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Chapter 3

Morning woke Peregrine, sure as if the dawn shook him bodily. He watched the flax-pale column of light standing in the roof smokehole; the day, definitely, had arrived. He stirred shortly before Giala did. Movement flashed across the clay-smeared floor and Tillian sat waiting for him, ready for the moment his feathers were preened and his pants buckled.

A changed man today - if only changed in his goals - and Peregrine still carried earferrin weight, still caught himself settling his goggles into his mane feathers. This would need bushels more time, he supposed. Changing a person was far less simple than speaking new words or wearing new tools of trade; the goggles still felt like a lie snug around his head, if an overly truthful lie.

Errand-running was a task Peregrine had taken for granted the last two eldens, thinking it a chore for the young and the idle. Now, readying his mind to fly, he could see the enormity. He would need a gemstone to trade, as well as all the strength he could shunt into his wings; unease murmured that his supply list should have been longer, that he might be forgetting basics. Imagine an old man taking a new trade without even knowing which tools he needed.

"Then," Peregrine said, knotting the opening of his pouch around and through itself, "Shall I bring back anything but peridots?"

"No, light," Giala said, "that'll be fine." She passed him a loose-rolled cloth sack - their companion pouch, Peregrine remembered belated. Better to carry a ferrin all day in a pouch than to cramp his arms and risk his dear passenger's life.

Two grown ferrin could fit inside, said the memories seeping in like smoke - two grown ferrin or half a dozen kittens, dear children squirming and giggling over the simplest delights.

Tillian tapped his shoulder twice: Peregrine needed to use his eyes. He looked to Giala and found her rifling through storage boxes, tailtip snaking back and forth with concentration.

"You lost something," he asked.

She shot him a magpie grin past her folded wing. "To tell the truth, there's a batch of onion buns here somewhere. The little ones made them for you. They took turns on the onions."

Peregrine's favourite travel meal, made by his clan for this day. Even though a wet-eyed ferrin handling cut onions was the second most pitiful sight he had ever known. This change of trade was an event in their minds, a day to prepare a minor feast for, when it was truly just Peregrine taking a few clumsy steps in an old direction.

"I only got to pull off the paper skins," Tillian added. "But I helped, too."

"Check the black-edged box. Near the top." Peregrine remembered seeing the glossy fishleather that usually hid baked morsels.

Giala squawked triumphant, and hurried the precious bundle into Peregrine's hands. "There we are." A quick nuzzle at his throat and then she stood back to beam at him. "Good winds to you. Take your time, all right?"

"I'll manage," he replied. He brushed a wax-styled mane feather away from Giala's face. "Don't worry about a thing."

Tillian - the patient weight on his right shoulder - made him sure. His wings would carry himself and his earferrin, too. He had to have enough grit and fire to manage that.

Peregrine always put eleven steps between himself and a building before Tillian commented on the people inside. He couldn't discern whether that pause was a coincidence, or whether she counted the paces out.

"She's going to be thinking of you," Tillian finally said.

Peregrine smiled. "I've got news, too. Rivers are wet."

A light giggle from Tillian, and then she turned to call a greeting. Neighbours held empty shopping baskets and headed in every direction. Town vendors arranged their sales blankets for the day's bartering, lining up rhubarb stalks and earthenware, shifting cages of panicked-flapping pigeons.

"The Weavers' chakdaws are muttering," Tillian said. "Loudly, too."

Those birds got restless when a good flying wind was passing them by. Peregrine hummed. Hopefully, their good town mage had the sense not to hold a working fellow up all morning.

Maythwind jerked as Peregrine ducked through the door curtain, looking up quick enough to make his antennae bob against the top of his head. Aemets didn't typically startle - not when they had airsense to show them every approaching motion - but it looked as though Maythwind had a whole lapful of distraction. He sat in a pile of gemstones, all the shapes and hues of crystal the earth had ever made, half of them already holding green sparks in their centers. Tillian was right: Maythwind was stockpiling his plantcasting, spinning so much green life-magic that Peregrine could taste crsipness in the air.

Maythwind blinked a wide-eyed question, murmuring.

"Yes, it's us." Tillian slid down Peregrine's chest and leaped to the dirt floor. "Good morning!"

"My ointment." Peregrine raised a brow. "If this is a good time."

Oh. Oh, yes! Standing, straightening his tunic over his bony insect body, Maythwind started in five different directions before managing to pick one. Every morning, I said. Apologies, I- and then he turned to his shelves, his mouth movements vanishing.

"He's been distracted lately," Tillian repeated, "what with that lingering rain in the central land. If more than a few folk are caught by chill, then-"

-Then Verdana help us, Maythwind said, turning back with a jar in hand, I'm only one mage! Maybe it's the High Ones' fortune that we've had such good health in Skyfield of late, but-

More rambling. Peregrine went to the four-footed treatment stool and he lifted a hand for Tillian's benefit; there was no sense repeating this haystack unless an interesting needle turned up in it. Maythwind had already worried and run his mouth enough for a whole insect-tense life. At least he had enough useful qualities to outweigh that: a sure hand with medicines, and enough innate casting strength to share, and the caution that came with anxiety. That made him a mage; that made folk want to respect and obey. Or at least, that was the only reasoning Peregrine cared for.

Tillian took in every word Maythwind said, holding her ears wide and interested, trilling comments at each break in the chatter. It must have helped that she liked to listen to everything in the land. Peregrine got to work memorizing the wood grain of the wall. Aside from Tillian's voice, he didn't hear anything but ear din and the ointment jar clicking behind him. Maythwind's skinny fingers burrowed into his feathers wrongways, vaguely warm against resting dragonflesh. Hackling his back feathers, Peregrine let his mind wander on distant breezes.

The therapy wasn't unpleasant, as Maythwind found the right muscles to knead, as the ointment warmed and smeared indistinct. Then arnica bled into the air, the most sharp and scornful petal scent Peregrine had ever known. Tillian once said that she liked the ointment smell, but that the details of the beeswax and hazel balanced it for her nose. And Maythwind must not have minded: betweenkind cared little for scents. How happy for korvikind, being in the middle of the spectrum. Peregrine breathed shallow to avoid the smell.

"He says, how is your flight?"

The question took a click to understand; Tillian's words were brief as a wisp of smoke. Peregrine blinked and was back inside a cluttered home, noticing the wall in front of his eyes. "My flight? Fine."

"We went back and forth to the mine yesterday," Tillian added. "Almost all by wings!"

A conversational pause. Maythwind dug his blunt-spined knuckles into a knot and Peregrine managed not to wince.

"He says to keep practicing, but don't push yourself too hard."

That was easy to tell someone else - Maythwind might not speak so easily if his legs refused to take steps for him. Aemets were born to run like swift wind. and even if their bodies weakened from lack of use, plant goddess Verdana gave them ample fear-strength to run with. Maythwind would never have a comparable worry.

"And if you'd like to start working on your ears, he can make sure he saves enough casting for it."

Peregrine had chosen his path and the consequences that came with it. He didn't have the slightest right bothering a mage who-

That was miners' thought. He didn't often call it by its name; miners naturally thought like miners, after all. Peregrine hackled tighter. He couldn't say whether he had a right to use those stiff, fiery thoughts anymore, after abandoning his mine and taking a limping step toward ordinary folk. The mentors before Peregrine would never have done this, not when they had enough breath to swing a hammer with. They were deaf and flightless and all the more strong for it.

Korvi carried the burden of mining because no one else could, not with the muscle and resilience the inner earth demanded. But what did material things matter if a person's family never saw them? Miners walked into their mines and, eventually, didn't return. Time could never be bought back. Peregrine had made the right choice, he was suddenly sure. He had chosen well, leaving his godsforsaken dust pit and bringing Tillian with him, but the next step to take wasn't any clearer than before.

"Don't fret on it," he told Maythwind, muttering low enough that his own voice evaded him. "I've got other arrangements to make before anyone fusses at my ears."

"He does," Tillian said, and returned to her polite agreement sounds.

Eventually, Maythwind seemed satisfied with the worn-sack give of each muscle. He ran palms down Peregrine's back, smoothing wax traces over his feathers, spreading the tingling sensation of healing casting. This time, Maythwind's casting seemed to creep up behind the soreness, stalk close and drown it like nighttime silence: today, Peregrine received darkcasting healing. Choice of element made no difference here - Peregrine had only his natural firecasting, which quarrelled with neither bright nor dark - and switching elements was likely good practice for a young mage.

A gemstone paid for Maythwind's service, this time a clear quartz sullied with amethyst purple at one end. Tillian repeated the broadest points of Maythwind's chatter: there weren't nearly enough darkcasters in Skyfield to make these amethysts worthwhile; Maythwind would at least get to practice his dark healing on this one; gods' good fortune indeed, Peregrine, that these stones kept turning up so free of flaws or there'd have to be some hard-knuckled bartering. Maythwind finally took the quartz and held it up to the hearth light, refracting fire-white light through the stone's facets. Thought dug wrinkles into his high forehead.

"You won't need to take many more of these," Tillian ventured, looking between Peregrine and Maythwind with thoughtful-cocked ears. "We'll make sure to take good casting gems for errand payment."

Actually, they would likely take plain meals as messenger payment and use the mine stockpile to pay Maythwind. That only made sense, considering that Peregrine would struggle at the most routine of flights. He leaned on his tail and watched Maythwind conduct a gem trial, the best solution for any trading fuss.

Maythwind deflated, tension flowing out of his body along with his breath. His forest-wide eyes closed. He was the picture of calm for one tingling moment, before the quartz lit in his hands, light flowing between his fingers. A frown pulled his mouth. He stopped, lifting the quartz to stare at the feeble green spark wavering inside.

It fights harder than a clear stone ought to, but I suppose it'll do. He looked up at Peregrine. Now, I've said it before, but don't overwork those wings. Build up slowly to any flying you hope to do, or you'll stiffen something terrible!

"Fine." Peregrine knelt for Tillian.

"And I'm supposed to work any tight-knotted spots for you," she said, settling into Peregrine's collarbone, "I'll look after it, Maythwind! ... Yes, we'll bring word back. Don't worry, he'll be all right!"

Once out the door, Peregrine took his eleven steps. Tillian shifted closer to his ear, bolt-quick.

"He is stockpiling gems," she said, whiskers prickling Peregrine's temple as she leaned close, "And he has been for a full day now. He was up half the night, he said, charging those stones we saw."

A cache like that would come in useful if the entire village fell ill at the exact same moment. Peregrine rolled his gaze to the open sky. "Plantcasting?"

"Mostly. With a little bright and dark, too."

"He's going to worry himself raw, the dear fool."

"The neighbours seem drawn a bit tight, today. They haven't said anything, but I think they're sensing the same thing as Maythwind. Is damp air really such a bad sign? I thought it just meant rain."

If a person could smell clouds and lightning, damp air meant nothing more dreadful than rain. Aemets sensed airshapes, though, and their bones told them when to run. It seemed to Pergerine that damp air could show aemetkind the shape of trouble, enough to forewarn them of town-razing varieties of sickness. Maythwind might need his pile of plant stones; aemet worries sporadically came true.

"There's hardly any sickness that hunts our kinds on the wind," Peregrine said. "But chill dampness does no good for anyone. We need to pay close attention while we're in Valeover. News might be a help to our neighbours, if any great trouble is heading this way."

Tillian hummed, and stood taller to look at the fields. The houses were behind them now and cornstalks waved all around, green and top-heavy.

"Maythwind also hoped your flying goes well," Tillian said. "He said you've got good muscle condition for a miner your age."

Aemets lived fifty years if their plant goddess smiled on them. Many of them liked to believe they knew what age was like.

"Whenever you're ready to really call yourself a messenger, let him know, all right? He's got plenty of messengers bringing him news, but he said it never hurts to have wings in reserve."

It never hurt to have extra anything, particularly for a town like Skyfield with one hundred and fifty aemets and nowhere near so many korvi. Peregrine sighed, guilt cloying inside him as he watched the corn plants sway. The trinity of races had its debts evened in cruel ways: aemetkind gave, and gave, and provided until they could provide no more. Perhaps a demon was taking notice right now, and panicky Maythwind was taking notice of that. There was nothing to say that wasn't the case.

"I don't know how any of this will turn out," Peregrine said. "We'll see how my bones fare."

A neat-carved field edge appeared in the corn, and then endless, fluttering plains grass. Peregrine looked to the Great Gem, hanging luminous over the central land in the same place Bright and Dark had held it for eons. Judging directions took a lost-wandering moment for Peregrine to remember - he hadn't travelled enough lately, it seemed. He had been making the same quarter-day journey long enough to wear a path into the grass, and now he was finding his sense of direction rotted through with disuse. Annoyance made his firecasting easier to gather, at least; he fanned his own heat outward from his chest.

"Peridots, and news for Maythwind," he reminded himself. He pulled the companion pouch from his supplies. "We haven't forgotten anything?"

Tillian stepped over the shoulder strap, four small feet moving in sequence. "That sounds like everything. Oh," she said, ears splaying concerned, "Giala was talking about her glue supply. Should we see about some eggs?"

"She'll hardly have the time to make a batch of glue."

"We could help her, though." Tillian curled into a pouch section, sniffing the thick cotton around her. "I'll keep my ears open for birds on the way back. It wouldn't hurt to bring a few fresh eggs, right? Even if she hasn't asked."

Bringing his clan more than he had promised - how pleasant a thought. Peregrine muttered agreement and gathered his will to fly with.