned canoes and running deeper westward toward Ethnel proper.

Their penetration was defended by rocks whipped into the air by trebuchet: a counterbalanced sling Caitlyn knew to be wary of—its throwing power was easy to misjudge.

“Deputy!”

Caitlyn whipped around. Father!

Like a bee swarm, Nicholaz and his large complement of soldiers arrived behind

Caitlyn and the fleet.

Nicholaz gestured her to his side, away from the melee around the trebuchet and running warriors.

“I came as soon as I stabilised the frontline in the north,” he said as Caitlyn dropped back. “Asteria shall live.” He looked straight into Caitlyn’s eyes. Was he looking for concern for her sister or battle fear?

Well, it wasn’t fear for Asteria that tightened her face. She took a breath, trying to calm her panic.

Nicholaz smiled approvingly. “I see what you’re doing here. Slowing them down with nets and wasting their energy with retrievals and defence. Good thinking. But see, they are not behaving as expected. The women folk of their kind seem to have bred another child just to die in battle. We must adapt.”

Caitlyn could hear her father’s breathing rasping in his chest. Nicholaz’s soldiers hovered behind him, bobbing up and down on the winds. For half a wing beat Caitlyn wanted to embrace her father and find strength in his arms. A child’s wish. She let it go. She was a warrior now.

“Give me a view of what is happening. I want this cleaned up quickly. Then we’ll return to the north. I need you there,” said Nicholaz.

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“Yes, father! Those men with upturned dead. I think they have ammunition packed into them to set fires into Ethnel proper …” said Caitlyn.

A high peeling screech from Caitlyn’s new fleet directed her attention down to a group of Fortedemains cowering under the protection of the wide canopied trees. Four men broke out and ran toward a stash of weapons. One of her father’s net crews swooped and dropped their weighted net over them. The men struggled to pull up its heavy rim, their eyes bulging with fear. A Slynbladian female shot past, spraying Straken poison into the men’s faces. Hands flew to their eyes and screams were forced through fingers as they clutched at their skin trying to stop the burning. One of the men pulled his hands away to look for the next attack from the sky; the flesh from a ruined eye socket dripping onto his chin.

Caitlyn turned to her father. “I can handle it here if you need to return north.”

“Straken is doing a good job without costing too many Slynbladian lives. The rest of my fleet are protecting the borders and slaughtering frontline warriors who attempt to leave their land,” yelled Nicholaz before he dropped through the battle boundary and into the thick of it.

Caitlyn followed.

Nicholaz ran a dishevelled fletching along his lips to straighten it before shooting. He looked up at Caitlyn’s fleet camouflaged in the foliage. “What are they waiting for?” he asked Caitlyn.

Me.

“Charge through the canopy!” he ordered.

“Have a soldier in pursuit of every pairing to warn them of attacks.” Caitlyn yelled at the fleet scrambling to organise themselves from Nicholaz’s order to Caitlyn’s.

“You’ll diminish your working army if you do that.”

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“Not if more of us survive I won’t.” Caitlyn remembered the scene of her mother

ordering Asteria to take her deputy chest plate and Nicholaz doing nothing. The anger reared up again.

“All right!” Nicholaz beat his wings violently to draw away from Caitlyn. “You take

the eastern runners down.”

“I am!” Caitlyn whipped her wings down to propel herself forward after her fleet.

The shield maiden still stood, resolute, in the clearing. Near her, Caitlyn saw a dying

Slynbladian, his blood pumping out fast from a neck wound and staining his pearl wings.

To the left of the maiden, a young Fortedemain with fast legs ran a zig-zag pattern

through the Slynbladians’ rain of arrows with a piggie under his arm. He threw it into the air

at one of the low flyers her father had sent down to attack.

The piggie’s teeth ripped the female’s wing in two bringing her down on the dog. Five

Fortedemains rushed in to spike the female to death. Caitlyn turned away from the slaughter.

“Can we not try a Straken barrier to Ethnel? They’ll not overcome that,” said Caitlyn

pointing westward. It’s out of control. Night-moon protect us all, this is carnage.

Nicholaz regarded the scene ahead. “We’ve no time now. We can’t cover the entire

border before we head back.”

“What are our supplies like from Shar-rook?” asked Caitlyn.

“Enough to curb them from massing more fighters. The rest of them won’t take long

to surrender. Within a few days we’ll decimate them,” said Nicholaz.

Caitlyn noticed Nicholaz’s eyes shifted fast over the ground. His chest was out: proud. Are you really not seeing the fight in these people father?

A Slynbladian male with hair the same red as the shield maiden’s crest was pulling a

spear out of his stomach to unpin himself from the ground to fly away. Caitlyn saw a shadow

go over the male’s head and then the blade of an axe slam into the side of his skull. Blood

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shot out. A Fortedemain soldier running past slipped on the blood slick and fell over, then

jumped up and headed for a covered wagon.

Caitlyn couldn’t help but believe that if the Fortedemains suffered a few more days of

such fighting their hatred and desperation would narrow their numbers but harden their hearts

to stone against any Slynbladian whatever they said or did. How will I ever get a chance to

lead these people and my own in peacetime if this continues?

“We’re losing too many of our people, we should net more. Subdue them and—”

Nicholaz turned away, raising his voice to the massed flyers. “Take the shield maiden

down and all who surround her.”

The maiden’s pale face was like a bright candle attracting insects to its flame. At

Nicholaz’s command, all the nearby Slynbladian flyers focused on the woman.

“Aim at the front of the neck for a quick kill.” Caitlyn ordered a Slynbladian flying

past; his long, white hair like a flag behind him.

The Slynbladian shot a reed-thin arrow into the maiden’s side. It parted her ribs,

sinking into her body up to its feathers. The woman grunted and staggered sideways, but

many hands pulled her back onto her feet. Her life force was draining out of her, but she could still be used as a corpse: a human shield without pain.

The shooter changed his attack line in the sky from Caitlyn’s side to her father’s, making her aware that her command had just been usurped, again.

Caitlyn yelled over to Nicholaz. “The shield maiden still stands.”

For the first time Caitlyn witnessed her father’s face crease in confusion. “What is at play? If they won’t yield quickly enough, they leave you no choice.” His raised voice was heard by the immediate line of defence behind Caitlyn.

Caitlyn shuddered. The metallic taste of adrenaline rushed into her mouth. This was her moment to lead in front of her father, and to retrieve the fleet as her own.

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Caitlyn thrust her bow out front and circled above the fleets’ heads in a show of a leader weighing up the next move. She needed a wing beat more time than she had to know what to do. Her mother’s words came, loudly, into her mind. “If we ever let them manage the water catchment we’ll all die.”

“Deputy Caitlyn,” called Nicholaz.

Her father was lying to their people. She wanted to make his words true. Lead like in training. Don’t think. “Charge to death!” she screamed, giving the order to kill any standing

Fortedemain or Fortedemain animal. “To the death!”

Wooden arrow shafts filled the air, raining down on the ground in relentless arcs of death.

Nicholaz drew parallel with Caitlyn. “You take over the strays retreating to the north.

I’ll take over here and catch you up. Watch out for the rising winds.”

Caitlyn’s throat was sore from yelling orders. She nodded and turned northward. As she picked up speed, her new fleet kept pace in an echelon formation behind her. She clenched her fist in a sign of victory to try and reassure them, and herself. The fleet nodded their assent; eyes grave.

An ache took up along Caitlyn’s spine. The winds were gaining speed. Her heart hurt like she was flying away from a betrayal. Her tears evaporated with the speed of their travel.

Her order was wrong. The training was wrong. How could mother think this was the right thing to do? Caitlyn wanted to start again. She would never say that order again as long as she lived. What did her fleet think of killing on command? She wanted to scream with shame.

That’s the first blank forest I’ve seen all day, thought Caitlyn. Thank you. For ten wing beats there were no live Fortedemain warriors, but Caitlyn could hear another battle ahead. She swallowed her fear down.

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Once over a rise it all returned, fiercer than the battle she had just left behind.

Straken lines had been laid by Slynbladians as quiet killers to deter the advance of the

Fortedemains. Caitlyn saw the lines were working. She screwed up her nose from the

squished ant scent of Straken liquefying flesh. Many Fortedemain soldiers had not heeded her

people’s warning and lay humped over like fleshy boulders for daring to navigate a path

through the Straken lines. People were scrambling over them or bending down behind

slumped comrades to shield themselves.

Rigging up her cross-bow on the wing, she centred on a group of fleeing

Fortedemains with their haul bags jangling against their backs.

“I’ve got him!” Caitlyn yelled, chasing a stray who’d broken off from his stricken

comrades. “Get their weapons off them. Leave them on foot.” She would balance her death

order by the day’s end.

The stray scrambled up a tree, dropping his javelin. You’ve just cornered yourself.

Caitlyn collapsed her wings, dropping down one side of tree’s spine, where the

branches had to reach hard for sunlight thinning them, on-top of her victim. His intake and

outtake of breath quickened. Face-to-face Caitlyn saw a tall child barely of Chrysalis age. So

young!

“Shush!” Caitlyn held the spikes on her glove against his throat; her training instinct

still moving her body before her mind. “Drop the knife from your sock.” She wanted no

hand-to-hand weapons left on him.

He released his bladder in uncontrolled bursts. She lowered her gloved hands, and retreated from the dead goat smell of him. His face flushed red, and he was shaking.

“Deputy are you safe?”

Caitlyn looked up at an older Slynbladian soldier with fierce eyes, peering through the

upper branches. “Yes, I’m on the tail of something here. Go on!”

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Caitlyn watched the soldier leave. She knew no Slynbladian would ever question a direct order from a Strymburg.

A crashing of running feet in the distance reached her ears. “Stay here!” Caitlyn ordered the scared boy. “The moment you go to ground for a weapon a Slynbladian will kill you. Don’t join the others. Let the battle pass. Take moisture from the leaves. Eat uncooked animal if you must.”

“You’re not going to kill me?” The boy’s voice rose high and went low in one sentence.

Caitlyn shook her head.

“Don’t you think I’m warrior enough for you?” His hands tried to cover his wet leggings.

She wanted to pat his head. “I think you’re lucky I got here first and not my father.”

Why was she speaking so easily to this foreign boy? She would hardly speak so with one of her own kind from a low rank. “Just burrow yourself in the middle of the trunk on the other side.”

“Thank you. May your days be long.” The boy flipped his hood over his head and climbed away from Caitlyn. He curled into the tree bringing a branch over his head. He appeared to close down like an animal in hibernation.

And you yours. Her decision was right. The boy’s relief and gratitude taught her so.

Caitlyn worked her way, quickly, up into the clouds. The exertion made her lungs hurt. At any moment a sharp rock sent by trebuchet could hit. She sought higher sky to join the ranks of Slynbladians racing over head to defend the north. With a sense of guilt she searched for any recognition of a witness to her saving the boy: a Slynbladian soldier staring with mistrust, or an angry glance—there was nothing on their faces.

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She reached a safe height where she could not land a killing blow to a Fortedemain

nor them her.

“What are you doing?” Nicholaz called.

Caitlyn snapped away from thoughts of the scared boy. “I thought I saw something,”

she lied.

“You’re thorough, but you can’t catch every one of them yourself,” he said. “Come

child, they’re dropping ladder bridges over the river. With Asteria down, I need you to fly my

side,” said Nicholaz.

Caitlyn noticed blood on his left shoulder. “You are hurt?” Caitlyn was worried that

her father’s old war injury that blinded his left eye made him weaker on that side.

Nicholaz turned and sniffed his wound. “I was dropping down to protect some comrades and a fine shot got me through the armoury. It aches but doesn’t slow my movement. Don’t worry about me child, I’m the King of the sky.”

Caitlyn noticed from her father’s fatigue that the flesh under his eyes sagged more.

She hoped his stamina would remain high.

“Your wingman wasn’t doing a good enough job, allow me to take on that role now.”

Caitlyn drew equal to her father. “I’ll follow you like a shadow.”

“I trust you daughter. I’m sorry for the difficulty we’re in.” Nicholaz spread his arms:

his long bow was in one hand and his reinforced arrow in the other. He turned a full circle in

the sky. “Shall we go and scare those Mountain Dwellers back to where they belong?”

“Yes father. I have your back.” It felt good to follow her father’s tail cloth. To have him relying on her, finally.

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“Watch them!” Caitlyn ordered her father’s soldiers. “If their feet cannot trample

Ethnel’s soil long enough for victory tonight, then they’ll burn it. Their fires will enter Ethnel if we don’t dampen them.”

A few lengths ahead, Nicholaz whipped the air with Straken poison from a hollowed feather staff like a bird-of-paradise dancing some beautiful but deadly allure with its tail.

The mass of Slynbladians’ wings thrumming the air sounded like one cord played on a harp over and over.

A flare to Caitlyn’s right caught her attention.

She pointed out the Fortedemains’ river bank to ten nearby soldiers. The bank was dotted with fires. Some warriors were handing out lit arrows for shooting into the forest; others boiled vats of water to send into the air to scald Slynbladian intruders and others were to see by.

Caitlyn turned to the next ten who filled the haulers’ places. “Go into the crossover and drop logs under the oxen’s hooves. We must slow their weaponry carts down.”

The sudden alarm of a nearby soldier brought Caitlyn’s attention back to the fighting.

A soldier, his face panicked, was pointing at her father. “They’ve hooked King

Nicholaz!” he yelled.

The Slynbladian cry coiled around Caitlyn’s spine. “Father!” she screamed racing over to rip out the barb a group of Fortedemains were using to fish him out of the sky.

Nicholaz had his hands wrapped around the barb. He was thrashing side-to-side trying to get free

“I’m hooked,” gasped Nicholaz. He pointed to a fortressed holding deeper into

Fortedemain land.

Caitlyn quickly felt around the barb to see how its spikes were positioned before she pulled it out. Nicholaz was hauled downwards out of her hands. Caitlyn followed. She laid

98 her hands on him again. The barb was multi-pronged with metal fingers already digging deeper into her father’s chest. She could not rip the barb from his chest without tearing a huge chunk of flesh out too.

Her father’s soldiers swarmed in to form a protective circle, their updraft pushing

Caitlyn closer to him so she didn’t have to use so much of her wing force. Another way, then.

She closed her fist, readying the spikes in her glove.

“This will hurt.” Caitlyn had one chance to slice out the barb, leaving an easier wound to heal.

“Quick child.” Nicholaz was wrenched closer to the ground by his enemy.

Caitlyn followed. She swung at her father’s chest with her spiked glove, gashing the skin. Blood poured out. He was badly hurt.

Trees and leather are not worth losing a father over. Have the catchment; see what happens when you hold the power. Caitlyn wanted the war to end in this moment. King

Nicholaz was a stern ruler and his actions to the Fortedemains made them hate him, but

Caitlyn knew him better. Just live to make this right.

“He’s free! You two carry him back to Strone-laid. Protect his life with your own.

The rest follow me,” ordered Caitlyn then turned to her father’s attackers.

The day was turning into evening. Caitlyn wanted Rizen dead before nightfall, and the war in its last days.

Caitlyn registered the cold breeze coming off the river, then the heat off the

Fortedemain’s fires. She was over Fortedemain land with four strong soldiers. A fire ball came up from a flung trebuchet. She batted it back to ground with one swing of the leather tail cloth stretched between her legs. Caitlyn saw the Fortedemains manning the fire sentries struggle to drag their contraptions and swing them to point in-land, something they’d not planned for.

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She had little time to get Rizen with his army quickly adapting to her new position in

the sky. He had already withdrawn deep into his own territory and the darker it became, the

less chance she would have of finding him. He had to pay for his attack on Nicholaz. The

image of her father’s pained face pushed her into a stronger wing beat.

A make-shift station of sandbags circled a timber soldier hold. I know those beads of

eyes. Rizen was staring at Caitlyn and pointing for others to attack her.

Arrows started filling the air, forcing Caitlyn to soar higher into the sky where the

arrows lost their arc and fell back to earth. She grabbed her only remaining poisoned arrow,

sheathed around a Straken vial. It would break on impact, delivering its fatal dose.. All the

other arrows in her quill were normal ones. She had one good shot.

A fire ball hit her. The smell of her singed feathers stank like sulphur. Caitlyn patted

the hit furiously to stop further singeing. She feared too many hits could burn a hole through

her wings. They’re onto me. Caitlyn eyed Rizen who remained in his hollow. “Come out

Coward!” she yelled down to him.

She signalled to the others. “Flank me on my left.” Caitlyn knew this action protected her to fly the gauntlet of arrows, but in doing so at least one or two of the four would get struck or killed. It was a situation that Caitlyn knew her mother called “time to cull your young”. This information was not shared with common Slynbladians.

Caitlyn noted the fire balls had stopped so they wouldn’t fall back on them. She was on-top of Rizen’s little Fortress.

“Fight like the leader you’re pretending to be!” Caitlyn yelled.

She saw the men closest to Rizen looking at him. Were they ashamed of his reluctance to face her? Caitlyn hoped so. She flew past them, gauging the winds she’d need to shoot through to land her poisoned arrow straight into the hold’s slot opening.

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Caitlyn felt a pull on her tail cloth. She looked back. A Fortedemain long arrow had

lodged near the edge of the thick weave. She couldn’t steer properly, her wings straining to

maintain course. The arrow had to come out, before it brought her down. She grabbed for it,

but the barbed head hooked further into the cloth. Damn it. It would have to be cut out. Shar-

rook’s gift! Caitlyn clamped the shaft of her own arrow between her teeth then ripped apart

the hidden pocket on her shoulder. The swivelling tools rolled into her hand. She pulled out

the blade and, twisting around deepened the cut in the cloth. Shar-rook’s gift and the arrow in

her tail cloth dropped away from her.

Caitlyn inverted in the air, pulling her feet up to point toward the fading sun, like an

eagle defending itself against an attack from above. Go now before their aim improves, she

told herself. She flipped over to face the other way and dropped towards Rizen’s position.

Her four guards weren’t as quick, and had to catch up on the wing.

Caitlyn lined up her hit with Rizen’s forehead. “You want Ethnel’s water, but you

can’t even face a Chrysalis one-to-one. You can’t hide behind Strone-laid forever,” she

screamed as she raced at Rizen.

One of the remaining four had fallen away. She didn’t have time to check on him.

Two remained on her left, flanking her from harm.

Rizen’s face disappeared and the Mountain Dweller soldiers were screaming. “It’s the

deputy, it’s the deputy,” as she zeroed in on Rizen hiding from her.

Rizen was hunched behind a makeshift station of sandbags.

“Die traitor!” Caitlyn let out a curdling scream and dived toward Rizen’s hold. Show

me that neck, coward. She plunged lower, ready to send her Straken arrow and its shower of

death straight into the hold. All inside would die because of Rizen’s cowardice.

Now!

She released her poisonous arrow. It flew straight and true..

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She heard were screams as she lifted further up and over the hold. She only had one of

her own soldiers left, his laboured breathing loud at her shoulder.

Rizen was outside the hold running over rough terrain and clutching his face. He rose

half-a-foot every few steps. Caitlyn’s focus became a tunnel, all the screaming Fortedemains

merely noise to be ignored. She bared her teeth. “Face-me, face-me!”

Rizen turned. She saw him try to speak but the flesh on his face was charred as if he’d

fallen face first into a raging camp fire. His skin had peeled back and the movement of his

mouth showed only in the flexing of tendons and muscles. A death’s head that still lived.

Caitlyn notched another arrow and fired. She felt all her strength and anger and pain fly

through the air on that shaft.

It plunged into Rizen’s throat. His eyes opened wide then bulged. He toppled back, dead before he hit the ground.

“That is for my father and Ethnel,” Caitlyn screamed.

She turned to the only Slynbladian soldier left. “Come!”

He nodded, his face grey. No doubt too exhausted to speak. Caitlyn glanced back to find the others. Blood soaked wings stuck up behind groups of Fortedemains kicking and punching them. One lay dead, a javelin through the belly.

Caitlyn turned away, sharply. “We go now!”

“Behind!”

The last of her protectors was dead. He fell atop the Fortedemains with such force they laid pinned under his massive wings.

The first hit removed some of Caitlyn’s feathers. She had no arrows left to defend herself on the wing. She sped up and aimed for a tree: twisted like a fossilised skeleton. The weight of its canopy formed a dome. As she reached for a branch, she felt the thwack of another hit in her head. The world spun and went black.

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Chapter 10

Caitlyn woke suddenly. The sun’s light was muted by the deep foliage above her

head. She was splayed on her side, hanging over one of the tree’s fork. Screams of war

reached her over the wind but they sounded faint and far away.

The ooze of warm blood into her mouth brought her fully awake. She touched her nose—bleeding. She wiped it with her torn sleeve. Supporting her aching neck, she looked up

at the course she’d taken through the old tree’s canopy. There were broken branches nearby,

but apart from that it appeared like the tree had opened up from the top and swallowed her

down to its centre.

She shifted, trying to lift her body and felt pain stab through her right wing. She

couldn’t control it. Terrible thoughts flooded into her mind of Fortedemains trudging their dirty boots over the ground. Caitlyn tried her wing again. Broken. She was earth bound like them. Where are my people? To not have a Slynbladian nearby protecting her was not normal. She must have fallen alone. No one knows I’m here!

She stared at her feet still clad in her taloned boots. She’d have to use them to escape her bower instead of flying—those slow, clumsy and easily broken slabs of flesh and bone that humans had to rely upon.

Fear, sharp as a new day, flooded her bloodied mouth. She snorted the stomach acid out through her nose, burning the back of her throat. Her chest hurt; she felt across her armoury. It was dented.

Caitlyn looked below her to assess if danger was nearby. Branches spiralled down like spindly stairs, and then stopped. For two body lengths the trunk was blank. She would have to drop to the ground, further damaging herself no doubt. The landing appeared clear. There was no immediate threat.

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The wind was howling above with such force it snaked through the canopy, flicking her wings’ bottom feathers inward. Where to now?

She tried moving her wing, the pain so strong that bile entered her mouth. She loosened the leather strapping of her tunic and retied it around her wing, fastening it to the chest to secure it. The grind of bone on bone brought a dizzying wave of nausea and cold sweat that slicked her hands. The ground shimmered like a mirage.

“Show us your hands.”

Caitlyn’s heart hammered in her temples. Her mouth went dry. Keep silent, keep silent.

“I saw you kill our shield maiden like a wild pig. I’ve been watching you ever since.”

A Fortedemain man—his eyes impenetrable like black oil on a midnight lake—stared up at

Caitlyn.

“That’s enough Jader!” another man said.

Caitlyn knew that voice. Strone-laid. Her relief was so sharp that she almost cried out to him.

“A message never did come from the sky.” Strone-laid stepped forward so Caitlyn could see him. His stare was cool. “We’ve been tracking you. You’ve a great deal of talent with war weaponry and you have led with the energy of your years..”

Caitlyn blanched and sat back against the tree. “You know this is not what I wanted,” she gasped.

“Drop those gloves to the ground, then climb down.”

Below, Jader sneered at her. She remembered his white wolf presence from the first day she met Strone-laid. He didn’t stand next to Strone-laid, his father, like he should have.

Instead he’d stood beside Rizen, whispering in his ear.

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“Are you going to kill me?” Caitlyn directed her words to Strone-laid but kept Jader

in careful sight.

“No, but you are now my captive. You’re no longer a leader of Ethnel.”

I wasn’t before either, thought Caitlyn dully.

“I can’t move my wing.” She pointed to the break in her right wing, the broken bone

twisting the dove emblem.

“Bring the ladder,” Strone-laid ordered his men. “You can use that to climb down as we do”.

Jader and three of his companions dashed forward. How fast they moved across the ground—much quicker than her own kind with their heavy wings and underused legs. The men were so near now she could smell their skin; sweat made up of old vinegar and burned spices.

Two of them ascended hand over hand so quickly that she didn’t have time to compose her face into the calm regality of a deputy Strymburg. Mother, Father protect me.

Jader grabbed her waist. “Come here wounded bird,” he snarled.

“Careful,” Strone-laid warned. “She is as strong as you in arm and shoulder, if not stronger”.

Caitlyn heard Jader snort as he grabbed her. She could feel his laboured breath on her cheek as he shifted her past him to the man lower on the ladder. His fingers dug into her

sides, the straps on his leather chest armour dug into her ribs. She could tell from the girth of his chest and grip that he was powerful. He handed her down to another man.

“Put your feet on the rungs and climb down. If you slip I’ll try and make your fall slower.” The man laughed at his own joke.

The ladder was shaking under the strain of three bodies on it. Caitlyn feared for her wing and tried to protect it by folding it closer to her body. She clenched her teeth, holding

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back a scream at the marrow deep pain. Sweat stung her eyes. I’m damaging myself, she

thought.

“Keep moving,” the man above her said.

She slowly lowered herself hand-by-hand down the ladder’s rungs. Once her feet

touched the earth she was a prisoner. She could not fly. She could not call for help. She was

trapped.

But what could she do? She was damaged. Surrounded. And alone.

As her feet found the ground, she turned and faced Strone-laid. He looked down at

her, his stern face giving nothing away. The men went to stand behind Strone-laid, with

malice in their eyes.

I’m on a spike waiting for my enemy to slaughter me. I have no power here.

Caitlyn watched Strone-laid look above her toward the sky, then sniff. “You no longer

have my messenger, it seems, or my ear Caitlyn—deputy of Ethnel.”

My fleet! Caitlyn hoped they were nearby about to launch a vicious attack. She

blanked her mind in case Strone-laid somehow guessed her thoughts.

He reached into a dirty bag and brought out a vial of dark liquid. “Drink this, now.”

Caitlyn gasped. Poison?

Strone-laid saw her fear. “It is only a sleeping draught, girl. We do not use poison like you. I can’t trust you enough to take you into our secret places.”

Her heart beat felt slow in her chest as if she were about to faint. She could hear the river was close.

“Get on the wagon,” Jader said. His manner was gruff and he avoided Caitlyn’s eyes.

Caitlyn walked forward and saw a thin oxen wagon with rickety boards camouflaged behind another tree trunk. There was no animal to pull it. The big man beside Jader threw a harness over his head—they were going to act as ox and pull her to the river.

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“I can save your backs and walk,” said Caitlyn. If she could see where she was along

the river she would know her way back once she escaped. Plus there might be a chance she

could hurl herself into the water and use her good wing to float away from her captors.

Jader and his man grabbed Caitlyn by the shoulders. She screamed, the pain from her wing crashing over her. She twisted trying to free herself, every grinding shift bringing a fresh wave of agony.

“That is enough!” Caitlyn heard Strone-laid snap.

Their grip eased.

Jader had a handful of her hair in his hand. He jerked Caitlyn’s head back, the rip of her scalp bringing tears to her eyes.

He brought his face close to hers. “Drink it or I’ll beat your head against this precious tree of yours.” His breath stunk like dead fish.

He dug this finger and thumb into Caitlyn’s jaw, opening her mouth. The bottle top clanked against her teeth and cold liquid poured over her tongue. She gulped it down to stop from gagging it into her lungs. It tasted of liquorice and mud.

Jader released her and she bent over forward, retching. Nothing came out.

“Climb onto the cart.” It was Strone-laid’s voice.

Her vision was tunnelling. Someone took her good arm. Was it Strone-laid? A solid body beside her, holding her up as she climbed on to the wagon.

The pain in her arm went. She could see through a wide crack in the boards. Green grass below and the turn of the wheel.

Thulinde. Caitlyn tried calling his name but couldn’t move her mouth.

She fought the plunge towards darkness, but the drag of it was irresistible.

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Chapter 11

Caitlyn woke, her face and arms freezing. It was dark. She reached her hand out and

scraped hard rock. The bolt of cold felt dangerous. I’m a prisoner. She pulled her feet under

herself. Something was wrong. She reached down with her good hand and ran a finger across

the front of her boots. The talons had been sawn off. She patted her chest. The rest of her armoury was gone too. Only her underclothes remained: her silk tunic and leather tail-cloth

pants. They’d even taken her preening comb. Padded material was wrapped tightly around

her legs. If she stood she’d topple over.

Caitlyn grabbed the ridge of her left wing and tried to draw it across her chest in hope

of cocooning some warmth, but it wouldn’t move. Her wing remained pinned behind her. She

gently felt around the break in her right wing, hissing as she hit a tender spot. For the first

time in her life she had no control over them. The weight was different; she could not correct

her position or balance herself with a simple flutter or outstretch of a wing. She only had use

of her torso and legs. As if she were a Fortedemain.

A fuzzy light appeared. The black-on-black shapes Caitlyn saw in front of her eyes

disappeared, replaced by the dimensions of a tunnel. A figure was coming toward her, the

sound of steps echoing.

Only a giant could make footsteps as far apart as that. Caitlyn used the pale light to

quickly examine her prison. A cave with striped walls layered in mustard, charcoal, rust and

orange. As the figure drew near, Caitlyn made out a female form, smaller than herself.

She was reed thin, with lustrous hair. Her skin so pale it showed the mapping of her

blue veins. “I’m Videlle,’ she said, her voice gentle but still holding authority.

“I am deputy of Ethnel.” The figure of Asteria in Caitlyn’s chest plate flashed in front

of her eyes. Caitlyn ignored the memory of her shame. At least to these people, she was

deputy. “Tell me where I am. Where is Strone-laid?”

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“I’m your medicine woman.” The woman kept her voice soft, Caitlyn guessed, so it would not travel far around the cave. “The sun is hardly up outside deputy. We’re going to spend a lot of time together this day.”

The woman was not answering her questions. Caitlyn tried to stand but staggered instead. She stopped her fall with her strong hands but grazed her cheek on the jagged wall, wincing at the jab of pain. Out of the corner of her eye the light rushed forward.

“Keep back!” she yelled.

The light stopped above her then retreated. The stranger moved without making a sound.

Caitlyn shuffled back until she made contact with the damp wall. She held up her hands for protection. If Videlle kept hold of the light, Caitlyn would always know where she was in the cave.

Her eyes adjusted, finally making out the female’s face. It was heart shaped with a deep groove running from the middle of her lip to her chin.

“Relax, I’m not dangerous. Your people have seen to that,” said Caitlyn.

“You’re not as I’d imagined up close, deputy. Your body is like ours, apart from the wings, of course. In teachings we learn about your world, but drawings aren’t like the real thing, are they? I have seen Slynbladians before, but always in the sky before coming down to take our supplies.” Videlle’s voice was steady.

“In exchange for life, don’t forget! Can’t you make large enough panels of glass to pin me inside? Is that why I’m in a hole in the earth? Stop staring at me like I’m a specimen.”

Caitlyn’s fear made her words bolt out like darts. She sounded like her mother haranguing staff. No wonder the woman Videlle remained still and silent.

Caitlyn’s heart thudded deep in her chest. “You cannot keep me here.”

Why did this Fortedemain woman just stare at her?

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“We all look alike, don’t we?” Videlle said. “Two eyes, one nose and a mouth.”

“Tell me what you’re going to do? Answer my questions,” Caitlyn demanded. She breathed in and out for a few wing beats to calm herself. “Please.”

“I am sorry you’re so scared. I can see you don’t trust me. I suppose I wouldn’t either if I woke bound and underground. I’m so used to its dark enclosures, you see, that I forget it spooks people from above ground. I can’t imagine what it would be like for a bird-woman.”

Videlle turned and walked over to stand before the striped cave wall. It bulged in wrinkled forms. The light caught what looked like glistening water captured behind rock skin, but there was no drip coming off the walls. Yet it appeared damp.

Videlle’s manners where like a finch’s: precise, tiny movements. She placed a collecting dish on the cave floor without causing a sound, and then pulled a thin, even blade out from her sleeve. Caitlyn’s breathing increased.

Videlle stepped up to the rock skin and scraped away at something with the blade.

“What are you doing?” Caitlyn was uneasy with Videlle controlling a blade out of her line of sight.

Videlle stepped aside, allowing Caitlyn to see the rock face dotted with white blobs.

“They look like maggots.” Caitlyn wrinkled her nose.

“No, it’s moon milk. I’ll crush it up and smear the paste over the cut in your back, where your wing attaches. It will help you heal.”

Videlle returned to the cave wall and scraped more of the white spots into the collecting dish. She’d hung the light from a purposely placed hook. She was dressed in pale, pink clothes from head to foot, the cloth edged with a fine fuzz that caught the light like a hazy cocoon. Mohair. Caitlyn knew the wool from the ringletted sheep that mulled around the

Slynbladian village. The warmth of their fleece would be needed living in this damp underground world.

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“I will approach you now,” Videlle said.

Caitlyn shut her eyes against the sudden brightness of the light.

“Please bend forward,” said Videlle.

Caitlyn remained upright. “No. You will splinter my wing bones if you apply too much pressure. They are hollow.”

Videlle gave a soft shush. “I’ve helped birds of prey before,” she said. “You must decide now, deputy, whether you trust me or not.”

Caitlyn looked up into the woman’s face. Although Videlle’s bright eyes were kindly, they held none of the honouring that Caitlyn’s position demanded. The woman looked at her as if she were an equal. It was unsettling, but Videlle’s steady gaze seemed to hold no malignancy. Caitlyn encircled her legs in her arms, opening up her shoulders to the woman’s ministrations. She would trust this foreigner with her wing and hope that her instinct about the woman was right.

Videlle placed a warm hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder. Caitlyn closed her eyes and felt a ripping sensation that built into white hot pain that seared through her shoulder.

Caitlyn’s scream ricocheted around the walls. “What are you doing!”

The sharp agony stopped, dropping into a dull pulsing pain.

“I don’t mean to hurt you,” said Videlle. “But there was cloth embedded in the wound. It is out now, but there are still feathers in it. I must get them all out or it will fester.”

Caitlyn’s words came out like sobs. “I know. Just the feeling goes deep. It’s like I’m ripped open.”

Videlle exhaled. “A few last feathers. Then I can bind your wound.”

The dragging sensation started again.

Caitlyn grabbed Videlle’s foot instinctively. The bones clicked under the pressure of

Caitlyn’s grip. Videlle yelped.

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“I’m sorry,” said Caitlyn releasing her grip.

Videlle gave a laugh of relief. “If you had held on any longer, I would have had to

heal myself.”

Caitlyn straightened. “It was not intended.”

“I know. Pain and fear can make us do things that we regret.”

Caitlyn eyed the small woman. “I do not regret what I have done this day.”

As Videlle tended her wounds, she stared up at the stalactites on the cave roof. The

thin cone-fingers reached down to mounds of icy blue stalagmites on the cave floor. Water

dripped, the slow rhythm in the silence setting Caitlyn’s teeth on edge. She looked around the

striped walls. There was only one passage, from which Videlle had emerged. If she was to

escape, she would need light to find her way. She would have to strike Videlle down and get

the light to burn the ties off. Yet she didn’t want to hurt this healer who looked at her with the

eyes of an equal. And even if she did get free without harming Videlle, the amount of land she’d need to cover on foot was so great she could not even imagine it. Her heart sank with

the knowledge there was no way out.

“Our people have something to thank you for, deputy,” Videlle said as she smeared

the moon milk into the wound. “It was you who killed Rizen, was it not?’

“Yes,” Caitlyn said cautiously.

“Then because of you, Strone-laid is back in power; his natural place.”

“Will I speak with him today?” Caitlyn asked. She heard the hope in her own voice.

“No. He is not here. Now that Rizen is dead, Strone-laid is overseeing the war that the fool started. He is on the front line stopping Slynbladians entering our skies.”

Caitlyn closed her eyes. She did not want Videlle to see her sharp disappointment.

“Of course.”

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“Jader and Thomwyn are leading this camp in his name.” Videlle had a tremor in her

voice that Caitlyn recognised. It was the timbre of fear; as if saying the name aloud would

summon the person to your side.

“Which of his sons do you report to?” asked Caitlyn.

“Thomwyn,” said Videlle without delay.

Caitlyn knew immediately it was Jader she should fear the most. After the man’s

brutal treatment of her on the ladder and cart, she could understand why. “And when will he

come here?”

Videlle’s big, dark eyes grew alarmed. “Tomorrow. They’ll both be here.”

Something was going to happen to her tomorrow. Caitlyn could feel it in the sudden tension of Videlle’s hand that was smearing the cream.

“What’s happening tomorrow?” Caitlyn tried to keep the tempo of her voice even.

Videlle’s hand stopped rubbing the ointment. Caitlyn looked down and saw the woman’s other hand had bunched up a handful of her coat, her knuckles white.

“Because you rid us of Rizen I’ve sent word to Strone-laid. He’ll come!”

“For what?” Caitlyn’s stomach clenched.

There was silence.

“For what?” Caitlyn pushed command into her voice.

“Jader’s preparing something terrible for you. I’m trying to stop it happening, Caitlyn.

I’m trying to get Strone-laid to come back and stop him.”

Caitlyn looked up into the woman’s pale face, shocked by Videlle’s use of her name in the familiar as if they were kin. And just as shocked by the knowledge that she would be at

Jader’s mercy the next day.

“What is Jader preparing?” Caitlyn surprised herself with the coolness of the question.

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Videlle covered her heart with two hands. “He’s going to remove your wings in front

of the troops.”

Caitlyn imagined her wings being hacked off and their bloody, limp forms. Caitlyn

retched. The bile from her stomach tasted salty. She was back walking behind Shar-rook to

her branding watching his mutilated stumps rub back and forward under his leather jerkin.

“Do you need water?” asked Videlle.

Caitlyn nodded, yes.

Videlle pulled out a sealed-clay flask. “Here, I’ve warmed up your water a bit. It’s

drawn from a deep well, clear as a baby’s eye but so cold, you’d think it would turn your

throat into shards of ice.”

She couldn’t imagine a Slynbladian healer doing this. Caitlyn smiled at Videlle.

“Thank you, that was kind.” She reached over to the water and gulped it down. It had the

sharp taste of minerals. “Good,” she said. Her stomach was better for the water. Warmth

flowed over her cramped body.

“Are you ready to have your wound stitched together now?” asked Videlle.

A flash of Shar-rook’s fat, white scars made Caitlyn shiver.

“Try not to think about Jader’s threat. I’ll keep trying to get a message to Strone-laid,

no matter what happens.”

The pain she had just experienced would be nothing compared the skin on her back coming away as her wings were sawn off. Would Jader keep part of Caitlyn’s wing bone as a souvenir like Asteria and her keepsakes?

Videlle had thanked her for returning Strone-laid to his command for the sake of the

Fortedemain people. But what of Ethnel and the Slynbladians? They have Asteria as deputy.

With Asteria as a future leader and her as the mutilated sister she would have no

freedom, ever. Tomorrow Jader was going to hack her wings off in front of a crowd of

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Fortedemains who hated her. Even if she made it out alive would her Strymburg family want her back—maimed—and unable to fulfil her promised role of deputy and one day ruler of

Ethnel? Perhaps she would never make it back.

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Chapter 12

The next morning the sound of wheels creaking into life bounced around the cave’s

walls and woke Caitlyn from an uneasy doze.

She rubbed her gritty eyes, and looked up as Videlle approached. The healer had a

look of fear on her face.

“That’s not Strone-laid, is it?” Caitlyn said.

“I thought he’d have come sooner. He should get here in time,” said Videlle. She

nodded encouragingly, but her hands were twisted into tight knots of anxiety.

Caitlyn shifted the heavy duck-feather quilt off her body. Its outer coating was made

of thick ox hide to keep the damp chill of the cave away. Ignoring the immediate bite of cold,

Caitlyn wriggled her toes and tested her shoulder—it was stiff and smarted.. She had spent

the night reminding herself about Shar-rook’s worth and that the loss of his wings had not

killed him. If she were a master craftsman like Shar-rook she could remain important to

Ethnel. Still, such rallying thoughts could not cover the truth that if her wings were maimed,

she could not be deputy or Thulinde’s mate. The two things closest to her heart would go to

Asteria.

Caitlyn held her hands out for Videlle to bind, as they’d agreed. Videlle deftly tied her

hands together in a figure-of-eight pattern and quickly stepped back.

“Do not fight him, Caitlyn. Jader will hurt you and enjoy it,” she said softly.

The snort came short and sharp. Startled, Caitlyn looked up and saw the great white head of an ox, with tusks that almost reached to both sides of the tunnel, its sturdy body harnessed to a cart.

Jader with his white hair and pale eyes stepped out of the shadows clicking his tongue. “A Chrysalis in her cocoon about to enter the world. Shame your wings won’t work.

You’ll just have to remain a caterpillar dragging along the dirt.”

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Caitlyn remembered Strone-laid’s son well from her capture. Her pulse increased.

Another man followed: big, with heavy muscle across chest and shoulder. Like an ox

himself. He eyed her with the same expression of contempt.

“You’ve left me underground, and tied up—hidden from view,” Caitlyn said. “Have

you lost the battle yet? I haven’t been able to see for myself.” How she’d like to crack Jader’s

white skull against the bumpy cave wall. She would not give this man an easy victory over her: a Strymburg of Ethnel.

Jader’s hands were upon her shoulders so quickly Caitlyn didn’t have time to spit in

his face. He hauled her off the quilt, the other man catching her bound legs. Caitlyn’s breath

left her body at the sudden pain in her wing.

“No, don’t do that!” she heard Videlle cry. “Her wing is broken.”

“She won’t have them much longer,” Jader snapped. “Another break won’t matter.”

Caitlyn starting kicking, trying to free herself from the tight clasp of the ox-man. She heard him gasp in pain as her knees slammed into his gut. Jader punched her in the side of the

head, sending the cave spinning for a moment.

They dropped her hard on to the cart floor. She rolled on to her side, kicking out but

they had both already jumped back.

“Stay back herb woman!” Jader yelled at Videlle.

Caitlyn raised her head to see Videlle step back, her hands raised as the cart rolled

backwards. The woman’s face was a pale blur of fear.

Jader loomed above Caitlyn, a whip held above his head. Caitlyn shifted so her left side would receive the blow. She would not look away.

But the lash did not fall on her, snapping across the rump of the cart-ox instead. “I’ve

greater pain ready for you caterpillar.” He smiled, with dead eyes. One of his front teeth was

chipped in half.

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He passed the whip to the other man and drew out a long knife from a sheath in the

cart. He pressed the tip into her side. “I can’t ram this through that thick chest of yours

Slynbladian, but I can reach your guts before you have a chance to move.” He leaned in

closer. Caitlyn could see the film of sweat on his face. “Move and it’s over,” he said, almost

inviting her to try.

The ox was backing the cart up the tunnel. Caitlyn forced herself to shut her eyes. She

still had time to prepare herself for the mutilation. She needed to be calm. Regal. Softly she

began to hum the war song: beauty oh my beauty.

“Shut that sound!” Jader grabbed Caitlyn’s face, hard.

She opened her eyes. Jader spat in them.

Caitlyn had no way of getting the stale stink of his unwashed mouth off her face.

Spittle ran down her cheek. She blinked to ease the stinging, keeping her eyes steady on his twisted face. Jader looked away, but the knife was still pointed toward her belly.

She tried to slow the pounding of her heart to match the heavy clunk of the ox’s

hooves on the cave floor.

Calm again, she knew what she had to do. With every step closer to the outside and

Jader’s vindictive plan she would grow bolder and throw her mind back into her training

under Shar-rook and Thulinde. She did not need a chainmail tunic to protect her; her mind would do that now.

The tunnel was getting lighter. She saw the rough workmanship of the hand-cut rocks above her head.

With a jerk the cart stopped.

“Take a look at what we have here.” Jader called. He loomed over Caitlyn, his nose

wrinkled in disgust.

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A half-a-dozen Fortedemain men with clubs in their hands gathered around the cart and stared down at her with hate in their eyes.

“Hurry, a crowd is forming!” It was a man’s voice, urgent and worried.

Caitlyn craned her head back and found a dark Fortedemain peering over the cart railing. Thomwyn; Strone-laid’s younger son. She remembered him from the night she’d met

Strone-laid to broker a peace deal. His features were a finer version of Jader’s but he had the penetrating eyes of their father.

She felt those dark eyes flick over her—a quick check of her condition—then he disappeared as a piercing light blinded her vision. Many hands were on her. She was dragged off the cart and carried between two men along a muddy path toward the fierce sun at the end, her arms spread across their shoulders, her wrists secured in tight holds. She squinted, unable to protect her eyes, and focussed on the sounds around. She heard a sound like the hiss of a faraway bee swarm drawing near.

Jader moved ahead of her. “They’re celebrating your capture with a little song.”

Thomwyn drew close. Caitlyn smelled his smoky breath on her face. “Whatever happens, know that your meeting with my father that night to stop this war still holds true,” he said softly. “We must have peace between our worlds and you and he are the only ones that can deliver it right now. Trust my actions.”

Caitlyn’s knees buckled. A glimpse of hope she’d survive intact almost undid her. She breathed in fresh air and with it the smell of burnt leaf and bark. Ethnel’s burning. She twisted her head to capture the sound of fire in her ears, and to see its red flames. Nothing.

Her handlers turned a corner. There was a wooden stage with a great crowd as thick and deep as the field could hold. The hissing song stopped as they were sighted. The sudden silence roared in Caitlyn’s ears. All their eyes were on her. She tilted her face to the sky.

Where were her people? But there were no silver wings above.

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The dark red of the grass was turning green with the morning light. Jader has whipped up a mob. The thought scared Caitlyn.

“Rizen is dead, and deputy Caitlyn killed him.” Jader screamed. His voice reminded

Caitlyn of his knife. Sharp and cruel. It went straight through her.

A guttural growl came out of the crowd.

He wants to sacrifice me.

Jader pulled her around until the crowd could see the dove-emblem brandings of her deputyship. She was exposed. A woman close to her screwed up her face in disgust and spat on the ground.

Jader grabbed her shoulders and pushed, his pale eyes hollow of emotion. “Kneel.”

Caitlyn locked her knees and kept her eyes on Jader. She would not kneel in front of this dog.

He walked around to the front of the stage and kicked the back of her knees so hard she dropped to the planks. The skin on her knee joints grated against the rough wood.

“Restrain yourself,” whispered Thomwyn to Jader.

Caitlyn stared at Thomwyn. He had asked her to trust him, but he was doing nothing.

Was his message of hope just another torture?

Jader laughed. With the flair of a performer, he raised a hemp rope above his head to show the crowd, and then walked over to an iron ring secured in the platform. He gestured for his henchman to move forward.

Caitlyn’s arms, wrists and wings were grabbed. She let out a scream to pierce the sky.

“Shut up!” shouted Jader. He grabbed Caitlyn’s throat, holding her still while the rope was tied around her bound wrists and then to the ring by a henchman.

Jader released her.

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Caitlyn swallowed several times to get her throat working again. She pulled on the

binding. The hemp was coarse, and bit into her wrists at every desperate wrench. She sank to

her knees.

“Stand so all can see,” commanded Jader, hauling her back on to her feet.

She stood, trying to control the trembling that weakened her legs. The sound of a

knife being sharpened on stone brought a moan to her throat.

Two large men walked up to each side of Caitlyn. She watched them grasp each of

her wings. Their filthy fingernails dug into the tender skin. She braced her back to keep her

wings tightly tucked.

The men yanked on her wings, leaning their body weight into separating them out

from her body. She jerked, violently, from side to side trying to make their grip slip off the

feathers . A tugging pain started up, deep, in her back like she was being cleaved in two.

Jader stepped forward and flicked his knife across her chin. The sharp pain rocked her backwards and her thinking froze. A drip of blood hit the wooden planks. The two men on

each wing spread her outer most flight feathers ’til the barbs that held them in place

separated. She tried to pull her wings back in, but they were too strong.

A bald man with ruddy cheeks handed a serrated knife to Jader. He leered at Caitlyn

as he left the stage.

“Don’t struggle, it’ll make me slip,” Jader said, tauntingly.

Caitlyn sucked in air. Her eyes stung from the sweat coursing into them.

Jader walked forward with the knife. The crowd commenced thumping their feet on

the ground, the sound like a cattle stampede coming toward her.

She tunnelled her vision til she saw only the wood’s grain under her own feet. For a

moment, she was in a memory of Thulinde, his silver wings mantling round a newly hatched

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bird fallen from its nest. He’d saved it from the sharp beak of a massive eagle. Would he still

want her after all that she’d done? After this?

Is this the start of our demise, like mother warned? Caitlyn shook her head to clear

away her dark fears. She caught the glint of the knife as Jader raised his fist in the air.

“Please. Do not do this,” she whispered. “Our two people’s will never come back

from it.”

“Be grateful that you do not lose your life.” Jader brought the blade down and started

sawing through the skin over her wings. It sounded like a butcher’s knife cutting between

meat and its bone.

The searing pain was like a javelin through her back. “He’s killing me!” she

whimpered, the strength in her voice gone.

Thomwyn’s back was to her as he pointed to the north and yelled at the crowd.

Something was happening but it did not stop Jader’s sawing.

Caitlyn tried to turn and bite the henchmen holding her wings. Danyobe’s words

returned to Caitlyn’s ears. “Remember, you are a Strymburg. If you survive capture you’ll

return victorious to your people. If you die then your bravery will be your legacy.”

Caitlyn screamed and tried to pull away from the drag of the knife through her wing

feathers. She couldn’t control herself. Her legs gave way. I’m not a proper Strymburg, she cursed herself.

Her blood splatted on the wooden planks.

“Commander Strone-laid returns!” Thomwyn’s voice boomed across the crowd of

Fortedemains.

The agonising pain stopped.

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Strone-laid! Caitlyn gasped as the crowd parted and he strode up on stage toward his sons. His long hair was damp with sweat and flat against his scalp.

The henchmen’s grip only tightened. Caitlyn turned and caught Jader hurriedly cutting through one of her primary feathers. Fortedemains near the front were rushing the stage for trophies of Jader’s work.

“Stop!” yelled Strone-laid.

“Release her,” Thomwyn quickly ordered.

It was the first time Caitlyn had seen Thomwyn’s face since Jader attacked her. His eyes held fury for his brother..

Jader stared at his father without blinking.

“I did not sanction this,” Stone-Laid said. His voice was soft but as cold as a new morn frost. “You take too much upon yourself, Jader.”

He looked across at Caitlyn, his eyes gauging her wounds. “Can you wait for a healer,” he asked. “Jader has made himself a mob and I must get it under control before they turn their disappointment upon us. And each other.”

Caitlyn strained her neck to witness the damage done to her. The cut was deep enough, but not life threatening. “Yes,” she said, her voice faint.

Strone-laid nodded, and then turned to the crowd. “I have the deputy in my hand,” he roared. “She shall speak with my words—our voice—to her people. Fortedemains shall rule their own lands, their own way. No more will the bloody talons of a winged race dictate our days. The strength of the Mountain Dwellers’ time has come.”

The hissing started up again, louder than before.

“Argh!”

Caitlyn’s hands were violently pulled.

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Jader wrenched out the iron ring she was attached to. He sawed at the rope with a

snarl as if he had her wings in his hands, to release her, then turned and hoisted the ring back

as if to hurl it in rage.

Thomwyn grabbed his brother’s arm.

“Do not be a fool,” he said under the noise of the crowd. “Our father has spoken.” He lifted the ring up between them, and turned to the vast expanse of people. Raising his voice

he yelled,

“We—Jader and Thomwyn—and our father, Strone-laid, are the ring that hold this

deputy in place.”

Caitlyn scanned the shifting, confused crowed. Would they believe Thomwyn’s words

and not the madness in his brother’s eyes? Jader tensed as if to pull away, but Thomwyn

whispered in his ear. Whatever he said made his brother stiffen and stay still.

Strone-laid opened his arms to his sons as if to beckon them forward. “From all sides of this land we think as one,” he said. “To keep these lands safe. In peace and in bountiful water.”

Thomwyn marched Jader forward past Caitlyn. She stepped sideways as if ice had been pressed against her skin.

Strone-laid laid a heavy hand on Jader’s shoulder. Caitlyn could see Strone-laid’s fingers grinding his son’s collarbone under his iron grip. She could not help enjoying Jader’s wince of pain.

All three men stood abreast facing the Fortedemain crowd of men, women and

children.

Strone-laid thumped his fist over his heart. The crowd responded with foot stamping.

Caitlyn saw a young man, with an ear missing, wipe his tears away.

They loved Strone-laid.

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And they hated her. Just like Caitlyn’s mother had taught her to hate them. She

glanced from one face to the next. One of the women who’d grabbed a feather from Jader’s

wing clipping bared her teeth at Caitlyn and then snapped its shaft. Caitlyn willed herself to

keep looking through the crowd. She would not hide from the consequences of her family’s ruling.

“Coward!” yelled a man, his spittle landing on his well-kept beard.

I’m no coward! Caitlyn broke off eye contact with the crowd for fear her tears would flow. She was bound to the ground now; clipped and unable to fly. She wrapped what was left of her black wings around her body for solace.

“Remove the deputy, we have a war to win.” Strone-laid roared.

Caitlyn felt the surge of excitement go through the crowd. Hands pulled at her to move. She was being led away.

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Chapter 13

The caged door of her new prison was set at the mouth of a deep cave, locked and chained. She was on display with four guards stationed outside so no one could kill her with a well-placed arrow between the bars. One of the men, dressed in shaggy bear-like clothing, had stepped to the side of the door and was peeing against the rock. The acrid stink of it made

Caitlyn recoil. She tightened the mohair overcoat around her body, silently giving thanks to

Videlle for the extra layer, and walked to the back of her cave to find some solitude behind a stone pillar.

Ethnel’s burning! Caitlyn could not bear to look out of the shadows to see the flickers of red and the destruction of her people’s land. The fire was not drawing her way. She sniffed loudly to catch the scent of burnt leaves.

Caitlyn kept her back straight and stared at the grey stone wall. Her feet stung.

The strong, wooden door at the back of the cave slid on its rollers. Strone-laid stepped through.

He gave a tired smile to Caitlyn. “I see Videlle’s packed your wound.”

Caitlyn winced at the memory of Videlle pressing all her weight down on the deep cut to stop the ooze of blood.

“Do you need to sit?” Strone-laid pointed to an upright chair Videlle had provided.

“No, I have to stand. Any bend in my body shoots fire through my back. Please … continue.”

“Rizen’s death gave me back my command, thank you.”

“Yes.” Caitlyn would accept the gift of Strone-laid’s compliment, even though she knew what drove her in the moment was revenge for her father’s injuries. “Thank you for coming and saving my wings. It’s a life debt, I ...” Caitlyn tried to think of how she could

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honour such a life debt—like her father had with Shar-rook—without staying on Fortedemain

land.

“There’s no need for life debts.” Strone-laid wearily pinched the bridge of his nose.

“If you truly wish to honour me, as I wish to honour you, then honesty is the best debt that we

can offer each other and our peoples.” He looked up at her. “So here is my offering, deputy.

You have seen my problem in action: Jader and his blood lust. He, and my people, expect

him to succeed me, but Thomwyn is my natural successor. Jader needs a strong figure above him to stomp out his darker natures even if it’s done by his younger brother.”

Caitlyn looked at the strong man before her. All her training said to keep her thoughts to herself, yet he was asking for her to come forward with the truth. To throw open a closed door. It felt as dangerous as flying into a storm. But staying mute would only be the same game, played again.

“My sister’s lust for blood tipped us into war.” There, the truth was out. Caitlyn’s chest expanded with fresh air. The scab on her wound cracked but she barely noticed the pain.

“I already knew,’ said Strone-laid, softly.

“Oh?”

Strone-laid nodded. “But Rizen never did.”

“I will not apologise for her behaviour,” Caitlyn said, lifting her chin. “I do not speak for my family any longer.”

“Then perhaps there is hope for our land, after all.” Strone-laid paced across the room.

“I have news of your family.”

“Tell me.” Caitlyn prompted. “Please.”

“I have spoken to Queen Danyobe’s body woman.”

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Caitlyn nodded impatiently, picturing the dark haired woman who slept outside

Danyobe and Nicholaz’s chambre. If necessary, she acted as Queen Danyobe’s secret

messenger.

Strone-laid dragged a hand over his tired face. “Water hauling has managed to dampen some of the fire licking its way westward into Ethnel. So many of your people are willing to risk their lives to drop down—even near our part of the river—into fast flowing water. Slynbladians are indeed brave.”

At the mention of her people’s bravery, Caitlyn straightened.

“However, so too are ours,” said Strone-laid.

“Queen Danyobe has celebrated your killing of Rizen and wishes for word of your return.” He paused, meeting Caitlyn’s eye. “I have it that she’s raising the weirs in order to completely dry up the river to our lands. To flush us out—or should I say in—to your soil to be cut down one-by-one once our thirst makes us weak. Quite a vicious spider after all.”

Caitlyn swallowed hard, hurting the back of her throat. “What of my father?”

“King Nicholaz? I am sorry, but no word. He hasn’t returned to the front line, possibly because his wounds have festered. Nor has your mother who, reports have it, attends him, or your sister who I believe was disfigured by one of our dogs?” Strone-laid’s eyebrows went up.

Strone-laid hasn’t seen my mother for some time. She thought of her mother’s crippled legs that couldn’t wield talons, preventing her from fighting. Caitlyn kept silent, unwilling to show the emotion that was deep within. Her father’s injury must be worse than she had thought. Nothing else would have kept him from the fight. And whenever she thought of Asteria it was her rattling death wings that came to mind.

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“I believe it was because your sister displayed the dove-emblems that some of our best fighting dogs were kept to bring a Strymburg down,” Strone-laid added. “If you were there, they would’ve brought you down.”

He knew Asteria was Deputy Apparent. Her family’s lie to their own people shamed

Caitlyn.

“I believe your people want their true deputy back.”

“But I’m not!” Caitlyn’s training made her want to shove the words back into her mouth the instant she uttered them, but her instincts knew otherwise. She had to stand, honestly, as leader or not at all.

Strone-laid raised his hands to silence Caitlyn. “You are the Oppressor to the

Fortedemains. They don’t care if you’re deputy to Ethnel or not. It’s your actions that make their lives hard. I will help you take back your leadership. I’ve been working on a plan, away from Jader’s many ears in this camp. It is why Videlle didn’t know where I was. I have the endgame in sight now, but my final card can only get played with your help.”

“I’ll do anything!” Caitlyn could feel a life force returning to her limbs. She was ready to lead.

“Then prepare your legs and feet for walking today. Thomwyn and I are going to hand you back.”

“When?” It was like she was flying again; her hopes rising. Caitlyn’s first thought was of Thulinde. Would he want her back? She knew Shar-rook would welcome her back as a daughter. But would his son welcome her back as a mate?

“You will be taken by Thomwyn to the river to collect the badges of our dead. It is a traditional humiliation that we visit upon our enemies, so no one will question it. I will order

Jader to remain in camp overseeing war supplies. With Jader’s eyes off you we hope to get

129 you south on the river to a clearing. I’ll meet you there to hand you over. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Thank me by helping to bring peace,” Strone-laid said. “Guard, open the door.” He adjusted his shoulder armoury and looked around the grey, stone cave. “You’ll be free of this soon. If all goes to plan, we will all be free of it.”

Caitlyn’s heart pumped. She smiled at Strone-laid. “I won’t let you down. I mean to have Slynbladians honour your freedom and their own.”

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Chapter 14

Videlle stepped through the wooden door at the back of the cave into Caitlyn’s cage with a covered dish of what smelled like potatoes. “You become one of us today I’m afraid.

You will sort through the dead,” said Videlle.

Caitlyn stood, stiffly. The promise of her least favourite food was now a delicacy she could hardly wait to eat. Her shoulders were cramped. She’d tried to sleep sitting up against the cold cave wall to protect her throbbing wings. “I know. You wear badges with your names on them.”

“As every face is unique, every patch is too. The dead need to return to their families,” responded Videlle.

“Even we do not make our slaves rip badges off our dead.”

“We do not use slaves,” Videlle said. “We all have our freedom.”

Caitlyn thought of her mother’s body woman who would never know marriage and was born to dedicate her life to Queen Danyobe. “Have you lost more Fortedemain lives than you expected too?” she asked, quietly.

Videlle eyed Caitlyn with sudden suspicion. “As a Strymburg is there part of you gloating?”

“No! I am not.” And Caitlyn meant it; suddenly hurt Videlle even suggested it.

Videlle locked-eyes with her. Caitlyn could see an artery beating fast in Videlle’s throat. “Yes, so many lives.”

“I’m so sorry.” Caitlyn burst out into a sob; her mouth thick with saliva. She clamped her lips shut. Don’t show such weakness. Danyobe’s words sounded loud through Caitlyn’s head.

Caitlyn frantically rubbed at her dove-emblem brandings to summon the Strymburg power her mother told her would come in battle.

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No power came.

“Deputy Caitlyn we’re leaving.” Thomwyn had arrived at her cage bars.

Caitlyn saw a posse behind Thomwyn. Their painted faces the colour of bark. Their

physique was rangy and tall. Thomwyn was the biggest among them; his long, dark hair in a

low plait. He had a knife sheathed upside down on each arm, like Caitlyn had worn her

preening comb.

Caitlyn reached around and unfastened the vine necklace that had once held her

Straken mandala. Caitlyn held it out to Videlle. “Here, take it. As a thank you for all your

care. It comes from a white grape vine that only grows on the high side around the water

catchment. We don’t let it fruit for years so the vine is very strong.”

Videlle pocketed it quickly. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Caitlyn breathed out in preparation for what was about to happen.

Thomwyn strode in. “Put this on!” He held up a leg leash.

“Why?”

“Do it! Now!” Thomwyn’s voice was fierce.

Caitlyn forced her hands to take the prisoner’s shackle, instead of protecting her ears.

“Pay close attention as we’re leaving. We’ll have to get passed this camp on our return,” whispered Thomwyn as he bent his head close to Caitlyn’s. “Jader may do something. We don’t know if he’s dove or eagle.”

Jader. The memory of his knife carving into her wing made her want to scream.

The shackle was double leather; its edges cut into her ankle. She was Thomwyn’s prisoner. He only had to pull on the leash in his hand and she would topple over as her ankles were too weak to run or do sudden skips to stay upright.

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As she stepped out of the cave into the light her guards spat on the ground at her feet.

Caitlyn hoped Thomwyn’s acting out his hatred for her didn’t go too deep. He was walking her to freedom after all.

They did what I suggested. She peered over the precipice down at the catchment’s once flowing river. It was a trickle moving over lumps of mud and between rocks. Caitlyn

saw the mouth of a dying fish sucking at air for oxygen; its black eyes darting back and forth

in panic.

The catchment’s weirs had been raised to deprive the Fortedemains of water and force

them into surrender. Mt family must be desperate now to end the war.

Caitlyn’s knees and feet ached like they’d been hit with sticks. They were trudging

toward the fire wall that Videlle had told her about.

Caitlyn could hear the crisping of leaves from fire. She glanced around to mark their

path: they’d already passed the river near to where she’d fallen. The eastern reach was now a

dry expanse. They were coming around to the point where she’d have a chance to hear what

Slynbladians were delivering to the Fortedemains further up river; it ran true to the north-

western site where her people were fighting. Her ears could pick up distant clashes of wood

and voices yelling in threat or pain.

The smell of dampened ash brought tears to Caitlyn’s eyes. An image of her home in

flames appeared on the ground in front of her. She stepped on the waking nightmare and

looked up at the beginning of the Fortedemain fire wall.

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“Eyes forward!” a guard her height barked at the Fortedemains who’d stopped to stare at the fallen deputy. They turned away from her and readjusted their holds on the hessian bags.

The gruesome wall was made from bodies dragged out of the river. The Fortedemains hoped to protect their food crops in-land if the fire skipped across the chasm left by the dry river bed.

“Go forward,” directed Thomwyn.

I don’t want to. The soles of her feet stabbed with pain at every footfall. She’d have to rest soon or fall over. She dared not ask for aid, from pride and from the knowledge that it would not come.

The first collection Caitlyn hobbled to was of tangled arms and contorted faces. Like a reflection on a ripple, the poison had re-shaped their features and once toned skin slid and distorted, making them ghouls from a nightmare. The ugly masses were arranged in rows, one on top of the other, like flesh bricks.

Living, these Fortedemains had fought for their land and water; dead they continued to fight. There would surely be Slynbladian dead amongst them, too. Caitlyn knew she would have to prepare herself for the worst.

“Take this.” A large Hessian bag was thrust into Caitlyn’s hands.

She started her grisly task—tallying those who had fallen. From one end she rapidly tore off the patch markings trying to unfocus her eyes enough to blind herself to what lay in front of her. She sent the shooting leg pains away to the back of her mind.

The bags soon became heavy with the tokens of death.

The Fortedemain bodies stunk of human faeces and old blood. Caitlyn dry gagged every few steps along the wall of carcases. Finally, she undid some spare material from around her waist and tied it over her nose.

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Near a recent drop of bodies Caitlyn came across a female Chrysalis entangled with a

female Fortedemain of mothering age. She reached down to close the eyes of her own kind

but the Fortedemain blocked her way.

“Lift it off,” she ordered a Fortedemain near her.

She got no response. She had to remember she was no longer in command. Of

anything.

“Please, may I lift my comrade off the pile?” she asked. “Allow me this one thing.”

“Here!” Thomwyn grabbed the dead Fortedemain’s shoulders and pulled the body sideways exposing the Slynbladian’s torn chest plate. “Have your moment, but be quick about it.”

“Thank you.” Caitlyn watched Thomwyn turn to command his posse in body retrievals. My mother killed yours. The thought was so loud in her mind she feared it had escaped through her mouth. She cleared her throat. Caitlyn laid a hand over the Slynbladian’s heart. “Soar”.

Tears came thick and fast. Caitlyn tried to shut the Chrysalis’s eyes, but they would not stay closed. The girl had died some time ago and her stiff body had dropped its blood, leaving her half-dark, half-white.

Caitlyn couldn’t honour her own among all the dead Fortedemains. This is my fault.

You died because of a Strymburg order.

Next to the Chrysalis, a gurgle came from the Fortedemain’s throat. She’s alive!

Caitlyn turned back to tell Thomwyn, but he had already walked further ahead. Others were spread along the wall, heads down on the task at hand, collecting the patches with grim determination. Caitlyn guessed only the stink of it reached their senses now too. All around her the smell of opened guts, days old, penetrated her nose guard.

Caitlyn turned around to try and catch Thomwyn’s attention, again.

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A minder further down the wall looked up from his task. “Get back to work, deputy”.

He eyed her for a moment, then ripped another patch from a fallen Fortedemain.

Caitlyn looked down at the Fortedemain woman. She could see the woman’s bloodied

lips part as she murmured again. Her leather chest guard was ripped and blood stained her

clothing. A Slynbladian arrow had entered her gut. Caitlyn had seen such wounds before—

the woman was dying slowly, the arrow broken and buried in her body. Caitlyn dragged the

Fortedemain back onto the Chrysalis’s chest—face toward the sky.

At the movement, the woman opened her eyes and looked straight at Caitlyn. Such

pain and fear.

Should she try and save this Fortedemain? Caitlyn knew it was already too late. The

woman was a moment away from death. That lonely moment that they would all have to face

at some time, Slynbladian and Fortedemain alike. The fear in the woman’s eyes deepened.

Death was terrifying enough, Caitlyn thought, without hate being its herald.

“You have done your duty well,” she whispered into the woman’s ear. “Your honour

is great. Go in peace.”

The Fortedemain closed her eyes. Caitlyn took her hand, noting it remained warm

from the heart’s final laboured beats. The woman’s eyelids shifted, her honey skin tone

slowly bleaching into the ash of death. A final sigh brought the end.

Caitlyn bowed her head. .

“Come.” Thomwyn was behind her.

She turned to see a posse of mountain dwellers surrounding him.

“We’re taking you back now,” he said. “There’s word of commotion further upstream.” He didn’t take his eyes off Caitlyn.

The minders muttered and shrugged. The trained dogs of the rendezvous night milled around Thomwyn. Their presence turned her insides.

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Thomwyn nodded back in the direction from where she’d walked that morning. A man and woman tramped forward and gripped Caitlyn’s arms.

Was this the start of Strone-laid’s plan?

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Chapter 15

The sun cast long fingers across their path from the surrounding trees. Caitlyn knew

they were near the camp now from the formation of the large, granite boulders.

Thomwyn kept his eyes forward. He had ignored Caitlyn since leaving the grotesque

fire wall. His plaited hair swung side-to-side, keeping the beat of his steady walking pace.

She heard the dogs behind her sniffing the air.

Thomwyn turned, his eyes scanning the undergrowth around them. “You’re too slow,

deputy. We need to move quickly past this point.”

He gestured to the two men walking on either side of Caitlyn. The tall Fortedemains grabbed Caitlyn by each wrist and ducked their heads under her arms until she was practically carried by them.

Caitlyn caught a smirk as quick as a heartbeat from Thomwyn, and then they were off again. Silently walking.

They walked close to the chasm left by the lowering of the Fortedemains’ river. Its soft bank remained, the grass under foot thicker the further away they walked from the fighting. No scuffles had occurred this far south along the river.

The grunts of the mountain dwellers straining to assist Caitlyn drummed in her ears.

Her arms itched from their sweat. She kept her eyes on her feet, willing them to keep up with the longer steps of her human crutches.

Suddenly, they stopped and released her.

Caitlyn looked up. Standing before them was Jader. Caitlyn felt every inch of her body tighten. She scanned the undergrowth for an ambush, but he did not seem to have come with any men.

“Let us pass brother,” Thomwyn said. “You know this has to happen!” In one stride he was next to Caitlyn.

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Jader stood beside a massive boulder. “Father’s too old to command! Fortedemain

needs young guards like us. If you let her go we’ll have nothing to bargain.” Jader pointed his

knife at Caitlyn’s face.

She brought her wings round her body. Her attempt to shield herself sent white heat

down her arms. Her hands were shaking.

“I’m the heir to Strone-laid’s leadership! Take her back to the cage.” Jader directed his authority at Thomwyn’s posse.

The posse looked to Thomwyn. He shook his head. “Father has chosen me as next

leader. You know this! He still wants you by his side, just not as Rizen’s shadow.”

“Don’t you trust me little brother?” Jader rocked back and forth with one hand

gripping the back of his blade.

“I wish I could.” Thomwyn’s voice was low.

Caitlyn heard sadness in it, but she could sense the taut readiness in Thomwyn’s body.

“I’ve shown trust in you by coming alone,” said Jader.

Thomwyn nodded, but Caitlyn could see he was searching behind Jader for signs of a

posse.

Only she and Thomwyn faced Jader. The dogs lay panting in the grass. Thomwyn’s

posse had positioned themselves in a protection circle in case of attack from the river’s side

or camp’s side.

“But I won’t let you pass, brother,” Jader added.

“We return her and the hostilities cease,” said Thomwyn.

“You stupid little boy.” Jader started pacing. “Why are you trusting them?”

“I trust father and deputy Caitlyn. Together they—we—can stop this war.”

Caitlyn saw the earnest belief on Thomwyn’s face. He and Strone-laid were working

for peace for the greater good, not just for themselves. Caitlyn knew that now, in her bones.

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Jader let his head fall back, a scream rising into a call. Its pitch so high Caitlyn had to

cover her sensitive right ear with both hands.

Grey mounds which had appeared as flat granite beds and rocks sprung up from the

tall grasses shredding their camouflage overclothes like dried clay. They charged; only the

whites of their eyes visible for the mud they’d caked their faces in.

Jader bared his teeth and ran at Thomwyn.

Caitlyn tried to launch into the air to kick out at Jader using one of her best defences.

Her wings failed. She fell and hit the ground hard, her legs tangled in her shackle. She

jumped up using both feet together to shield Thomwyn with her body. Jader stabbed her

undamaged wing. The weight of him toppled Caitlyn to the ground.

“Capture him,” screamed Thomwyn.

Caitlyn was pinned under Jader’s body. She could hear Thomwyn defending punches,

the sound of knuckles hitting flesh. She bucked hitting Jader’s nose with her head. He screamed and punched the back of her head. Her face slammed into the ground.

Jader’s great weight was off her back.

“Use this.” Thomwyn tossed one of his arm knives to Caitlyn as Jader tackled him.

They both rolled, punching at each other. Caitlyn used her stabbed wing to deflect the spinning knife to the ground.. She slipped the blade inside the leash and starting sawing.

Almost! It ripped in two.

Her legs were free. Thomwyn’s posse had formed a circle around her, fighting back

Jader’s men. They had knives, but most were caught in close hand-to-hand combat. They didn’t have time to use the bows strapped to their backs. But she would.

Caitlyn scanned the circle and ran to one of Thomwyn’s posse about the same size as herself. The woman had a yellow stripe through her red hair.

“Duck your head!” she yelled.

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“Argh!” screamed the woman as she plunged her dagger into a man’s back. He arched

then staggered toward the river.

“Take it!” The woman threw the bow then quiver of arrows to Caitlyn.

It’s got power. Caitlyn felt the bow’s neck bent away from her—it would travel an

arrow far. She slung the quiver over her shoulders.

“No!” Caitlyn called out as Jader jabbed one of Thomwyn’s men in the throat. His life

was over.

Caitlyn rigged up the bow. She breathed in sharply through her nose to focus, and

turned. Thomwyn was on the ground with two others kicking him. She strode forward rigging

up her first arrow and pulled it in one smooth, fast action. The arrow sunk deep into his side.

He fell grabbing his hip. The other man kicking Thomwyn looked up. Caitlyn rigged her next

shot and fired into his leg, trying to maim only.

She turned again.

One of Jader’s women, the mud smeared on her face, was about to attack her. She’d

got past Caitlyn’s protectors. She threw a long stake at Caitlyn. It was a weak throw and

sliced across her right shoulder. The arrow fell out of her bow’s string.

Caitlyn retrieved another arrow from the quiver. She focused through the screams of those fighting nearby. The pain made her eyes water. The woman with the stake was still coming. She hit out with the back of the bow and slashed the woman’s cheek. As the woman recoiled, Caitlyn pushed her down with her foot. Her kicks could never do much harm to a

Fortedemain.

Caitlyn would use the rest of the arrows on Jader’s posse. She rigged up to shoot again; and then again.

“Are you all right, deputy?” one of Thomwyn’s posse asked.

Caitlyn saw blood dripping off her wing. “Don’t touch me, I’m fine. Help Thomwyn.”

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Thomwyn was out of breath with exertion. He swallowed hard. “Back … get them

back to the cage.”

Jader’s posse were tied together being jostled by Thomwyn’s men in the direction of

the cage.

She wanted to bring Jader down.

“They’re releasing the winged-one. Do not let it happen. I tell you, do not let it happen!”

It was Jader’s voice. Caitlyn swung the rigged bow toward him. Jader’s back was to her. Two men on each side were feeding his hands through slip knots.

Caitlyn wanted to kill him. Make him pay. The white hot pain down her spine reminded her with each step of his attempt to sever her wings.

The men started pulling him after them. Jader’s face had blood and snot streaming from his nose. She knew Jader’s posse were surrendering with the capture of their leader, but she still had time to finish him. She pulled the bow back further, pressing her lips against the bowstring.

“Not this day, deputy,” said Thomwyn, quietly. He’d stepped close to Caitlyn.

“Please, I’m not ready to lose him like this.”

Caitlyn dropped the bow. “I understand.”

“Gag him!” ordered Thomwyn.

Both men used their weight to buckle Jader’s legs. One held the back of his neck. The other ripped off a piece of his undershirt and tied it tight over Jader’s mouth.

Now that she was unshackled Caitlyn flexed her ankles. The bones cracked easing

some of the cramping.

“Lock them in the cage. With Jader,” ordered Thomwyn.

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“Let’s march.” Thomwyn straightened his chest armour, and wiped blood out of his eyes. His mouth was thin with disappointment and disgust, but not surprise. Caitlyn understood—it was how she felt about Asteria.

Caitlyn looked up at the first proper crop of trees she’d seen along the river bank all day. At last something familiar. Beech trees with roots like a giant’s hand splayed on the ground.

Strone-laid stood at the river’s edge peering over into Ethnel’s forest. His chest armour of leather and wooden panels made his already broad muscular body bigger. He didn’t turn to greet Thomwyn or herself.

The posse retreated into the high scrub. It was Thomwyn, his dogs, and herself left in the stand of trees. Thomwyn laid his reinforced bow down on the grass.

Strone-laid turned and walked over to them, each step parting the tall grass.

“He acted as we thought,’ said Thomwyn. The clipped words were full of regret.

Strone-laid adjusted his glove. “I see.” He stared down at the ground for a moment then turned to Caitlyn. “I’m sorry Jader’s injured your wings. I didn’t want you maimed.”

The knot in her stomach eased. “I’ll heal. Who knows, once my new feathers come in they might grow longer and more powerful.” Caitlyn smiled at Strone-laid hoping to ease his guilt over his own damaged son.

“Your messenger can do the work of spreading your news by wing for a while.”

Strone-laid gave a long piercing whistle. The messenger owl—the one he had given

Caitlyn—launched out of an old tree on Ethnel soil, across the dry river bed.

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To see it swoop and use its silent wings to glide down brought joy to Caitlyn. The first happy feeling she’d had for a long time. She held out her arm and braced.

“Are you able to support its weight with your injuries?” Thomwyn unsheathed one of his knives and sawed a strip of his leather tunic. He deftly wrapped it around Caitlyn’s arm so her owl’s talons would not sink into her flesh.

“Yes.”

The owl’s outer feathers, the ones Jader had injured on Caitlyn, bent backwards as it slowed to meet its mark on Caitlyn’s arm. Its claws wrapped over the leather, wings settling back against its powerful body.

“Hello old friend.” Caitlyn stroked its soft head. She smelled the sap-earthen scent of it, drawing strength from its alert, moon-shaped eyes and ever-watchful presence.

“Haul the bridge,” yelled Strone-laid. “It’s time you returned.”

Caitlyn snapped to attention. Her breathing quickened. Finally, it was happening. She was about to walk to freedom.

Strapped poles secured with rope and lashed together three wide—light and fast to place and remove—were carried out by Thomwyn’s posse.

The rickety bridge was shunted across the river bed.

Caitlyn peered over at the deeply forested crossover—the start of Ethnel proper—and searched greedily for a sign of her own people. As surely as she could see the sun, she saw the signs of a silent fleet of Slynbladian warriors, hidden amongst the trees. Her people, waiting for a sign from her, their deputy.

Shar-rook stepped out from behind a walnut tree.

“You came!” screamed Caitlyn. Her owl flapped its wings, then resettled on her arm.

Shar-rook held a broken arrow up and laid it on the ground in front of him. A peace gesture. He brought his finger up to his lips to silence Caitlyn, the damage to his hand

144 reminding Caitlyn of his valour and his many sacrifices for her family. She should have known he had helped broker the peace.

Caitlyn dropped her head to compose herself. Her warring with the Fortedemains had come to an end. She’d been wrong about so many things including the Strymburgs’ absolute right to rule without negotiation over the Fortedemains. Her family’s iron grip had caused so much pain and death, like fuelling Rizen’s bile until it broke out in a lust for battle. And

Jader’s rage. Caitlyn winced at the memory of his sawing at her wing

She watched Shar-rook hesitate then step onto the bridge. Caitlyn held her breath. He was risking so much coming across to her.

“Was it you who asked Shar-rook to come here?” Caitlyn asked Strone-laid.

“No …”

Caitlyn turned for an answer in Shar-rook’s face. He stepped onto Fortedemain soil and held his arms out. Caitlyn burst into hot tears and flung her free arm around his neck, the owl spreading its wings to balance. They held one another in a tight embrace until Shar-rook stepped away. He nodded to Thomwyn and Strone-laid.

Caitlyn stroked her owl’s feathers to calm herself. She dreaded asking the one question that weighed upon her spirit. “Father? Is he…”

“He was mortally wounded, child.” Shar-rook pulled Caitlyn’s hand away from her face to hold it in his own. “It was his time.”

Ethnel was mapped in Caitlyn’s mind. Its landmarks her father’s making: the corner of Slynblade village where she’d first shot an adult sized bow; the water catchment’s weirs where her father had expressed how proud he was of her abilities and her future as Ethnel’s ruler; and all their shared meals together. How she’d laughed at his silly impressions so hard food fell out of her mouth. Now her map was forever changed. She would walk through her lands with damaged wings and a dead father.

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“And now it is my time. I feared if you knew it was me, you’d not agree,” said Shar-

rook. “But it is for the best.”

Her gut clenched around a cold stone of foreboding. “Agree to what?” Shar-rook

always wanted to protect her from hurt—too much some times.

“My pair of hands for yours, child. My son’s happiness and your rule.”

Caitlyn glared at Strone-laid. “Is this your solution? No! It’s not acceptable. I won’t

have it!”

She knew that with one gesture she could have the fleet fall upon this small band of

Fortedemains.

“Is this the first decision you want to make as a leader of Ethnel? You have a whole

world to lead, deputy. For this you wouldn’t give up a mentor?” Strone-laid frowned at

Caitlyn.

Caitlyn felt her own child’s fear warring with the new responsibility on her shoulders.

She didn’t want to disappoint Shar-rook, or her new ally in Strone-laid. But to give up Shar-

rook, her mentor? How could she rule without his steadfast support or his sage advice?

“You can have a future. For your father, for me,” said Shar-rook. “I love you, as my

own daughter.”

Caitlyn laid her hand on the owl. If ever she needed the famed wisdom of the bird,

this was it. She had to feel her way to the right answer.

She was Ethnel’s new leader. Her responsibility was to everyone, not just herself or

even just her own people. But could she rule without the guidance of Shar-rook? Caitlyn

looked at Strone-laid’s face then his son’s. They both wore questioning expressions.

Caitlyn’s insides felt like they were shifting under her skin. She breathed-in, deeply, adjusting to the weight of true leaderhsip. “Yes, Shar-rook go with Strone-laid. You’ll find

146 each other great company..” Caitlyn smiled, her heart thudding from the grief of relinquishing her beloved mentor.

Shar-rook’s eyes were hazy with unshed tears. “Go, now, you must return to Ethnel.

Look who awaits.” Shar-rook pointed across the hastily made bridge.

On the other side, with silver wings outstretched, was a male Slynbladian wearing the half-mask of a vulture’s beak. She looked deeper at him, recognising the muscular body and confident stance.

“Thulinde!” Caitlyn screamed across at him, then turned desperately to share the moment with Shar-rook.

But he was already gone—into the high scrub.

Caitlyn bowed her head for a moment, a last honouring of their old bond. Then she limped forward, cupping her hands in the union gesture that bound her and Thulinde together for life.

Thulinde did the same, his fine fingers covered in black, skin gloves.

He still loves me after all I’ve done. She smiled at him.

Thulinde stood where Shar-rook, his father, had just been. Noble Shar-rook, who had exchanged himself for them so they could rule Ethnel. Could there be any greater love?

Come. Thulinde gestured to Caitlyn to cross the divide between them.

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Chapter 16

Caitlyn followed Thulinde deeper into the walnut woods. He was carrying her

precious leader coat. She turned once to look back over the river. Strone-laid and Thomwyn

were walking ahead of their posse, their dogs circling around them..

She followed Thulinde’s progress. He walked confidently, so used to treading the

ground as Shar-rook’s son. Caitlyn breathed deeply to infuse herself with the crushed

caraway scent of Ethnel. She had missed it so much.

An ululation drifted down like leaves. Her loyal fleet had kept themselves in food and

courage the whole time of her incarceration.

“So, so, so, so.” The fleet started a victory chant, quiet and strong, like the Forest that

surrounded her.

Above her, in their bark-like second skin, were her people. As she raised her hands in

thanks, they removed their masks. A Chrysalis female placed her hands against her chest, a

love gesture that brought tears to Caitlyn’s eyes. The male next to her, aged with grey on his

beard, drew his wings back to reveal the underside painted silver in loyalty to the house of

Thulinde, her future husband.

Caitlyn looked again for him through the blur of emotion. The vision of the fleets’ happiness and their song of spring and renewal made flight seem possible again. She turned to share it with Thulinde. He was nowhere on the ground.

The fleets’ tone lowered until their voices mingled into a soft sound like a running river.

Above her the coat from her own wardrobe sparkled with light as if lit by fire. Yet its iridescence was nothing compared to the silver wings of Thulinde flying down to her carrying it. His mask was free of his beautiful face. Tears remained in the rims of his brown eyes.

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Caitlyn nodded. She could not speak past the knot that ached in her throat. Thulinde

was coming to her as her mate, her husband. He landed and slipped the coat over her body, touching her clipped wings gently with respect.

“My own, we must return. Ethnel awaits a new leadership.”

“What do you understand will happen to your father?” asked Caitlyn.

“Strone-laid keeps him to guarantee our loyalty to a truce. As the arrowmaker his knowledge of weaponry can give the Fortedemains skills up to our standard. And, as I’m his son,” Thulinde pointed at his strong chest, “the Fortedemains will see your husband as providing the ultimate gift to their people in the name of Strone-laid’s leadership.”

“Can you live with me knowing he sacrificed himself for my freedom? Knowing he lives with the Fortedemains, alone?” asked Caitlyn.

“It was not only for your freedom,” Thulinde said softly. “It was for peace.” He smiled. “Strone-laid assured me that he’ll house with Videlle, the medicine woman.”

Caitlyn recalled the strangeness of Videlle. Yet she had been kind and fair. Shar-rook would find good company with the woman.

Caitlyn took Thulinde’s hand in her own.

“I am ready.” She faced west—the direction of Ethnel proper. It was time to return home.

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Chapter 17

“It was wise to bring me to Tymward first, our home,” Caitlyn touched Thulinde’s cheek. They were before a large fire in the branding room. The chimney was a circular hole in the roof.

“I thought that once you witnessed the change in your Strymburg family, you wouldn’t have the wings to leave: that your fortitude would give away.” His smile was so warm it sent Caitlyn back to the wonderful moment when Thulinde had stoked the fire on her coronation day.

Caitlyn’s bones were as tired as her mind. Thulinde had given her a drink with pain- killing herbs in it, but it could remove the weariness of the day. “I’ll return to Slynblade Hall

when my blood feathers have changed to allow flight.”

Thulinde nodded. “My father’s carriage is always available if you wish to visit

sooner.”

“I can wait.”

The fire spat from drops of rain coming through the room’s open centre. Caitlyn leant

against Thulinde and took his hand in hers. She smiled at him. “This is a perfect gift.”

Thulinde laughed, shaking his head.

Caitlyn laughed back. Her mind flew to the water catchment, then onto the

Fortedemain lands and what the coming rains would do for both of them.

Thulinde lifted her heavy, black hair off her back and rested it over her shoulder.

Caitlyn shifted until she faced him and brought her closed lips against his dark, red ones, the

kiss bathing her in warmth from head to toe. Thulinde cupped her face in both his hands.

“I’m so happy you’re back.” Thulinde smiled, revealing his dimple.

She traced the small indentation at the side of his mouth then drew her fingers along

the length of his jaw bone. So strong. She would need his strength at her side when she faced

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her mother and sister. Caitlyn looked at the flutter of his eyelids as he drew near again. He wetted her lips with his tongue; tracing their outline perfectly like they were his own. She

parted her mouth and gave herself over to exploring his.

His scent of cinnamon and wool drew Caitlyn deeper into the kiss.

“Your father’s ashes already feed the grand trees around Slynblade,” said Danyobe.

Caitlyn stood in the hexagonal outdoor room where she had once told Shar-rook and

Thulinde of her wrongdoing and loss of deputyship. This time her fleet, well-armed in case of protest, surrounded the room making it into an amphitheatre. They would witness the stage of

change about to happen.

“I have no need to take these fine white flowers you offer,” her mother added

haughtily. “Send them to the other bereaved families to lace around their homes.” Danyobe

was in full mourning dress, staring up at the cascading arrangement of vines. Asteria was

mute by her side.

Caitlyn focussed on her mother’s violet eyes like life itself demanded it. Once fear would’ve ignited within her, but not now. “That’s truly kind of you mother.” She held her

speaker’s staff, lightly. She had already known her father’s body had been sent back to the

earth, but it still hurt to know she had not been there to honour his body at the fire.

“Take this and do better than us.” Danyobe held out her crown.

“Thank you mother.” Caitlyn took the sandstone carved crown. She felt imbued with the strength of what it stood for: strength and rulership. Her mother’s eyes were impenetrable.

Does she really want this?

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“Shar-rook and King Nicholaz loved you as if the sky never greyed,” said Danyobe.

“I hope that you can live up to their faith.”

Caitlyn heard the taint of bitterness, but ignored it. “Will you remain at Slynblade?”

“At your bidding,” said Danyobe.

As Ethnel’s leader, Caitlyn and her king husband, Thulinde, could take over

Slynblade Hall and push out anyone that they chose not to have near. Caitlyn looked at

Danyobe’s bowed head. It had been tempting to punish her mother and Asteria, but in the end it would have served nothing.

“Asteria and you must stay there—it’s your home. Thulinde and I will remain in

Tymward.”

Danyobe nodded. She should have given formal acceptance words, but Caitlyn did not push for them. Her mother was finding it difficult enough as it was without being forced to bend the knee to her daughter.

“Asteria has not yet healed. Will you delay her deputy branding until she is strong enough to bear the pain?” Danyobe asked.

Asteria’s willowy, tall frame was the same but her face was puckered on one side: the brutal injury had still not completely healed. She stared at the ground, not even looking up at the discussion of her deputyship.

“The subject of Asteria’s deputyship can wait, mother,” Caitlyn said. She turned to her sister. “Your face will heal in time and then you can wear any lush face mask that you desire. You can choose different masks depending upon your mood.” Caitlyn tried to summon real warmth for her difficult younger sister. “And I’m happy to beat you at a game of keepsakes from the river.” She knew her sister valued her looks and would be suffering at her disfigurement.

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Asteria snorted and raised her sullen head briefly to meet Caitlyn’s eyes. “I’ve already

resumed that game.”

Asteria’s movement threw a stink of decaying meat. Caitlyn quickly covered her nose.

Asteria had strung her wings with bird bones not yet free of their dead meat. Good nights

protect us all. My sister’s dark lusts have turned her mind sour.

“I do not want to wait,” Asteria said, her voice rising. “I want my dove-emblem patch

now!”

“Dignity, child. Remain calm,” Danyobe snapped.

“No! I want it now!” Asteria yelled. “Now! Now!”

It would seem that Asteria was not going to let the subject drop. Caitlyn had wanted

to wait until they had privacy to break the news to Asteria and Danyobe that the deputyship would be placed elsewhere. She had not wanted to humiliate her sister any further. But she had to lead Ethnel now, and she could not allow the girl to undermine her authority. Or think that a tantrum would bring what she desired.

“The deputyship is not yours, Asteria,” Caitlyn said. “You who murdered an innocent

Fortedemain for the pleasure of a live hunt.”

Caitlyn felt Thulinde shift beside her with shock. She had only told Thulinde about

Asteria’s hand in propelling Rizen into war talk, and that fact still horrified him. He could barely stay in the same room as her sister.

“There will be one among us here today who would serve better.” Caitlyn pointed at the wall of soldiers behind Asteria. “One who has proven their right to stand alongside

Thulinde and I. Their blood may not run with our blood, but the dove-emblem would make us kinfolk. Their allegiance would be far greater than yours.” Caitlyn eyed Asteria’s hands wringing the raven deputy plate.

“It is mine. No one else’s,” hissed Asteria.

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Caitlyn saw one of the Haast feather’s shaft was broken, its brown vane jagged.

“Bring the deputy plate to me.” Caitlyn would raise her bow to Asteria if she had to.

Asteria shook her head.

“Go to your sister.” Danyobe grabbed the back of Asteria’s neck.

Asteria winced. Caitlyn knew how painful Danyobe’s hold was.

“Are you finished?” asked Danyobe.

Caitlyn’s heart beat fast, not from fear of her mother’s words, but for her future.

“Yes.”

“Then allow us to depart for Slynblade. I’m in mourning and you can see Asteria is

too.”

The barb from her mother sailed past Caitlyn. She sensed Thulinde’s steady presence

standing tall on her right. “Yes, please go mother and sister.” I shall not want you near again.

Caitlyn pointed with her speaker’s spike in the direction of the water catchment.

Thulinde placed his hand on her shoulder. Solidarity.

“Call forward a speaker with a voice like a nightingale to spread word of my orders

on this day.” Caitlyn smiled at herself giving orders like a true Queen. “The day that Queen

Caitlyn and King Thulinde lead Ethnel into peace.

“My orders to see the end of war and to honour my father’s death are these. That six

of my own soldiers shall drop the weirs and let water flow again onto Fortedemain land.” The

light on Caitlyn’s cloak sent rainbow darts out from her arms. “That Ethnel will manage its

own woods for felling. That there shall be no more supply exchanges with Fortedemains. Any

food or product passed between our worlds will be done at a price agreed upon between the persons. From this day forth, we shall regard ourselves as two communities, worlds forever separate but as one in honouring our shared need for water. The water catchment will remain

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under our control as we have the means to access it and they do not. However the weirs will only be controlled for flooding.”

Thulinde handed Caitlyn a parchment to write her message upon. Her messenger owl was steady on its post, gulping down the last of a rat’s tail. Caitlyn smiled and put her quill to paper:

“Commander Strone-laid,” she wrote.

“I, leader of the Slynbladians, am home.

Caitlyn.”

She tied the message to the owl’s foot and let it go. With three strong beats of its wings, it was up in the air and gliding toward two lands united in peace.

The End

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Fast forward to the past

I came to the project of writing a young adult speculative fantasy through my interest

in the high fantasy genre and how they are often alternative histories of some kind. As

possible alternative histories, fantasies offer a way to examine our world, but not just as

alternative histories. High fantasy texts also provide commentary on social reality, and can

highlight socio-political issues of the day as indicated by Zipes’ comment that a return “to the

past is also part of the way to the future” (1979, p.132).

I read Ursula Le Guin’s classic The Earthsea Quartet (1993) and was amazed at the

difference between the first and last book. The first resembled a Tolkienesque quest-story, the last a more personal look at men’s and women’s inequality. I wanted to explore how the social reality of an era an author is writing in influences the type of story they tell, in

particular how the social influences the ways they shape the protagonist’s journey.

This led to the Masters exegetical question: How has Ursula Le Guin altered the

hero’s pathway in her high fantasy The Earthsea Quartet (1968-1990), to fit changing contemporary social realities? And to a body of research with two literary outcomes: a

creative work and an exegesis.

The exegesis signposts why my creative work is shaped as it is; it follows the pathway

of self-reflexivity, thus methodology becomes the theory that informs my writing. It is

written in three sections: a literature review that provides a point of entry into the research

field; case studies that apply the conceptual issues of the literature review to two examples in

the field; and a self-reflective case study that applies the conceptual ideas of the literature

review and lessons of the two case studies to my own creative piece. The creative piece demonstrates how I have interacted with the theoretical underpinnings of my exegesis in terms of critiques of dystopian and utopian adolescent fiction, and how I express the research and in that expression become the research itself (Haseman, 2006).

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A major part of the Master of Arts project is critical reflection; observing how the

process of researching the exegesis, in my case analysing how the social reality of an era an

author is writing in affects their writing of the protagonist’s journey, shapes how I write the

protagonist’s journey in the creative piece. The exegetical research informs and to a certain

extent guides the creative piece. My methodology is creative practice as research.

In this exegesis I will unpack and examine the Masters exegetical question in two

ways. Firstly I will address the ways in which social reality is explored through the lens of

societal influences, such as sexual politics and the world events at the time Ursula Le Guin

wrote her novels. These influences will be examined in the first and last books of Le Guin’s

The Earthsea Quartet. Secondly I will examine, in terms of my own creative piece, why it is

necessary that these works are dystopian narratives. I will argue that dystopian fiction for

young adults is fertile ground to explore the issues they face in life, as mirrored in the adolescent protagonist’s own confrontation with the social reality he/she inherits on their journey to maturation.

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Literature Review

Patricia Kennon in ‘‘Belonging’ in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction: New

Communities Created by Children’ describes a dystopian story as the ‘bad place’, “an

ominous nightmare scenario warning us of repressive futures that seem all too disturbingly

possible and plausible” (2005, p.40). However, dystopia is more than just a ‘bad place’. It is a world that highlights areas of discontent within contemporary society; a space to speculate on what could happen to our world in the future. Hence, dystopian narratives are important in young adult literature, because the readers are the very ones who will inherit the world.

Dystopia is an inversion of utopia, the ‘good place’ which is an idealised social organisation, like a community, that through example, urges humans to improve themselves (Hintz and

Ostry 2003, p.3; Kennon 2005, p.40). The issue of how we can make a perfect or nurturing society out of humans and their many existing faults is raised by Bernard Cazes in ‘Utopias:

Social’ who states that each “utopia is in itself a permanent paradox: how an ideal society can be established by a gathering of hopelessly imperfect individuals?” (2001, p.16125).

Carrie Hintz argues that in young adult literature the darker atmosphere in dystopian fiction provides a better vehicle than utopian texts for adolescents’ own social and political awakening; in terms of their position within the authority space of adults, and the institutions they inherit from them (cited by Kennon 2005, p.40).

In this exegesis I will use Keith M. Booker’s definition of dystopia in Dystopian

Literature: A theory and research guide who contends that dystopian fiction

constitutes a critique of existing social conditions or political systems, either through the critical examination of the utopian premises upon which those conditions and systems are based or through the imaginative extension of those conditions and systems into different contexts that more clearly reveal their flaws and contradictions (cited by Crag Hill in his chapter ‘Dystopian Novels’ in Hintz & Ostry 2003, p.3).

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And for the purposes of this exegesis I will examine the critique of young adult literature’s aligning utopian and dystopan social conditions with the experience of childhood or adulthood itself.

It is the striving toward a utopian ideal in fiction which is important, rather than having adolescent protagonists living in utopia, a place that would render them powerless and unable to re-organise the community they live in. To live in a utopia is almost to be blind to one’s desire (Jackson, 1981) or potentiality. This is the utopian dilemma; that one can live in an ideal world, but complacency could lead to dystopian problems arising again. Hence, most utopian texts have rigid social orders and strict rules to keep the utopia stable (Bloch, 1988).

This is one of the reasons most contemporary literature for adolescents is dystopian (Hintz and Ostry, 2003). An ideal world, a utopia, fails to provide adolescent protagonists with choices about how their community is governed. Dystopian novels address the imperfections in ‘our’ social realities, instead of simply replicating them.

Dystopian and utopian theory informs our understanding of what constitutes ‘social reality’ in young adult literature. Heather Scutter in Displaced Fictions (1999) critiques the representation of childhood in contemporary Australian young adult literature, and observes that the utopian depictions of childhood are dramatically altered when the child enters the realm of adulthood: childhood is utopian, adulthood is dystopian. Scutter argues that adolescent protagonists inhabit an uncertain space between the polarized utopian and dystopian worlds of child and adult, leaving the boundaries undefined for what young adult literature is, and where it fits. However, there are already adequate definitions of the journey from childhood to adulthood in young adult literature.

The rite-of-passage, known in literary terms as Entwicklungsroman is where the adolescent protagonist experiences growth in the novel (Trites 2000, p.16), but does not necessarily become an adult. In this definition, the rite-of-passage focuses on the personal-

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emotional consequences of maturation for the protagonist. The second and more common

literary definition, Bildungsroman, is when an adolescent protagonist becomes an adult

(Trites 2000, p.16). A strength of these definitions is that they allow for dystopian and

utopian narratives without categorizing them as children’s or adult’s literature. Hence, Scutter

is correct in asserting that childhood or adulthood cannot be prescribed as merely utopian or

dystopian with the adolescent protagonist simply moving between these two realities.

In ‘Presenting the Case for Social Change: The Creative Dilemma of Dystopian

Writing for Children’, Kay Sambell (2003) analyses dystopian narratives in young adult

literature and finds that there are texts which provide hopeful outcomes even when the ending

does not fit the story: an unlikely escape or rescue. This raises the question: should we always

provide hope in young adult utopian/dystopian literature? There are two ways of viewing

hope: hope for the world in the form of a ‘fantasy’ utopian ideal where a society set in the

future meets everyone’s needs for peace and life is led without problems; and second, the

presence of hope for a protagonist in a dystopian setting who sees society’s imperfections but

has the power to navigate their own path through them.

What then is the defining trope of young adult literature in terms of utopian ideals?

In Utopian and Dystopian Writing for Children and Young Adults Carrie Hintz and

Elaine Ostry find, in children’s literature, that childhood itself is depicted as utopian, “a space and time apart from the corruption of everyday adult life” (2003, p.5); which parallels

Scutter’s assertion of Australian young adult literature’s portrayal of childhood as a utopian state. The Romantic notion of the child is one of innocence, where children are an emblem of hope for a better way of life (Hintz and Ostry, 2003; Trites, 2000). In a sense this utopian description empowers the child, but the true innocent is removed from “the complexities of development and the responsibility to understand the world” (Hintz and Ostry 2003, p.6). The result of this is that the utopian child is naïve and unequipped for the world, neither of which

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is true for real children, who face a barrage of social and psychological pressures from an

early age.

How does the adolescent protagonist’s rite-of-passage relate to social reality? For the

purposes of this exegesis, the rite-of-passage is where a young adult protagonist goes through

an ordeal, is altered by the experience and ultimately matured by it (see Cadden, 2006). The

protagonist can remain an adolescent or turn into a young adult. The focus of the rite-of-

passage is upon the maturation process. It is often referred to as the hero’s pathway in young

adult literature. Kennon observes that the hero’s pathway in fiction often entails gaining

power and grappling with powerlessness, an essential part of an adolescent protagonist’s

exploration of a sense of identity (2005, p.41).

In The Hero with a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell’s magnification of the rite-of-

passage or Hero’s Journey into a mythological adventure differs from the Hero’s Pathway as

explored in this exegesis. Campbell’s Hero’s Journey is where a

… hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man (2004 edition p. 28).

In comparison the Hero’s Pathway in young adult literature explores the personal ramifications of battling the forces that act upon him/her in their adventure to empowerment

or individuation rather than Campbell’s mythological quest of the Hero to a finer selfhood

through spiritual understanding. The Hero’s Journey is more a participation in a Divine

Comedy (Campbell 2004, p.42) where the Hero returns having gained great power or

insight— after overcoming suffering—into the universality of human experience like

existential pain; as opposed to a coming-to-understanding in the Hero’s Pathway of his/her

community: familial, government, societal and environmental—the very underpinnings of the

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world that the adolescent protagonist inhabits, and most importantly how they can impact that

community for the better.

In Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature, Roberta

Seelinger Trites maintains that “in the adolescent novel, protagonists must learn about the social forces that have made them what they are” (2000, p.3). They also need to learn to

“negotiate the levels of power that exist in the myriad social institutions within which they function, including family … social constructions of sexuality” (Trites 2000, p.3), schools or churches they attend, the government of their country, their gender, race or class. These social institutions are bigger than the individual and therefore more powerful than the protagonist; an important lesson in young adult literature (Trites, 2000) about how social reality is shaped and how it in turn can shape the individual.

Adolescents, by definition, do not have the agency of an adult. Most adolescents see

the privileges of adulthood and crave the freedom and power that will eventually come. The

uncertain space, as described by Scutter (1999), between the innocence of childhood and the corrupting adult world can be viewed positively as a place where the rigidity of absolutes are gone, where young adults are free to challenge and create what their adult world could look

like. In fiction which deals with this in-between space, it can be a liberating experience, not a

confining one.

In contrast it could be argued the growing pains of a society moving away from

dystopia toward utopia are the same as “adolescent growth itself, and the development of agency” (Hintz and Ostry 2003, p.10). This argument differs from Scutter’s critique of

Australian young adult literature’s assigning of adulthood with dystopia, because it situates adulthood and independence as utopian states. A weakness in this argument is that it does not incorporate the societal restrictions on agency that operate throughout both the childhood, adolescent and adult states. One need only draw upon world events to highlight the danger of

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connecting a utopian society’s growth with that of its citizens’ agency. The communist revolution of China was meant to liberate its people, but became repressive, and restricted free thought and individuality.

The hero’s pathway, in dystopian narratives, is to confront the structures of power that surround them: in family, school, government. The dilemma for adolescent protagonists is that social reality is inherited from within these systems of power. At the risk of being didactic, the sole purpose of empowering adolescent protagonists in dystopian narratives, as described by Sambell, is to educate and reinvigorate the young adult to think about what they want society to be, instead of feeding into an apocalyptic despair (2003, p.164). This is a strength of dystopian fiction that one can strive for utopian ideals, without being hindered by the rigid social order of utopia. In marked contrast, Rebecca Carol Noël Totaro persuasively argues an adolescent’s ability to effect change can be achieved in a utopian setting (2003). In

‘Suffering in Utopia: Testing the Limits in Young Adult Novels’, she states that utopian literature “supplies a place for practice, not escape—a safe place in which to find and test new information and tools in the battle against common enemies before then trying them out in one’s society of origin” (2003, p.128). This raises the important issue of allowing adolescent protagonists and their readers a ‘safe place’ to imagine. However, in a ‘safe place’, like a safe community, the social institutions (school, family) or systems of power

(government, church/religion) are restricted to what has come before in the world: what has appeared to work previously. A weakness with the idea that an adolescent protagonist will find a ‘safe place’ in utopia is they still have no power to impact upon the world or change it.

Readers need to see adolescent protagonists grapple in the world of politics and with the social structures that surround them, where no agency equals no power. This was successfully achieved in The Giver by Lois Lowry, with the protagonist Jonas discovering his utopian world becoming more and more dystopian at the age of twelve when he becomes a ‘Receiver

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of Memory’, i.e. when he receives knowledge about his community for the first time. Jonas

has to flee his utopian community to save himself from continuing as a human automaton—to

be free.

If adolescent protagonists inherit social institutions from adults, there follows an issue

that the past could take over from the present. Kennon states that the danger for these

dystopian narratives is that texts can be

embedded in traditional conventions of control and authoritarian power relations. The presence of the past, which can offer personal and social continuity, threatens to overshadow and indeed overwhelm the transformative potential of young adult protagonists in these dystopian future worlds (2005, p.48).

Fortunately in recent young adult literature the hero’s pathway is beginning to reflect

a changing Western society, so that the past is not seen to overwhelm the potential for change

in the present and the future. Kennon states for example that feminist work “has involved a

re-evaluation of the hegemonic narrative structure of the hero story in children’s literature”

(2005, p.42). Societal reality, in particular patriarchy, is easily repeated in dystopian

narratives. I will explore this further in the case studies on author Ursula Le Guin who

incorporated feminist ideas only in her last book of The Earthsea Quartet (1993).

By highlighting the social institution of family and children’s vulnerability to adults’

control, Trites’s (2000) assertion is that adolescent protagonists must learn about the social

organizations that make up their world. Kennon proposes that dystopian fiction could offer

empowering examples of co-operative young people’s communities, where they are

successfully cared for “without an imposed adult framework” (2005, p.46). The value of

creating dystopian texts with adolescent protagonists making the rules is that it advocates for adolescent agency. It is a way of offering hope to adolescents on their way to becoming

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adults and provides them with opportunities to make an impact on the social environment

they inherit.

Utopian and dystopian theory is a critique on hope, and has clearly informed the kind of worlds inhabited by adolescent protagonists in young adult literature. This exegesis argues

that in a utopian society, adolescent protagonists have limited scope to change their world.

The darker atmosphere in dystopian narratives provides a place for the hero to come out from

under the shadow of the social organisations they inherit, an opportunity to challenge how communities are run and to change them without an imposed adult framework. Dystopian narratives are a potentially liberating space for the adolescent protagonist between the reliance on adults in childhood and the world of adults. In young adult literature the dystopian narrative can be and often is a fertile space in which the adolescent hero can map out a future.

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Case Studies

I chose the first and last books in Ursula Le Guin’s The Earthsea Quartet, because

they provide the unique experience of being able to examine the same setting and story by the same author twenty-two years apart (1968 to 1990). I will argue that Le Guin is affected by

the social reality of the time in which she is writing, illustrated in the heroes’ pathways, the

gendered difference between the two heroes and how each hero deals in different ways with

the Earthsea world. The first book, A Wizard of Earthsea, deals with issues of growing up

and accepting responsibility and death as part of life. The last, Tehanu, deals with “issues of

love and the roles of men and women” (Griffin 1996, p.20) and demonstrates an interesting

shift in Le Guin’s concerns. This analysis will focus on the dystopian as the productive space

for the protagonists’ journeys as well as the ways in which social ideas and movements have

informed Le Guin’s changing construction of the hero and the journey.

Both The Earthsea Quartet: A Wizard of Earthsea and the last book, Tehanu, are

dystopian narratives, which focus on imbalances in the world that need balancing; the hero’s

quest in these books is to restore equilibrium, not in terms of creating a utopian ideal, but to

restore a functioning society. In A Wizard of Earthsea, the young male protagonist Ged, is

ensconced in a personal journey, where the emotional landscape is dystopian. His childhood

is filled with dark beginnings: dead mother, brutal father, an indifferent aunt. There are

difficulties in the world, ravenous dragons and warring people, but the stability of Earthsea

itself is not yet threatened. Ged’s battle is with himself in the world. His actions cause his

face to be badly scarred, making his misdeeds, his burden, visible for all to see. In Tehanu the

eventual hero, Therru/Tehanu, has dark beginnings like Ged. Her emotional journey is also

dystopian, but so too the physical world of Earthsea which has an active evil running through

it. Therru/Tehanu is raped, abused, burned and abandoned. The burning leaves her face, like

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Ged’s, disfigured for all to see the wrong done to her. Opposed to Ged’s acceptance by

Earthsea’s authority figures, the great Mages, Therru/Tehanu, is shunned by society.

A Wizard of Earthsea is a Bildungsroman, which explores the hero’s troubled journey from childhood to manhood. Ged, born Duny, has great powers and is trained on the Isle of

Mages on Roke. His pride during a battle of wills with his nemesis, Jasper, unleashes a dark shadow – his death incarnate – which he is physically scarred by and runs away from. At the end of the novel Ged confronts his shadow and is made whole. It is the moment of individuation into young adulthood.

Carrie Hintz, in ‘Monica Hughes, Lois Lowry, and Young Adult Dystopias’, discusses the importance of the subgenre of utopian and dystopian writing for children and young adults in terms of a “particular type of utopian pedagogy: one in which political action is addressed within the developmental narrative of adolescence” (2002, p.254). A Wizard of

Earthsea mingles the problems of adolescence, like receiving guidance from adults, but at the same time craving autonomy and the need for the adolescent protagonist to test his abilities against the world of adults, with a broader political question about the nature of the perfect society.

Written in 1968, the plot assigns power and wisdom to the Isle of Roke and the Mages who live in a secluded monastic place where they learn wizardry and the old speech – the most powerful form of knowledge only men can access. Mages are respected throughout the lands and relied upon to heal sickness in human bodies or the world itself. As argued previously, utopian settings or societies require rigid rules to function successfully. So too on

Roke, one must first get the right answer to enter the all-male community and must systematically learn all that the Mages know to replicate their spells.

Ged is sent at eighteen from the ordered world of Roke to a town in need of a wizard.

Before departing, the Mage Summoner talks to Ged about his first major lesson, that he

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cannot control everything through magic, and that even the powerful, safe place of Roke has limitations and cannot protect him:

You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, even the way he can follow grows narrower; until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do … (Le Guin 1993, p.73).

Ged must learn what the shadow is and where it came from. He must go out into the

world to face it, leaving the stable sanctuary of Roke’s revered utopian setting where no

change occurs, only the getting of wisdom. Le Guin expels her protagonist out onto the sea,

which is mostly uncontrollable and capable of throwing up problems and barriers in Ged’s

quest for greater understanding. This is the beginning of Ged’s long journey to become

Archmage, the most powerful Mage of all. Upheaval is necessary for change; with adolescent

heroes and heroines taking matters into their own hands (Hintz, 2002).

Francis J. Molson in ‘The Earthsea Trilogy: Ethical Fantasy for Children’ states that:

“youth are denied any meaningful participation in matters that concern society as a whole”;

and therefore for young readers to “identify with a young protagonist whose actions are

essential to the successful outcome of an important event” (1979, p.131), provides a way for

adolescent readers to imagine how they can positively impact on the world around them, or to

empower their decision to try.

In A Wizard of Earthsea and the hero’s (Ged’s) pathway, a dystopian setting is

required for Ged to become a man. His confrontation with the shadow creature is about being

able to take responsibility for his actions. Ged’s actions caused evil to enter the world, and

destabilised his sense of who he was. If Ged inhabited an ideal world, a Utopia, there would

be no room for such a confrontation; in a controlled society the possibility of challenging evil

or death is removed. This is also the moment of individuation from a struggling adolescent

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protagonist to an empowered young man, which mirrors Hintz and Ostry’s (2003) argument

that adulthood and independence could be aligned with utopian states.

Le Guin writes of Ged’s pathway to manhood, he: “had made himself whole: a man:

who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than

himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life’s sake and never in the service of ruin, or

pain, or hatred, or the dark” (1993, p.166). However, Ged’s adult life is not idyllic and greater

problems come. His adult state is not utopian, but his moment of empowerment into

adulthood is marked by independence, the getting of agency—a ‘freeing’ from being

shackled to something. Ged is now a man in the novel, but the dystopian setting of Earthsea

remains for the reader, as does Ged’s challenges. The argument that dystopian narratives

create a more liberating space for adolescent protagonists where agency equals power, even

when the protagonist ‘comes-of-age’ is illustrated perfectly in Ged’s unshackling. Adulthood

is not utopian, however the protagonist’s striving toward individuation, or hope for greater

understanding of himself/herself and the society they live in is similar to reaching for a better

state, a possible utopian state but ideally one never reached. A dystopian space allows Ged to

challenge and grow in the world, a utopian one would not.

At the time of writing A Wizard of Earthsea in the 1960s in the United States of

America, hope for the future was expressed within the counterculture movement of young

adults (Young, 2002). Conservative politics gave way to John F. Kennedy’s ‘Ask not what

your country can do for you’ inaugural speech; Dr Martin Luther King Jnr’s ‘I have a dream’

peace speech about racial equality, as well as a sense among ‘youth’ that the times were

changing (Gitlin, 1994). By 1968, both JFK and Dr King Jnr had been assassinated, the

Vietnam War was failing, and the once bright future for youth gave way to anger and pessimism (Hoffman, 1994). This very anger however, spurred marches and mass political

movements, many of which addressed inequality in social organizations, race relations and

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women’s rights with the second wave of the feminist movement growing in strength

(Michals, 2002).

In many respects Le Guin’s work is attuned to these radical calls for social changes in

the sixties. In A Wizard of Earthsea she plays with racial stereotyping making the Kargad

Empire manned by black hero-type characters and the hero Ged’s appearance native

American. The ‘baddies’ were no longer black, but white. As Ursula Le Guin herself revealed

in a 2008 interview with Ramona Koval on ABC Radio National’s The Book Show:

… part of the job of feminism still is just to take a stereotype and turn it inside out. The first time I deliberately reversed a stereotype consciously in my fiction was when I started A Wizard of Earthsea and decided that all the main characters were brown, were coloured people, and the marginal and somewhat villainous types were white. Because in fantasy up until then I think it is true that ... in England language fantasy, that the good guys were always white, and quite often if there were bad guys they were referred to as the 'black' or they were actually coloured people.

The high fantasy quest narrative of the hero’s pathway is traditionally a masculine, patriarchal adventure. The Earthsea Quartet was Le Guin’s first fantasy novel; up until then, she was known for her science fiction writing (Griffin, 1996). It makes sense in terms of developing as a fantasy writer, and in her burgeoning feminist awareness that what Le Guin did was emulate her own reading of fantasy classics in Ged’s pathway of going out into the world to save it, leaving all behind to stand solo and alone. An important feature of this text is

that Le Guin addressed racial imbalance in the Earthsea world. Adolescent protagonists could

be empowered heroes, brown skin or not. However, the social reality of patriarchy (in the

hero’s pathway) can be readily repeated in dystopian narratives. I view her first book in the

quartet as subscribing to the fantasies of the Tolkienesque protagonist’s journey in its

emphasis on the male characters who set out to save the world.

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Ursula Le Guin addressed herself as a feminist in 2008, but her writing of A

Wizard of Earthsea in terms of women’s roles in society did not deal with the stereotypes in young adult fantasy about men and women with power: wizards and witches. In A Wizard of

Earthsea women are deemed bad users of magic (of power).The narrator of Earthsea sums up the difference between witches’ and wizards’ power when talking about Ged’s Aunt, who taught him certain spells as a child:

Weak as woman’s magic, and there is another saying, Wicked as woman’s magic … an ignorant woman among ignorant folk, she often used her crafts to foolish and dubious ends. She knew nothing of the Balance and the Pattern which the true wizard knows and serves, and which keep him from using his spells unless real need demands (Le Guin 1993, p.16-17).

A weakness in the first book is that her questioning of stereotypes falls short of women’s inferior role in society. A Wizard of Earthsea is a pre-industrialised world where the issue of women’s subordination to men’s authority was not addressed, yet. Le Guin’s writing of witches as inferior to wizards could be viewed as a comment on society, but the reader is not invited to see it as a problem. Rather, a reader may simply accept this is how it is in the high fantasy genre, or indeed in life, if they do not have a feminist awareness.

Le Guin corrects her own telling of Ged’s classic masculine quest tale in the last book

Tehanu (1993) with Ged, Tenar and the damaged child, Therru/Tehanu, becoming a family.

The book is an Entwicklungsroman, mapping Therru/Tehanu’s rise from the ashes of a devastating childhood. Ged, having lost his power, is reliant upon Tenar for love and a sense of identity. A wise Mage, Ogion bestows upon Tenar powers not usually granted women.

Ogion, on his death bed meets the child, Therru/Tehanu, sees her potential in wizardry and tells Tenar, “Teach her all! – Not Roke. They are afraid” (Le Guin 1993, p.500).

Therru/Tehanu goes on to inherit the reins of power from Ged, as a child who can

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communicate and call dragons: the keepers of an ancient and powerful language. She

becomes the heroine child protagonist, saving Ged and Tenar from the evil Aspen:

who wants to punish them -- [sic] Tenar a woman with powers and Ged for ruining his chance at immortality (The Farthest Shore). Just as Aspen is ordering the spell-bound Ged to push the equally spellbound Tenar off a cliff, Kalessin the dragon, summoned by Therru, kills Aspen and his evil cohorts. Kalessin, who is Segoy the maker, gives Therru, who is his daughter, her true name – Tehanu (Griffin 2002, p.20).

Tehanu stays with Ged and Tenar rather than return with her father Segoy, who

replies “It is well. Thou hast work to do here … I will come back for thee” (Le Guin 2003,

p.689), thereby, paving the way for a continuation of the Earthsea story in later books (see

Tales from Earthsea, 2002; The Other Wind, 2003). Tehanu becomes the protagonist hero of

the story; the one Earthsea will rely upon in the future, when she is a young woman, to heal their troubled world (see The Other Wind, 2003).

Le Guin’s feminism in 1990, the year the book was first published, is more evolved in

Tehanu due to her sustained meditation on women’s roles in Earthsea with the female protagonist, Tenar’s, questioning of wizards’ and men’s absolute power (Lindow, 2003;

Littlefield, 1995), alongside her decision to relinquish the male bestowed powers of a high priestess:

She had turned her back on all that, gone to the other side, the other room, where the women lived, to be one of them. A wife, a farmer’s wife, a mother, a householder, undertaking the power that a woman was born to, the authority allotted her by the arrangements of mankind.

And there in the Middle Valley, [she had been] Flint’s wife … And among men she was Flint’s woman, doing what a woman should do: bed, breed, bake, cook, clean, spin, sew, serve. A good woman … Here, now, it was all changed (Le Guin 2003, p.509).

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In Tehanu the power of Mages, traditional bearers of authority, undergoes a time of

ruination when they lose their ability to cast spells. The novel is written in the 1990s, a time

when women demanded equal pay and rights to access all kinds of employment; no longer had to give up their jobs on marriage; held positions in board rooms; could freely wear trousers ‘the pants’, and did not require wedlock to legitimately raise children. Men’s roles had also changed in women’s lives. Just as the strong protagonist Tenar questioned women’s role in Earthsea society, so too were contemporary women, like the author Ursula Le Guin.

The dystopian narrative in Tehanu allows Le Guin’s feminist agenda to arise out of the chaos in the Earthsea world. The destabilised society is unshackled from its prior system of control and power, with Mages of the Isle of Roke losing their ability to use magic. This

scenario allows Le Guin a place to question how the given world of Earthsea deals with

inequalities and unfairness. In the dystopian setting Le Guin places the Mages pact of

celibacy and control from lust for women under examination in a conversation between Tenar and a witch, Moss:

‘When you had a man, Moss, did you have to give up your power? ‘Not a bit of it,’ the witch said, complacent. ‘But you said you don’t get unless you give. Is it different, then, for men and for women?’ ‘What isn’t, dearie?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Tenar said. ‘It seems to me we make up most of the differences, and then complain about ‘em. I don’t see why the Art Magic, why power, should be different for a man witch and a woman witch. Unless the power itself is different. Or the art.’ ‘A man gives out, dearie. A woman takes in.’

Tenar sat silent but unsatisfied.

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‘Ours is only a little power, seems like, next to theirs,’ Moss said. ‘But it goes down deep. It’s all roots. It’s like an old blackberry thicket. And a wizard’s power’s like a fir tree, maybe, great and tall and grand, but it’ll blow right down in a storm. Nothing kills a blackberry bramble” (1993, p.572).

In Tehanu women’s sexuality is identified as weakening wizard’s abilities. Le Guin raises the readers’ awareness of the darker quality of Mage power in terms of their fear of female sexuality , as well as Tenar’s hitherto unconscious acceptance of her own guarded virginity, as the devoured one, during her time in the Tombs of Atuan being in vain. The dissolution in the Earthsea world order provides a catalyst for change and a way for the protagonists to see possible alternatives to their current lives. In 1968 the feminist term

‘consciousness raising’ could be ascribed to Le Guin’s turning Earthsea on its head for the readers.

Debra Michals in ‘From “Consciousness Expansion” to “Consciousness Raising”:

Feminism and the Countercultural Politics of the Self’ states that

Coming to consciousness was about unravelling the lessons learned from birth — the very socialisation process — so that the individual could see how the system operated to mould [sic] one’s social self, and in doing so, envision alternatives (2002, p.42).

This is what a dystopian narrative offers; a place outside of the ‘known’ to create new

possible communities for adolescent protagonists.

Tehanu is a darker tale with Earthsea society unravelling due to an imbalance in the

world causing the mages to lose their power. This is unlike A Wizard of Earthsea where evil

enters the world due to Ged’s arrogance; however he is also the hero who restores balance

and becomes whole. In A Wizard of Earthsea and Tehanu the male then female protagonists

grapple with the world they are given, and their journey through it to adulthood. Their

journeys challenge and change the world of Earthsea in the process. Ged returns from the

174 dead and saves the world in the first novel. Tenar forges an independent life and eventually becomes Ged’s saviour in Tehanu and a guide to an earthly, happy marriage. A the end of

Tehanu Therru/Tehanu appears destined to become Archmage of the Magic School of Roke as she’s a dragonlord—someone who speaks with dragons. In Tehanu it is no longer the time of men and wizards as experienced in Ged’s‘time’ in A Wizard of Earthsea—when the unquestioned order was that men had authority over women in all matters. Therru/Tehanu doesn’t take over the helm of running Roke in a simple exchange of old ways for new or breaking the glass ceiling of magic—the subversion is not only a feminist one but one questioning the social order itself. She decides to not go with her father, the dragon ‘Kalessin’, and fulfill her ‘destiny’, rather the novel ends with Tenar, Ged and their adopted daughter Tehanu settling down to a life of farming in a cottage once owned by a wizard; an almost utopian ideal. The dystopian context in both books highlights some of the socio-political concerns of the eras in which Le Guin wrote them. More importantly, the dystopian setting itself creates the space for such concerns to be raised or subverted and played out in the hero’s/heroine’s journey, providing young readers with an entertaining story alongside a more profound critique on society.

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Self-Reflective Case Study

The theoretical field of dystopian and utopian fiction informs my writing of a young adult novel by directing my understanding of how gender politics, societal structures and the hero’s pathway have been dealt with in previous writing. By writing within the genre, and establishing links with the critical frameworks used to analyse dystopian/utopian fiction, I am doing what Brad Haseman in ‘A Manifesto for Performative Research’ describes as ‘action in context’ (2006, p.103).

In my creative piece the female protagonist, Caitlyn, goes against the rigid rules of her world, which is named Ethnel. Leadership of Ethnel is inherited within her family from adult to child only when the child ‘comes of age’, which is determined at his/her coronation to deputy leader of the Slynbladians: people who fly. As a newly minted deputy Caitlyn tries to engage the enemy in dialogue, not battle, to stop a war. This fails. In battle she loses her father, her sister’s face is scarred through violent action, which destabilises her mental state and Shar-rook: her mentor. Caitlyn through her capture, wing clipping, living as a caged

‘bird’ and contact with a Fortedemain woman sees that a peace deal with the commander of the Fortedemains, Strone-laid, is the only way to live side-by-side. At the close of the novel

Caitlyn marries Thulinde, her mentor’s son, and is set to lead her world into a new age of water management and co-operation. It is not clear whether she will be successful. The novel is a dystopian narrative with water shortages defining the two different worlds’ existences. It is a Bildungsroman, with Caitlyn maturing, choosing to marry a man and assume leadership of her people at the end of her novel. I chose the genre of fantasy because the real and imagined/fantastic are blurred or loosened, enabling a suspension of grounded belief and a space where authors can comment on socio-political issues and highlight them, mirroring the real world, but going deeper (Zipes, 1979).

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The hero’s pathway in young adult fiction is often about gaining power and grappling with powerlessness from within the social forces (family, government) that surround them

(Kennon, 2005; Trites, 2000). For adolescent protagonists this struggle is necessary to explore a sense of identity (Kennon, 2005), and go through the process of maturation.

In the Ursula Le Guin case studies the hero’s pathway in Earthsea society was developed differently from the first to the last books. In A Wizard of Earthsea inheritance of power is handed down to a few destined boys to train on the utopian setting of the Isle of

Roke. The ‘good guys’ were brown or black, the ‘baddies’ white. Racial stereotyping was cast aside but the hero’s challenge was still with himself and saving the world — a classic, hero quest narrative. In Tehanu the hero’s pathway is subverted. Ged loses his power, his effectiveness in the world, Tenar questions why women are placed in inferior positions to men, and Tehanu, a girl, takes over from Ged as the one with magical powers — it is the dawn of a new hero, separate from wizards’ absolute control.

Kennon states that feminist work “has involved a re-evaluation of the hegemonic narrative structure of the hero story in children’s literature” (2005, p.42). From A Wizard of

Earthsea to Tehanu, Le Guin overturns the high fantasy tradition of the male hero’s quest to rectify wrong in the world through battle, internal and external, to address and correct the wrongs done in family and communities, in particular to women.

In the creative piece, The Water Catchment, it is not such a radical shift to have a female leader, unlike Le Guin’s Tehanu which was markedly original in its feminist agenda.

The problem is not gaining acceptance and power based on the female protagonist’s gender, rather it is on her political commitment to peoples’ equality of access to water and thus to an independent life. Men and women’s equality is assumed. A possible negative is that I did not entirely avoid the classic hero narrative that Le Guin used in her first novel, A Wizard of

Earthsea, which is often associated with a masculine quest following traditional, patriarchal,

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notions of conquering through force. The protagonist in The Water Catchment, Caitlyn, has to

lead with little support, like the classic ‘hero’ in fantasy fiction going against or challenging

the wrongs of her family’s way of ruling Ethnel.

In Tehanu the narrative focussed on the minutiae of daily life, like tending animals, cooking and relationships to highlight gender inequality. Although I developed a supportive relationship between Caitlyn and her love interest, Thulinde, her mentor’s son, by choosing the grand sweep of fear of inadequate water reserves and pending battle, I resorted to the classic quest pattern.

However, a positive is that I made the hero an adolescent girl who comes-of-age when she is prepared to lead in warfare, as opposed to the common trope in young adult ‘chick’ literature of the female protagonists’ first sexual experience as her rite-of-passage into adult

themes (Scutter, 1999). In Tehanu, Tenar’s transition to adulthood involved relinquishing

wizardly-type power for traditional womanhood: marriage, sex and childbirth. In The Water

Catchment the focus is on external issues and Caitlyn’s place in the world. Caitlyn has first

time sexual contact, but it does not change her direction in life. The quest is a different one.

A lesson I learned from A Wizard of Earthsea was on racial stereotyping to avoid

making the heroes automatically Anglo-Saxon and enemies ‘other’. Instead I made the hero,

Caitlyn, white, but her family wrong in their judgement of how to control the other

community/ world. In this way, I change the idea of an external enemy and make the hero’s

family and society the enemy from which the hero springs – the dystopia within. This idea

came from the times I was writing; eighteen years after Tehanu, and forty after A Wizard of

Earthsea were first published.

Le Guin’s awareness of black equalling bad and white good was something I

consciously played with within my own manuscript. The Strymburgs themselves are ‘white’,

but so too is the enemy’s son, Jader, who is bad while his ‘dark’ brother is kind. I noticed

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myself making the ‘baddies’ dark in features (not black skinned) and had to pull myself away

from the classic fantasy trope. In this way it made me realise how easy it is to follow genre norms without thinking very deeply about them.

I started the manuscript in 2007 at the end of the Howard Government’s long reign

(not known at the time) before giving birth to my son. The mental and creative experiment that came, after the first image of a winged-woman falling through the sky, was of a highly controlling government who believed wholeheartedly in their conviction that their outlook and rule setting was right for the world (for Australia). And I wondered what it would be like to write a sympathetic hero rising out from within such a government; from such a narrow belief system. Le Guin’s Earthsea subversion of racial stereotyping was polarising. I wanted to show ‘good’ and ‘bad’ coming from the same place, same people.

In 2007 global warming was, and still is, a grave political concern and phenomenon discussed in the popular media and on the streets. Just like Le Guin’s concerns with race in the late 1960s, and feminism in the 1990s, the early millennium saw the environment become one of our major concerns. I have never had the relationship with water that I now have living in Brisbane. The Water Catchment came out of global concern for the environment and water shortage in Australia, as well as my desire to write a dystopian fantasy based on a contemporary dilemma.

In Le Guin’s high fantasy novel, like most fantasies, magic is used for good and evil. I wanted a stripped down vision of a fantasy: simple character and community names instead of complex clan names and histories as found in Le Guin’s The Earthsea Quartet (and most other fantasies): a raw dystopian narrative, the situation plain for all to read. The complexity of familial clans and political back story in fantasies can sabotage the socio-political message

(if there is one). The Water Catchment is a speculative fantasy that poses the question: What happens when the natural resources we use, like oil, metals and minerals, run out and can no

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longer be used for mass consumption? What happens if the seas rise due to global warming?

Instead of back-to-the-future, The Water Catchment is a fast forward to the past scenario.

Le Guin’s Earthsea was pre-industrial, allowing for magic to occur without having to

manipulate modern warfare into the equation. In most high fantasies, protagonists have to

travel by olden means: boat, foot or with the aid of animals. This allows a novel to speculate,

almost as an alternative history (see Lord of the Rings, 1954), on a society’s origins and

dilemmas. In the case of Earthsea, adolescent readers can see how easy it is for the wizened

to turn ‘bad’ or for society to blindly mistreat girls and women; as presented in a dystopian

narrative. However the virtue of this is a striving toward utopia, a better way of living which

the adolescent protagonists can create from out of their own experience of the social reality they inherit on their hero journey. As stated previously, dystopian texts can provide a liberating space in young adult literature, not a confining one.

Where Le Guin wrote a high fantasy with a hero’s pathway shifting genders and powers from one book to another as a commentary on social reality, I took this further and moved past a future modern world to a time when the ultimate wisdom of science and technology had failed—social reality was shunted back to before modernisation. This provided the unique position of the protagonists not aiming for a utopian ideal based on the social reality of western civilisation’s constant striving for control with the aid of

technologies, or self-determination through generation of wealth and free-will. In The Water

Catchment I took away free-will, where the hero eventually determines what their lives will

be like, as the world’s climate dictates the parameters of how the protagonist can live not the

other way around. In this way it is likely a truer dystopian narrative than Le Guin’s.

However, dystopian settings do not disallow hope; rather the chaos of things going

wrong and protagonists negotiating their way through a society’s failing ‘ideals’ provide

hope; a sense that change is on the horizon and that adolescent protagonists have something

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to do with it. I agree with the dystopian critique that states young adult literature requires

hope so that the adolescent protagonist’s journey and that of the reader are not at a loss. If

hope wasn’t offered it could be viewed as failing to advocate for adolescent agency. In The

Water Catchment hope is placed not on the world’s resources changing—it is too late for the

earth—but on the protagonists and what they will do with the world they are given. Young

adult readers must know they can change the social reality they inherit; like the 1960s youth movement to end the Vietnam War and racial segregation; the 1970s (and ongoing) feminist movement for women’s equality and the Millennium’s concern for global warming.

Ursula Le Guin incorporated the issues of contemporary social reality into the narratives of the hero’s pathway in The Earthsea Quartet. Not only is the story (over a total of six books) a rich, deep tale of how adolescent protagonists become insightful, fulfilled adults in the context of the changing world of Earthsea, it is a complex story featuring many of the tropes of a successful high fantasy. There is magic and hero/heroine questers who eventually make the world a better place; there are also social ideas and ideals that must be engaged with and resolved.

In this exegesis and indeed in my creative work I have attempted to address the research question How has Ursula Le Guin altered the hero’s pathway in her high fantasy

The Earthsea Quartet (1968-1990), to fit changing contemporary social realities? by

examining social influences on the author’s creative work, and how these become manifest in

the adolescent hero’s pathway to maturation. The theoretical field of dystopian and utopian theory in relation to young adult literature provided a useful framework to consider why dystopian narratives are liberating spaces for young adult readers to ponder their social inheritance and to consider ways they can change their worlds, as reflected in the adolescent protagonist’s journeys, successes and failures.

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In creative practice as research the ultimate conclusion lies in the creative piece itself.

In The Water Catchment I fitted our contemporary concern with the global crisis, in particular sea waters rising, drinkable water shortage into a dystopian narrative for young adults. I stripped away the layering of fantasies in terms of their often complex familial histories and names and use of magic to a bare bones approach, where the primary thread was the social reality of the two worlds’ total absorption with water shortage. Magic could not save them, only themselves. The Water Catchment’s history is our own: known and not in need of explanation.

The water theme, informed by our contemporary social reality, drove the creative piece. Moreover the female hero’s pathway to empowerment as a leader heralding change to

Ethnel and Fortedemain reflects a present social reality—that girls can and do create and effect change in their lives and the lives of others. The dystopian setting in The Water

Catchment provided an unrestrictive place to explore the issues young adults face in life, mirrored in the adolescent protagonist, Caitlyn’s, own confrontation with the socio-political reality she inherits on her journey to maturation.

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