She thought of the endless walks she’d made around the courtyard, and of her pathetic plan of escape. Whenever Silea was busy, she would sneak into the slave girl’s room and kick aside the mat that covered the hatch to the cellar. Down there in the freezing dark, she would hack at the wall where the pipe carried water from the stream outside into the cistern in the cellar. Over the winter, she’d managed to dislodge one stone, creating a hole about the size of her fist.
“This is your fault, Hylas,” she whispered. “You’re why I’m here.”
Racing across the courtyard, she climbed the pegs to the lookout. The screaming wind blasted her with snow, and she grabbed the trunk of the juniper tree to steady herself. In her free hand she gripped the lamp with the feather tied on. When she threw it, it would be gone for good.
Somewhere, a crow cawed, and for a moment, Pirra thought of the Crow warriors on Thalakrea. They’d escaped to safety. Had they found out that she’d taken their precious dagger?
Hylas hadn’t given her the chance to tell him; he’d been too busy forcing her onto the ship. Well, if he believed the Crows still had the dagger, that only served him right.
“Get out of my head, Hylas,” she muttered, and leaned over the precipice as far as she dared.
“Pirra, what are you doing?” shouted Userref. He stood on the sanctuary steps, frozen with horror.
“Getting rid of something!” she yelled. Drawing back her arm, she flung the lamp—and the wind tore it away into the whirling void. “There!” she shouted. “That’s the last of you gone!”
“You promised you wouldn’t climb up there,” admonished Userref when they were back in her chamber and he’d dealt with the guards, who’d been woken by the shouting.
“I didn’t promise,” retorted Pirra.
“Mistress, how could you?” scolded Silea. Her plump face puckered with disapproval, although she loved it when Pirra got into trouble.
“Silea, go away,” snarled Pirra.
“I wish I could,” muttered the slave girl. That was a lie: She was enjoying Taka Zimi, safe from the Plague, and with little to do except flirt with the guards.
“Just go,” commanded Pirra.
Rolling her eyes, Silea went.
Userref studied Pirra. “What you threw away, was it that falcon feather Hylas gave you?”
Pirra turned on him. “I told you never to speak his name! I ordered you! And in case you’ve forgotten, you’re still my slave, just like Silea!”
There was a prickly silence. Userref crossed his arms and glowered at the brazier. Pirra snatched up her bronze mirror and glared at herself. The cold made her scar show livid on her cheek. She’d burned her face deliberately when she was twelve, to avoid being wed, but now that she was nearly fourteen, she hated her scar. She’d tried everything to make it fade. Nothing had worked.
Userref looked unhappy. He loathed being angry. Pirra felt a flash of affection for him. He was the big brother she’d never had.
Despite the cold, he still shaved his head in mourning for his beloved Egypt, and painted black stripes across his eyes, in the hopes that it would bring back the Sun. For him even more than for the Keftians, the Sun’s disappearance was a catastrophe: He lived by its daily rebirth.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
He gave her a smile that lit up his handsome face. “Doesn’t matter, I understand. It’s this terrible place.”
The frozen mountain had appalled him. “This thing you call snow,” he’d exclaimed on their first day at Taka Zimi, “it’s everywhere! And some demon has put a spell on my breath and turned it to smoke!”
Pirra had had a struggle to make him wear warm clothes, as he refused to touch wool, regarding sheep as unclean. At last she’d persuaded him into a linen tunic and leggings padded with goosedown, a harefur cloak, and calfskin boots stuffed with hay.
Pirra noticed that his pouch was slung over his shoulder. “You’re going out,” she said.
“Down to the village to get more wormwood.”
“Let me go with you,” she begged.
He sighed. “You know I can’t. I swore to your mother.”
Pirra blinked. She hated it when he mentioned Yassassara. “The High Priestess is dead,” she told him levelly.
“Which makes her wishes sacred.”
“For how long? Am I to be shut in here forever?”
“You know the answer. Till the Sun returns and rids the land of Plague.”
“What if that never happens?”
“Your mother sent you here to be safe. Now that she’s dead, the priests—”
“They don’t care about me any more than she did!” Pirra burst out. “They only want me alive so they can trade me in marriage when this is over!”
Userref turned to go, but she ran to him. “Userref, please! Let me come with you, even just outside the gates! I won’t run away, where would I go? There’s nothing but mountains and snow!”
“Pirra—”
“All winter I’ve been pacing that courtyard! If I do it any more I’ll go mad!”
“Pirra I can’t! I swore to your mother!”
“My mother is dead dead dead!”
There was a shocked silence. Pirra folded her arms and turned her back on Userref. She had hated her mother, but she’d been stunned by her death, and she was haunted by their last exchange. “You ran away,” Yassassara had said coldly. “You shirked your duty to Keftiu.”
Pirra had wanted to tell her that on Thalakrea, she’d risked her life for Keftiu—but she’d never gotten the chance. That day she’d been banished to Taka Zimi, and she’d never seen her mother again. Now she couldn’t ever make Yassassara proud of her. It was too late.
She turned to find Userref observing her thoughtfully. “You’re more like her than you know,” he said. “Just as brave and just as strong-willed.”
Pirra flinched. Once, Hylas had said something similar. You’re brave and you don’t give up.
With a snarl, she ground her fist against the wall. Stop thinking about Hylas.
“And Pirra,” said Userref from the doorway. “That feather. It’s an emblem of Heru, my falcon-headed god. You can’t get rid of it as easily as that.”
“What do you mean?” Pirra said sulkily.
“You sent it out on the wind. Who knows what the wind will send back?”
6
She remembered the Egg. Being all crumpled up inside, with her feet jammed under her beak. She couldn’t move a claw, it was awful.
But she did move. Twisting her head, she pecked, and panted, and pecked again—and at last the Egg cracked, and she was free.
She couldn’t see, but she was aware of the other fluffy hatchlings, and of her mother’s warm feathers pressing down on her. She smelled droppings, sticks, and rock. She heard her parents’ piercing cries, and the roaring air.
She was hungry. She jostled and trod on her brothers to get at the meat that her parents stuffed down her beak.
She grew stronger. Now that she could see, she struggled out of the Nest and explored the Ledge. She pulled her brothers’ tails with her beak, and peered at the slow, earthbound creatures in the forest far below.
She learned to sharpen her sight by bobbing her head up and down. Soon she could follow three snowflakes at once. She loved all the bright colors: a red-and-gold eagle, the brilliant hues of flies. But if a crow flew past, glinting green and purple and black, her talons tightened—because crows steal eggs, and are the enemies of falcons.
After several Lights and Darks, strange itchy bumps began breaking out all over her. She was outraged. Then her fluff fell out and the itchy bumps grew into feathers.
She adored them. They were white, brown, pink, gray, blue; some speckled, all beautifully sleek. She learned to tidy them by running them through her beak with a satisfying zzzt; and now when she watch
ed her parents soaring on the Wind, she envied them. She longed to explore the Sky. It was always changing: sometimes dark, sometimes light. During the Lights, the fledgling sensed something vast and powerful hidden behind the clouds. It never showed its face, although she wished it would.
Above all, she longed to fly. She flapped her wings till she was exhausted, but nothing happened.
Then one Light, as she was furiously flapping, the Wind scooped her off the Ledge—and for the flick of a feather, she was very nearly flying!
Abruptly, the Wind dropped her and she fell off the Ledge. She fell for ages, too startled to squawk, and landed in snow. Angry and humiliated, she struggled to her feet and shrieked for her parents, but they’d gone hunting and didn’t hear.
The fledgling gaped in terror. She was stuck on the ground like an earthbound creature. She could see the Ledge, horribly high above, but she couldn’t get back to it.
She started to crawl over the snow, hoping the Wind would pick her up again. Instead she slipped and rolled over and over.
She came to rest in a patch of bare earth, by a hole seething with ants. She pecked one. It tasted sour, so she spat it out, but this angered the other ants, and they started biting her feet. So many ants, swarming up her legs and stinging the roots of her feathers. She flapped and shrieked in panic.
The ground shook, and a huge earthbound monster darkened the Sky. He scooped her up and started picking off the ants. His voice was a low rumble, like a distant river; the fledgling found it oddly soothing. Human, she thought. This is a human.
After picking off the ants, the human placed her in a warm dark nest, which was such a relief that she went to sleep.
She woke in a Windless place with two humans: the male who’d saved her from the ants, and a smaller female. Like the male, the girl had neither wings nor beak, but the fledgling was fascinated by her brilliant colors. Instead of feathers, the girl had an odd loose hide that was orange, yellow, and green, with red fur like a fox on her back, and long black hair on her head, streaked purple and blue.
Slowly, the girl reached toward the fledgling, holding a scrap of meat in her big soft talons.
Alarmed, the fledgling rose to her full height, gaping and spreading her wings. Then she snatched the meat in her beak and flung it scornfully aside.
The girl held out more meat. She neither stared nor loomed, she simply spoke in a gentle rumble. Her strange pale face lacked feathers or fluff, but her eyes were as dark as a falcon’s, and in them, the fledgling glimpsed a spirit as trapped and flightless as her own.
The fledgling stretched out her neck and took the meat.
Pirra watched the fledgling snatch another scrap of mouse in its outsize beak. “Are you sure it’s a falcon?” she said doubtfully.
Userref’s lip curled. “Of course I am.”
Pirra snorted. “It’s not like any falcon I’ve ever seen.”
The creature huddled in the pouch was a scruffy brown-and-white bundle the size of a pigeon: mostly feathers, except for a few bizarre tufts of white fluff on its head, with lots more on its legs, like fluffy white leggings. It had large yellow-green feet and long black claws, and it was glaring up at Pirra with big, dark, baleful eyes.
“Where’d you find it?” she said.
“On the ground, below a crag. I heard her squawking; she must have fallen out of her nest. It’s early in the year for fledglings, but this is such a strange time, the wild creatures don’t know if it’s winter or spring. This falcon is a good omen. Maybe she’ll bring back the Sun.”
“How d’you know it’s a she?”
“I don’t, but I feel it.” He paused. “If she lives,” he said carefully, “she’ll want to fly. Whether or not she does—that’s up to you.”
“Why?” Pirra said suspiciously.
“You’ll need to look after her.” Again he paused. “If she lives, she’ll be the fastest creature in the world. The female falcon is bigger, stronger, and faster than the male.”
“Well, that’s as it should be,” muttered Pirra.
“A falcon is proud and quick to take offense. She never forgets an insult. You can’t tame her and you can’t punish her into obedience. You can only gain her trust, and persuade her to stay with you.” He glanced at Pirra. “And she will never try to please. So I thought you two might get along.”
Pirra snorted a laugh.
“For now, she’s a captive, like you. But if you look after her, you could teach her to fly. You could set her free.”
Pirra repressed a spark of excitement. “You’ve thought it all out, haven’t you?” she said drily.
Userref smiled and shook his head. “Not me, Pirra, this is the will of Heru. Why else do you think this falcon came to you?”
Pirra named her Echo, because of her ringing eck-eck-eck. She was clever, moody, and fierce, and she either liked something or she didn’t, and that was that.
Luckily, she liked Pirra. She liked Userref too, but she hated Silea, and had a horror of ants. If she spotted one, she went into a frenzy and wouldn’t calm down till the entire chamber had been searched and rendered antless.
The days sped past, and Pirra forgot everything but Echo. She kept her chamber dim to reassure the fledgling, and Userref put a log in a corner for a perch, and tied Echo to it with traces of braided lambskin around her legs.
At first the fledgling was nervous, standing tall and glaring with half-open beak. Pirra talked to her and eventually she relaxed, fluffing out her chin-feathers and perching comfortably on one leg, with the other tucked under her belly.
She had astonishing eyesight. She could spot an ant at thirty paces, and would turn her head right around to follow it. And she seemed fascinated by Pirra’s clothes. “She sees more colors than we do,” said Userref. “They say that to falcons, the green and purple glints on a raven’s wing are as bright as a rainbow.”
Echo swiftly learned that Pirra meant food, and begged with plaintive wails, kyi-kyi-kyi. Her favorite was pigeon: She would pluck out its feathers with her beak, toss away the guts, then hold down the carcass with one foot and rip it to shreds. Later, she’d squirt her droppings into the corner, then sick up a neat pellet of squashed feathers and bone.
With startling speed, she grew from a scruffy fledgling to a handsome falcon, as tall as Pirra’s forearm was long. Her head and wings were a beautiful dusky gray, her throat and breast creamy buff speckled with brown. Her large hooked beak could snap a pigeon’s spine or bite a chunk out of Pirra’s finger—although she never did. And beneath her great black eyes ran the mark of all falcons: a dark vertical stripe, like the track of a tear.
Pirra hated tying her up, so she gave her the run of the chamber—although on Userref’s advice, she left the traces on her legs.
“To teach her to fly,” he said, “you must gain her trust. Stay with her, talk to her, give her scraps of squirrel to keep her busy. Get her used to your touch.”
By now, Echo knew her own name, and sometimes when Pirra called, she hopped off her perch and came running, her talons clicking on the floor. Once, when Pirra left the chamber, Echo called to her: eck-eck-eck.
At first, Pirra stroked her with a feather, then the back of her finger, over her cool soft breast and down her scaly yellow-green feet. Echo seemed to like having her feet stroked best.
One day, as Pirra was stroking her ankles, the falcon stepped calmly onto her fist. Pirra felt a prickling of awe. For all Echo’s endearing ways, she was a creature of the Goddess.
“Keep your elbow close to your side and your forearm level,” Userref said quietly from the doorway, “that’ll make a comfortable perch. Don’t let go of the traces.”
Echo was heavier than she looked, and her talons dug into Pirra’s flesh like slender black thorns.
“I’ll make a leather cuff to protect your wrist,” said Userref. “And from now on, you shoul
d carry a pouch with scraps of meat, for rewards.”
“How come you know so much about falcons?” said Pirra without taking her eyes off Echo.
“All Egyptians know about falcons. My brother Nebetku taught me. He knew more than most.”
“Did he have a tame one?”
“Remember, you never tame a falcon! You just persuade her to stay with you for a while.”
Pirra wanted to know what he meant by a while, but Userref had gone back to his chamber. It made him sad to talk of his brother; they’d been close before Userref was taken for a slave.
That night, Echo roosted on the bedpost by Pirra’s head, and Pirra lay listening to her doing her evening preen: brisk little rustlings and beak-clickings, then a snap of shaken-out feathers as she settled to sleep. Pirra felt better than she had since she’d been brought to Taka Zimi.
Next day, she took Echo into the courtyard for the first time. Silea and the guards were banished indoors, and Pirra and Userref watched the falcon hop about to explore. She pecked everything, and seemed fascinated by the juniper tree on the lookout post. When the wind gusted, she flapped her wings.
“She ought to be flying by now,” said Userref. “Maybe she lost her confidence, falling out of her nest.”
“How can I help her?” said Pirra.
“Be patient. It shouldn’t be long.”
“When she does fly—will she come back?”
“Oh, yes. She can’t hunt yet, and she thinks of this place as her eyrie. She’ll fly around, learning to use her wings, but she’ll keep coming back.”
Pirra shot him a glance. “Always?”
“No,” he said gently. “Once she’s made her first kill, she’ll be gone.”
Pirra went cold inside. “When? When will she make her first kill?”
He hesitated. “A few days. Maybe longer.”
Pirra put her hand to her mouth. Only days? “Well,” she faltered. “That’s as it should be. I want her to be free.”