Returning to the house, Erika lay her prizes on the kitchen bench, her stomach rumbling with renewed desperation. There was enough to cook a stew or broth, but the smoke from a fire would be seen for miles during the day. If only a storm would sweep down from the mountains, she might risk a flame. The owners had even left a stack of wood in the hearth for when they returned.
Perhaps when night fell, if they were not discovered before then. In the meantime, she grabbed a piece of the salted beef and took a bite—and groaned as flavour filled her mouth. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation, but she chewed slowly, aware that after so long without eating she didn’t want to overdo it. Finally she wandered to the feathered bed where she had lain her friend.
Cara still slept, though it was a fitful rest, her breath coming in ragged gasps, as though even in her dreams the demons pursued her still. Her feathers stood on end and Erika shivered as the light coming through the shuttered windows revealed the damage the flames had done. Her wings, so recently healed from their crash in the mountains, had been blacked along their edges, the auburn feathers scorched by the flames. There was a smell about her too, the stench of burnt hair, though at least her skin had been spared the worst of the flames.
Another moan came from the Goddess and she twisted violently atop the covers. Erika swallowed the last of her scant meal, clenching and unclenching her fists. It pained her to see Cara this way, and without thinking she climbed onto the bed. Taking the cover Cara had kicked off, she drew it over them both, then curled up beside the young Anahera, drawing her head to her chest, holding her tight. For a while, the Goddess lay tense in her arms, breath still coming in ragged gasps, hissing between clenched teeth.
After a time though, the tension leached from Cara’s muscles and her breathing eased, her groans and twitching easing. Erika closed her eyes, still holding Cara safe in her arms. The fiery warmth of the Goddess soon drove back the chill of the day, the woollen covers weighing down on them both. She listened with relief as her friend’s breathing grew regular. At least she could do this for the Goddess, for her friend. After all Cara had done for her, saving her, protecting her, this was the least Erika could do.
She just wished she could do more, that she could bring back Cara’s mother, that she could have made Farhan seen the truth about his daughter. Far from deserving punishment, Cara was an incredible, caring, loving young woman, deserving of pride, of love. If only she could have convinced the Anahera to see that truth, to abandon the folly of their own ancient ways, maybe then the world would have hope.
But instead, Erika had failed yet again, had returned from the Mountains of the Gods emptyhanded. She knew now she would never change things, could do nothing to save her people.
All she could do was lie in an abandoned farmhouse and hold her friend tight, banishing the cold and the nightmares for a time.
Erika prayed it would be enough.
18
The Fallen
Adonis lay in the dirt, rain falling softly about him, cradling the head of Nyriah in his lap. Hours had passed as he knelt there, slipping away like autumn leaves caught in the winter storm.
Adonis didn’t care. He knelt there holding the fallen Anahera in his arms. She had saved him. Adonis struggled to comprehend what had happened, why she would have done such a thing. What had he been to her? Why try to stop Maya, put herself in harm’s way for him? After everything he’d done to her, how he had treated her people, how was it that Nyriah had found the strength to defy the Old One?
More hours passed and night turned slowly to day. The light found Adonis alone in the mud, lost, forgotten. Silence hung over the riverbanks, over his mind, the muddy field abandoned. His fellow Tangata had left, abandoning him to exile, gone with the creature he had delivered them to, the Old One that carried their future.
His future.
A shudder swept through Adonis and finally the damn broke, and he felt at last the rejection of his entire people, of the woman he had sworn himself too—and the loss of the Anahera in his arms too, the slave he had so hated, who had stood proud against Maya’s Voice, even as all around her bowed in subservience.
A hiss escaped Adonis’s throat and he doubled up, holding the cold body tight, wishing he could give her his warmth. He didn’t deserve to live, to continue after his failures, when this noble creature lay dead. Nyriah had possessed more courage than he ever had. She could have left this darkness and forged another path had she wanted, despite Maya’s powers, despite the fledgelings.
The human found him like that, knelt in the dirt holding Nyriah, his body broken by Maya’s beating, barely conscious, barely sane from his grief. He sensed her before as she crouched nearby, smelt her, even through the burning reek of that drifted from the river. Immersed in his pain, at first Adonis ignored the creature, lying still, hoping her cursed presence would move on. But this human never could leave well enough alone.
“Are you alive?” Maisie’s voice came finally, then when he did not move, again. “Adonis, is she alive?”
His head jerked up at that, and
