Of course, it wasn't as easy as that. Heath thought there was a map of the Out Posts from three generations back somewhere. Sorcha, apparently, had taken the more recent map, though it, too, was older than either of us. While Heath was willing to look for it, food took precedence.
Dinner was a community affair, and Heath introduced me to all 20 adults of Ismene and the five children. The adults were well past middle age, and the children were at least five years from being given the option of inducting into the Guild. Sati continued to glare as if my presence was a personal insult, and kept the children away. Four whispered and pointed at me, but one hid behind whichever Flit was closest if I glanced her way. Though the meal wasn't lavish, there was enough stew and tough, chewy bread to go around.
I mentioned Erebus and Lila, but the adults would not discuss the two, and the children simply didn't react to the names, like they'd never even heard them.
After the meal, they showed me to a perch that was empty save for a pallet of fresh boughs wrapped in a faded, threadbare blanket. Despite my weariness, I lay awake long into the night, listening to the occasional hoot of an Owl sentry, imagining the lives of whoever had lived in my temporary home before it was abandoned.
When the sun rose, I was eager to leave, with or without a map; it would be harder to find the Posts blind, but I could ping Sorcha's quartz to find her. 'Eventually, anyway.' My head hurt a little at the thought of triangulating position through the wilderness.
Heath met me before I'd more than stretched my arms in the dawn air. Wordlessly, he passed over a battered crystal. It warmed slowly in my hand and I fidgeted in the silence.
"It wasn't always like this, you know." Heath's words were hoarse and barely audible. "We had hope, once. But now…" He leaned against the railing, and it sagged as if a much greater weight rested on it.
"What changed?" I asked. None of my classes had prepared me for this exact moment, but I couldn't leave like this.
"It doesn't matter." Heath's breath puffed out, a misty plume in the chill. "It changed, and so did we."
"Heath." I shook my head, looking away into the dim forest. "You're not giving me a chance. Mergen — the Memory Guardian — I talked to her. About coming here. About making a difference. She thought…" 'What had she thought? Are you lying to yourself about everything?' "She thought I should have a chance to try. To make a difference."
"Guardians." Heath turned the honorific into a curse. "The Memory Guardian, huh? I met her once." He stared at the ground far below as if the secrets I sought were emblazoned there, but only for his eyes.
"It started before her, though. Seventeen years ago we sent Lila to Guari, just after she'd inducted. The Ruler said she needed to go, and we believed. She cried that day, you know. When we pulled her away from her mater and pater. When we dragged her from her twin."
I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat and leaned on the railing next to Heath.
"Three years later, it was Erebus's turn. Mergen visited and claimed him. He went, I think, in part because he'd see Lila again. The other children…" Heath bit his lips and closed his eyes, and when he continued, his voice was higher, unsteady. "They felt left out, left behind. Monat planned a special outing — a picnic near the stream — to make up for it. Her daughter, Sorcha, fell ill that day. Nothing serious, a simple childhood fever, but enough she couldn't go. Everyone else — the other children, their maters and paters, Monat — went."
I wanted him to beg him to stop, but I couldn't begin to understand what was wrong with this Post — couldn't try to fix it — until I knew the blight's root.
"Seti… lived. She made it back, though I think she wishes she hadn't. The others fell to a swarm — Infected rabbits, out of season. Even their bones were cracked open and scattered."
My gorge rose, and I gagged, glad that I hadn't eaten yet. 'An entire generation? Two? That's…' I couldn't wrap my head around it; I had no words for the horror.
Heath did, though.
"We traced the crystals. They hold the patterns that they wield, even beyond death. The closest was fifty wingspans from our sentry, beginning a trail of blood and destruction that led back to just past the halfway point to the stream. But the true start — the first who fell? Our Guardian. Monat, who had the strength to hold them back long enough for the children to make it halfway to safety."
I dry heaved over the railing, tears blurring my eyes as I fought for control. In the story crystals, Guardians didn't die like that. They died, but with purpose, so that someone else lived. I barely felt a rough hand patting my back awkwardly.
"Pointless," I gasped. "How could it have… It's not supposed to be that way."
"I shouldn't have told you," Heath said, his voice nearly as broken as mine. "We've forgotten here — been so long since it mattered — but Guardians are sensitive. You have to care."
"No," I said, scrubbing a hand through the snot and tears on my face. Eww. "I — I needed to know." I forced my knees to support my weight and pushed off the railing. "That's… not good to know, but necessary."
A shudder wracked my body; if Heath was this distraught, after all these years, how was everyone else holding up? 'Seti? Sorcha?' I breathed through the renewed nausea and tried to think what the first step toward healing would be.
'Bones and feathers, you're beyond your limits!'
A gust of wind smacked my face, and the door behind me slammed. Jumping, I whipped around to look; the wood was intact, and it swung open again as the wind eddied.
"Bones and feathers! Storm's early!" Heath glared through the canopy where black clouds gathered.
"Early?" I echoed.
"I was going to tell you — best not to leave today. We need to get this place weather-tight and shelter in the common room." He pointed to the largest perch where we'd eaten dinner.
"How?" The immediate needs snapped into focus, and I strode past Heath into the perch. I'd already closed the shutters and wondered at the sturdy brackets and matching board on the inside. Slamming the wood into place, I wiggled it to make sure it was tight. I grabbed my pack and turned back.
"Next?"
Heath pointed to the brackets on the outside of the door; he already held the board that would hold it.
'And what kind of storms do they have that require they seal their perches from the outside and shelter elsewhere? Gah!'
I hurried outside, caught the door as it tried to slam again, and eased it shut while Heath barred it.
"Get over to the commons," Heath said. "I need to seal the rest of the empty perches."
"What?" I looked to the left and right. They'd put me in the farthest perch, leaving half a dozen unoccupied homes in either direction before the pathways looped back to the commons. I knew because I'd checked under the watchful eyes of an Owl sentry. "No. You pick one direction. I'll get the other."
Heath scowled at me, but when a gust nearly took us both off the path, he nodded.
"Get a move on, Guardian."
"Yeah, yeah. Last one to the commons is a rotten egg." 'And a broken one?' I grabbed the railing and pulled myself across the bucking pathway toward the next perch. 'Maybe.'
The first perch sealed as easily as mine. The shutter in the second had slammed open, breaking one hinge. Fighting against the wind, I pushed it shut and fumbled the board into its bracket. The third and fourth were already shut tight, and I staggered past them, wondering who else was out here.
I had my answer in the last perch; Seti was throwing her full weight against the shutters. They bucked like wild things, fighting to remain open to the storm.
"Let me help," I shouted to be heard over the wind and crashing wood, but Sati jumped as if she hadn't heard my approach when I placed my hand above hers on one shutter.
Freed from her grasp, the other shutter slammed into her head, catching her on the temple. She dropped like a stooping falcon, and I released the shutter to try catching her.
"Bones, bones, bones," I whispered as I checked her breathing with a hand under her nose. Warm puffs met my shaking fingers, and I tentatively slapped her cheek. Neither my light strike nor the hammering shutters roused her, and I searched the empty perch for anything that could help.
'You can't carry her across the paths; they'll pitch you off. The boards? Rig a sled?' I gnawed my lip. 'Same results, just slower.'
Heavy drops of rain splashed across my face, the patter like thunder on the thatch. A thunk announced the first piece of hail. It was bigger than the tip of my thumb. With a crack, a shutter broke off, and I hastily covered Seti's body before the wood bounced off my back.
'Okay, so waiting here isn't a good option either.'
With a muttered apology, I fumbled at Seti's neckline, grabbing the leather lace that led beneath her shirt and dragging out her…
'Agate?' A polished lump of moss agate dangled from my fingers. 'Whatever.'
I focused on the stone, pouring in everything I'd learned of Seti in the too-short time I'd known her. A mind-spinning slip through my quartz into her agate, and I huddled over a delicate purple butterfly. It didn't move, lying limp on the floorboards.
A quick bubble shield protected her, and I turned my attention to my pack. Another twisting-trick lightened its weight, and I tucked Seti inside, on top of the paper-wrapped packet, before sealing it and shielding it. A final twist shifted me, and my talons grabbed the pack's straps as I lofted out the door, riding and fighting the gusts.
'This wouldn't work if the wind wasn't moving toward the commons.' Three wing-beats out, and the rain had soaked my feathers, killing my maneuverability. Lightning flashed, and hail thudded against my smaller body. 'No help for it — can't spare the energy for another shield.'
"Kack-kack-kack!"
My scream drew the attention of a denim-clad figure just ducking into the commons, and the Flit shouted something the wind whipped away from my ears. It bore fruit, however, as many hands held the door against the wind and other hands reached out to try to pull us in.
Just as I thought we were clear, a chunk of hail bigger than my head slammed into my shoulder, spinning me sideways. I squalled — a sound no raptor should make — and beat frantically with the other wing, trying to keep us on course. Another gust caught the pack, ripping one strap out of my talon. We tumbled through the air and I locked my talon into the strap I still held.
"Drop it!" Heath shouted, clinging to the railing and leaning out, trying to grab me as I spun past. "Drop the pack!"
Ice doused my veins.
'He doesn't know. None of them do.'
It would have been easier to let the helping hands have the pack as I flew past; then I could focus on controlling my flight. Not breaking anything. My injured shoulder screamed as I forced it to work.
'If you do that, they may let it fall. Will the shields hold?' Fifty wingspans was a long way down, and the storm could only make things worse.
Beating my wings, I angled into the wind and focused on getting above the platform again. I tried to dodge the hail at first — it hurt — but it quickly became apparent that I could dodge or gain altitude. I chose altitude. When I had the height I needed, I was at least fifty wingspans past the commons; the distance was just as daunting against the gale as it was against gravity.
'One shot, Cairn. You don't have the strength to try again.'
My wings thrust against the wind, waiting for the right moment. When the gusts stilled, falling into a brief — 'how brief?' — lull, I dove. I stooped at the back wall of the commons as if it were the last pigeon in the forest and I was starving. At the last possible heartbeat, as the wind picked up again, I shifted, wrapping my bruised body around the pack and slamming into the wall.
"He's over here! Get it open!"
Wood scraped on wood before the wind currents above my head shifted. I shoved the pack into the hands that reached through and crawled after. The shutters slammed shut behind us.
"Careful," I rasped. "Don't drop it."
"Boy, you're worried about your pack? What do they teach at Guari?" Heath's voice was angry, but his hands patted me down, checking for broken bones.
"Ouch." I rolled away, crawling toward the pack that they'd set — 'gently, thank the Rulers' — on the floor.
"Has anyone seen Seti?" The frantic question cut through the clamor surrounding me. "She went to shut the open perches. Bones, I think she's still out there!"
I dragged myself to my knees and released the first shield. One-handed, I opened the pack and pulled out the bubble-encased Butterfly. Her legs were braced on the bottom of the shield and her wings fanned in the still air.
"She's here," I gasped. "She's fine."
I released the last shield and twisted through my quartz into her agate again. Wide-eyed, Seti crouched next to me. A bruise darkened her temple, but she was unhurt otherwise.
"Welcome, Guardian." Heath's voice snapped my head around, and my eyes traced the newly familiar faces.
'Twenty adults. Five children. Your Post is safe.'
Thunder rattled the shutter behind me, and I stared at it.
'Most of your Post is safe.'