Windhaven

"This is a flyers' lodge and a flyers' party," one of his companions said sharply. "Do you two have business here?"

"They are my guests," Maris said furiously. "Or do you question my right to be here too?"

"No. Only your taste in guests." He clapped the big man on the shoulder. "Come. I have a sudden urge to hear some singing."

Val tried another group, two women and a man with ale mugs in their hands. Before he had quite reached them, they set down their mugs — still half-full — and left.

Only one party remained in the room, six flyers that Maris knew vaguely from the far reaches of Western, and a single blond youth from the Outer Islands. And suddenly they were leaving too, but on the way to the door one of them, a man well into his middle years, stopped to talk to Val. "You may not remember, but I was among the judges the year you took Ari's wings," the man said. "We judged fairly, but some have never forgiven us for the verdict we handed down. Perhaps you did not know what you were doing, perhaps you did. It makes no difference. If they were so reluctant to forgive me, they will never forgive you. I pity you, but we're helpless. You were wrong to come back, son. They will never let you be a flyer."

Val had been calm through everything else, but now his face contorted in rage. "I do not want your pity,"

he said. "I do not want to be one of you. And I am not your son! Get out of here, old man, or I will take your wings this year."

The gray-haired flyer shook his head, and a companion took him by his elbow. "Let's go, Cadon. You waste your concern on him."

When they left, only Riesa remained in the lodge room with Maris, Val, and S'Rella. She busied herself with her ale mugs, gathering them up to wash, and did not look at them.

"Warmth and generosity," Val said.

"They're not all—" Maris started, and found she could not go on. S'Rella looked as if she were about to cry.

Then the door crashed open, and it was Garth standing there, frowning, looking puzzled and angry.

"What is going on?" he said. "I stumble up from home to host my party, and everyone is out on the beach. Maris? Riesa?" He slammed the door and started across the room. "If there was a fight, I'll break the neck of the fool who started it. Flyers have no business quarreling like land-bound."

Val faced him squarely. "I'm the cause of your empty party," he said.

"Do I know you?" Garth said.

"Val. Of South Arren." He waited.

"He didn't start anything," Maris said suddenly. "Believe that, Garth. He's my guest."

Garth looked baffled. "Then why—?"

"I'm also called One-Wing."

Comprehension broke across Garth's face, and Maris knew how she must have looked the day she had met Val on the Stormtown docks, and had a sickening realization of what it must have felt like to Val.

Whatever Garth felt, he struggled to control it. "I wish I could bid you welcome," he said, "but that would be a lie. Ari was a sweet, fine woman who never hurt anyone, and I knew her brother too. We all did."

He sighed and looked to Maris. "He is your guest, you say? What would you have me do?"

"Ari was my friend as well," Maris said. "Garth, I don't ask you to forget her. But Val is not her killer. He took her wings, not her life."

"They are one and the same," Garth grumbled, but it was half-hearted. He looked back at Val. "You were a boy then, though, and none of us knew that Ari would kill herself. I've made my own share of mistakes, though none as big as yours, and I suppose—"

"I made no mistake," Val interrupted.

Garth blinked. "Your challenge was a mistake," he said. "Ari killed herself."

"I would challenge her again," Val said. "She was not fit to fly. Her death was her mistake, not mine."

Garth was always gentle and genial, even his infrequent angers full of bluff and bluster; Maris had never seen his face as cold and bitter as it looked now. "Out, One-Wing," he said, his voice low. "Leave this lodge and do not enter it again, whether you wear wings or not. I will not have you."

"I won't be back," Val said evenly. "Nonetheless, I thank you for your warmth and generosity." He smiled and headed toward the door. S'Rella started after him.

"S'Rella," Garth said. "I don't — you can stay, girl, I have no—"

S'Rella whirled. "Everything Val says is true. I hate you all."

And she followed Val One-Wing out into night.

S'Rella did not return to their little cabin that night, but she was there just after dawn the next day, Val with her, both ready for practice. Maris gave them the wings and accompanied them up the steep, twisting stone stairs to the flyers' cliff. "Race," she told them. "Fly above the coastline, using the sea breeze and staying low. Circle the entire island."