The decade immediately prior to the fall in Grater Barren was a deadly one, even before Grater Barren plunged into the abyss, and even a much toned-down school kid narrative couldn’t white-wash the war and all of its violence. During these lessons, Sonia preferred to observe unnoticed. Learning the Barronite version of history was one shock after another. It wasn’t easy to cover her surprise. She couldn’t altogether shed her Arrowan indoctrination, and her skepticism made her feel like an enemy all over again.

The decade was called the Fallen Decade and Sonia had studied the time period thoroughly during her time in Arrow’s Green Guard. For six of the ten years Grater Barren had been locked in conflict with Arrow. In the final four, they’d been joined by Flintstock in a three-way struggle, but other than that, Sonia recognized little of the Grater Barren version of events.

To the Barronites, the fight had raged over disputed rights to an offshore island called Senkara. Arrow had possession of the island—or at least—she’d taken for granted that Arrow had always had possession of the island. Grater Barren claimed Arrow moved in only after poisoning and killing a race of islanders with whom Grater Barren claimed an ethnic relationship. Skin and hair color apart, ethnographic records detailed the fact of Barronite trademark amber eyes.

Their instructor handed around copies of a journal kept by anthropologist Sol Montson, a prominent Barronite who lived among the islanders for years.

Sonia took a copy of the book and flinched as though the paper carried an electric shock. She flipped it open and stared. An old photograph was printed on the interior cover. Sol Montson? Her heart pounded, and her throat closed, but she could not tear her gaze away, not even when the professor dismissed the class, not for the sake of her lunchtime bowl of soup. She clutched that book and couldn’t loosen her grip on it.

The image of Dr. Sol Monteson with his mild amber eyes stared back at Sonia. She had seen him before, had spoken with him. He’d appeared to her in the grotto on the upper layer of the abyss.

Then Dr. Monteson had transformed back into the condor.

He was the Magnus Avem.

*

Sonia ducked into an empty classroom and resumed reading. Spare prose, clinical facts--every detail gripped her.

Monteson had lived among the islanders occupying an archipelago to the east of Arrow and Greater Barren’s shorelines. Monteson had learned the peoples' language and befriended them, which was interesting enough, but at last, it wasn’t this that assaulted her eyes and lanced through her middle.

The thing that bound Sonia’s attention was Monteson’s brief mention of another island resident—an Arrowan woman who had arrived some years before him. On that neutral ground, and sharing a common language, they had become friends, and she had introduced him to local leaders. When she came to the place where Monteson recorded this woman's name, Sonia shut the book with a slam!

It couldn't be--but the possibility explained so much about her mysterious origin. But how? How could they have taken such a risk? There would be no way of returning to their lives--either one of them! It was like running straight into a hacksaw!

Sonia struggled to process, and ultimately, could not keep away from the book. When she opened it up again, she struggled through an unsatisfying succession of factual events.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Arrow’s naval fleet arrived, led by a young Admiral Serrated Edge. The fleet’s “peaceful” appearance had surprised the Arrowan woman, and she warned Monteson, urging him to flee to a neighboring island.

The tribe’s fate? Death—Monteson claimed, by poisoning. He had returned and had recovered several bodies during a failed Grater Barron’s military invasion. So began Arrow’s occupation of Sentara. Shea Serrated was no Arrowan anthropologist, and that was clear. She’d been a military intelligence collector. A spy. Knowingly or unknowingly, she had laid the ground work for genocide.

What her mother had been to Monteson, she couldn’t tell. There were few personal details about their relationship. Perhaps she had loved him--perhaps not--but she was certain her life was the consequence.

And this story of her mother—a woman who would befriend a people, gain their trust, and then stand by while her military comrades poisoned and destroyed them--this was Shea Wharncliffe--her heroic mother? This probability bore in upon her, acid climbed her stomach walls and she doubled over into a ball, heaving her stomach’s contents all over the desktop.

Breathing fast, she stared open mouthed at the pool of vomit. Her gaze flitted around the classroom for something to clean it with. There had to be something. She laid some loose paper over the vomit, letting it soak up the acid.

A shadow fell across the threshold of the classroom. Sonia started.

Professor Onyx cleared his throat. “Are you all right Sonia?” His eyes softened when he noticed the pool of vomit. “Leave that. You’re ill. Come with me to the nurse’s office.”

Sonia let herself be led by the elbow to the main floor of the academy. “Let me carry your book,” Onyx said. Removing the ethnography from her limp hands, he stared at its cover. “Let’s just see if a little water and rest can’t fix you right up, shall we?”

Sonia took the glass of water and drank it down, gratefully washing the acid from her mouth.

“I’ll speak to your teachers.”

Sonia reclined meekly on the stiff cot, her mind triangulating around the history lesson. She thought of her mother. Would she have seduced Monteson, or had it been more complicated than that? If she had loved him, why hadn’t she fled with him?

But then, Sonia couldn’t wonder too much about that. Her mother had held a military rank. Abandoning a post was a death wish. Becoming pregnant might not have surprised her, but all the same, it must have terrified her. That kind of fear might be enough to force her into a marriage of convenience and hope her child had Arrowan eyes.

But she hadn’t!

She recoiled from the memory of those cold years in the Admiral's attic. Her limbs trembled, until she shook bodily with sobs.

The nurse sped into the room. “What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?”

Sonia's throat went rigid and she coughed up phlegm, gasping for air, she vomited the water she'd just swallowed. Restraining hands came. Arresting hands. Sonia fought, not conscious of why.

They strapped her to a gurney. Metallic flavor filled her mouth. Stiff fingers forced something across her teeth and she gagged again.

Why had the Magnus Avem healed her feet? What was she doing in this hole in the earth? What good could a wretch be to anyone, much less an entire sunken city?

Sonia’s mind throbbed with the magnification of six senses. In an instant, light flashed. The tension released, and she floated. How was she floating? Sonia's limp body was still strapped to the table. She hovered over it, lighter than air, and completely unbound.

She glanced back at the body, confined to the table--curious, then piteous.

A pang tugged at her.

“Your body needs its spirit,” a voice whispered at her ear. Sonia recognized the voice. “You still have it--the will to live!”

She remembered. The magnificent condor, goading her on, through freezing currents, across a windswept wilderness.

Gentle as a feather, her spirit sank down back inside of her body, and at reentrance, a thrill of life washed through her, elation poured into her blood and sank to bone.

Once again, she was teetering on the edge of the abyss. Light and warmth raced through her limbs, charging her with a euphoria pitched so high it could shatter glass. She closed her eyes and she held on, her heart throbbing, tears streaming.

I do have a will to live--so-help-me--but what am I to do with it?