Cytha chewed the raw meat of her prey, trying not to taste it, waiting for the Sun to rise. Stringy and surprisingly tough, the meat was everything but wet, because she had already drained it of every drop of blood. The instinct she’d long suppressed, and recently tempted when she bit that boy Fidge, came out surprisingly quickly, that which was inherited from her ancient bat ancestors. It had always frightened her, and it still did, but . . . well, today she was simply too hungry to care.
Her prey had been a large bat native to the Stone Field east of Nebula, whose kind were occasionally seen around the great city but usually shied back from the populous home of the Bat Tribe. Cytha knew how to hunt the little wing-rodents, as she’d done so for sport as a child, letting the creatures go after pretending to make conversation with them. Now, finishing the last significant bit of meat on the ripped carcass, she almost couldn’t recognize it for what it was.
Wiping blood and fat gobs from her mouth, Cytha looked up—or rather, down, since she was hanging head-first—from her stony perch and surveyed the horizon. She was in a fold of the rocks, one of many which marred the otherwise-smooth Stone Field, a hiding place just right to stay out of long-range view. Not that the Noctis or Eclipsis people had such a thing. Still, better safe than sorry. She was waiting for that blasted Sun to whirl its way out of hiding, which would mark the time that it was safe to leave her own.
Not for the first time, she wondered why they had to have it during the day . . . the night was such a better time. Slowly, with obvious effort and frustrating frustrating lack of urgency, the Sun’s warm rays reached out in the east, in the narrow sky slot between Earth and cloud. It seemed as reluctant to shine as she was eager to for the day.
Time to go. They can’t kill me now.
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“Now, laddie, what did I tell you about going off on your own? Hmm? That’s the third time this week.” Lane’s nana smiled at him immediately after the words, though as usual it did nothing to soften the admonition. Such was her way. She never spoke for nothing, or so she would say, but she often smiled for seemingly no reason. Just old enough to have shrunk to the height he’d grown to at ten years old, the woman was stout of frame and wide of face. She was also his sole caretaker.
The boy sighed. “Yes, Nana.” These words were said, but not felt. He tried to appease her, but . . . well, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. This time, she simply nodded over and over, not letting on whether she believed him sincere.
After a moment, her smile changed to a different one. “Where were you, anyway?”
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“Just seeing what was at the market,” he mumbled.
She stared at him, chin trembling slightly in that old-person way of hers. “Mmhmm . . . and are you going to tell me what you’ve been hiding from me?”
Lane’s eyes widened, not in surprise but—to his slight shame—in annoyance. She was trying to be his shepherd, as was her way. He would have wanted to tell her, and he could tell she wasn’t accusing him harshly, more asking for him to come clean so she could help him. Did the old woman suspect? Of course she did—who was he kidding?
“I . . .” he began, but sputtered out quickly and switched to a hotheaded response. “Why do you always act like I’m hiding something, Nana?” He was unsure why the words came out so harshly, yet he didn’t feel like apologizing. Of course, she simply stared at him, unblinking, until he looked away and said, “Sorry, Nana. I didn’t mean it. It’s just . . . I . . .”
She reached up a stubby hand and patted him on the shoulder. “Come on, sonny. We’ll continue this, and you can do your thinking on the way so you don’t block the street with your words, hmm?”
Lane glanced around the Megeth street where they stood. A few people had moved around them while they talked, but they weren’t exactly blocking the street. Nana was simply exercising her thinning wit. He nodded glumly and followed her back to the house. They’d been on their way back when she’d tracked him down. She’d left him for an hour to go on errands, instructing him to stick around the plaza and not wander off. Naturally, he had instead slinked off, though not for something silly. Foolish, maybe, but not silly.
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CHARACTERS
* Cytha (SITH-uh)—An Eclipsis slave girl born in the house of Wylo Entras.
* Adris—A warrior slave-son who raids and brings loot to Lord Entras, just like Cytha.
* Fidge—Biological slave-son of Wylo Entras.
* Sim—Fidge's elder brother.
* Wylo Entras (WHY-lo EN-trahs)—A greedy Noctis warlord.
* Lane—A young Snowborn boy of great talent. Lives with his kind Nana.
TERMS
* Earth, The—An immeasurable continent that looms over the entire sky. Forbidden to all save those whom the Magnates choose each year.
* Order Eclipsis—Most prideful and influential of the Bat Tribe orders, known for their bloodthirst and their ability to shift between human and bat faces.
* Order Noctis—Powerful, sneaky, but generally lacking ambition.
* Nebula—Capital of the Bat Tribe, home of all three orders. The city is made up of a complex series of tunnels built into a large crater in the Earth.
* Megeth (meh-GETH)—Hometown of Solis and his fellow Tapiq people.
* Elementalist—One born with a Kinship to an elemental force. They usually lack wings.
KINSHIPS
* Flameborn—Kin of flame. They form their own wings as needed from tongues of fire that sprout from their backs.
* Dustborn—Artists of soil and dust. They fly with wings created from nearby dust particles.
* Windborn—Wind kin. Unlike other elementalists, these often grow wings just like any other, though some possess heightened abilities allowing them to fly without wings—and thus lacking them.
* Waveborn (aka Watchers)—Keepers of the invisible wards that protect the sky islands from falling hazards. Also, those with the rare ability of sound manipulation.
* Dewborn—These control moisture and redirect water.
* Stormborn—Creators of small storms and electrical currents.
* Snowborn—Bringers of frost and snow on a small scale.
* Sunborn—Manipulators of light.
* Beastborn—These rare kind, seen largely in the northwestern isles, come in different orders according to a certain class of living creature.
* Cragborn—Manipulators of stone.