Calder woke to the pale light of morning filtering through the frosted window. His back ached, and his wings were stiff from another night of bad sleep. One of the smaller pairs had gone numb beneath the others, and when he tried to move it, a sharp jolt of pain shot down his spine.
He groaned, pressing a hand to his face. "Serves me right," he muttered. "Should've just slept on the floor."
The house was quiet, too quiet. No faint humming from the kitchen, no scent of herbs steeping in the kettle. He sat up, blinking the sleep from his eyes, and caught sight of a note on his bedside table. His mother's handwriting, neat and looping.
Went to the market. Don't forget the chores. And eat.
-C
Calder smiles. "Of course," he murmured, folding the note into his pocket.
The chill clung to him as he moved through the cottage. He stoked the hearth first, coaxing a small flame from the embers. He dropped a few pieces of firewood onto the small flame. The warmth spread slowly, brushing over his fingers and cheeks. Then he set to work.
He swept the floors, mended the cracks in the window frame, and hauled a few buckets of snow from outside to melt for water. His wings brushed against the furniture, knocking a few things over. Every movement felt too big for the small space.
He sighed, muttering under his breath, "You'd think after seventeen passes I'd learn how not to destroy everything I touch."
The fire popped behind him, soft and steady.
He paused then, staring out the window at the pale stretch of sky beyond the mountain tops. It was clear, almost painfully so, the kind of morning meant for flying.
The bucket slipped from his grasp. He caught the pail before it could fully escape from his grasp. "Stupid thing." He told the object. He looked back at the window.
Citrine would scold him if she knew he even thought of it. But still, his feathers twitched, catching the light.
He put the pails down to lean against the windowsill, gaze caught in the endless sweep of white and blue. For a heartbeat, he imagined what it would feel like, the rush of air beneath his wings, the weightless spin that left his stomach in his throat, the taste of the clouds—
A shadow swept across the snow outside. Calder froze.
It moved fast, slicing over the roof and across the clearing, too large to be a bird, and way too fast to be a drifting cloud. His heart kicked against his ribs. Instinct shoved him backward from the window, wings folding tight against his spine as he slipped into the dimness of the wall's shadow.
He held his breath. The sound of beating wings echoed faintly through the gale. Rank Two patrols never came this far from the city unless they were hunting.
Not now, he thought, his pulse drumming in his throat. Please not now.
A moment passed. Then a shadow curved, circled once, and descended near the clearing. The snow burst in a shimmer of white as two white wings folded back, dusted with frost.
Momma. Calder exhaled hard, pressing a hand to his chest. His wings sagged, trembling with leftover fear. "Vezof's Breath, she nearly took a year off my life," he cursed under his breath, stepping back toward the window.
Outside, Citrine straightened her cloak and gathered her satchel of herbs, her breath curling like smoke in the cold. Even from here, Calder could tell she'd seen him; her gaze flicked toward the window for the briefest second before turning toward the door.
He winced. "Now she definitely saw me."
A few heartbeats later, the door creaked open, letting in the bite of the wind and the faintest warmth of her voice.
"Calder," she called softly, her voice carrying that calm, teasing edge. "You're not as sneaky as you might think."
He straightened at once, trying for a casual grin despite the flush creeping up his neck. "Wasn't hiding," he said quickly, dusting nonexistent snow off his sleeve. "Just…making sure you weren't one of those patrols."
"Ah," Citrine's brows arched, amusement dancing behind her steady composure as she hung her cloak by the door, next to Calder's. "Because that would've gone well, I'm sure. A Rank Two soldier knocking on our door, and you pressed flat against the wall like a frightened hare with a brown coat."
"I wasn't that bad," Calder slumped over, eager to steer the conversation elsewhere. "Anyway—how was the village market? Anyone selling good herbs this morning?"
Citrine let his quick deflection slide, shaking the snow from her wings before she stepped toward the kitchen. "Quiet. The storm kept most away. I managed to get the root we were missing, though. It'll help your wings ache less when the weather turns."
Calder followed her in, relieved. "Good," he said, settling beside the table, "I'll need it if you keep finding excuses to send me into the city."
"The best way to blend in is in plain sight. The Uppers won't think to check you if you're directly among other Cliffwalkers, sweet," she said with a smile, turning to unpack her satchel.
Citrine began to warm up a pot of water over the fire while Calder filtered out the tea leaves from the other herbs. The house eventually filled up with the scent of herbs and warmth. Calder leaned against the counter, rolling a bit of dried snow between his fingers. Citrine moved quietly beside him, graceful in the way she always was, her pale wings brushing lightly against the air when she turned.
He couldn't help but glance at them. The way the light from the fire caught in their white feathers, soft and pure as the snowbanks outside. They shimmered, reflecting the glow of the heath like they were made for it. His own wings, folded tight behind him, felt heavier by comparison; dark grey and dull, dusted at the ends from the cold.
He flexed them once, just enough to shake off the stiffness, but even that made the wood creak faintly. Citrine glanced over her shoulder.
"You're brooding again," she said, voice mild but knowing.
"Not brooding," he said, though the words came slower. "Just thinking."
"About what?"
He hesitated, then shrugged, staring into the steam. "How different we are."
She reached for a cup, her red eyes catching the firelight. There was a flicker there, something older, something that didn't belong. A memory that hurt to hold. But she smiled anyway, the kind of smile that was both distant and apologetic. "You're still my son," she said. "No matter what color your wings are. They could be every color under Rhequahl's sky for all I care. The world may not see it, but you deserve more than what they let you have."
He swallowed, the words tightening in his chest. "It doesn't bother me," he lied.
Citrine hummed. "If it didn't bother you, then you would be so lost in thought." She spoke in a melodic voice. She turned back to pour the tea, her white wings shifting gently, a tremor in them betraying her thoughts.
Calders sat back in a chair, quiet. He stared at their shadows on the wall. The way her white feather blurred into light, and his dark ones swallowed it whole. Her cherry-red eyes against his ice-blue, her soft curls of pale gold against his messy tangle of dirty blond. Her small stature, his taller one. So different, every part of them; yet the same blood, the same heartbeat.
And still, he couldn't shake the thought that no matter how close they sat, the distance between them never stopped growing. His mother might be here, but her mind was not. There was always a shadow; she was stuck in a repeating memory, it seemed.
After tea, he got up to look at the hearth. He grabbed some good wood, tossing it into the flames. Like anything else, it would die without help. It was the same flame that burned everything, yet now it was small, pitiful. He crouched down, staring at the embodiment of Vorsakhi. He took a rod and began to stroke the fire, trying to get it going better than it was.
"Oh, Vezof's Breath…" Citrine cursed under her breath. "Calder, would you be a dear and run to the village? I forgot to buy snowberries earlier."
Calder looked up from the hearth he was stroking, one hand coming covered in soot. "Now?" He looked over his shoulder, his eyebrow lifted.
She grinned, wings half open as she sipped her tea. "Before the merchants pack up, so yes. Now." She let her head fall to the side. "I also want to start dinner before the suns' highest."
He hesitated before nodding and making his way to the door. Pulling on his thick fur cloak and fastening it at the neck. "Alright…I'll be back soon."
Outside, the cold met him like a blade. The village of Glacial Grove sprawled below the slopes of the mountain range. White roofs, trails of smoke curling into the pale sky. The air smelled sharp, alive with wind and snow. Calder kept his wings low, his broad outer pair cloaking over the smaller sets beneath it.
"Just another Cliffwalker boy fetching food for his mother. Nothing more, Calder." He told himself, raising a hand to tousle his hair from his eyes.
By the time he reached the market, the stalls were already half-empty. Must've had a small exchange today. He exchanged brief nods, buying a small basket of snowberries from an old woman with frostbitten hands. She barely looked at him, and Calder was grateful for that.
But not everyone looked away, it felt. Calder looked around. He felt eyes on him, he swore, yet he couldn't pin where it was at.
A few paces off, a man stood near a frozen alley, his cloak trimmed in black, watching. Calder couldn't find the stare that followed him through the snow. He didn't see the whisper pass between the man and another nearby.
By the time he turned to go home, the world had gone quiet again. He moved his gaze to the frozen alley, which was empty too. He shrugged off the feeling as paranoia.
~
Back in his room, the chill had mostly left his hands. The scent of dough and herbs drifted through the cottage. Calder sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning against his bed, weaving thin vines together. The ones his mother brought back from the Greensong Exchange many short-passings ago, the green had faded to a dull brown, but they were still supple. His fingers worked in silence, twisting and pulling, forming loops that wound tighter with every thought.
The vines slipped from Calder's fingers. He frowned, trying to remember the weave pattern.
The sound split through the cottage. Wood splintered, iron hinges shrieked, and then his mother's scream.
Calder's blood froze. The half-finished braid fell from his hands as he bolted upright. His wings flared, hitting the rafters as he half-flew, half-stumbled through the narrow hallway.
"Mother?!"
The kitchen was chaos.
The front door hung sideways on one hinge, snow swirling from the wind. Citrine was on the floor, her cheek pressed into the wooden boards, a Rank Two pressing a knee to her spine. His white feathers gleamed pale blue in the evening light, his dirk flashing against Citrine's throat.
Calder didn't think; he moved. Rage flooded him, wild and blinding. He lunged forward, every muscle screaming.
And was yanked back mid-stride. A rough hand clamped around his arm, twisting it hard. His wings thrashed violently, feathers scattering.
"Let her go!" He screeched, voice cracking from the force of it. "She didn't do anything—she didn't—"
The Rank Two holding him only smirked. "Loud from a halfbreed."
The other man, the one pinning Citrine, snorted. "Halfbreeds aren't the only ones who get taken in. Sometimes their caretakers do, too." His voice dripped with mockery. "Though I must say, lady, raising a Rank One halfbreed? That's a bold sort of idiocy."
Citrine's wings puffed out despite the blade to her throat, white feathers trembling. She spat the words like venom. "What was I supposed to do, leave him in the mountains to die? He's my son."
The dirk pressed harder; a thin line of blood traced down her neck.
Calder thrashed against the man holding him, fury boiling over. "Touch her again, and I swear—"
The Rank Two behind him slammed him into a wall. "You'll what? Flap your extra wings at us?"
Calder grunted and fell into silence.
The silence didn't last. The Rank Two, still holding Citrine, sneered, glancing between her two wings and Calder's six wings.
"Well, now this makes sense," he said, his voice dripping with false amusement. "Tell me, sweetheart—who'd you pull that was a Rank One? Didn't think the precious nobles liked slumming with the dirt."
Citrine's lips trembled, not with fear, but fury. "You wouldn't understand."
The soldier laughed, standing and jerking her upright by the arm. "Oh, I understand plenty. Enough to know your little affair's about to cost you both dearly."
Calder tried again to pull free, his muscles straining against the grip on his wrist, but the Rank Two was stronger. He twisted Calder's arms behind his back and clamped cold iron cuffs tight around them. The metal burned against his skin, searing like frostbite. Citrine winced as her own chains snapped closed around her wrists in front.
They were dragged outside into the snow. The air bit into Calder's cheeks, stinging where tears had dried. The Rank Twos shove them toward a black tron wagon waiting at the foot of the mountain. Its bars iced over, the door hanging open like a jaw.
"Get in," one barked.
Citrine didn't resist. She stepped in first, her chin lifted despite the bruises starting to form along her throat. Calder followed, the chains around his wrists clinking softly. The door slammed shut behind them. Iron bolts locking with a finality that made Calder's stomach twist.
As the wagon lurched forward, he pressed closer to his mother, wings folded tight. Through the barred window, he could hear the soldiers talking.
"So where are we takin' them?" one asked. "Queen Sierra's dungeons?"
The other snorted. "Why waste the Queen's time? Give 'em to the Shadowtouched. They're better equipped for dealing with halfbreeds."
"Better equipped," the first spat, "or just crawling in the dark with their cursed god? I'd sooner cut off my own wings than step foot in their lands."
"Then I suppose you'd get your knife ready, 'cause that's where we're going."
The wagon jolted as the road dipped, and Calder flinched. Citrine's head bowed.
"Shadowtouched," she whispered under her breath, then louder— "Shit."
Calder blinked at her, wide-eyed. He'd never heard her curse like this before. "Mother?"
She swallowed hard, her white wings drooping, feathers brushing against his grey ones. "Nothing, sweet. Just…stay close to me."
The wagon creaked as it rolled through the snow. The only sounds were the distant clop of hooves and the occasional rattle of chains.
Citrine drew her son closer, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Her hands, still cold from the shackles, stroked his hair the way she used to when he was small.
"It'll be alright," she whispered, though her voice shook. "Just stay calm, Calder. Whatever happens, stay calm." But her eyes, fixed on the passing shadows through the bars, told a different story.
The wagon rattled for hours. The snow never seemed to end—until it did.
Calder felt it before he saw it: the air shifted. It wasn't cold anymore, not in the clean biting way of the Heights, but heavy. Dead. Even the wind sounded different—not a whistle through peaks, but a hollow groan, as though the world itself mourned something lost.
He pressed his face to the iron bars, frozen metal biting his skin as white drifts began to thin. The snow grew patchy, revealing soil as dark as soot, and the smell—
He gagged softly.
Ash. Old, cold ash.
The wagon rolled on. The first trees appeared like skeletons, blackened trunks twisted into unnatural shapes, branches bare and clawing at the sky. Once, long ago, it might have been a forest. Now, it was nothing but ghosts of one.
"What happened here…" Calder whispers, his voice barely audible beneath the creak of wheels.
Citrine didn't answer. She stared out too, eyes glassy with something that wasn't shock. It was recognition.
"Mother?"
Her hands tightened on his arm. "This is the Broken Forest," she murmured. "The Shadowtouched made it their home after the Change. It used to be green, once. Older than the Heights themselves. But the Burning War changed it to this."
Calder blinked, struggling to imagine it. A forest without life, without color—it didn't make sense. The air was still, suffocating. Even the Skysteeds seemed uneasy, their hooves clattering faster as if to escape.
"I thought the fire was just a story," Calder said quietly. "That the gods cursed it."
"They did," Citrine said. Her wings drawn tight around her, the pure white dulling in the low light. "But mortals started it. The curse just finished the job."
The wagon turned down a slope, and Calder's stomach twisted as the last of the snow vanished completely. The land spread out in grey dunes of ash, trees nothing but charred spires. No birds. No beasts. No sound, save for the wagon.
He couldn't help it—his wings fluffed in alarm, instinctively trying to make him look larger, stronger. He hated how small he felt instead.
"Mother," he whispered, "why would anyone live here?"
Citrine didn't meet his eyes. "Because they had nowhere else to go."
The wagon jolted again. From far off through the black haze, Calder thought he saw a faint light—a flicker of purple fire that didn't move like any flame he's ever seen. It wavered, steady and silent.
Citrine's eyes finally found his. Her arms trembled. "Whatever you see when we get there," she steadied her voice, "don't look afraid."
Calder swallowed hard, his gaze fixed on the flickering lights ahead. For the first time in his life, he wished he'd never learned to fly.
The wagon lurched to a halt. The doors groaned open, stale air filling his lungs. A hand seized Calder's arm, dragging him out into the ashen light. He stumbled, his chains clinking as he hit the ground hard enough to bruise.
"Move," one of the Rank Twos barked.
Citrine was beside him, but barely. Her wings trembled under the weight of the iron binds, her breath coming short and uneven. Still, she turned to him with that same fragile, steady smile she always wore. "Calder," she said, "listen to me."
He shook his head. "No—"
"Listen." Her voice hardened, just a fraction. "Don't fight them. Not here. Do you understand?"
The Rank Twos exchanged glances. One jerked his chin toward a split in the black-ston path—one road leading up to a towering fortress, the other spiraling downward into the ground like a gaping wound.
"You're taking her to the Keep?" one of them asked.
"Orders," the other grunted. "The halfbreed goes below."
Calder's stomach dropped. "What? No—no! You can't—!"
A few other Rank Twos walked up, wings as black as the land. They grabbed him. He twisted, wings flaring wide and feathers flying, but their grips were iron. His voice broke into a ragged, birdlike screech—a sound that startled even the soldiers.
"Let me go! Let her go!"
"Calder!" Citrine's voice cracked. She strained against her captor's hold, chains scraping. "Please—don't! Just go with them!"
He didn't hear her. Or maybe he did, but couldn't obey. All he saw was her—her white feathers, her red eyes, her being pulled away, up the path toward the dark spires of the Keep. He lunged again, and a gauntleted hand struck him hard across the face.
"Quiet, halfbreed," the Rank Two snarled.
Blood filled his mouth. The world tilted. He caught one last glimpse of his mother, her voice faint over the rising wind.
"Don't be afraid, my little sky…"
Then the ground opened up to swallow him whole.