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Vika isn’t old enough to find the words for who she is, or at least, to say them out loud. She’s only just old enough to join her family in presenting themselves to the Serenes royals, her head coming up to Mom’s hip, where a bag is crowded with scrolls of all the trade deals Mom wants to make. Vika has no head for business, and she’s pretty sure that won’t change when she’s old, but they’re all staying in Serenes until the next full moon, when there’s some big all-night festival. So she has to stand next to Mom in the throne room, and she has to smile (she can’t), and she has to wear these ugly baggy pants that are both too loose and too tight in all the wrong places.
Her family brought clippings from the best trees in Kilvas, which she thinks is a dumb offering, because the herons in Serenes already have all the best trees. On the cliffs back home, Vika always feels exposed, having to transform and spread her wings to shed that discomfort. The trees here reach down as if to beckon her in, as if to say, we will shelter you.
Vika’s branch is covered in fuzzy little buds. She’s meant to start the offerings by stepping forward and handing it to the youngest princess, a girl her age—that’s all the princess is, as she keeps reminding herself. When she meets the girl’s gaze, however, she freezes. Those bright eyes send her own scattering, unable to pick where to land—the princess’s draping skirt, the oversized ribbons on her sash, the ivy braided into hair that would spill to the ground were she not floating slightly above it, her beaded slippers tipped down. Things Vika wants to claw away from the girl and drown herself in.
Mom nudges her with a wing, sending her stumbling forward, though the touch isn’t strong. She bows her head and holds out the branch with both hands. Smooth skin brushes hers as the girl snatches it up.
Even her skin. Even that, Vika wants to wear.
Surely that’s how everyone reacts to royalty, though she never felt that way in the audience of Prince Naesala or his elder, and her family manages to finish the presentation without fumbling. While Vika resists groaning at Mom about how hungry she is, the princess—Leanne, Mom has reminded Vika over and over—flits toward her and grabs her hand. Instinctively, Vika yanks away. She doesn’t like being touched, not unless she asks to be, like when she pretends her wings are sore so she can ride on Dad’s back.
Leanne’s smile inverts. Vika’s itchy shirt sticks to her back as she glances around to see if anyone noticed her snubbing a princess. It’s not like Leanne could understand if she begged for forgiveness, not that Vika could pull that off. She offers her hand like it’s a prized branch, the only thing she can think to do, and it’s enough to revive Leanne’s smile as she takes Vika’s hand to tug her toward a side door.
Vika barely has a chance to give Mom a desperate look, receiving only a distracted nod and a mouthed behave before Mom returns her full attention to the older royals. Whether she’s similarly caught in their aura, straining to understand their speech, or just focused on her business, Vika can’t guess before Leanne drags her away.
At first, Vika thinks Leanne has pulled her out of the palace. Then she realizes it’s impossible to tell where the palace begins and ends. It’s not one big building, but a series of them, built in and around the trees. Some are on the ground, while others she can only see the bottom of if she looks up and squints. Some are built in wood painted with glyphs that must do something, because the walls look like marbled stone until Vika touches one and feels the grain, while others look like trees until Leanne bounces inside. It’s in one of these that she flies up a spiral staircase and enters a room that couldn’t be anything but her own.
Just a girl her age, Vika reminds herself. It’s normal to invite each other into their private chambers. Or Vika assumes—she’s not good at making friends. Despite being inside, the walls look like tree bark, decorated with paintings that look like flowers and flowers that look like they’ve been painted. Leanne heads straight for a bowl of nuts coated in sap. Food fit for a princess, Vika supposes, though it doesn’t do much for how peckish she is. She risks chipping a tooth on a few anyway while Leanne grabs a woven basket overflowing with ribbons. She sits down on a bed like moss, a gauzy net hanging above it to stave off insects, to rifle through the basket.
It’s all so much it should make Vika gag, but Leanne fits so naturally into it, and that, more than pretty clothes or hair, is what hooks its talons in Vika. Imagine not only fitting into one’s skin, but also her whole nation, like it was all grown to suit her.
Leanne chirps words she can’t understand and beckons her. Vika takes wooden steps to her bedside, then, at her repeated beckoning, kneels—burning—at her feet. Giggling, Leanne shakes her head and pats the bed beside her.
Just a girl my age, Vika thinks as she clambers up to sit. The blankets aren’t moss, but they’re fuzzy like it, and much more cushioned than Vika’s straw mattress. Leanne selects a red bow from her basket and holds it up by Vika’s ear. Vika freezes while Leanne clips the bow to her hair before crawling around the other side to clip on a matching bow.
Studying her work, Leanne claps her hands, then flies over to an ornate wardrobe. She returns with a dress as loose as hers, with flowing sleeves and a bow in the back that sorta-kinda matches the ones in Vika’s hair. With a grin, she holds it up to Vika’s shoulders, letting it spill over her lap.
Vika burns and burns and burns. Why is she being taunted like this? Is it because she messed up while giving Leanne the branch?
Leanne’s smile dims. She shakes the dress for emphasis, babbling words even though they both know it’s a lost cause. But the words don’t sound like mockery, even if Vika doesn’t know what is being sincerely said. Only that Leanne is sharing her food and ribbons and dress.
The dress. Vika’s cheeks burn for other reasons. All at once, she remembers that herons can read hearts. Which means every time Vika’s greedily envied Leanne’s things, Leanne has known.
So why would she offer them? Can heron princesses just get away with showering random crow boys with gifts, or…
Or has she read Vika’s heart, the things she can’t put into words?
Carefully, shakily, she holds the dress to herself. Smiling again, Leanne lets go.
The herons are peaceful, but even if they can’t have Vika’s head, there must be some punishment for wearing a princess’s clothes…or for turning a princess down. With no way to know, the desire to wear the dress wins out. She pulls it on straight over her clothes, then lets Leanne tie the bow in the back. As Vika twirls above the floor, the dress floats, and for a moment, she floats, too.
Leanne claps her hands again, and Vika recalls how exposed she feels when standing on the cliffs, and thinks how different it is to actually be seen.
Vika packs several days worth of food, a change of clothes (can’t rendezvous with a princess without freshening up), and a seashell she spent ages picking out. Leanne’s letter mentioned that she’s never seen the sea, so Vika has settled on a conch shell so Leanne can put it to her ear and hear the ocean’s music. Even though Vika can’t see shit at night, she waits until then to sneak out, knowing her parents’ night vision isn’t any better than hers.
It’s not that they wouldn’t have let her meet up with Leanne, but they’d have turned it into a whole thing. As if Mom hadn’t met Dad while sneaking around with pirate crews behind her parents’ backs. But making a formal visit, as they do every few years, sounds like a pain—Vika is just meeting up with a friend. A young woman her age.
By the time she’s made it to Begnion, her wings are killing her, but she can’t stop to rest until she’s far away from any beorc. Their sight doesn’t seem great even in daylight, or they’d notice the crow passing overhead is massive.
As she approaches Serenes, it doesn’t take any vision at all to realize something is wrong. She could never forget how the forest beckons, how just strolling through it settles everything that usually prickles inside her. Now, it feels like she’s plunged herself into the sea.
When the forest comes into view, she realizes how wrong she was; she can’t imagine a drier sight. The lush canopy has disappeared. Rather than grass and moss, ash coats the ground. Vika hovers while she processes the sight, like the world is somehow playing a practical joke on her, and the trees will pop out of the ground while Leanne laughs.
Nothing stirs. Forgetting her sore wings, Vika dives down.
She lands at the forest’s edge, or the streak of grey that now marks it. The path she walks down has none of the mushrooms Leanne described, and she has to fly over several charred, fallen trunks. Just as she’s wondering if this is even the right path, she arrives at the meeting place. She’s still not great at reading the ancient language, but this is definitely the spot. Even with everything around the pond burnt, the water kept the cat tails safe, their fuzz the only bit of life left. Not even bugs buzz beneath the charcoal. There’s not a peep from the frogs Leanne said gathered here.
It’s not fair that Leanne described all these fun things, and now Vika can’t see them. It’s petty, but she can’t grab onto anything else, can’t fathom what’s happened here or what it means.
The stench of smoke sticks to everything. This has to have been recent; that explains why the herons haven’t just sung it all back to life. Maybe they have some fancy ceremony they have to do for magic that big.
Vika paces by the pond, stirring up ash, which sticks to her boots. So much for showing them off to Leanne. She probably doesn’t have a hair out of place, even now.
It’s silent enough for Vika to hear her breath stutter. Not a bug, a frog—or a bird.
Vika claws at her hair until it escapes its tiny ponytail. If she tears the forest apart looking for Leanne, she risks missing her or running into danger. If she goes home now, she’ll get the scolding of a lifetime with nothing to show for it. Still, she can’t just wait here forever like some chump until she runs out of food and daylight.
She never learns what decision she would have made, because footsteps make her whirl around. Instead of white wings and a giggle of a smile, Vika sees white robes and a man’s pinched face. It’s the last thing she sees before a flash of light blinds her.
The day after Vika snuck off, her parents must have noticed. It’s been days, now. They’ll search Kilvas first, of course, but pirates-turned-merchants have connections. They’ll send search parties across the sea. They’ll hear about what happened to Serenes and put it together.
Days pass. Maybe there really is nobody left in that forest, nobody to get the word out. Maybe her parents will find the letter that she—that she took with her.
Forget Serenes. Maybe they’ll look into the slave trade, instead.
Vika waits, and waits, and waits.
Never in a million years does Vika expect salvation to come in the form of a shouting beorc. Not even the tiger beside him manages to convince her she’s really free, not even when they’re out in the desert, a sea of sand between her and any beorc nobles.
She’s always been the quiet type, struggling to find her voice as a young girl who couldn’t proclaim herself a girl. Even her quips have since been beaten out of her. Outside the hideout, she falls to her knees and screams and screams.
The loud beorc screams with her. It snaps her out of it, and she stares at him, registering the way his voice cracks. He sits with her and scoops up a handful of sand that sifts through his fingers.
“I’ve only got my fireballs. I don’t know how to fix things with words. But Muarim’s a good listener. When I told him I was a boy, he listened. So—oh, blast, I don’t know if you want to talk about that, or about anything. Uh, are you hungry?”
She stares at him. Her own voice sounds unfamiliar, hoarse.
“You gonna cook with fireballs? Sounds gross.”
He laughs, and it’s not the laugh that saves her. It’s realizing that she can crack a stupid joke. That she hasn’t forgotten how.
Hungry enough for gross fireball food, she rises and follows him inside.
Vika hovers nearby while Prince Rafiel clasps the sending stone to his heart, bowing over it with his eyes closed where he sits on a boulder. Spying a bead of dew on his eyelash, Vika shuffles away; she’s perfected the awkward mid-air shuffle. He’s probably just overcome from seeing Serenes and talking to his siblings. Those are definitely happy tears that are just embarrassing for Vika to look at, not bad news tears she needs to run away from.
They’re not in the forest proper anymore. The memory of that blasted mansion is the only thing stopping her from feeling the pull of Serenes. Tormod told her how Reyson and—and Leanne sang and brought it back. Or at least, it’s alive; she doesn’t know what’s become of that wooden palace and that princess. She doesn’t dare imagine anything she hasn’t seen with her own eyes. Even skirting the edge of the forest, though, it’s almost too vibrant, humming with life in a dead world.
Maybe Ashera had a point, smiting everything else except this. The kind of poetic irony Vika doesn’t have any more of a mind for than business.
There isn’t much to do on the way to the Tower of Guidance but let her mind wander; despite her non-stop scouting, none of Ashera’s fanatics jump them again, and the tower soon rises into view. It’s the opposite of a palace that melts into the landscape, stabbing up like it’s trying to cut everything else out of the sky. So even goddesses have something to compensate for.
Spotting the army at its base, she braces herself for a fight, but they’re all allies. At least for now. As her group meets up with them, she doesn’t manage to hide the fact that she’s searching the crowd of tentative teammates for a true friend. Amidst the grimy armor and tired beorc and lion manes, Leanne’s flowing blonde hair and sparkling eyes stand out more than any tower.
Vika doesn’t wait. She shoots over to her, feathers fluffed up. Years in captivity have given her plenty of time to think about how it was all Leanne’s fault, for not showing up when she was supposed to, for reaching out to an ornery crow girl in the first place instead of befriending whoever heron princesses are meant to befriend.
Of course it was actually the beorcs’ fault. Of course Leanne must have suffered at least as much as Vika, losing her haven and family and all of heronkind. Of course Vika is overjoyed enough at their reunion to take to the skies in a mating dance here and now.
As she jerks to a stop, lighting up Leanne’s face with recognition, everything stewing together in Vika bubbles out into the only thing she can think to say.
“Why do you get to have killer looks during the apocalypse?”
Because no, Leanne hasn’t managed to avoid getting dust from the road on her dress, or having artfully bedraggled hair—but damn.
Leanne laughs. “Kill…enemy?”
“Who taught you about killing?”
She doesn’t need Leanne’s powers to read her sad smile.
They end up crowded together in a tent just big enough to accommodate their wings; nobody’s had time to give the princess better accommodations, and she wanted to get out of view of the bonfire. One of the cooks made a stew of mushrooms and root vegetables that Vika has wound up eating, too, since there’s not a lot of meat to go around. It sloshes in her stomach when Leanne takes her hands. Leanne’s are dry, not calloused like Vika’s, but no longer smooth as a babe’s.
“You…come to Serenes. After,” Leanne says.
Vika stares at the ground. “I’ve given up on visiting people.”
“Not like last time. Promise.”
Vika closes her eyes, the only way she can avoid meeting Leanne’s and being taken in. Leanne squeezes her hands, her frail fingers surprisingly firm in their grasp.
“I share clothes,” Leanne says, and Vika’s eyes pop open. Her cheeks heat in a way she didn’t think they still could.
After all, a princess is just a woman her age, and wearing Leanne’s clothes is different now that they’re women.
“You still don’t take no for an answer, do you?” Vika asked, and Leanne’s smile says enough.
Vika once told Micaiah that waiting for people who never come is hard. Turns out waiting for people who do eventually find their way back to her is, too.
But Leanne has waited just as long as her, so Vika decides there’s no sense in beating around the bush.
When Leanne’s brothers come to check on her, she’s in Vika’s lap, which is now covered in the soft fabric of Leanne’s dress. As for Leanne, she rocks Vika’s outfit better than Vika does—but as Leanne sticks her tongue out at the princes looking on in bemusement, Vika can only shrug, because really…what did she expect?
Somehow, she no longer minds.