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  "We cannot ignore the symbolism of a wingless avian Heir," he said. "We cannot ignore the corrupt nature of a Ruler who would accept that wingless Heir. And I can stay in the shadows no longer. For years I've kept my identity a secret, to maintain the peace within the Cradle. But the time, I believe, has come for me to reveal who I truly am." He paused, and the crowd fell deathly silent. The levian collected himself. Then he looked up and spoke clearly, surely, into the microphone. "I am the true Heir."

  The crowd went wild.

  What followed would change the course of the Cradle forever. All across the Cradle, riots broke out. Stubs were scorned all the more, and humans were dragged from their homes into the streets. A vast majority of the Cradle violently demanded an explanation from Ivet. Three Heirs? All at once? It was impossible. Someone was lying.

  Ivet xerself was questioned. Xe attempted to regain control of the situation, but xe made the mistake of demanding Lhiyrra anoint himself with mud from the signumaria and keeping Edaui out of the spotlight. Though Lhiyrra never rose to the challenge, it didn't matter. Many of the levian’s new supporters saw this as a sign that Ivet was keeping information from them; after all, if Edaui really had been chosen, why not prove it by reanointing the so-called “Heir”? That was the beginning of the end. Not a tenday after Lhiyrra’s announcement, Edaui’s mother came for her daughter in the middle of the night.

  "Edaui, come with me," her mother said, grabbing the nine-year-old's hand and tugging her to her feet. "Vartaz, you too." Edaui yawned sleepily and rubbed her eyes. She had been watching a holo with her friend when she’d fallen asleep against xer side.

  "What's going on?" Edaui asked. She heard loud noises, cries, and screams through the thick walls of the palace. A crowd was chanting outside.

  "It's not safe for you anymore. We're leaving."

  "Leaving the palace?" Edaui craned her head over her shoulder. She saw Vartaz hurrying down the corridor after them. "Where's Dad?"

  Edaui's mother's face was pale. She swallowed hard. "Don't worry about your father. We must get you to safety."

  Edaui recognized the path they were taking—down a flight of stairs, past the door that led to the gardens, just beyond the brass sand hawk that guarded the entrance. They turned another corner and started down the rough-hewn steps to the Royal House's cellars, where an old tunnel that connected the primary signumaria with the palace had once been dug into the canyon walls. Only the Heir and their family were privy to this knowledge; even palace security's knowledge of the tunnel was limited. Edaui's heart started to pound.

  A crash echoed down the hall from where they'd just come. Edaui's mom picked up her pace, looking frightened. At last they reached the stone cellars. The trio picked their way past large barrels of ale and wine and dusty old boxes, to an unassuming wall behind a wine cask. Edaui's mother tapped the secret stone on the ceiling that dropped the holo field obscuring the tunnel’s entrance.

  "Quickly," Edaui's mother said, ushering Vartaz and Edaui inside. "Get to the signumaria and find the priest Barua. He can get you to safety."

  "What about you?" Edaui asked, gripping her mother's hand and trying to pull her into the tunnel. Her mother smiled, but there was a sadness to it.

  "Two are easier to hide than three. This is where our paths diverge, love."

  Edaui could hear footsteps racing down the steps to the cellars. Her mother heard them too, and immediately her face morphed into a mask of fear. "Now go! Watch after each other and you will be fine."

  "But Mom—"

  Vartaz shushed her as her mother reactivated the holo field. It was only a one-way field. The tunnel's entrance was hidden, but Edaui and Vartaz could still see—mostly the backside of the cask—from their vantage point behind it. Edaui's mother stepped away from the field, running back up the way she had come and vanishing behind the large cask.

  "We have to go," Vartaz hissed, voice urgent. Edaui shook her head. She still wasn't sure what was going on, but she couldn't leave her mother. She would wait until the coast was clear and then go find her again. They were all going to leave together. Edaui was determined.

  The footsteps were drawing nearer when they suddenly stopped.

  "Where is the false Heir?" a female voice asked. There was silence, and then the sound of something being hit. Edaui's mother grunted.

  "Where is she!?" The voice shouted this time. If Edaui craned her neck, she could see around the cask. She saw her mother, facing the direction of the tunnel, and the backside of another avian's head. There was blood running from her mother's temple.

  "You'll never find her," Edaui's mother spat. She was very obviously terrified but lifted her chin and met the strange avian's eye. The stranger raised their hand, covered in navy blue scales, and brought their fist crashing into the other's jaw. Edaui nearly gasped; Vartaz wrapped xer paw around her mouth just in time.

  Everything in Edaui screamed to fight, to give herself up if it meant the stranger would stop hurting her mother, but Vartaz held her fast`. All Edaui could do was watch.

  Her mother straightened from the blow. Blood now dripped from her mouth down her front, bright scarlet tracing a line on her dark skin. Her eyes flashed defiantly.

  "You can tell me where she is, or you can die like she will," the stranger said in a whisper that Edaui could only just barely hear. Her breath caught. She fought harder against Vartaz. She couldn't let her mother die—she wouldn't. She silently pleaded with her mother to give her up.

  But Edaui's mother remained silent. The stranger made an angry noise and wrapped their hand around Edaui's mother's neck.

  "So be it," they hissed. Luminance flowed from the stranger's hand into Edaui's mother, and for one hopeful moment Edaui thought maybe she'd misunderstood. Luminance healed people. It would heal her mother.

  But there was something different about the stranger's Luminance. It wasn't the clear blue as it should have been; it was sickly, grey, and it flowed sluggishly, like syrup. Edaui's mother gasped as the Luminance sank into her skin. Her back arched and a pained scream ripped from her mouth. Edaui flinched back, eyes wide with horror. Vartaz gripped her tighter. Before their eyes, the color drained from her mother's skin. Her cheeks became sunken, hollow, and her flesh crumbled from bone. Her scream died off abruptly, and the stranger dropped the skeleton that had once been Edaui's mother. The bleached bones clattered to the floor, echoing in the stone cellar. The stranger breathed heavily over the remains, then yelled angrily and plowed their hand into the stone.

  "Edaui, we need to go," Vartaz whispered. Edaui nodded mutely, too stunned by what had just transgressed. They turned and left in silence.

  The duo found Barua waiting for them where the tunnel exited, in the underbelly of the signumaria. The old levian escorted them under cover to the airfield, where he introduced them to an aquarin pilot named Choyu.

  Choyu was leaning against his ship, all six of his eyes shifting nervously. "All starships are grounded," the aquarin said. "We have to wait until this dies down."

  Barua looked solemn. "Can you protect them until then?"

  Choyu glanced around the hangar. They were alone inside the hulking structure. The other ships sitting on the tarmac were stark and empty. He nodded. "I'll take them to Caesyn as soon as I'm able."

  Edaui shivered and pressed closer to Vartaz, realizing then that her friend was also shaking.

  Choyu kept his word. Early the next morning he roused the two refugees from the uncomfortable slumber they’d fallen into in a corner of Choyu’s hangar. Under the light of the immune lamps they slipped into his small starship and were whisked away to the relative safety of the forest planet Caesyn’s northernmost continent. Despite the events of the past twenty-four hours, Edaui found herself blown away by the sheer amount of green that greeted them. The farmers of Valiant were good, but they could never grow anything to rival Caesyn’s sprawling forests.

  Edaui and Vartaz managed to make something of a home on this strange new world. For two
years they laid low, living in a one-room shack not far from the Pharru ocean. It was not glamorous, but it kept them safe. There was no war in this part of Caesyn; not yet. But that wasn’t to say the planet was completely unaffected by the war.

  There was no better place to spotlight the plight of northern Caesyn than the central marketplace. Ramshackle tents and grimy old booths littered a clearing amid the tall trees. The shopkeepers themselves were a ragged bunch, selling whatever goods and services they had to offer. There were diviners who had once been priests, tradesmen who had once worked in Valiant’s shipyards, farmers who had been pushed off Valiant and families displaced by the war. Despite its abundant rivers and tillable soil, the darkness of the forests and the untamable wildlife kept the elite and the rich from Caesyn. No one came to this planet by choice. This was where you went when you had nowhere left to go. Edaui and Vartaz fit right in.

  Vartaz earned their keep apprenticing underneath a middle-aged equina who fixed speeders. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Edaui often went with xer to work, reading whatever books she could find to pass the time.

  The shopkeepers in the marketplace changed often; there were regulars, sure, but there was always someone new. Today was no different. Edaui and Vartaz meandered through the stalls after a long day of work, looking for something to take home for dinner. A voice stopped them in their tracks.

  “You won’t get far looking like that, little Heir,” a voice whispered to her. Edaui jumped and whirled around, coming face to face with a wizened old levian. He sat behind a rickety booth before an immune lamp-lit tent. A sign out front announced him as a surgeon. Vartaz’s sensitive ears had picked up on the whisper and xe immediately placed xerself between Edaui and the levian.

  “She’s not the Heir,” xe snarled, showing xer fangs in an effort to scare the man off. He only laughed.

  “With wings like that it is a wonder she has survived until now. It has been two years on the run, yes? You have been lucky. You will not be lucky much longer,” the levian said. “I can help.”

  Vartaz remained firmly in front of Edaui. “Why?”

  “Why? Because not everyone is a fan of Lhiyrra or his ilk. We levians are not all the same.”

  Edaui peeked out over her friend’s back. As a child she’d been much shorter than xer. Now that she was growing, the size difference between their species was becoming almost comical. “How do we know we can trust you?”

  The old levian made a sweeping gesture throughout the marketplace. “There are Hegemonists all around us. Would I not have turned you in by now?” He leaned back in closer. “I was a surgeon back on Hlean. Not Luminant, no, but I can help. A stub is less conspicuous than a bent-winged avian.”

  “You want my wings?” Edaui squeaked at the same time Vartaz said, “No.”

  The levian lifted his hands. “Suit yourself. But you will not make it another year as you are. There are too many people looking now. I will be here when you change your mind.” The levian then leaned back and clasped his hands on his booth.

  “Come on,” Vartaz said, herding Edaui away from the old surgeon. Edaui hesitated, eyes locking with the levian as she was led deeper into the crowd.

  “What if he’s right?” she asked. “My wings are obvious. It’s only a matter of time before someone reports me.”

  “This is Caesyn,” Vartaz said. “The war hasn’t touched it yet. We just have to lay low.”

  But as they walked, Edaui was all too aware of the looks passersby gave her wings. A chill swept down her body.

  That night, as she lay awake on her threadbare mattress listening to the sound of her friend breathing beside her, she thought about what Vartaz had said about laying low. Staying out of sight was crucial to their survival. Edaui had never noticed just how much attention her wings had drawn. And they were her wings, after all. Who was Vartaz to decide whether or not she kept them? So at three in the morning, she crept out of their hut and made her way back to the marketplace. The old levian was waiting for her. He grinned when she approached.

  “You have changed your mind, yes?”

  Edaui nodded mutely. The levian swept aside the flap of his tent, revealing the makeshift operating room beyond it.

  The surgery was quick and painless, thanks to the pain killer the surgeon gave her.

  “My own concoction,” he said proudly. Edaui was not comforted by this. However, even though the surgeon was not Luminant, he did know his stuff. It only took moments to remove the mangled mess her wings had grown into.

  “Alright,” the surgeon said. “Keep the wound clean and it will heal. Or find a Luminant and it will heal faster.”

  Edaui wasted no time reaching her hand back `to touch the fresh wounds and letting her Luminance sink deep into her flesh. The levian whistled low.

  “Well imagine that. You really are the Heir, aren’t you?”

  Edaui let her hand drop and stared at it in her lap. “You won’t tell, will you?”

  “Not a soul, sweetheart. On Aricel’s name I’ll tell no one.”

  “Thank you,” was all Edaui said. She turned to leave, but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder.

  “There is, ah, the matter of your payment,” the levian said.

  Edaui spread her hands. “I don’t have any money.”

  “No, you’ve got something better.” The levian pointed to her hands. “I’d get far more clients in if they knew I had a Luminant around. People don’t much like waiting for wounds to heal.”

  Edaui tilted her head. “You want me to work for you?”

  “Aye,” he said. “It’ll be good for you. Might learn a thing or two.”

  The avian chewed her lower lip. Vartaz wouldn’t like it, but what choice did she have? “Okay,” she relented. The surgeon grinned.

  Edaui arrived home just before daybreak, but Vartaz was already up. The moment she walked in the door xe threw xer arms around her.

  “There you are! I’ve been worried sick.” Xe held Edaui at an arms length and xer eyes drifted to the empty space where her wings had once been. Xer expression slowly fell. “Edaui, what did you do?”

  “I did what you told me to do,” she said. “I’m laying low.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Liari had made a huge mistake.

  She knew better than to return to scene of her crimes. She was smarter than that. There were times she’d sit in front of her pad, watching hawk holos and laughing at the stupidity of the criminals. And yet here she was, keeping her head tucked, hands stuffed in her pockets, making her way up the levels to the walkway from last night. Flashing orange police tape cordoned off the bloodstained bits, but a crowd of onlookers had gathered at the perimeter.

  Liari didn’t want to admit it, but Arlei had really gotten to her. His words the night before had sunk deep into her brain and refused to let go. And they shouldn’t have, that was the kicker. Liari had known her time as the Heir was at an end. There was no way, after all that had transpired, that the Cradle would accept a stub Heir. Even if the Remnant won back the Royal House. Even if Lhiyrra was executed for his treason. Even if Liari killed every last one of the people responsible for her parents’ deaths. In her heart she knew all this.

  But it still bugged her, the things that Arlei had said. The way he’d laughed on the way down. The words of a dead man haunted her all through the night, and Liari tried to tell herself that she had won. Arlei was no longer breathing. She’d won. It did no good. Liari had to see it one more time, if only to put her thoughts at ease.

  So now she was here, amongst the crowd of morbid onlookers, vying for a good vantage point. This was her mistake.

  Arlei’s body was long gone, but the dried pool of blood from where he’d struck his head remained. That would be hard to wash off the permacrete walkway. Hawks in blue uniforms patrolled the area. Liari even caught sight of the aquarin from Arlei’s entourage the night before, giving a witness statement behind the tape to a tall navy-scaled detective. Liari quickly ducked her head. She�
��d washed the scale paint off from the night before. There was no way he’d recognize her. Still, Liari already shouldn’t be here. She should play it as safe as possible.

  The crime scene didn’t tell her anything she already didn’t know. It didn’t set her mind at ease. In fact, it only brought on more thoughts. What kind of funeral would they give Arlei? Would they cremate him, or was he arrogant enough to have specified he wanted to be preserved after death? Only the richest could afford to be embalmed. It was a privilege to keep your body pristine forever. It was immortality, in a sense. Liari thought this sounded quite like Arlei. I might have to turn to grave defilement, she thought. If only to prove a point.

  The crowd was beginning to disperse, some to jobs, others to the markets. Life went on. Not for Arlei. Soon enough Liari was all but alone at the tape, staring at Arlei’s dried blood, lost in her thoughts.

  “That’s—that’s her!” the aquarin from the night before shouted, pointing a thin finger in Liari’s direction. Liari’s blood ran cold. She jerked her head up and met his eye before turning away, trying to obscure her face with the veil of her circlet.

  “I thought you said she had blue scales?” the navy-scaled detective asked. The aquarin was shaking his head.

  “She must have changed them. That’s her. That’s who went home with Arlei last night.”