Chapter Fourteen
'Taya? Taya?'
She groaned and opened her eyes. She was surrounded by noise and motion.
'Don't move.' She felt the hard leather of a harness shift under her cheek and realized she was propped against Cristof's shoulder. Her arms were still encased in wings and spread out in front of her. 'Are you all right?'
'We should get her out of that armature.' Alister's voice, a little farther away.
'Does anything hurt?' Cristof sounded worried. Fingers stroked her cheek. 'Don't move. You may have broken something.'
'I'm all right.' Taya tried to push herself up, swinging an arm around. Metal feathers scraped against metal, and she realized they were still on the megagear. The Engine loomed above and below them, its clattering and chugging forcing them all to raise their voices to be heard. She glanced at Cristof and saw the pallor in his cheeks as he studied her. The cut on his jaw was still bleeding. The fall had made the blood streak up the side of his cheek.
She couldn't have been unconscious for more than a few seconds, then.
She tried to pull her leg under her and a fresh streak of pain ran through her calf. Involuntary tears sprang to her eyes.
'What?' Cristof's hand tightened on her shoulder. 'What hurts?'
'My leg.'
'Where you were shot? Or someplace new?'
She pushed herself up again. 'Shot.'
'Give her room, Cris,' Alister said, sounding annoyed. 'She doesn't need you hovering over her.'
'Move slowly,' Cristof directed her, ignoring his brother. Still, he backed away.
Her primaries were bent. She looked at them with dismay, flexing her arm and rolling her shoulders, testing to see how much damage her body had sustained.
'Be careful. You rolled when you fell.' Cristof frowned. 'Nothing's sprained? Broken?'
'No.' But her arms and shoulders ached, and she gasped as she stretched them over her head to lock the wings upright. Both Cristof and Alister grabbed a wing to help. Taya grimaced as she twisted her arms out of the struts. 'I think I pulled some muscles.'
'You're lucky it wasn't any worse.' Alister flexed the crooked feathers. 'I don't think these are going to work anymore, Cris.'
'Don't touch my wings!' Taya glowered up at him. Alister dropped his hands.
'We're going to have to cooperate to get off this gear,' he pointed out, mildly.
Taya gave him a hard look.
'You should tie him up,' she said, to Cristof.
'I should, but he won't sit still for it.'
'And chasing me across the gears would be dangerous,' Alister pointed out. 'This time we wouldn't have our brave icarus to save us.'
'Then I'll—' Taya started to stand, but both brothers protested. Cristof dropped back to his knees and pressed his hands against her shoulders.
'Wait,' he insisted. 'You can't fly anywhere with bent feathers, and you need to rest and let us bandage that bullet wound before it gets any worse.'
'You two are obsessed about wounds, aren't you?' she griped, but she settled back down again. Part of her was glad that she didn't have to prove herself yet. She felt weak and nauseous, although she didn't want to let Alister see her vulnerability.
'We still have a few things in common,' Alister said. 'Cris, hand me your knife.'
'No.' Cristof pulled the utility knife off his harness and shifted his weight. 'I'm sorry, Taya, but either you need to take off the suit, or I'll have to cut the leg open.'
Taya made a face. 'Cut it open. But one of you owes me a new flight suit.'
'I'll see you get it, my swan,' Alister promised. Taya didn't miss the annoyance that crossed Cristof's face.
'Stop calling me yours,' she snapped, as Cristof lifted the leather by the bloodstained bullet hole and slit it open.
Alister looked offended, but she saw Cristof's lips quirk in a small smile as he worked. Blood seeped through the cut on his face.
'You're still bleeding,' she said. He dabbed his face with his flight suit sleeve, wincing.
'It won't kill me. There.' He stood. 'Let Alister look at it. I want to see if I can repair your armature. I don't think he'll hurt you.'
'Of course I won't!' Alister took his brother's place. Taya gave him a dark look as Cristof pulled out his small repair kit and stood behind her. She could feel the vibrations through her armature as he shifted her wing feathers.
Alister shrugged off his two outer robes. 'This may hurt,' he cautioned, taking her leg in one hand and wiping away the blood with one of his robes. Taya tensed.
'When Cris and I were boys,' he said as he worked, 'one of the estates in Primus was being remodeled, and the family had moved out while the work was being done. The two of us decided to explore it. Of course it was dangerous, and of course I got hurt. I was climbing over a pile of scrap wood and fell. I gashed my arm. We bandaged it up and left and didn't tell anyone, because we were afraid we'd get into trouble for trespassing.'
Taya flinched as Alister probed the wound, his fingers around her calf.
'Unfortunately, the cut began to fester and I grew feverish, and it wasn't long before our servants noticed the blood on my sheets and found the torn robe hidden under my bed. Our parents called in the family physician, who did everything but scour the wound out with a bristle brush. He lectured us about dirt and infection and amputation and basically put the fear of the Forge into us. And after he left, our parents lectured us all over again. We were both in tears by the end of the day. We honestly thought my arm was going to be cut off.'
Cristof laughed once, startling her. Taya glanced up. Had she ever heard him laugh with real amusement before? This seemed like a strange time for it.
'The wound healed, of course, but it left a scar, and neither of us ever forgot the lesson.' Alister lifted his arm and pulled up his sleeve. The scar was old and pale against his dark copper skin, but long and uneven.
Taya discarded the few uncharitable comments that leaped to mind and just nodded.
'I'm afraid this is going to leave a scar, too,' he said.
'How bad is it?' Cristof asked. Taya looked up at him again. He was removing one of the intact primaries from his own broken wings.
'Not as bad as it could have been,' Alister replied. 'It looks like the bullet went straight through the muscle. You were lucky, my swan.'
'I told you to stop that. I wouldn't have been shot, if it weren't for you.'
Alister's jaw twitched.
'You'll need a physician's attention. Cris, if you'll give me your knife, I can cut up one of my robes for bandages.'
'I don't trust you with a knife, so stop asking.'
'You don't think I'd attack you, do you?'
'Yes,' Cristof said. 'Right now, I think you're capable of anything.'
Alister rocked back on his heels, stone-faced. 'You're going to have to trust me eventually. Taya shouldn't fly with a hurt leg, and you'll only get yourself killed if you try it in her armature. I'm the only one here who can get help now.'
'More likely you'll get one of the lictors’ rifles and come back to finish us off,' Taya retorted. 'I can fly well enough to get out of here. Flying's mostly arms and hips, anyway.'
