Thanus 42

I should have Niala gone to Kiromir’s camper and grab her things. I didn’t want to even wait for the ceremonies, no matter how much I looked forward to sitting with Kiromir in the back with the other lowborn. I’d never thought of Kiromir as highborn until the migrations, never viewed him as our flock leader. He was just Kiromir, the one we relied on. We viewed Lowak the same way. His station came by blood and training; I earned mine.

I deposited Niala on the small foldout couch Gaff should have slept on, where he’d plucked his feathers. She curled up with a broken look over her face. Gaff caught up with us. Flushed and breathless, his mourning aura peaking as he looked at us.

“Go grab her things,” I told him, shaking my head at him to run.

“I’m so sorry you had to hear that, Ni. She blinked tears away and went quiet. She tugged the blanket there over her shoulders as she let her wings and tail out.

“I’m not a halfbreed,” She whispered.

“No, little mockingbird, you’re no halfbreed,” I assured her. Of course, we’d never heard of a mix of human and Wildling actually existing, but the accusation alone stung. We had no higher insult than that.

“I knew she hated me, but not that much.”

“She’s just venting because she’s mad that Kiromir isn’t breeding stock anymore.” I couldn’t watch her like this, so angry, so sad. I sat to hold her, and we waited for Gaff. I heard voices and my ears piqued. Gaff spoke, and he seemed insistent. “I’m going. I don’t care if I have a share.”

Going? Share? Those words meant that I needed to be involved. So I pushed the door open. Nodak, Krell, Gaffriel, and Quinn looked back up at me; tensions raised.

“We’ve got a mission. Federal, $200,000, we get to dice it equally. You’re team lead, and it’s just clearing out a drug den,” Krell said as he handed me Kiromir’s phone.

“He said we need to get a few miles off property before we scram. So I searched for local places, and there was an abandoned shipping yard a few miles out; we can park the camper in for a few hours unnoticed and take the rough light,” Krell rattled things off. He just might overshadow me for second, one day.

Gaffriel pulled out a small pack, put on his boots, and tucked a knife into his belt.

“And Gaff wants to go?” I watched him closely.

“Kiromir said for me to stick to Niala.” His stern voice didn’t waver.

I had zero desire to argue with him, and the thought of a mission felt good.

“Alright, everyone in. Gaff, tell them what Rolyn said so we can all hate her just as much as Niala and I do right now,” I said as I made my way to the driver’s seat.

Niala didn’t want to talk, and hearing the words again had her drawing harder into herself. Finally, something clicked after a few minutes, and she tugged boots onto her bare feet, strapping on her holster. Her blanket stayed on. The sadness transformed into anger, pure anger, and I knew that maybe a kill-sweep would be just what she needed to get going.

“Wow, what a bitch….” Krell whispered.

“And you didn’t kick her in the jewels?” Nodak huffed.

She shot him a glare that I could FEEL from the driver’s seat. A collective shortening of testicular ligaments in the camper didn’t go unnoticed.

“She’s kinda right,” Ni said, huffing, “Not about the halfbreed thing… I’m.”

I could tell she wanted to say something.

“I’m Acir, we think.”

“We’ve all wondered,” Krell looked at his feet. “We know Kiromir is looking for your people, and there are no wildlings out in Russia, so it was the only thing, really.”

Gaff put his hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t look like you guys either,” She blurted.

“Nope, look kinda Asian or something,” Nodak said. That caused a pause in Gaff and Ni. The comment about her eyes.

“Ni? You sure you want to tell them?” I asked.

She shifted a little in her seat, tugged her blanket away, and the glances were mundane at first. Everyone had seen her wings before, but Nodak noticed first.

“Oh shit,” He breathed.

“Hoooo-leeee—fuuuuck,” Krell added.

“Yeah. I’m the monster under the bed.” Niala grumbled. She waited for the sour rejection, the bitter looks, and fear. But, instead, they didn’t look quite pleased with her. Krell wanted to keep his distance, and Nodak squirmed.

Gaff had his hand on it in just a moment. He seemed familiar with it, and she let him. I could see a bond there growing between the two. Would it be ‘it’ for them both? I didn’t know, but it would be a bond they couldn’t shake, even if it wasn’t true love’s binding. I had a sinking feeling when I realized that their bond needed to be strong. Gaff had never seen Niala on a job before. While he’d had his first kill, he wouldn’t be used to what Niala did.

We reached our destination, and collective auras were going up with dysphoria and panic.

“In and out, everyone dead, we got it?” I said as I looked between them.

Niala tucked her wings and tail away. She shirked her shirt. She kept a little something over her chest all the time, strips of cloth she’d woven into a chest covering. It looked like something she remembered as a kid, but it kept her decent like a good sports bra would have as she slipped a turtleneck over. She hated wearing shirts that covered her back.

I had a skill with the rough light. I barely mastered it. Kiromir could almost do it, and with any luck, I’d have him taught well. We all had to concentrate, all outside of the camper, parked behind a building. I closed my eyes. We all did. I counted down the seconds as I sought to draw from everyone just a bit of their mana, their fires. We completed a circuit, and we were gone in a flash of granular light.