me. I can't be that selfish, knowing you are needed at Woodwings, and that you belong there.'
'But how can you leave? How will you live? You've never been away from Thayos.'
He laughed, but it sounded forced. 'You make it sound as if I proposed to go live in the sea! I can leave Thayos like anyone else, on a ship. My life hasn't ended yet, and until it has, there is no reason why I shouldn't change. Surely an old healer can find some work to do on Seatooth.'
'Evan…'
He put his arms around her. 'I know. Believe me, I've thought this through. Surely you didn't think I was sleeping last night while you were tossing and turning and wondering what to do? I decided that I can't let you walk out of my life. For once in my life, I must be bold, and dare something different. I am going with you.'
Maris couldn't hold the tears back then, although she couldn't have said just why she was crying. Evan pulled her close and held her tightly until she recovered.
As they drew apart, Maris could hear Coll assuring Bari that her aunt was happy, that she was crying with joy; and she saw S'Rella, standing a little apart, her face alight with joy and affection.
'I give up,' Maris said. Her voice was somewhat shaky. She wiped her face with her hands. 'I have no more excuses. I will go to Seatooth—
What began as a few friends walking with S'Rella to the flyers' cliff became a procession, an extension of the celebration within the keep. Maris, Evan, and Coll were the popular heroes, and many wanted to be close to them, to see at first hand what was so special about the flyer, the healer, and the singer who had deposed a tyrannical Landsman, stopped a war, and ended the eerie threat posed by the silent black flyers. If anyone still dared think Tya had done wrong and deserved her fate, it was thought silently, privately, held as an unpopular opinion.
And yet even in this happy, admiring crowd, Maris knew, the old resentments were still buried. She had not banished them forever, neither those between land-bound and flyer, nor the conflicts separating the one-wings and the flyer-born. Sooner or later this battle would have to be fought again.
The journey through the mountain tunnel was not a lonely one this time. Voices echoed loudly off stone walls, and a dozen torches blazed and smoked, making the damp, dark corridor a different place.
They emerged to a dark, windy night, the stars obscured by clouds. Maris saw S'Rella standing near the cliff's edge, talking with another flyer, a one-wing still wearing black. At the sight of S'Rella standing on that too-familiar cliff, Maris felt her stomach clench, and her head reel with dizziness. But for Evan's support she felt she would have fallen. She knew she didn't want to see S'Rella leap from the cliff from which she had fallen, not once, but twice. She was suddenly afraid.
Several youths darted forward now, loudly vying for the privilege of helping S'Rella ready herself for flight. S'Rella half-turned, seeking Maris, and their eyes met. Maris drew a deep breath, steadying herself, trying to empty herself of fear, released Evan's hand and stepped forward. 'Let me help,' she said.
She knew it so well. The texture of the cloth-of-metal, the heft of the wings in her hands, the firm snap of struts locking into place. Even though she could no longer wear the wings herself, still her hands loved this task they knew so well, and there was a pleasure, even if rimmed about by sadness, in preparing S'Rella for flight.
When the wings were fully extended, the final struts snapped into place, Maris felt the return of her fear.
It was irrational, she knew, and she could say nothing of it to S'Rella, but she felt that if S'Rella stepped off that dangerous cliff it would be to fall, just as Maris had done.
Finally, forcing herself, Maris managed to say, 'Go well.' Her voice was very low.
S'Rella looked at her searchingly. 'Ah, Maris,' she said. 'You won't be sorry — you've made the right choice. I'll see you soon.' Then, despairing of words, S'Rella leaned forward and kissed her friend.
'Go well,' S'Rella said, one flyer to another, and then she turned toward the cliff edge, toward the sea and the open sky, and leaped into the wind.
There was applause from the onlookers as S'Rella caught a rising current and wheeled above the cliff, wings glinting darkly. Then, rising higher and heading out to sea, she was lost to sight almost at once, seeming to merge into the night sky.
Maris continued to gaze into the sky long after S'Rella had vanished. Her heart was full, but there was a steadfast certainty there, as well as pain, and even a small spark of the old joy. She would survive. Even without her wings, she was a flyer still.
Epilogue
THE OLD WOMAN WOKE when the door opened, in a room that smelled of sickness. There were other odors as well: salt water, smoke, sea mold, the lingering scent of the spice tea that had gone cold by her bedside. But over them all was the smell of sickness, overpowering, cloying, making the room seem thick and close.
In the doorway a woman was holding a smoking taper. The old woman could see its light, a shifting yellowish blur, and she could make out the figure holding it, and another figure beside her, although their faces were lost to her. Her vision was not what it once was. Her head throbbed terribly, as it often did when she woke. It had been like that for years. She raised a soft, blue-veined hand to her forehead, and squinted. 'Who is it?' she asked.
'Odera,' said the woman with the taper, in a voice the old woman recognized as the healer's. 'He's here, the one you asked for. Are you strong enough to see him?'
'Yes,' the old woman said. 'Yes.' She struggled to sit up in her bed. 'Come closer,' she said. 'I want to see you.'
'Shall I stay?' Odera asked uncertainly. 'Do you need me?'
'No,' said the old woman. 'No, I'm past healing. Just him.'
Odera nodded — the old woman could make out the gesture, though the face was a blur to her — lit the oil lamps carefully with the taper, and shut the door when she left.
The other visitor pulled a straight-back wooden chair across the room, and sat down close to the bedside, where she could see him quite well. He was young. A boy, really, not even twenty, beardless, with a few pale wisps of blond hair trying to pass as a mustache on his upper lip. His hair was very pale and very curly, his eyebrows almost invisible. But he carried an instrument — a kind of rude guitar, square and with only four strings — and he began to tune it as soon as he was seated. 'Would you like me to play something for you?' he asked. 'Some special song?' His voice was pleasant, lilting, with just the hint of an accent.
'You are a long way from home,' the old woman said.
He smiled. 'How did you know?'
'Your voice,' she said. 'It's been years and years since I've heard a voice like that. You're from the Outer Islands, aren't you?'
'Yes,' he said. 'My home is a little place right at the edge of the world. You've probably never heard of it. It's called Stormhammer-the-Outermost.'
'Ah,' she said. 'I remember it well. Eastwatch Tower, and the ruins of the one that preceded it. That bitter drink you people brew from roots. Your Landsman insisted I try some, and laughed at the expression on my face when I swallowed. He was a dwarf. I never met an uglier man, or a cleverer one.'
The singer looked briefly startled. 'He's been dead some thirty years,' he said, 'but you're right, I've heard the stories. Then you've been there?'
'Three or four times,' she said, savoring his reaction. 'It was many years ago, before you were born. I used to be a flyer.'
'Oh,' he said, 'of course. I should have guessed. Seatooth is full of flyers, is it not?'
'Not really,' she replied. 'This is Woodwings Academy, and those here are mostly dreamers who have yet to win their wings, or teachers who have long since set theirs down. Like me. I was a teacher, until I got sick. Now I lie here and remember, mostly.'
The singer touched his strings, bringing forth a bright burst of sound that faded quickly into silence. 'What would you like to hear?' he asked. 'There's a new song that's the rage of Stormtown.' His face fell. 'It's a bit bawdy, though. Maybe you wouldn't like it.'
