Page 1 of Sunder

Tether

They thought Orma an odd child.

She hadn’t realised. Not at first. She’d thought it perfectly ordinary to see the gently shimmering threads that danced around. To feel the peace that came when the colours matched and settled.

She hadn’t known to keep it secret, to tuck it away and not to tell. Not her parents. Not the healers they brought to her, with tight lips and crinkled eyes while they sat and talked with her.

It wasn’t real. That’s what they said at first.

Some sort of malformation in her mind made her think she saw such things.

Another simply accused her of telling tales, to which she had not known to keep her offense to herself, and stated with her few words and mighty indignation that he was a mean man and she would not talk to him any longer.

He’d frowned. Looked to her parents and insisted his assessment was correct. That she was a wilful, ill-mannered child, and they should reconsider their approach to her upbringing.

She’d given her mother a worried look, because she hadn’t meant to be bad, and she didn’t really want anything to change in her home.

She’d been picked up. Held close. The man thanked, and a kiss was placed on the top of her head, and she hadn’t been sent away, so she must have done nothing too awful after all.

Except the whispers started.

Parents who quieted as soon as they noticed her in the room. Smiles too thin, ones that were not remedied by her arms flung about middles, but fluttering about the edges of the rooms, showing off how proficient she’d become with her wings.

They’d praise. They’d tell her how clever she was.

But their eyes would be wrong, and only later did she know it was worry.

Thick and terrible.

Because...

Because she could see things she wasn’t supposed to.

Could seehimbefore she was supposed to.

They did not take her out often. Overstimulating, they said. The neighbouring towers were all right. The courtyard, where a few of the fledglings would flutter about and play and paid very little attention to bloodlines or family ties.

She’d stopped telling them when their colours matched when a boy had pushed her because the girl she said was for him had feathers too dull and her hair wasn’t combed, and she was mean for saying he’d be with someone so un-pretty.

The other girl had cried.

And he’d looked stricken.

And Orma promised herself she’d keep quiet after that.

Mama had tried to explain. Had told her that bonds happened in their own time—it was not for her to play with matches just because she liked the colours they made.

She’d listen. Now there was a knot in her stomach and she felt very near to tears herself. When the other children looked at her with a wary sort of suspicion that she might come up to themnext with her talk of threads and bonds and all sorts of nonsense that wouldn’t matter for a great long while.

She was supposed to keep to the courtyard. Mama was very insistent on that, and she’d never thought to disobey before.

But her wings moved of their own accord, and she found herself over the high wall before she’d even made any conscious thought of doing so. She hesitated.

Didn’t want her mother cross with her. Not when she seemed to anger people so easily already.

She hovered.

Settled on the wall itself. Straddled the thick stone so one leg was still on the courtyard side, which surely meant that she was still inside, just as she’d been instructed.

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