The prisoners remained silent, their wings—what remained of them—drawn tightly to their backs in either fear or deference. Or both, since one was often a product of the other. It was clear that they had no intention of answering.
“What is your flight?”
Silence again. Other Aerians had joined the Hawks on the ground, and one or two were looking at the prisoners the way Clint had—but not all of them. Interesting. Clint knew, or thought he knew. But so did the Hawklord. She wondered how political this was all going to get.
“Are they a threat in their present condition?” the Hawklord demanded. The general consensus among those who could detect telltale traces of magic was no. The Hawklord therefore turned to Kaylin, blue-eyed, almost quivering with what Kaylin assumed was rage. She had never seen his wings so combat ready, so rigid, as they were now. No wonder the two men were terrified.
Kaylin said, “I think they’re safe.”
The familiar whiffled.
“Is that a yes or a no?” she asked him as quietly as she could, and with no hope at all that it would go unnoticed.
“You are hesitating.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
The familiar lowered his wing and hissed. He was laughing.
“I don’t understand what I’m seeing,” Kaylin began. “But...you know how the familiar’s wing works, right? Well, according to what I’m seeing through his wing...there’s nothing wrong with the wings of these Aerians.”
“And as a healer?”
Chapter 7
Kaylin blinked. This was not a subject that came up often, and never in full view of the rank and file, unless the only rank and file present was Kaylin herself. She swallowed. She looked at the terrified Aerians and had no desire at all to touch them.
“Can you ascertain whether or not what you see is relevant to us?”
She swallowed.
“Private.”
Rolling up her sleeve, she exposed the ancient bracer that had been a gift—a dire, mandatory gift—from the Imperial Court years ago. She wasn’t, in theory, allowed to take it off. In practice, it inhibited the use of the magic that had become hers when the marks that covered so much of her skin had first appeared.
The Emperor who had issued the orders was in the Imperial Palace. The man who was responsible for her livelihood was standing a couple of feet away, wings spread and eyes a study in fury. She took the bracer off. Severn took it before she could toss it over her shoulder.
The captive Aerians regarded her with both hostility and fear. At the moment, she deserved it. She wondered if this was how the Tha’alani felt. Healing was not supposed to be invasive or unwanted.
Clint came with her, as did Severn; weapons were leveled at the Aerian prisoners, the warning in their presence clear, but unspoken.
She reached out and very gently placed a hand on the forehead of the slightly older man. His wings were as they appeared through normal vision. They weren’t the result of an old injury. They were his body’s actual shape.
Kaylin couldn’t give sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf, unless either condition was caused by an injury that had occurred fairly recently. She withdrew her hand and touched the second man, who was staring up at her in misery. Like the first man’s, his wings were complete in their damaged form.
These two hadn’t flown in a long time, if ever. Until today.
“They’re clean.” She turned to the Dragon. “Whatever you sense, I don’t. Shadow?”
“Not now, no. But it was faintly tangible when they were invisible.” Her eyes were a very vivid orange; they hadn’t yet descended into red, but it was a close thing. Bellusdeo’s experience with Gilbert had softened some of the edge of her hatred of Shadow—but it was a pretty hard edge, and the blunting wasn’t terribly obvious at the moment.
“Is it possible that the Shadow formed wings?”
“Clearly. You think the wings are still present.”
“Yes, but I don’t understand how. Maybe it’s an afterimage, an aftereffect.”