Windhaven

"Maybe a little bit," Maris said. She glanced back to her wings and set her hands to work again. "But not so much as me. Most flyers have more ties to their home islands than I do, though never so many as the land-bound. Could you help me stretch that taut? Thanks. No, I didn't mean that particularly because I'm a flyer, but just because my old home is gone and I haven't made a new one yet. My father — my stepfather, really — died three years ago. His wife died long before that, and my own natural parents are both dead as well. I have a stepbrother, Coll, but he's been off adventuring and singing in the Outer Islands for a long time now. The little house on Lesser Amberly seemed awfully big and empty with Coll and Russ both gone. And since I had no one to go home to, I went there less and less. The island survives. The Landsman would like his third flyer to be in residence more often, no doubt, but he makes do with the two at hand." She shrugged. "My friends are flyers, mostly."

"I see."

Maris looked at S'Rella, who was staring at the wing she still held with more concentration than it warranted. "You miss your home," Maris said gently.

S'Rella nodded slowly. "It's different here. The others are different from the people I knew."

"A flyer has to get used to that," Maris said.

"Yes. But there was someone I loved. We talked of marrying, but I knew we never would. I loved him — I still love him — but I wanted to be a flyer even more. You know."

"I know," Maris said, trying to be encouraging. "Perhaps, after you win your wings, he could—"

"No. He'll never leave his land. He can't. He's a farmer, and his land has always been in his family. He—

well, he never asked me to give up the idea of flying, and I never asked him to give up his land."

"Flyers have married farmers before," Maris said. "You could go back."

"Not without wings," S'Rella said fiercely. Her eyes met Maris'. "No matter how long it takes. And if — when — I win my wings, well, he'll have married by then. He's bound to. Farming isn't a job for a single person. He'll want a wife who loves the land, and a lot of children."

Maris said nothing.

"Well, I have made my choice," S'Rella said. "It's just that sometimes I get… homesick. Lonely, maybe."

"Yes," Maris said. She put a hand on S'Rella's shoulder. "Come, I have a message to deliver."

S'Rella led the way. Maris slung her wings over a shoulder and followed down a dark passageway that led to a well-fortified exit. It opened on what had once been an observation platform, a wide stone ledge eighty feet above where the sea crested and broke against the rocks of Seatooth. The sky was gray and overcast, but the wild salt smell of the ocean and the strong, eager hands of the wind filled Maris with exhilaration.

S'Rella held the wings while Maris fastened the restraining straps around her body. When they were secure, S'Rella began to unfold them, strut by strut, locking each into place so the silver tissue pulled tight and strong. Maris waited patiently, aware of her role as teacher, although she was anxious to be off. Only when the wings were fully extended did she smile at S'Rella, slide her arms through the loops, and wrap her hands around the worn, familiar leather of the wing grips.

Then, with four quick steps, she was off.

For a second, or less than a second, she fell, but then the winds took her, thrumming against her wings, lifting her, turning her plunge into flight, and the feel of it was like a shock running through her, a shock that left her flushed and breathless and set her skin to tingling. That instant, that little space of less than a second, made it all worthwhile. It was better and more thrilling than any sensation Maris had ever known, better than love, better than everything. Alive and aloft, she joined the strong western wind in a lover's embrace.

Big Shotan lay to the north, but for the moment Maris let the prevailing wind carry her, luxuriating in the fine freedom of an effortless soar before beginning her game with the winds, when she would have to tack and turn, test and tease them into taking her where she chose to go. A flight of rainbirds darted past her, each a different bright color, their haste an omen of a coming storm. Maris followed them, climbing higher and higher, rising until Seatooth was only a green and gray area off to her left, smaller than her hand. She could see Eggland as well, and off in the distance the fog banks that shrouded the southernmost coast of Big Shotan.