Windhaven

He put his arms around her. "I know. Believe me, I've thought this through. Surely you didn't think I was sleeping last night while you were tossing and turning and wondering what to do? I decided that I can't let you walk out of my life. For once in my life, I must be bold, and dare something different. I am going with you."

Maris couldn't hold the tears back then, although she couldn't have said just why she was crying. Evan pulled her close and held her tightly until she recovered.

As they drew apart, Maris could hear Coll assuring Bari that her aunt was happy, that she was crying with joy; and she saw S'Rella, standing a little apart, her face alight with joy and affection.

"I give up," Maris said. Her voice was somewhat shaky. She wiped her face with her hands. "I have no more excuses. I will go to Seatooth— we will go to Seatooth — as soon as we can get a ship out."

What began as a few friends walking with S'Rella to the flyers' cliff became a procession, an extension of the celebration within the keep. Maris, Evan, and Coll were the popular heroes, and many wanted to be close to them, to see at first hand what was so special about the flyer, the healer, and the singer who had deposed a tyrannical Landsman, stopped a war, and ended the eerie threat posed by the silent black flyers. If anyone still dared think Tya had done wrong and deserved her fate, it was thought silently, privately, held as an unpopular opinion.

And yet even in this happy, admiring crowd, Maris knew, the old resentments were still buried. She had not banished them forever, neither those between land-bound and flyer, nor the conflicts separating the one-wings and the flyer-born. Sooner or later this battle would have to be fought again.

The journey through the mountain tunnel was not a lonely one this time. Voices echoed loudly off stone walls, and a dozen torches blazed and smoked, making the damp, dark corridor a different place.

They emerged to a dark, windy night, the stars obscured by clouds. Maris saw S'Rella standing near the cliff's edge, talking with another flyer, a one-wing still wearing black. At the sight of S'Rella standing on that too-familiar cliff, Maris felt her stomach clench, and her head reel with dizziness. But for Evan's support she felt she would have fallen. She knew she didn't want to see S'Rella leap from the cliff from which she had fallen, not once, but twice. She was suddenly afraid.

Several youths darted forward now, loudly vying for the privilege of helping S'Rella ready herself for flight. S'Rella half-turned, seeking Maris, and their eyes met. Maris drew a deep breath, steadying herself, trying to empty herself of fear, released Evan's hand and stepped forward. "Let me help," she said.

She knew it so well. The texture of the cloth-of-metal, the heft of the wings in her hands, the firm snap of struts locking into place. Even though she could no longer wear the wings herself, still her hands loved this task they knew so well, and there was a pleasure, even if rimmed about by sadness, in preparing S'Rella for flight.

When the wings were fully extended, the final struts snapped into place, Maris felt the return of her fear.

It was irrational, she knew, and she could say nothing of it to S'Rella, but she felt that if S'Rella stepped off that dangerous cliff it would be to fall, just as Maris had done.

Finally, forcing herself, Maris managed to say, "Go well." Her voice was very low.

S'Rella looked at her searchingly. "Ah, Maris," she said. "You won't be sorry — you've made the right choice. I'll see you soon." Then, despairing of words, S'Rella leaned forward and kissed her friend.

"Go well," S'Rella said, one flyer to another, and then she turned toward the cliff edge, toward the sea and the open sky, and leaped into the wind.

There was applause from the onlookers as S'Rella caught a rising current and wheeled above the cliff, wings glinting darkly. Then, rising higher and heading out to sea, she was lost to sight almost at once, seeming to merge into the night sky.

Maris continued to gaze into the sky long after S'Rella had vanished. Her heart was full, but there was a steadfast certainty there, as well as pain, and even a small spark of the old joy. She would survive. Even without her wings, she was a flyer still.

Epilogue

THE OLD WOMAN WOKE when the door opened, in a room that smelled of sickness. There were other odors as well: salt water, smoke, sea mold, the lingering scent of the spice tea that had gone cold by her bedside. But over them all was the smell of sickness, overpowering, cloying, making the room seem thick and close.