She pulled a long knife out of one of the sheaths at her waist and held it across her lap. She stared at the moon’s shadow on the metal. “The skin is good, my boy, you did very well. But it didn’t kill her, so it is not enough only to wrap her up in it and wait for her to wake up. Not enough. The slave never cut deep enough, never enough, and I managed to gouge myself that deeply just once. This time pays for all—deep enough to bring her back, deep enough to fill her egg with a yolk of starlight, deep enough for my girl to come home.”
Leander did not understand for a moment, being, as most Princes are, reluctant to see things which were not written out plainly before him in three kinds of ink. But when she raised her blade, he knew what she meant, and he lunged forward to stop her, but she was much faster than he, and sank the knife in her chest before he could wrench her hand away.
“Enough,” she barked, and with a horrible sawing motion, laid open her heart over the scarlet egg. The blood flowed into the skin, dark as dungeons, dark as geese eyes. And then it came, the light, first in drops and then in a sickly stream, soaking into the egg like cream strained into a glass. It became white with blood-light, and glowed lantern-bright. Knife slumped against the slick surface and slid to the grass, her body empty as a hole in the sky.
Soon, the light had drained entirely into the skin, and it was dark again, red against the shadowy grass. After a few moments, a terrible sound began to issue from the skin-egg, scratching and weeping, a muffled breathing which was getting fainter. Leander wanted to rip the egg open; he wanted to fall to the ground and mourn his mother. Caught between them, he did nothing, but watched helplessly, his feet knotted to the ground.
With a great crack like the splintering of a palace column, a white hand squirmed out of the egg, clawing for purchase on its slick surface. A girl emerged, her hair strewn with shards of the crimson shell, wet and bright with egg fluid. She pulled herself up with painfully thin limbs. When she stepped onto the grass, she caught sight of her slender foot and froze. She held out her hands, staring dumbfounded at them. Then she spied him standing beneath his tree.
Aerie opened her human mouth for the first time, and screamed so loudly and so horribly that nightingales fell dead from their boughs.
She could not stop screaming. Her chest rose and fell swiftly, and her cries filled the night. Leander rushed to her and she collapsed into his arms, still staring at her hands. He didn’t think she could speak; what language could she have, after all? He whispered gently to her—it’s all right, you’re safe, it’s your brother, it’s all right—and as she began to struggle against him, he tied the remnants of the skin around her small waist like a lady’s sash. She slashed at him with her nails, gibbering and screaming. Only when she saw the body of the Witch did she quiet, and strain towards it. Still holding her fragile form, he helped her crawl towards the crumpled crone.
Aerie stumbled to Knife on limbs that she could hardly use, crying a single word that told the Prince that she knew language and more, the thing the spell was not meant to encompass—she had been awake within the bird body since her first day of life.
Aerie fell into Knife’s arms, whimpering in a low and grinding voice:
“Mama, Mama, Mama…”
They lay together on the wet earth, and Knife did not wake.
Still, Aerie would not move. Her fingers curled into her mother’s hair, Leander’s hands curled in hers. One by one, the wild geese hopped out of the door of the old hut, waddling over to Knife and the ruined egg-skin. One by one, they laid their pearly heads on her body, all finding a place for themselves on her still-warm skin. One by one, they closed their eyes, not to be parted from their mistress at the end. Knife seemed to float in a sea of wings, and each bird’s silent death took her further from her children.
Leander let go of his sister’s hand and opened the cloth bundle that sat beside the limbs which had once been Knife. Inside lay a loaf of bread, lumpy and ill-formed, an ugly reddish color baked into the crust. It was not soft, nor did it seem as though it would taste good, but Leander understood—it was his own loaf, kneaded by his broken hand, his blood and tears folded into it, over and over. It had always been meant for this morning. He broke it in half, leaning a shaking, staring Aerie into his arms and slowly pressing tiny morsels into her shuddering mouth. She grimaced, but swallowed as if starving, and he, too, ate a few pieces of the strange food, its tang bitter on his tongue.
After a long while, they walked from their mother into the moonlight.
Aerie stood at the well, washing her new hands until they bled.
Her brother approached her slowly and took her hands in his. They were slick with red, running with it, and her eyes were wild.
“Aerie, Aerie, you’re hurting yourself. We have to start for the Castle. With luck we can slip in tonight.”
She shook her head violently, dark hair still splashed with silver light, so that she looked like an old woman with gray in her black strands. Her voice was like a crushed tuning fork, the dust of a harp splintered on a
desolate shore.
“I am. Not. Going. Not there. Not to the birth-nest.”
“Knife asked us—”
“Mother!”
“Mother asked us, she made us swear.”
“You.”
“All right. She made me swear. So, I am going. Are you abandoning her now that she’s dead? It’s my father, not yours. What’s the matter?”
“Abandon her? Abandon?” She struck her chest with her fist. “My mother! My flock!”
“Yes, but this is what my flock does. The flock of Princes. We go on Quests. We make vows. And sometimes, we kill Kings. It’s our duty.”
“Not mine. You’re not my hatching. Not my duty.” She spat the last as though it were dredged from the bottom of her belly, thick with sludge. She looked at her brother, her eyes raking up and down his shape. She seemed to calm herself, to collect her mind. “You are alone,” she whispered. “I am alone. Mother was alone. It never changes. I’ll tell you, tell you why. When I was not I. When I flew…”
THE FIRST MOON-CRESCENTS STARVED ME. I HAD no Flock. I remembered Mother; I knew I was a no-bird. But I was hungry still; I could not think, I was so hungry. There were Falcons near the birth-nest. Slave-hunters. I flew after them, ate scraps from their beaks. They snapped at me through leather masks, drew blood from my wings, scratched at my eyes. I was not theirs. Not their duty. I could not fly very well yet, but I learned. I watched the seagulls and the starlings and the sapsuckers and the spoonbills: I learned to swoop and bank and speed and land.
No words, only flying, and wind like a mother.