Moran said something brief—in Leontine. Kaylin’s face flushed. Moran didn’t generally curse, and when she did, she didn’t use Leontine. “He is not making that claim. He is, however, strongly implying it.” Moran looked down at her feet, or rather at what was beneath them—which was almost everything. “He claimed to bepraevolo. He could wear the bracelet and it did not consume him.”
“He’s—”
“Yes, Kaylin. He could wear it; he could notuseit.” She turned to her right, whistled something sharp and brief. To Kaylin’s surprise, the Arcanist—the reason they had come to the Aerie in the first place—flew in from the distant right. He could fly.
He could fly because thepraevolodesired it. He bowed—to her. He glanced at the outcaste; it was a murderous, enraged glare, but he didn’t add words to it. Probably because they weren’t necessary.
“Some of my people believed him, because he could. Some believed him because he could do other things—things attributed to thepraevoloin our long history.”
“Such as?”
“He could deprive the people of flight.”
“That’s the opposite of what thepraevolowas supposed to do.”
“It is the other edge of a sword. What one can give, one can take away. The ceremony of the outcaste is some part of that.” She lifted her arm; the bracelet was invisible. Or gone. “I do not understand it all, but I understand enough. When someone is exiled, when they are made outcaste, the power of flight is literally removed from them. That power returns to thepraevolo. If there is nopraevolo, the power returns to the bracelet.
“It is a power meant to be used only by thepraevolo. It is meant to be used only by an Aerian.” She gave Kaylin a much more familiar look, the one that meantnow please shut up. She then focused her attention on the outcaste. “You are not an Aerian.”
“I am not a Dragon.”
“Define yourself as you please. What you are—or are not—is of concern to me only in this regard. You are not an Aerian. You are notpraevolo, and cannot be. I do not understand how you used the power of thepraevolo; it is clear to me that you somehow did, and could.”
“You must ask your servant,” he replied. The Arcanist flinched.
“I have.” Her wings spread, and spread again, the flight feathers ranging in size and shape, their essential color unchanged. “You are not of my kin. You are not of my people.”
And the outcaste said, “Perhaps not. But are you?” And his wings spread as well, stretching and extending as he mirrored her posture. He gestured, and wind howled, as if it had been trapped in those wings, and was now being released.
The implication was clear. Moran was as he was: different, other. Moran had always been that. But she’d never been what she was at this moment.
“You fear your power,” he continued. “I once feared mine. I do not fear it now. You were created to sustain the Aeries. You were created to sustain the flights. No permission was asked. It was assumed. You were different. You wereblessed.” The tone of the last word implied the opposite of its meaning.
Moran’s expression rippled briefly, and Kaylin knew why: that blessing had cost her her childhood and anything that had made it safe. It had almost cost her her life. No permission had been asked, true. No permission had been granted. She had been marked as different from the moment she was born.
The Hawks hadn’t loved or revered her for that difference; she had been treated with a kind of wary deference Kaylin had always assumed was due her rank in the Halls, her position in the infirmary. Kaylin had never found her welcoming or kind, but that wasn’t her job—her job was to deal with the injured, and to force them, as she could, to get better.
“You arepraevolo. No one else in any flight in the Aerie could become what you are. Youhavethe power now. Will you live as you lived before? Will you be hemmed in by the simple fact of your birth? They welcome you now—but they did not always welcome you. Many would have seen you die.”
The outcaste said nothing that Moran wasn’t thinking.
But beneath his feet, Kaylin heard the rumble of Dragon. It was Bellusdeo.
The outcaste looked down at her. The gold Dragon seemed to be welded to the ground—and struggling to change this. “You could be so much more than you are,” he said to her. “You could have true freedom of the skies. You could be the mother of a race that is not beholden to the dead, to the whims of the flights—even if only one remains.
“You could havefreedom. What you have now is only a step up from servitude and bondage.”
She roared. There were syllables in it.
Moran, however, lifted one hand. “Perhaps, had you come to me and spoken of thischoiceand thisfreedom, my answer would be different. But you—as they did—chose for me. Or against me. You saw the power. Perhaps you understood the mechanics of it in a way that I did not or could not. But what you wanted was what they wanted: control. You did not particularly care if that power came to you through my death. I was of no consequence, no value, to either my flight or those who accepted you.
“But you are right in one regard. I am me. I am a Hawk. I am a sergeant. I am an Aerian. The power that I did not want and did not ask for is nonetheless mine—by design. And by choice. I accept it. I accept what it means.
“Do you understand what wakes thepraevolo?” she asked.
The skies were simultaneously full of movement and hushed with stillness.
He did not answer. Three beats passed before she made clear that the question was entirely rhetorical. “Danger to therace. You were here, as was he,” she added, indicating the Arcanist, “before my birth. What you discussed, what you attempted, the plans you made—those were responsible forme. For my birth. And for the deaths,” she added. “You wanted power.
