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Chapter 7

When Tillian was small - when she was Tillian Sri and she hadn't picked which half to be called by - she used to listen for the rustle-flap of korvi wings. She ran outside whenever she heard them, full of an excitement too sparkling to stifle. Peregrine and Giala thought she was just glad to see familiar folk returning: they had smiled two completely different smiles at her. Mama Kelria told her once, leaping down from Peregrine's tree-tall grasp, that Tillian Sri was shaping up to be the best friend a person could ever want. That moment felt right, a polished piece of truth to hang alongside her family pendant.

Flight still sounded special, even now. Tillian could spend plenty more days being carried by Peregrine, and she would still want to hear the wooshing wind and the shuffle of feathers. She listened to every wingbeat slapping against the air; the sounds commanded her to pay attention, to stay sharp. Maybe feathers reminded her of a delivery - because flight meant someone was arriving with a message, even if that message was just hello. If Tillian heard a messenger, her job would be to run out and meet them, or to at least tell Peregrine about the newcomer. That made sense. But anyone could receive a message. That didn't need Tillian and Tillian alone; that didn't answer the question why.

Why, for instance, was she listening now, when there was nothing but wind to hear and Peregrine knew the sky better than she ever would? Maybe because Peregrine's matters were more interesting than the dusty-smelling pouch walls or the blurry, distant ground? No, there was more than that. Tillian listened because ferrinkind helped people. Peregrine needed her help. He had even told her so with grumbled words.

She raised her ears higher against the wind's drag, focusing past the round, rushing sound of air, until she found the rhythms of muscle and flight quills. Maybe Tillian listened for wings because she couldn't take the chance that they didn't belong to Peregrine.

It didn't really matter, she decided. She was an earferrin - so why ask why she listened? She just did. Rain fell, plants grew, and Tillian heard everything.

She turned a circle in the companion pouch and it still wasn't as comfortable as being held. Tillian swung in her fabric pendulum and suddenly, Peregrine's long-boned hands settled around her; she felt the sky's wind easing against her eartips. Peregrine's wingbeats faltered now, like the heat in his chest was scorching the rhythm away. This part of flying ruined all the rest. Peregrine hated to fail so much that Tillian could nearly smell it. The wind's whistle dropped in pitch, a limp and fading kind of music; the drag against her ears was gone; the blurry fields must have approached them. Tillian held her worry-thrumming body still. The best help she could give was to do nothing at all.

It felt like hours passed, held tight to Peregrine's fire-glowing chest, but she and him finally fell to earth. Tillian's stomach drifted in her throat like dandelion seeds, and she caught a glimpse of grass stalks focused into being, and Peregrine jerked to a stop.

She squirmed to face him right away, leaping off his palms and onto his shoulder, sitting on feathers and pouch strap and flight-hot skin. Unfortunate as this was, Tillian at least had her duty back; she couldn't help anyone without a duty. She squinted into the field-gold distance.

"Almost there," Peregrine said in a bitter wheeze. "Valeover's still an hour's walk."

He couldn't mean an entire hour. Fresh smoke scent clung to the breeze, with roast corn and people's moods twined into it. Peregrine couldn't smell all of that, but he knew he was being dour with his guesses - he had to know. Tillian hummed, too low a sound for Peregrine to hear.

"All right," she said. "You did well for a first day of messenger's flight!" She focused her hearing outward, past Peregrine's rough breathing. "I can't hear water, but I smell it."

Peregrine grunted agreement. He straightened and began to walk, his swaying motion as familiar as Tillian's own heartbeat. Grass crunched a harmony underfoot. "It's a pond to the north. Saw it from the sky." He blew smoke through his teeth; charcoal scent smeared the air, and the leather skin of his chest cooled to lukewarm. "Shall we stop?"

Tillian didn't want a drink of water right now, not even freshly scooped water. She wanted something and didn't know what - maybe she wanted this trip to be complete, or to feel the floating-huge pride sensation of a job fully done. Peregrine strained so hard when he was in the middle of things.

"No, thank you." Tillian settled into the groove of Peregrine's collarbone. People said that great Fyrian made his korvi children with a spot for their ferrin friends to lay, like a nest carved right into living guardians - and it felt accurate enough to be true. "Well, then," she tried, "You never answered me why you're going to be a messenger."

"Because I decided to be."

Tillian's ears fell - he hadn't even thought about that. "I mean actually why. You're good at mining, you've done so much practice."

Peregrine stared into the distance, eyes flinty. Wind whistled in the endless grass.

"It's something you'll never need to worry about." He glanced over his shoulder, like the dratted plains couldn't keep a secret. "But korvi waste as they get old, usually the labourers and other folk who don't have a daily need for flight. It's a disgrace to watch. Perfectly good wings shrivelling on the vine ... I'm not going to be like that."

That was a statement tall with pride, just like Peregrine. Miners moved plenty, though. Peregrine had shoulders like a sure cliffside, and legs and tail as tough as rope; he picked Tillian up with whim's ease and he never let himself be anything but capable. Peregrine's kind must not have cared about things like that if they couldn't fly. Tillian supposed she would miss the sky, too, if she had ever been part of something that big.

She forced her ears higher; she was thinking, but she still had to listen. Peregrine was surrounded by wind; grass; larks singing; crunching stems underfoot. Normal things. There was also quiet packed between the two of them. She looked to Peregrine's set mouth.

"Really," she said, "you're doing better than a lot of people would."

"Because a lot of people misplace their good sense." He paused, watching the grass tops. "Truly, though ... I suppose I want to fly places like I used to, whenever the idea strikes. As I did when I was young."

He made himself sound eons old. Long ago, when the land was new, Peregrine of Ruelle travelled whenever he pleased.

"If you could work any trade," Peregrine said, "which would you choose?"

"If I-"

Tillian sat straighter, ears splaying: she had never wondered this before and the question hit her like cool water. What would Tillian the earferrin be if she weren't an earferrin? Arts leaped to mind - skills like Giala's sculpting and sketching and music. She could learn those simply enough. But no, Peregrine had said any trade, not just the ones Tillian happened to live alongside. She thought like a korvi, flying over all the possibilities, imagining every skill people had ever learned. If she had lived differently enough, maybe Tillian Sri would tell folk to call her Sri.

"I'd help people, whatever I did." The riddle never said she couldn't help Peregrine. Maybe, she thought with rich-flashing realization, she could help Peregrine as well as everyone else they passed by. "Maybe I'd just see what the town mage needed and help them."

Peregrine fixed one wood-dark eye on her. "A mage who'd teach you properly, I should hope."

"Mages are always teaching, if you're paying attention. I could learn to charge stones, maybe." A sound tugged sudden at Tillian's hearing - she looked out over the fields. "Hruck-hruck, that's an earthbird, isn't it? Watch your feet."

Peregrine opened his wings a fraction for balance, his muscles shifting under Tillian's tail. There had been word once of a korvi who broke his ankle stepping in an earthbird burrow and that was exactly the sort of trouble an attentive friend could avert. If Peregrine was safer, happier, more of something, then Tillian was filling her role.

"You'd be a fine mageling," he muttered, watching the ground.

She smiled. Strange, though: it didn't feel happy. She couldn't imagine how a mageling would feel in that moment, listening in the prairie air.

Tillian watched the blurry distance until box-shaped buildings formed. Afternoon brightcasting shone over the land, rich and yellow. Knifegrass around them turned to neat-groomed crops, and Peregrine's footsteps passed from crunching grass to muted dirt road.

Valeover town smelled like betweenkind and wood dust and horse droppings and fresh-ripped mint, with sour whiffs of town garbage. It bustled more than usual - at least, it seemed so when Tillian held everything up against her memories. All around them, aemets walked brisk, their antennae making up a textured field of grass. Ferrin darted around their neighbours' hoof-shaped shoes. Tension lined so many faces, hundreds of fleeting expressions adding up to a wary tingle in Tillian's insides.

"I think something's wrong here," she murmured against Peregrine's temple.

"There ought to be more of a mix in Valeover," Peregrine said low, stepping to one side of the crowd's flow. "Their town was a full third korvikind, last I knew it, but there's hardly a feather to be seen. Try to overhear some news."

Her ears were already high, her attention on the green-skinned sound swirling around them. Tillian focused and the crowd mumbling split into shards, into voices:

"-I can spare the quartz at least. They'll need-"

"-hope Johen isn't caught by it-"

"-haven't you heard? Just this morning-"

"-at a time like this, Verdana help them-"

It had to be one great, terrible event worrying everyone, a shadow like a diving falcon. Electricasting squirmed inside Tillian, ready to protect her; she held it back from soaking into her fur. She looked to Peregrine.

"Something bad happened earlier today, I think people are getting sick? Everybody's talking about it."

Peregrine grunted. "I guessed as much."

"Should we find the mage?"

"If they're gossiping so freely, the mage will be busy enough keeping the peace." He paused; thought tugged grim around his mouth. "We need broader news. Keep your eyes sharp for korvi."

Because when korvi all vanished from a town, it meant they had bad news to carry around. Tillian shifted closer to Peregrine's neck, finding him motion-warm and solid.

He slipped back into the crowd's flow, strides steady and careful, shoulders knitted tense. Ears weren't much good when the two of them needed to look, so Tillian turned, curling her tail across Peregrine's throat for balance, craning to see past his glossy, rust-orange wings. Aemets always left their korvi friends a bubble of open air in crowds - it was nice of them, Tillian thought, to give a sky creature enough space for their peace of mind - but there was nothing to see beyond the crowd's edge. Antennae swayed around them; someone led a dog by its rope collar; gesturing hands were everywhere.

Tillian couldn't place the tug at her attention until she saw it again: korvi horns, two snake-shaped curves held tall above all the other heads. Crimson skin blazed through the crowd, covered in swaying beads that snatched gemlight.

She tapped Peregrine twice. "Behind you, here comes somebody. He's korvi."

Peregrine turned, his eyes hunting. He stopped. "Burn it, of all the luck. I traded with that fellow once."

He only spat like that when he didn't think much of a person, usually when they used a lot of words to say nothing in particular. Tillian turned the right way around, readying herself to smile for the both of them.

The red korvi headed straight for them, a grin spreading over his snout like he had spotted a bargain across a bazaar. As he danced out of the way of passers-by, he called, "Good fellow! Why, if this isn't a familiar draught in my cup, how are you, friend?"

He spoke in excited tenor. Peregrine could catch the higher tones of a voice like that - or, rather, he could catch it if he was listening. He frowned right now, so he was likely deaf as a stone.

Tillian tilted her head at the friendly stranger. Here was her work, tangled up in front of her. "Good day! I'm Tillian Sri, call me Tillian. Can I help you?"

"I certainly do hope so!" He flashed merry teeth. "You two are miner and earferrin, if my memory's worth a whit? I never forget a face!"

"He's Peregrine of Ruelle, head of Redessence Clan." Tillian canted her head farther. "Glad to meet you ...?"

"Ah! Forgive me." The red korvi offered a palm, his wings fanning by a grand fraction, his grin twinkling in his eyes. "Syril of Reyardine. Ask for the name, whatever you need! My, my, good Ruelle, if it hasn't been a stone's age since we met! Time does fly away with us!"

"Um." Tillian shifted on her feet as she took Syril's palm, noting his lizardskin-and-flax-oil scent. He certainly tied his thoughts up with plenty of phrases. "Syril of Reyardine is glad to see you."

"Likewise," Peregrine muttered.

"Oh, I'm glad to see everyone in the land! It's a trader's curse!" Syril clapped his hands together with a jangle of beads. "So! What brings you to Valeover, friends?"

"We initially came for peridots," Peregrine said, lakewater-cool. "But good Reyardine, I doubt this is the time for small talk."

"No. My, no indeed." He scratched at his long-waggling mane, squinting at nothing. "Have you heard the news? Gods help those folk and help them by bucketfuls!"

"Have we heard the news?" Whether Peregrine felt like listening for himself or not, this felt important and Tillian had to relay it. She leaned farther over Peregrine's shoulder. "We haven't heard it exactly. We've just arrived."

"The demon has shown up in Fenwater, it just burst in like wind through the meadows!" Syril spoke quiet and harsh-edged; his eyes hopped to the aemet throngs around them. "Folk are rattled something terrible, but you don't need me to say that! It was only recognized by name today and most of Fenwater's aemets fled as soon as they could get to their feet. The blasted thing is clawing at other villages already! It'll be a wonder if Fenwater village doesn't just wink out of being, those poor kin!"

Tillian picked out the important bits of bad news to repeat. No stiffness ran through Peregrine - he must have expected this unyielding kernel at the center of everything. He folded his arms and said, "That means a warning went out, what, an hour before the exodus folk left? And then they arrived in new towns by the dozens?"

"Such a bucket of worms," Syril agreed. "Most of them went to Opens. I happened to bring the exodus warning to Opens before the Fenwater folk arrived and what a storm when I landed! I suppose they'll be looking to trade in restoratives before anything else." His eyes widened. "Oh, I ought to tell you, Peregrine! Opens's mage has a call out for more wings. I've stuck my snout in every corner of Valeover and they've got enough korvi to keep busy, but Opens? That's where the work is. Hold on, you need peridots, you said? I believe I've got a few!" Grinning lopsided, Syril dug into one of the bulging pouches tied about his waist. "I've got to get on my way to East Hotrock, but do business while it's here to do, that's what I say about that!"

By the time Tillian repeated the parts that mattered, Peregrine and Syril had handfuls of gems out to compare. Barter talk flowed between them, full of familiar gemstone terms. A few Redessence amethysts bought them an apple-sized pouch of anthill peridots, each gem small enough to glitter like sand. Tillian turned her pendant bead between her fingers, supposing that Giala could decorate for weeks once she had that many peridots. The thought suddenly felt flat and lifeless, in the middle of a town street churning with worry.

"Now's your best chance to trade amethyst," Syril added, rearranging the contents of a cargo pouch. "Those take a fine darkcasting charge, and if there's any time folk won't be fussy about healing element, this is it!"

"You're going to Hotrock, then," Peregrine said.

"I suppose I'd better, Bright's not making it any brighter out!" With another flare of wing feathers, Syril beamed at them. "Many thanks for your business, friends, and I look forward to trading with you again! Gods watch you!"

Syril hadn't vanished into the crowds yet when Peregrine turned, taking brisk steps that jarred though his body.

"He seems nice enough," Tillian said, standing to watch the green-skinned crowds bury Syril.

"Red as a firejay," Peregrine said cool, "and just as talkative."

Talkative people bothered Peregrine, a whetstone scraped wrong over his edges. He needed to concentrate so hard to understand rapid words, and he was tired of not being paid the effort back: that was the only answer Tillian could see. If every conversation demanded an effort like hauling bricks, she would be tired, too.

Syril's horntips were long gone now, curtained by antennae, and Tillian lost his flax oil scent among horse droppings and dust. She settled in Peregrine's collarbone, facing forward.

"At least he gave us something useful in all that talking," she said. "The demon showing up in Fenwater - he means gripthia, right?"

"Call it the demon. Its name makes aemetkind all nerves." Peregrine's voice was a teaching murmur, the tone Tillian grew up on. As he spoke, he walked straight and thrown-stone sure. "Everyone within days' flight needs to know that the demon has reemerged, as soon as messengers can manage to tell them."

"So they can bring medicine?"

Peregrine's neck feathers lifted. "I suppose I haven't told you this much. This demon needs healing care to overcome - close healing care. Some victims grow too badly poisoned to draw breath. If an aemet begins to struggle and their mage is too overrun to help, that aemet is as good as gone. That's why if a village doesn't look to be able to care for all its aemet folk, they need to flee while they can and find more mages. More healers, more of anyone at all. Their time is dear."

Tillian had been sick once, said the dried-up bottom of her memory. She knew the feel of coughing that moved nothing inside her, and the shape of Peregrine's hands cupped to form a bed - she had been small, then, and unaware of just how small. If the aemets' demon acted anything like her sickness, then coughing would drain every mote of their strength and keep demanding more. They would need to strain against their every lead-weak limb to run, or else die at rest. No one should have to face a choice like that.

"That's awful," she said, through the fear clotting in her throat. She wished the Barghest would help, but the Legend hound only judged things that the words right and wrong applied to. He couldn't stop demons from menacing any more than he could stop peoplekinds from breathing - Tillian hadn't believed that until she was nearly two years old, just because she thought it was too unfair be true.

Grasshoppers trilled beyond the fields. Peregrine kept walking until the crowds thinned and disappeared, until the homes all lay behind them and rattling cornstalks filled the land ahead. The town odors retreated; there was only wind and fields and Peregrine, who smelled like home.

"It's particularly awful since, when they flee, the demon stalks them and finds new towns." Peregrine spoke with fangs. "There's no right decision. Stay and smother to death, or flee and damn other folk who don't deserve it."

He stopped, sudden enough to make Tillian's nails twitch against his hide.

"Before we go any farther. Think on it with me, Tillian: Valeover is already churned up over this, and the Reyardine is flapping off now to tell East Hotrock."

"That's close." It leaped from Tillian's mouth before she could think, and shivering realization came with it. "They're our neighbour towns."

"Fenwater is close enough that they'll get helping wings from Hotrock, I'd imagine. Perhaps merchants looking to do some business in curatives. Mostly bards and messengers whose time is up for barter."

Peregrine settled onto his tail. The land spread huge around them, full of space and people and problems that Tillian could taste suddenly, a bitter anticipation at the back of her throat.

"Gods be with them, of course. But if everyone's efforts turn out poorly, the demon could be at Skyfield's door within an eightday. And now that we know about that, I suppose there's a duty to be had."

Breeze moaned low over the plains. Tillian held tight to the electricity inside her, and straightened to match Peregrine.

"We have to help them," she said. "It's only right."

"No one with a mind or a heart refuses to help when the demon shows up. You saw the Reyardine stop thinking of his own pouch contents for a moment, and I doubt he does that often. When something like this occurs, it's only a matter of what there is to give."

Dipping into stores of trade goods sounded easy. Everyone kept boxes and bins of things, or knew how to walk out into the wilderness and find a trove of something useful. But defeating the demon couldn't be as simple as a few stones exchanging hands, or else the Opens mage wouldn't have asked the entire eastern land to lend its people. Peregrine already planned to give what he could - that thought looked sewn into his brow.

"Your wings?"

"If they're strong enough."

He stared furrows into the dirt. If only Tillian could help him with this, too. If only she had wings as wide as the sky so she could fly Peregrine everywhere - except that he was too proud for that. Far too proud.

"Let me rub, then." Tillian turned and threaded her hands into his plumage. "Maythwind says it helps get the blood into your wings."

The feel of feathers on dense muscle was practically like Tillian's own body, even if the slick traces of arnica and beeswax were new. Peregrine sighed, swaying onto his feet to walk.

"For a moment, if you would. I like to think I've got another hour of sky in me."

She rubbed until her forearms were soaked tired. Peregrine stretched his wings with loose-shifting muscles, and no clumps of soreness passed under Tillian's feet. He kept walking regardless. He said Tillian ought to eat something first; the sky was no place for a meal. She had the last piece of roast potato pressed into her hands and she agreed to take her sweet moments chewing.

Thoughts of running wouldn't leave Tillian. She should have asked that Syril fellow how many folk ran away from Fenwater, so she would know how many figures to picture weaving through the grass; her imagination kept painting desperate-rushing thousands, so many aemet people wide-eyed and reeking of fear.

It must have been different for that peoplekind. Aemets had Verdana's strength to run with, same as the deer and the nurls blended into green thickets. Maybe aemets had more strength salted away than other kinds could even imagine. Tillian hoped that was true.

Running wouldn't have helped her when she was small, since she had been sick with salterra. That demon clung to family lines, Peregrine told her once in a pained mutter. There was no fleeing from a threat ingrained in Tillian's own body. She had stood her ground against it, digging in her button-sized heels with what strength she had, and she had endured. That time was so hazy in her mind; she would have to ask Peregrine about it sometime, ask him how he helped each new litter of Zitan's children to live.

Tillian gulped the last of her meal and asked Peregrine to fly. People needed them: the thought called to her like voices in the wide prairie air.