Chapter Thirteen
I stared into the space where Ang had stood just a moment before. But he was gone, his footsteps echoing up the stairs. My eyes fell to the floor where he’d stood. There were a number of small, black, smoking marks. Lightning strikes.
Feet like lead, I followed up the stairs so slowly, there was no way that I was catching up with Ang. So I headed to my room. I went over to Fin’s door. He was still fully dressed, but on his side now. Curled up fast asleep in much the same position he used when he was little. When he was here.
I rubbed my hair.
We’d been here too long. Eleven, no, twelve years. By the Gods, what had I done?
I tried to sleep, but it didn’t happen. I took to walking the corridors. Breakfast tasted like ash. People talked to me. Fin rushed in, grabbed some hardtack, and rushed off again. So, still not going to get to talk to him.
My shift started. As Flight Sergeant, I had to collect assignments from Flight Captain Ang Shi.
I knocked, entered, requested the assignments and he passed them over.
I thanked him and left. I handed out the assignments and returned to my desk, because whatever else was going on, I had a job to do. For now at least.
Fenwick delivered my punishment. He came to my office to do it.
Though I was on desk duties that day, it seemed part of my punishment was no flying for twenty days.
The other part of my punishment, Fenwick also delivered.
Five lashes across the back. And every one burned into my soul.
I deserved this for putting Salvadora at risk.
No you don’t, she told me clearly.
Once Fenwick was done, he helped me back to my rooms.
“Why aren’t you healing yourself?” he asked.
“Deserve this,” I said between painful steps. He helped me sit at the dining table in my room.
“Does Fin deserve to come home to seeing you bleed all over the floor?”
No. Perhaps I was doing my boy a disservice, he should see the aftermath of discipline, get used to it before going to college. Still, I reached out my own magic and imagined the wounds closing, healing and leaving no scars.
Of course, eventually, the inevitable happened. I had to pass reports to Flight Captain Shi.
I knocked, and he called for me to come in. The expected charge to the atmosphere wasn’t there as I stepped in and passed over my reports.
“Flight Sergeant Segast.” He didn’t look at me. The swallow was only just audible.
“The monthly reports, sir.”
“Thank you.”
I turned to leave.
“Wait.”
I turned back. I watched him take a breath.
“You should know that your requests for reassignment were not denied by me.”
That was … whatever.
“But your resignation is.”
“Sir—”
“Two years, Flight Sergeant,” he said. “Two years and Fin will leave for one of the colleges of Riders. You cannot follow him there. You will not be able to protect him there. Without your position as a Rider, and without your son, what would you do?”
* * *
What would I do?
That question haunted me. Without my son, without my purpose as a Rider, I would have nothing, and nowhere to go. I would have completely failed Fin and by extension, Sasha. I would even have failed in my duties to Salvadora.
Don’t be stupid, you’ve never failed me.
Yet that was the time I was numb. In unguarded moments, the same scenes played out in my head.
Sasha’s death, the mess of her body when we recovered it.
Fin’s fall from his first flight, the way my mind turned that into a horror that it hadn’t been.
I was torturing my self - knowing that it was all fallacy.
Yes, Sasha died horribly. But Fin was fine. He’d got up, he’d laughed.
Then there were dreams of others I’d lost, and suddenly all the old images were overrun with visions of Fin in those positions. Fin flying in formation, Fin dying in those seafarer engagements.
I even reached the point where I was no longer annoyed by the missing pages from the newssheets. What did it matter what happened in the wider world? It wasn’t my concern. I wouldn’t see it.
I felt I was failing the service even being there. Yet I functioned. I supported Fin wherever I could. I did whatever duty I was assigned. But I was numb inside. Cold.
Unkea was grey, that never changed. There hadn’t been a seafarer raid in the entire time I had been there. We hadn’t even had sight of a seafarer ship. It did make me wonder why any of us were there.
Why had Ang Shi released lightning in the stable?
It was only the second time I had ever seen him release it on land.
He practiced his skill out at sea, where the lightning could do no harm, sometimes in the practice room built for us to work on our magical abilities, but never in the fortress itself, never near unwarned dragons.
So why had he released lightning when I resigned?
Had I even really resigned? If Ang Shi wouldn’t accept the resignation, what was I to do?
Eventually, after a month at most, I did the only thing I could. I went to the nest and I hugged Dora, then I went to talk to Fenwick. The Stable Master listened, poured me way too much whisky, listened some more, poured some more. And then, finally, just let me cry.
“For rod’s sake,” I sniffed and sobbed. “I never cried like this when Sasha died.”
“Which is probably why you need to do it now.” He sloshed more liquor into my glass. “You know being a Rider is dangerous.”
I nodded like a dolt.
“And you know Fin might die training for it?”
I hiccupped and nodded.
“Rod, that’s a terrifying thought.” He took a big swig of his own drink. “Points.” He paused. That his words were slurring was a good sign of how much we’d got through. “I had point.” He frowned. “Din’t I?” He looked at me.
“Dunno.”
“Yes!” He suddenly sat straighter.
Or not. The world was spinning, and so was the room.
“Point is, reality hit. Fin as a Rider. Fin in danger.” He shook his head. “That scares me, must you.”
He took another sip and encouraged me to follow, a mistake I willingly made.
“Scares bring back all prior … scares.” He burped. “Making numb not good. Be scare. Be… ang…”
Be Ang? Angry? I don’t know what else he was trying to tell me to be, because he passed out at that point. I wasn’t far behind.
Jimny found us the next morning. His wake-up call wasn’t easy.
Skull-splitting, in fact. But between them, they got me over the numbness.
Though getting over the hangover felt like it took forever.
Flight Captain Shi called us both to his office.
Chewed us both out. Said he’d punish us if we didn’t already look like we’d punished ourselves.
He dismissed us, and I’m reasonably certain that I heard him laughing as we staggered away.