The succulents were not the strangest part. On the black isle, beneath the falling rain, thousands of birds waited. They lined the uneven rise and fall of the rocky terrain, birds of all shapes and sizes.
The wind quickened, blowing us forward. It felt reckless, unstable, and I worried I’d lost all control, but then the egg soared out of the water and onto the shore of the islet, coming to a perfect, serene rest. I looked at Daziel, relief blooming through me and a laugh slipping out at the berthing of our ridiculous vessel. “Made it.”
Then—I didn’t notice the transition, could barely pay attention to anything anymore—I wasn’t on top of the egg; I was lyingon the shore with my head in Daziel’s lap. The rain had stopped as though it had never been. The predawn sky was a wild swirl of colors, vibrant blues and purples and silver.
Élodie’s head came into my sight. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know.”
The egg was shaking.
“It needs help,” Daziel said, voice urgent. “It’s too weak to break out of the shell itself. We need to help it.”
“The spell,” I said. “We should cast before it breaks.”
Daziel frowned. “I don’t know if you can handle the magic.”
I didn’t want to. It hurt, the amount of magic stirring inside me, like it kept hitting sore bruises and eventually it’d leave me a broken, bloody puddle. I looked beyond Daziel. “Yael.”
She grimaced but directed Élodie, Gidon, and Stefan to the points of the compass. I heard her voice as she started reading the spell in the ancient language we still couldn’t completely understand. The others joined in, and I directed Daziel’s magic to them. I could feel it latching on, taking hold. The charaktêres began to glow as my friends’ voices strengthened. Then the cracks in the egg lit up with a warm golden light, and noise came from inside. The hatchling was trying. It was trying so hard.
Yael shouted the final word in the spell. The glowing stopped. We waited.
“Cut the magic,” Daziel told me. “Say ‘stop.’ ”
I’d been waiting for him to say that. “Stop,” I said, utterly relieved.
“It’s not hatching,” Gidon said, panic in his voice. I couldn’t see his expression because my eyes were closed. “What’s wrong?”
Daziel next. “It’s still too weak. We have to help it.”
I peeled open my eyes to see Daziel pulling at a shard of the egg—“shard” wasn’t the most accurate word, for the segments were like giant plates, four inches thick at the thinnest. Stefan jumped up to help, and the two of them hefted it off and onto the sand. The membrane remained behind, tough and clinging.
Everyone—except me; I was busy trying to remember how to breathe—pulled at the egg fragments, heaving them off the hatchling. I stared at the membrane. What if it wasn’t enough? What if it still couldn’t get out?
But then something cut through. At first I couldn’t make sense of it—it was so strange, so large. Then I could see it, tell what had pierced the membrane from inside. Talons, dagger-sharp, a foot wide, the color of gold.
I started crying. I couldn’t help myself. The tears weren’t there, and then they were, spilling over my cheeks in endless rivulets, hot and messy. On my hands and knees, I hauled myself to my feet. I staggered toward the egg and tore at the membrane, pulling it down so it wouldn’t suffocate the Ziz. I talked to it as I went. “There you are. You’re the Ziz. Just a baby right now, but you’re going to be all right.”
Around us, the birds watched.
My friends tore at the membrane too. It fell away with the rest of the eggshell shards, unveiling a strange creature wet with amniotic fluid. Its body resembled a land animal, four-legged with paws. But feathered wings curled up against its sides, and its head had feathers to match: It looked like a falcon’s head, dark-eyed and beaked.
A baby Ziz.
A giant, ridiculous, wild-looking baby, the size of a house but a baby nonetheless. A helpless creature, alone, the only one of its kind.
“Hi there.” I stood by its head. “Hi. There you are.”
It opened its giant baby beak and made a strange chirp, reminding me, of all things, of Paz. Maybe it wanted its parent.
“I’m sorry.” I placed my hand against its beak. “It’s just you now. Well.” I glanced at the birds. “You have friends.”
It blinked a giant eye, the size of a serving platter. Then it opened its beak much wider and screamed.
The birds started cawing, shrieking, trilling, singing. The same cacophony I’d heard half a year ago, when all the birds left Talum in the first place.
My friends backed away from its thrashing limbs and fluttering wings. Daziel came to my side, wrapping his arms around me. I leaned into him. “Do you think it’s all right?”
