"Look! High Spear Rynn's heart-stars!"
I cannot help but puff up my chest with pride. Zahreenah steps closer to me and I wrap a wing around her instinctively as we near the clearing at the heart of my village for gatherings and celebrations.
"My people!" I call out, turning to the whole tribe. "I am sure you have all heard the news by now and are curious indeed. Today marks a new era for us. Perhaps, in the future, more females will come to our tribe. We may well have mothers, sisters, daughters, and mates among us again."
"Is it true?" someone - a young, untrained Protector - calls out, "Is it true that she has ignited your heart-stars?"
I grin, holding my arms out wide. "It is what you see on me, is it not?"
The youth looks bashful but I do not begrudge him his question. None of us have ever witnessed this before.
"Her name is Zahreenah," I call out.
My people offer the customary fist to their chest, a gesture of respectful greeting, and then recite her name as one. "Zahreenah."
"Oooooki," Zahreenah laughs, but something about the tone of it is off. "Notcreeyatall."
Perhaps it is meeting the whole tribe at once. Perhaps it is the intensity of our curiosity. But instinct tells me Zahreenah is not happy. I'm about to lead her away, back to my hut when Mavyx speaks from the crowd.
"My High Spear, have you considered that the female has been sent to us as a test?"
My body stills but my wings flare as if sensing some form of threat. "A test?"
"Yes," he says, watching my little-light beside me. "Perhaps you are meant to give her back?"
"Give her back?!" I ask, my feathers ruffling and my tail slipping around one of Zahreenah's calves.
"Forgive me, my High Spear but it has played on my mind," Mavyx continues, unfazed by my obvious discomfort. It is part of why I chose him as my Second Spear. He was never afraid to challenge me when it mattered. Perhaps I may come to regret admiring that attribute. "The females of our ancestors were wiped out as punishment. Punishment for the male's mistreatment and greed. They had clipped the female's wings so that they could not leave the Eyrie Caves high above us. They could not soar, they could not travel to other tribes, and they could not live a full Trixikka life. Instead, they were trapped up there, serving their unworthy males. What if your female was sent to you to test our greed generations on? What if the Goddesses want to see if you would offer her back to the Temple’s safety?"
I feel sick. Truly, and utterly sick at the thought. And yet, my tribe watches me expectantly. I open my mouth, ready to challenge Mavyx's suggestion - to swallow it, chew it up and spit it back down at his feet.
But I can't.
I look at Zahreenah. Her eyes still scanning our gathering. If the Goddesses sent the sickness out to her because of my greed-
I could not ever bear that.
Chapter 8
SERENA
Rynn had led me through the little village of rudimentary stone huts, their roofs topped with interweaving leaves. Each hut seemed to house a more than curious winged inhabitant and it isn't until we reach a little clearing at the foot of the looming sandy-colored mountain that I realize I’d seen no women among them. Not one. My first, horrible, horrible thought is that they're being kept somewhere, like chained dogs in a kennel, but I dismiss that notion almost as soon as it arises. Rynn hasn't tried to chain me and it's probably the wholejust-got-auctioned-off-to-be-a-human-petexperience talking. My second thought was that maybe this is a segregated society and the women have their own little village somewhere and the two only meet when little baby bird-people need to....hatch?
Either way, it was clear I was quite the anomaly during their normal morning schedule, andman- they could not stop gawking at me! Not that I'm a stranger to being gawked at. It's just that the type of gawking is different. What I'm personally used to is the kind where I'm alone, safe in my bedroom, and said gawker is on the other end of a camera and an internet connection.Oh, and they've normally paid for the privilege too.
But these guys take it to another level.
Rynn must sense my unease and wraps one of his huge, soft wings around me. And God help me but I lean into it. Something about him makes me feel safe after the past day I've had. Feeling safe is like gold dust.
Only now something has shifted. The huge guy I'd met last night when Rynn and I first landed had been spouting a lot of his pretty alien words and whatever he said had changed something somehow. Rynn seems tense as he leads me closer to the mountain, winding around the base of it, passing more of his people - huge, hulking men who seem to be strategically placed along a path, up high on crags of rock or in huge trees. Some stand like sentries with spears. Some hide in the shadows but melt into the morning light when we approach so that they, too, can get their fix of gawking. Rynn speaks to none of them but I notice a few join the villagers who are following us, whispering furiously while watching me walk with their leader.
Once we round one final rocky outcrop I come to a complete stop. In front of us is... well, I can only describe it as a UFO. It's a God-damned UFO if ever I saw one. The shape of the thing is disc-like, though fatter through the middle like someone took a perfectly round sphere, but squished it a bit and then embedded the bottom of it into the earth. The outside is pristine white, smooth, and shiny. It looks so out of place on this primitive planet of jungle, rocky mountains, and bird-men in loincloths. Could this be my ticket back home? Maybe, maybe not. But either way, I need to find the other girls before I get into that thing.
Halting, I touch Rynn's arm, sending those lights shooting up his arm again. He looks at me, a solemn expression on his face. "I can't leave without the others," I say, shaking my head. "I know you can't understand me, but I-"
Rynn gathers me into his arms, crushing me to his chest. He's all hard muscle beneath my cheek but he is warm and his scent is like some alien version of cinnamon and woodsmoke. Murmuring his deep, melodic foreign words to me, I catch my name in there somewhere but cannot help but be distracted by the way I can feel his voice rumbling beneath the press of my cheek. Or how he's wrapped his huge inky wings around us both, cocooning me in comfortable darkness, dotted with the little lights on his feathers, making it feel like I'm being hugged by the sky at night.
"Rynn, what is it?" I ask, peeling away from him slightly, "What's the matter?"
