Page 1 of All That Has Flown Beyond
CHAPTER ONE
The frost on the window distorted the figure that approached. Kaiyo could hear their cricket mouth chirping, the strange murmur of their heart. Their figure was gaseous at the edges, fading into the dark of the night.
They stood there. Kaiyo watched the splintered tendrils of ice retract from the heat of their form. They leaned down.Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.There was nothing in that face.
Kaiyo opened his eyes.
Everything was the blinding white of snow. He blinked. There was a paste on his tongue. A sound tried to wade its way through, cracking itself on his teeth. He blinked again, and the snow eclipsed.
“Kaiyo?” The sound was muffled by the cold, but he recognized that voice. Thea.
“Wh-at?” He tried to keep his eyelids steady. The snow was picking up again. It was burying him under.
The voice was saying something, but it was lost as the storm took him away.
***
The chirping was louder. The snow must have melted, leaving the world to echo.
“Hey.” Thea again. Kaiyo opened his eyes. He knew that room—or one just like it.
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit. Have some water.” The water battled the paste. Kaiyo wasn’t sure which won.
“Did we get them?” There was a moment of silence.
“Yeah. We got them.”
“Good.” He could feel the pain now, running across his side. “Is it bad?”
“Not as bad as last time.” The words were flat.
“Help me sit up.”
“No. Stay there, you’re gonna open up your stitches.”
“I just want to—”
“I don’t fucking care what you want.”
Kaiyo looked at Thea. The age on her face made her look young. The dark of her skin was mixed with ash, the thin bags below her eyes pressed darker by exhaustion, two pillows just out of reach. There were artificial rivers and lines on the topography of her face. Kaiyo had put them there. The whitewash of the hospital room revealed everything.
“Thea…”
“Don’t. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
The witches that attacked had been mercenaries, probably sent by someone who had heard about the small, weak pack run by teenagers. Kaiyo’s pack’s land wasn’t extensive, but their ties with it were old and it had wisened the earth. It made them an easy target, in theory at least.
“No, Kaiyo, it didn’t. You’re in the hospital, you almost…” Thea looked away.
“Almost. But I didn’t. And they were trying to get Ahmik! He’s our Kephale! We should—”
“It doesn’t matter that he’s the leader of the pack! You…God. There’s no point arguing with you. You always have an excuse.”
“I’m not…” Kaiyo sighed. “Ahmik is probably mad at me, huh?”
