Like the sputtering breath of the gods, strong winds battered Aleeya, catching at her bound wings and threatening to send her into the sea.
An ill omen, the windstorm pummeled the docks of the City of Ka’ai’s First Fjord. The strong gusts forced wingmen out of the sky, though it didn’t lessen the activity on the piers and boardwalk servicing the unending ships that reached the western shores of Helacon. The white gulls’ raucous calling competed with shouted orders. And the strong briny scent of the sea reminded Aleeya she was far from the stately halls of the senate or the quiet library of the temple.
Halfway across the plank leading to the deck of the single-mast Phane Arua, she stopped, struggling for traction, her sandals slipping on the worn wood. With her leathery bound wings braced against the stiff gusts, she offered her aged master a hand.
Ke-Avidai Licinus grabbed it and stepped onto the plank. Though Aleeya’s master held her own membranous wings tight against her back, her crimson divided skirt flapped about her feet, threatening to trip them both.
“Steady, child,” Ke-Avidai said, leaning heavily on Aleeya’s arm as they made their way onto the ship.
“Welcome aboard!” an Engarran growled in pidgin Helacon, his voice almost lost in the snapping ropes bounding off the sails. “Ke-Avidai Licinus, head priestess of the Temple of Nesha, I presume?”
Aleeya dared a glimpse at the wingless, massive quadruped. His shape was canine, but his hairless skin looked smoother than she’d expected. And though he walked on all fours, he stood taller than even Ke-Avidai. His multicolored vest marked his rank, leaving his nether regions exposed.
A common enough sight on the docks of Ka’ai, but Engarrans rarely visited the senate forum, high atop the cliff wall, where Aleeya’s duties kept her. She averted her gaze, concentrating on the ship’s deck crowded with coils of thick rope and large grain sacks.
“Yes, and thank you,” Ke-Avidai responded in the same pidgin, the trade language used between all the species.
Several Xianit, another wingless species without fur, but bipedal like wingmen, made up about half the crew on the deck. Aleeya had never worked with Xianit before. She wondered if the wide white sclera rimming their eyes would continue to shock or ease with familiarity.
The rest of the crew included wingmen: the usual black-winged Western Helacons, no brown-winged Eastern Wilds like Aleeya. They were all well-dressed. None wore slave-yellow halter tunics, and none were collared or branded. So, she would have no fellow slaves to work with. That wasn’t unusual, but an entire crew of freemen? Aleeya wasn’t familiar enough with the customs of Engarran shippers, but it seemed off.
But maybe the captain will have sea charts of the Eastern Wilds coast. Maybe even a map of Gwich’an.
She hoped for an unsupervised moment while mapping, during which she could find the maps of her homeland, copy them, and establish an escape route to Gwich’an.
A much better plan than her previous idea of just flying east for months on end across the Helacon continent, hoping she’d be going in the right direction. She silently sent a small prayer of thanks to Somnus, god of impossible dreams, for giving her this opportunity.
The captain raised his chin towards Aleeya, his blunt triangular head level with her chest. “This is the carto?” he asked Ke-Avidai.
Aleeya’s downcast gaze met the Engarran’s forelimbs rather than his paws. She shifted her gaze lower, then sidestepped behind her master.
“The slave’s name is Aleeya,” Ke-Avidai answered, lifting a wingfinger and exposing her. “And yes, cartography is her main skill, but as we discussed, she is literate. Her lettering is impeccable.”
“I thought you said she was an adult. She looks too small. And what’s wrong with her wings?”
“She’s Eastern Wild. Their wing coloring is different. Brown to match their skin, not black. And they tend to be shorter and squatter. She is twenty-three, in her prime.”
Aleeya scowled. Ke-Adivai often made excuses for her race to new clients, but she rarely mentioned her age or condition. And if the captain was unfamiliar with her kind, he probably didn’t have any charts for the Eastern Wilds. She held in a sigh as her hope of improving her escape plan sank.
“A permanent piercing? Isn’t that against the law?”
A shiver went through Aleeya’s wing membranes as the Engarran’s gaze raked over her bolt-bound wings. The bolt was a simple pin, held in place by a screw. Threaded through her pierced wingwrists, it forced her leathery wings against each other, back-to-back, like a useless rudder. It only required a few twists to set her free, but the wing-bolt’s position made it impossible to remove herself.
“The bolt was installed before the Helacon law banning them was enacted.”
Ke-Avidai left out why her wings were pierced. Thank the sky. The memory of Aleeya’s last ill-fated attempt at escape and its aftermath flashed through her mind. She pushed the images away.
“That was eight years ago. What did she do to deserve the bolt?”
“Does it matter? With it, she’s not a flight risk.”
Aleeya’s stomach lurched. Flight risk?
Why discuss this with a client? Did Ke-Avidai plan to sell her? Why would she do that when Aleeya brought in much-needed lucre to the temple’s orphanage?
The captain sat down on his haunches, his head level with the top of Ke-Avidai’s wings. His gaze shifted between Aleeya and her master. Too unfamiliar with their kind, Aleeya had no idea what lurked behind his black eyes.
“I don’t want to send my wingmen chasing after her,” the captain said. “I’ll have to chain her to the deck.”
Aleeya choked on a gasp.
Ke-Adivai hooked a wingclaw onto Aleeya’s bound wings and pulled her towards the Engarran captain.
Losing her balance, Aleeya pitched forward. She caught herself before running into the captain. Their gazes met. A low growl came from him, and something glittered in his eyes.
Is he laughing at me?
“She’s clumsy,” her master said. “But her cartography skills are unparalleled. Mostly self-taught, but that doesn’t lessen the quality or accuracy of her maps.”
Perfect because if they aren’t, I go mad and the world breaks. And Ke-Avidai will get rid of me.
As it seemed she was doing now. But Aleeya hadn’t broken the world, so why was this happening? By the gods, she didn’t want to be sold—that would ruin her escape plan.
“Can she cook? Clean? Does she know how to copulate with multiple species?”
The captain pressed his nostrils into Aleeya’s chest pack, nuzzling it aside. Her wings flickered against the wing-bolt, and she took a step back. Ke-Avidai raised her wings and drew Aleeya behind her again.
“Clean—yes. Cooking was never a skill she showed aptitude for. And you said nothing about copulating. You wanted a scribe who can map. She’s a cartographer who can scribe.”
Aleeya’s skin went cold. Am I to be a whore, too? She’d managed to avoid that fate for so long she’d stopped worrying about it.
“On a ship this size, each crew member has many duties. We have an excellent cook who caters to our luxury clients’ tastes. But he needs help. I’m sure your slave will do. She’ll learn soon enough what she needs to do to please my crew—and our clients, should she prove apt in those skills.”
Nausea pulsed through Aleeya’s torso, and she sent another silent prayer, this time to Jove Themself, god of gods.
Ke-Avidai’s wings shuddered. Her gaze raked over the ship’s deck. “You said you needed a scribe.”
“I do,” the captain said, raising an eyebrow and meeting Ke-Avidai’s blistering glare.
For a tiny moment, Aleeya dared hope Ke-Avidai would spin them both around, march onto the busy wharf, find Gallus where they’d left him, and fly back up to the temple.
But her lifelong master growled under her breath. “Fine. So do you want her?”
The captain tilted his head. “Three hundred taaras.”
Aleeya’s heart lurched, and her wings quivered.
This is happening. She was being sold. After a lifetime with the priestesses and acolytes of Nesha, the goddess of wayward souls, Aleeya was leaving them.
But not the way she’d planned.
“That. Is. Insulting,” her master seethed. “We will take no less than two thousand. As agreed.”
Oh, dear Jove, god of gods, thank you, there’s no way the captain can afford that. If he starts at three hundred, he can’t possibly get to two thousand.
The captain stood on all fours, then paced before Ke-Avidai, slow and steady.
“She’s a flight risk. Five hundred. No more.”
Ke-Avidai’s grip on Aleeya tightened. “Two thousand, no less.”
No no no no. Don’t start bargaining.
A high-pitched ringing assailed Aleeya’s ears and her breath caught in her throat. Ke-Avidai had responded, which meant she intended to sell.
“She’s not guild trained,” the captain said. “Six hundred. Take it or leave it.”
“Her maps are sought after by the senate. She’s better than those guild-trained fools.”
“Then why sell her?”
Ke-Avidai bared her teeth at the captain, who did likewise. They threw numbers at each other, but the ringing in Aleeya’s ears made it hard to follow.
Trying to ignore Ke-Avidai’s haggling, Aleeya tracked the progress of some Western Helacon slaves as they toiled with a large box along the roped staircase leading to a lift that would take it to the upper levels of Ka’ai’s cliffside dwellings. Their black leathery wings were hobbled with nets, not a wing-bolt.
They might earn their freedom, their manumission, but because I’m Eastern Wild, I never will. Not in Ka’ai. Not in Western Helacon. And apparently, not on an Engarran pleasure ship.
The wind had died down, and the black-winged dockworkers took to the sky, shifting crates and barrels among the ships and piers. Above them, the city’s inhabitants darted above the cliffs of the First Fjord, going about their daily business.
Her gaze went from one walkway to a wooden staircase, following the complicated network reaching all the way to the white-edged top of the cliffside. Above that, steep gray granite spires towered over the white marble buildings of Ka’ai. A painfully blue sky marred by stark white clouds topped it all.
Ke-Avidai must have settled on something because she pushed Aleeya before her new owner. She dared not breathe as she forced herself still, arms wrapped tight around her chest pack and wings pressed against her back until they hurt.
The captain sniffed Aleeya from head to foot, his forceful breaths blowing through her short hair, waist-length halter, then breeches. His breath smelled of wet tongue and old garlic. He lingered over the scars on her neck, partially covered by a metal collar embossed with HOLD AND RETURN.
He shot Ke-Avidai a hard look before sniffing Aleeya’s ink-stained fingers, then traveled down to her sex. She tensed her groin, thanking Nesha, the goddess of wayward souls, when he didn’t shove his snout between her legs.
“She’s a virgin,” he said.
Engarrans were known for their exceptional sense of smell, but how did he know?
“Does that matter?” Ke-Avidai said, her voice held a bone-weary tone, as if she’d spent the entire morning corralling the orphans.
He growled. “More training.”
Ke-Avidai shifted her wings, then settled them neatly on her back. “You’re getting a bargain.”
The captain flicked his long naked tail, ringed with copper bands. “Fine. Have the paperwork ready by the morning. I expect you to handle the city’s sales tax.”
Ke-Avidai frowned at the captain, and for the briefest moment, Aleeya hoped maybe—
“Agreed,” Ke-Avidai said. “But we won’t release her until paid.”
The captain sneered. “You’ll have your nineteen hundred and fifty before then.”
He sauntered over to a topside cabin where one of his crew, a Xianit dressed in a sheer silk shirt and fine breeches that flared around her calves, gestured with her sun-kissed hands. The door opened without her touching it—an elemental!—then the captain stepped through.
Ke-Avidai pushed Aleeya onto the plank that linked the ship with the pier. Aleeya stumbled over her leaden feet. Each time she teetered, her master grabbed her with a perfunctory wingclaw before Aleeya could pitch into the choppy sea.
On the main dock, the head priestess prodded her forward through the crowded wharf. They headed towards the base of the cliffs to the staircase where they’d left Gallus to purchase some spice.
Aleeya held in a sob. Ke-Avidai had lied to her about the job.
If only she’d thrown herself into the water. Drowning would be preferable to servicing multiple crewmen. She wasn’t trained for that. She’d worked so hard to be useful, to learn an indispensable craft. A skill she thought would get her home, but her mapping skills had spared her from so much more.
How could Ke-Avidai sell her so readily? Hadn’t she shown her worth over and over? Since her last escape, she’d played the part of submissive slave to earn Ke-Avidai’s trust. It had taken years.
They approached a group of adolescents hunched over a game of dice, the sheen on their black wings contrasting with their dusty, brown bodies. They were all arms, legs, and wings, long and slender youths.
From among their playing ring, Gallus stood when he caught sight of Aleeya. His faded red halter marked him as an orphan with the Temple of Nesha, goddess of wayward souls. Only fourteen and he had already reached her height. Dust painted the knees of his worn brown breeches.
He took one look at her and fluttered his wings in confusion. “Are you alright?”
His short breeches exposed the loose lacing of his sandals. Aleeya dropped to lace them properly.
“Is she alright?” Gallus asked Ke-Avidai. “What happened? It looks like she’s seen a lamia.”
Ke-Avidai slapped at his wings, and he stumbled back. Aleeya stood and steadied him.
“Did you get the anise?” Ke-Avidai asked.
Gallus caught Aleeya’s gaze and raised a questioning eyebrow. She shrugged her bound wings. A hard lump in her throat kept her from saying anything.
What could she say? She could scarcely believe it.
With a shrug of his wings in response to hers, he pulled out a pouch squirreled away in his halter and shook it. The sharp scent of the spice competed with the sea.
“Good,” Ke-Avidai said. “Let’s go. It’s a long way back up.”
“Why don’t we just fly?” Gallus asked, stretching his wingfingers, shivering the wing membrane between each. “I’ll get Aleeya’s wing-bolt.”
Aleeya winced as her wings involuntarily pushed against the pin, sending a quivering spasm through her back. She glanced about, every muscle in her body tensing.
This is my chance to escape. To my death out at sea, but better than the alternative.
The docks were busy enough. She could probably get a two- or three-minute lead before Ke-Avidai would alert the wharfmaster and report an escaped slave. The head priestess wouldn’t chase Aleeya herself, and Gallus still struggled with the growth spurt in his wings making him slow, so he’d likely not catch her. Aleeya hadn’t seen any city guards nearby. If she took them by surprise, she just might make it.
“No, leave the bolt in,” Ke-Avidai said, her voice calm, almost relieved, as if she’d been waiting to get rid of Aleeya. “We climb.”
Aleeya’s entire body wilted at the tone of the head priestess’ words. She was relieved. Few temples owned slaves, but Aleeya had been with Ke-Avidai all her life. And she was one of the best sources of income for the orphanage. So, why get rid of her? When had things changed?
The old head priestess eyed the steep staircases interspersed throughout the fifteen levels of the cliffside dwellings.
“That will take all morning,” Gallus said.
“Then the senate’s maps will be late,” Ke-Avidai said.
She headed for the nearest staircase, her wings aloft, pressing through the shoppers going about their day as if Aleeya hadn’t just been sold to an Engarran shipper who would take her even farther away from her homeland. Not that they’d care.
The head priestess paused at the base of the staircase and caught Aleeya’s gaze. “Do I have to worry about you running?” she said, eyes narrowed.
Aleeya’s ill-planned endeavor at fifteen had soon found her back at the temple with lashings that tore the skin off her back, a new wing-bolt, and an iron ball chained to her neck that she had carried for over two years—the alternative to the praetorian’s recommendation, which was death. At the time, she’d been grateful Ke-Avidai had spared her life. But to be sold like this?
Oh, yes, you should be worried about me running.
“No, Your Grace,” Aleeya said, bowing with her right fist over her left shoulder.
The words came out more a crow’s croak than speech. Tugging on the bright yellow halter that marked her as a slave, Aleeya straightened her spine but kept her gaze on the ground.
She blinked back tears as she followed her lifelong master up the staircase. Gallus came up behind, chattering about something he’d seen in the wharf’s market, his words melding with the screams of the cormorants and the barks of the seals. On the ascent, Aleeya stared at Ke-Avidai’s boots beneath the drape of her long crimson skirt. She was supposed to be the embodiment of the compassion of Nesha, the goddess of wayward souls.
For as long as Aleeya had known the head priestess, she’d waited for that compassion to be bestowed upon her. But she has none for me.
As much as the desire burned, Aleeya couldn’t fly away from Ke-Avidai, the city's praetorians, or Western Helacons; she’d already tried that many times. The careful plan she’d been working on for the past year was ruined. Aleeya would have to do something, anything, to avoid a life servicing sailors.
The strong breezes picked up again, threatening to pluck her off the steps. With her mind whirling for any possibility, she fought against the rising windstorm.
