She Who Sees Through Darkness

Part Twenty-One

A second physical showed she was in perfect health, and, as her medical records featured no history of anxiety attacks, they sent her back up to the roof. Dr. Harper had been ducking out from the terrace to the gym for hours, thawing her fingers over a heater. Her clipboard held pages of notes. She'd recorded all their interactions with their wyverns—at least, if H and W meant Harris and Winters.

"Sudden acrophobia all dealt with?" Dr. Harper asked. "Are you ready to go out there and fly?"

Katrina shrugged. "Suppose so. Pity Payaa's off hunting."

"Then you can go watch Kyle and Tayamlaa. They're doing target practice. Pay attention. Our war won't win itself." The doctor hugged herself as she looked out the windows. "If you're wondering when the appropriate time was to thank me for the great gift I bestowed on you, it was the moment you laid eyes on your wyvern. I'll accept now."

"I'd have preferred a gift card. Those can't invade your psyche."

Phyllis glared at her. "I hate it when people are flippant about serious matters."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"Your rations have been cut by a third. Do you wish to continue, or go to the roof?"

Katrina went. You're such a dirty hypocrite. No, worse. You're just some weak asshole who thinks she's tougher than all the other assholes. What have you done with your life that's ever benefited anyone? That same rationale had chased her into the woods with Kyle and closed her fingers around that gun. Before he'd flipped out, Vasilyev had told her to recognize patterns of thought that lead back to those dark places, and she was trying to do just that. Still, she knew those thoughts had a point, and she wanted it to be a constructive one.

Kyle and Tayamlaa circled the roof, making long, elegant, lazy loops. A whole crowd of security officers watched the pair fly. Captain O'Brien threw rolled-up socks full of sand for Kyle to shoot. His bullets found their mark every time.

"May I?" Katrina asked the captain. He gave her a ball. She donned protective earmuffs and dropped it over the edge.

Tayamlaa, at the height of her arch in the sky, folded her wings and flipped her body downward with a stroke of her powerful legs. Katrina froze, thinking Kyle would fall—but he kept his seat as they plummeted, her wings parallel to the slope of the mountain. Grains of yellow sand exploded outward as a gunshot hit her ears. Tayamlaa spread her wings, flying upside-down for a moment. When she was clear of the mountain slope, she flipped over with a single sweeping push.

Katrina had watched Kyle ride horses at the family farm. He'd fallen left and right, refusing to go any faster than a trot. How is he doing this? Tayamlaa banked; Kyle leaned into the turn before she started to move. Tayamlaa flipped; Kyle pressed himself flat against her back. Had he done what Payaa had asked of her and completely opened his mind to his wyvern?

"Watch this." O'Brien threw three balls at once. Kyle's next shot passed through two in a line. His second got the third ball a heartbeat later. "Fastest shot I've ever seen."

"Helps he's crazy," Katrina muttered, noting the face piece with ear protection they'd clipped on Tayamlaa. Strokes of her wings beat against the air. Kyle shouted in exhilaration when they landed on the roof, wrapping his arm fiercely around Tayamlaa's neck.

"Nice shooting!" Katrina shouted, but he wasn't looking at her. All his attention was focused on his wyvern as he laughed at a joke she hadn't heard. It wasn't until he started pulling off Tayamlaa's harness he noticed she was there.

"Tayamlaa calls me Quickfingers," he said. "I'm the fastest shot she's ever seen."

What do wyverns know about shooting? she thought, but then remembered the bullet scars on Payaa's wings, and shut up.

"Can't wait to see them on the big guns," O'Brien muttered, as Kyle ducked behind Tayamlaa to undo more straps.

"Big guns?" Katrina asked.

"The engineering department is working on them. Anti-aircraft weapons they can mount on a wyvern. Something light enough for you to handle." He frowned. "What did you think you'd been recruited for? War's coming. We'll need air forces of our own."

"And the Father doesn't want to buy planes?" She forced herself to chuckle. "Old fashioned, is he?"

"I'd advise you not to talk about my father," the captain said. "The wyverns are more agile than a plane. He believes they're capable of winning this war. I trust him."

A shiver ran through her body. "Lots of people are going to die."

"Indigo has wound itself so tightly into the fabric of your country the two can't be separated peacefully." Seamus squeezed the handle of his gun. "The pyromancers tell us normal folk will turn against Descendants if the Seal is broken. I say let them come."

This is where wars come from. She'd heard talk like this before, from criminals who wanted to justify their ways. Folk like him, they've given up on co-existing. They think they're better than the rest of humanity, think it's just terrible having to hold back on their magic all because its very existence endangers 99.9% of people on this planet. This was no crazy backwoods witch speaking, but a man with a small army behind him and the powers of a Valve at his disposal. And if the Valve believed the wyverns could take on planes, he probably had a damn good reason for it. This is why we need Indigo.

As the officers swarmed around Kyle and Tayamlaa, shouting congratulations and praising his performance, she ducked back into the Eyrie and fetched some rope from her suite.

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