Fia drifted in and out of consciousness for the first week after her rescue. Apart from the broken ankle, she had cuts, puncture wounds and bruises that were healing well. Some from falls, others from fighting off animals. But more than her body, it was her spirit that had been broken.

Artyom had luckily still been at the LOG Inn when a village woman reported a smoke signal a day’s journey south of Trench Base. He and two of Raija’s friends found Fia two days later. Pekka and Dara had arrived the same night after she had been moved to the cottage she was recovering in now. 

The cottage had three rooms and was built several decades ago by people no longer alive; their legacy served as a temporary place to stay for all of Raija’s friends. The place was kept well-equipped and maintained by whoever was passing through, giving it the coziness of an over-furnished, generational home. The two women who rescued Fia left after a day but Dara, Pekka, and Artyom stayed. Dara had done some digging after Fia told him about Noah. It didn’t take him long to trace him and dispatch a message. He and Pekka planned to stay at least until Noah and Akira arrived. 

A few days later, Fia gained enough strength to lead Dara and Pekka back to Mikael. They set out at dawn, and after eleven hours of straight walking, they reached the river. 

“To think it was so close,” Fia said, standing at the cliff. Her rescue took nine days. 

Dara clenched his fist. Pekka gave him a sidelong glance. 

“He’s just down there.” She pointed to a ledge below that was mostly hidden by vegetation. “Up ahead there’s a path leading down.”

Dara opened his mouth, looked at Pekka, and closed it. In the past few days, it had become clear that going there by herself was important to Fia. Every offer of help put her on edge. Dara knew that her reasons didn’t matter, and Pekka was probably right to hold him back. If only it was so easy to steel himself.

They climbed down the cliff face to the ledge, where several branches lay stacked in a mound the size of a man, held down by large rocks. In one corner lay a small pile of sticks and long strips of black cloth—the remains of her scarf. Fia began moving the rocks. Dara and Pekka joined her, working fast so she wouldn’t have to lift much. They tossed the branches down the cliff. Dara followed Pekka’s gaze to a faint track through the vegetation leading downward. The rocks had been carried up for the grave, to keep it safe from scavengers.

Mikael lay peacefully, as if asleep. Fia knelt beside him. Dara and Pekka stood on the other side, hands clasped in front of them.

Of Mikael’s four wings, the two on his right side looked intact and were folded neatly behind him. One of the left ones had been hacked off—only bloodied jagged edges of the frame remained. His last wing was wrapped around him, forming a kind of cacoon, its frame broken and bent, the membrane in shreds straightened into place, as if someone meant to mend it.

Dara searched for the missing wing in vain. Then he looked up. Far above them, a tree with thick, thorny branches jutted from the cliff face. His gaze dropped to Mikael, tracing the tears in the sheer purple wing, as though several spikes had combed through it.

“I tried to fold it behind him,” said Fia.

He caught her gaze.

“But everything is so broken, I didn’t know how to.”

He pursed his lips and nodded. 

She looked back at Mikael. “He was alive, you know… after the fall. He was alive for three days. I tried to send out a smoke signal, but it wouldn’t stop raining.

“I kept trying…

“I wanted to go farther to find help, but he kept saying he’d die alone, so I only went when he passed out. I didn’t go far enough. I should’ve gone farther, but I couldn’t feel my leg; even after three days I couldn’t feel my leg, and then I broke my ankle, and I was just so slow.” She put her hand on his chest. “He couldn’t breathe.” 

Dara’s brow furrowed. The right side of Mikael’s chest was caved in. His eyes shot up to the outcrops behind her. If he was right, Mikael had flipped over after his wings caught in the branches, slammed into the rocks, then landed on this ledge. It was a long fall. A knot rose in his throat—he’d been no more than a day’s flight away when it happened.

Fia drew a trembling breath. “When I was in school, I had this fear of being in an accident and not knowing resuscitation. I looked it up again and again so I’d remember. But when he stopped breathing—” Her voice cracked. “I didn’t know where to press. I never learned what to do when there are no ribs to hold my weight.” She looked at Dara and Pekka. “How do you resuscitate someone with no rib cage? What’s the first aid for broken ribs? I never looked that up.”

Dara glanced around for any signs of a shelter. It had rained for a week straight. He wondered if they just soaked in the rain without any fire but didn’t ask. 

“What will I do now?” Fia said. “What will I tell Noah and Akira?” Her lips trembled and she looked up at them. “What will I do?” 

Pekka knelt beside her and put his arm around her. “Let’s take him back.”  

“Why didn’t I go farther?” Her voice cracked. “I was so afraid he’d wake up—or something would attack him—and I wouldn’t be here. If I’d gone farther, maybe I’d have found help. What will I do now, Pekka?”

“You’re still here. You’ll figure it out.” 

Her breathing grew erratic, and the tears that she’d been holding back broke out like a flood. “I’m still here. He’s gone, oh my God, he’s gone. He’s never coming back. What will I do? Where would I go?” She repeated the same words over and over until she couldn’t anymore. Fia cried herself hoarse as Pekka held her, her features contorted as she gasped for air between her wails. Buried deep in his mind, old memories of another woman broken in spirit stirred, and Dara pushed them back down. He looked at Mikael, his face still fresh as if he was alive, but eyes that would never open again and lips that would never curl up. 

---

Fia stopped crying after a while, but no matter how hard she tried, her shuddering breaths still sounded every few seconds. She straightened when she realized Pekka’s shirt and robe were soaked with her tears. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. 

She wiped her face with her sleeves and looked at Mikael again. Another surge of grief rose in her, but she pushed it down, brushing away the new tears with her palms.

“Are you ready to go back?” Pekka asked.

She nodded and stood. Dara took off his robe and handed it to Pekka, keeping only his sword at his side. He slipped one hand under Mikael’s shoulders, the other beneath his knees, and lifted him up. Mikael’s arm, the one not pinned against Dara, fell, bending awkwardly a few inches above the elbow.

Dara turned quickly to Pekka who reached inside his robe and pulled out a belt. He wrapped Mikael’s body, tying his wings and arms in place. Dara glanced at Fia, like he hoped she wasn’t looking. She was, of course. Unlike him, she already knew how battered the body he held was. That pile of wood and strips of her scarf were splints, removed when she laid him to rest.

“I’ll take him back and prepare for the funeral,” Dara said.

Fia nodded without looking at him.

“Should I come back?” he asked Pekka, and he shook his head. 

Dara’s wings unfolded like origami from behind him, but Fia’s eyes didn’t leave Mikael’s face. Only when Dara took off with him did she notice the sheer, pale wings like two half-moons. She didn’t see where they appeared from, and her mind didn’t register much else of them as he disappeared in the distance.

---

When Fia reached the cottage, Mikael had already been bathed, shrouded in white cloth and laid on a bed.

She fought tears. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You shouldn’t thank me,” Dara said quietly and emptied the chair by the bed for her. “I’ll be outside.”

The sun had already set when she came back out. Artyom was curled up on a piebald hide-covered sofa with a sketch book.  A candelabrum sat on the table behind him, and three more oil lamps were lit around the room, nailed to the walls.

She smiled, thinking the light was probably still too low for him. “You’re still here.”

His head shot up, and a smile bloomed. He threw his sketchbook on the sofa and rushed to her, holding her hand till she’d made it to the sofa. The attention embarrassed her.

“I can walk just fine now, even trekked through a forest,” she said, pointedly. 

He dismissed her with a grin. “Are you hungry? You must be.”

“I—am.”

“I’ll bring you soup.” He rushed to the kitchen. “Trekking must’ve helped the appetite.” 

The door swung shut behind him, but Fia’s smile lingered. Just the sensation of it felt good; her cheeks needed that stretch. She picked up his sketchbook, having been granted that liberty since her time at the LOG Inn. He was drawing a woman hacking with a machete, her hair in a long braid. Fia hardly saw her rescuers, but she was sure this was one of them. He hadn’t drawn her target, but a lack of distress on her face suggested verdure. She had muscular arms and legs, large breasts and a firm stomach in a snug shirt showing through the open front robe. 

Fia turned the page—a lizard with elaborate armour looked straight at her. She turned again and started. She was looking at herself. Falling as a broken ankle gave in beneath her, a hand held out in anticipation of the ground she would hit. Despite al this and the tears glinting in her eyes, her expression was one of relief. The source of her relief wasn’t on the page. Art. Her eyes welled; she quickly flipped the page to hide the dreadful image and saw the next sketch.

She screamed. 

Artyom came running back from the kitchen. Pekka stormed through the front door, and Dara slipped in through the back window, daggers drawn.

Fia trembled, hands clasped to her mouth, eyes stuck to the sketchbook in her lap. Mikael stared back from the page—wings broken, falling backwards, one hand held out.

His eyes were wide, mouth open.

A face filled with pain, fear… helplessness.