Gaffriel 90

Revik, Niala, and I locked hands. Revik took the lead for the first jump. He said it would take a few hours to regenerate the mana to take us all again; taking people with you took more mana. If we did it on our own, we could do it sooner. We braced ourselves, each to one of his hands. Niala and I still couldn’t look at one another, and I was afraid to touch her. Her cheeks looked better, though.

The Sentinel lands were barren and burned. The houses across the way were gone, and an entire subdivision near the fairgrounds had been razed. The ashes on the ground reminded me of the greasy suit and ash left by our dead kind. Bullets littered in the ground with ashes. Niala grabbed her shirt and lifted it up and over her nose. She choked a little.

“What do you smell?” I asked her.

“You can’t smell it?” Revik looked over at me curiously.

I shook my head. “I smell things, but Niala’s nose is stronger.”

“Acerai females—” Revik trailed off as if it were an explanation in and of itself. But, unfortunately, what surrounded us was positively profane.

“Bad mana, bad rough light, bullets, humans, gunpowder, propellants….” Niala counted off. “Ozone and earth!”

She bolted from the trio of us, her feet pounding the dirt as her bright blue eyes flashed dark…

“She caught the scent.” I felt like I had to explain for her. Niala was impulsive when it came to something she wanted.

“Little bloodhound, huh?” Revik bolted with us, his coat trailing off behind him, and I wondered why he wore such a thing. Usually, Wildlings couldn’t stand anything touching our backs.

She made her way to the parking lots where the decimated forms of RV’s stood like a graveyard, looking at the remains of ‘The Machine.’

“He still had that thing?” Revik shook his head as Niala’s tense form went still and wilted.

“Ada…” She paced around the form of it and bustled into the burned corpse of its structure. A piece of the side panel fell off into the ground. She tossed things about and found a piece of ripped fabric bundled together around the singed crumbling remnants of my feathers. As she held it, it crumbled, and she wilted.

“They wouldn’t have lasted, anyway. I’ll make you another. I’ll make you a hundred more if I don’t have to see that look on your face, Ni.” She folded up the cloth and stuffed it in her pocket.

Revik pushed me a little and grumbled. “Back off, Romeo. Those tonics only do so much.”

Niala’s eyes went wide, and she went to the sign in front of the RV, spying something we missed, a small card and a feather. I could tell Thanus’s handwriting from there, and definitely his flash-art stylized songbird drawing. One of his tawny feathers stuck there with it, flicking in the breeze—ozone and earth.

“They’re at the songbirds….” Every hair rose up on Niala’s arms, and her ikris twitched in a way that sent that hiccup sensation through me and made Revik struggle.

“Please, just calm the hell down,” Revik grumbled as he stretched his back a bit. “I’ve not had sky in a few weeks.”

“SONGBIRDS!” Niala said with an excited demand.

“We don’t know how to get in. They only open the gates when Kiromir calls ahead. We don’t even know where the entrance is this year.” I told them.

“I’ve got that covered. I can just force through their borders. Their spells aren’t that strong.” Revik said it so flippant, but my mouth hung open a bit.

“How?”

“I just feel out where the magic is and walk through it. You and Niala shouldn’t have a problem with it if you can do coarselight.” Revik rolled his eyes as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

Niala clutched to the card and feather. “So… do we go?”

Revik took our hands. “Niala, you lead the charge. You’re fired up.”