Suncatcher (Sapphic Western Wanderers #1)

1. A Lost Sunset

A Lost Sunset

Driz had never seen the sun. She witnessed its aftermath, when the pinks and golds bloodied the sky, and its coming, when it turned her body stiff with stone. Day after day, year after year. But she never saw the sun, and she never would.

She stretched her dusty wings, a shudder running through her as she woke for the night.

The red dirt shifted, soft beneath her claws, as she stalked to the edge of the cliff.

A canyon and basin lay before her, the twisted skeletons of trees watching over pockets of a greener generation.

Even the plants cared for their young, in their own way. Driz envied them.

She tilted her face to the darkening sky and inhaled. The hint of rain drifted to her, along with a quiet call she barely heard. A bellow reduced to an echo. Rare excitement filled her limbs.

It was time for a Meeting.

She leapt from her perch, scattering debris down the sheer cliff as she took to the air. Her wings extended, catching her descent and pushing her back up through the sky, creating her own path as always. But tonight, she had a set destination.

The eroded landscape fell beneath her as she flew higher.

Sharper mountains jutted from the north and far west. Pillars and canyons sporadically gave way to gentler plains and bluffs toward the east, some made of nothing more than cracked red earth, scorched and cursed from the Sundering War, and some untouched and rustling with fertile life.

Splashes of lights burned as the world darkened.

A few lone fires sparkled here and there, but the brightest lights were the towns and communities of humans. Fascinating.

On another night, Driz would have dropped lower to observe them from a distance. But not tonight.

She let herself soar and drift toward the tallest segment in the spine of towering outcroppings that ran along the mountainous region to the west. As she drew closer, she noticed others approaching as well, more of her kind drawn to the bellow. Driz’s excitement grew.

She landed on the edge of the open, flat crest of the formation. Her thighs contracted to absorb the impact, bringing her down to one hand in a crouch. Beside her, the thuds of several others reverberated as she furled and folded her wings behind herself, standing to join the crowd.

A mix of slickrock skin in tans and reds blurred with more purples and grays of granite and limestone. Sinewy wings twitched as the crowd shifted, none of them easy around so many others. Hardly anyone spoke.

Driz’s eye was immediately drawn to a large gray gargoyle with white quartz speckled across her face, named Mist. Driz’s heart started beating faster. Driz had first noticed her about ten Meetings ago.

When Driz took a step closer, Mist glanced toward her and edged quickly away.

As they waited and their number grew from a few dozen to around one hundred, Driz scanned the faces, but no one met her gaze. So she walked over to her mother, Torrent.

“Drizzle,” Torrent greeted curtly, her voice gravelly and eyes skittering sideways.

“Hello.”

At Torrent’s side stood a youngling, the tops of his growing horns only reaching to Driz’s ribs. He would be on his own after tonight too. Mothers raised young until their fifth Meeting. Then they moved on. Driz had considered offering for him to stay with her for a while, but that wasn’t done.

“Hello, Gully,” she said instead, smiling at him, and he tentatively smiled back.

“I know what you did,” Torrent snapped, her wings jittering. She grabbed Driz’s wrist. “Take it back.”

The physical contact startled Driz so much, it took her a moment to realize what was pressed into her palm. Three glass beads on a shortened string glinted in the moonlight. Driz had given it to Gully at the end of the last Meeting. “I thought he might like it.”

“We have laws, Drizzle. Do not encourage him. Do not speak to him.” Without another word, Torrent shuffled Gully to the other side of the crowd.

Driz didn’t follow. She had known Torrent might find the broken bracelet but had hoped one simple gift would be fine. Apparently not.

When no more shapes flew through the air, the designated speaker stood on the raised nub. She was large even for a gargoyle, her coloring of deep basalt. She cleared her throat, dark wings rustling.

“Welcome to the three-hundred-and-twenty-fourth Meeting.” Her voice carried over the silent crowd, all somber at the reminder of the passing time.

Even though none of them were old enough to remember the events that caused the first Meeting, neither could they forget the death of their god.

And with her, the purpose that bound them together.

When Garga had fallen in the war, the original gargoyles—those crafted by her hands—had been left without a charge to protect. Fragmented instincts turned into destructive obsession. The goyles who survived learned to avoid attachments, and created their laws to keep them safe.

Now things like gifts were forbidden because they led to treacherous emotions and connections.

“Does anyone wish to speak?” the speaker asked.

Silence hung for long moments. “The rumblings grow louder. More metal beasts. More humans arriving.”

The deep voice came from an old goyle, his age showing in fine hairline fractures through his face and skin that the stone sleep had stopped repairing. It wouldn’t be long until he crumbled. Perhaps another winter or two.

The speaker nodded, and the crowd turned as one to stare at the horizon. “Each year, they encroach farther. We will need to move west again. I will find us a new place before the next Meeting.”

Everyone shifted.

“We have two fledging youngsters,” the speaker continued. “Meet Gully and Estuary.”

All eyes swept the small ones, but didn’t linger long.

“Does anyone else wish to speak?” the speaker asked. No one did. So she nodded. “That is all.”

She leapt into the air, her wings snapping outward as she took off. Several others followed, quickly diverting in different directions.

The brief Meeting was over, but many remained, including Driz.

Another goyle, Drain, edged closer to her. “Mate?” he asked, as he did each Meeting.

“No,” Driz replied, as she did each Meeting.

He nodded and directed his question to someone else.

Driz had observed mating. She knew it was necessary for offspring, but it didn’t appeal to her. Her eyes settled on Mist again. At least, the idea of it hadn’t appealed to her until she’d noticed Mist.

She had been working up the courage to approach for the last three Meetings, and wouldn’t miss her chance yet again.

Driz walked over to her.

“Hello,” Driz said, nerves churning her stomach and twitching her wings.

Mist frowned, leaning away warily.

Driz understood she couldn’t mate with Mist. But an invisible pull drew Driz to her anyway. And she still wasn’t certain how to ask. “Would you like to partner?” Driz tried.

Confusion twisted Mist’s face. “No.”

Driz nodded and stepped back hastily. Mist moved away and accepted a standard mating request. She took to the air with her chosen companion, joining the other pairs circling upward toward the stars.

They collided in flight, his wings curling over and around her as they dove, falling and tangling. Driz wanted to be in his place.

Something hot, angry, and overwhelming burned through her. She spun on her toes, ignoring a tentative request from a young goyle, and hurled herself off the edge of the cliff. Alone. As she always was. As they all always were. It was their fate, and their nature now.

Driz flew east, toward the faint line of light that had nothing to do with the elusive sun.

She soared above the land, the disappointment and rejection of the night rushing through her along with the wind over her wings. Her unwanted gift dug into her palm. The glass beads cracked and shattered easily, and she let the shards fall into the darkness.

A twinkling campfire caught her eye. A welcome distraction.

She banked left and landed a distance away, approaching on foot.

As she neared, she heard the sound of voices and the wonderfully strange buzzing music humans made.

It lured her, the call tugging at her insides and soothing her agitated heart.

She passed their sleepy mules who didn’t mind her presence. When she was calm, they sensed her only as a strange moving stone, not a threat.

A large boulder rested between her and the human’s camp, and Driz pressed against it.

She couldn’t make out many of their words.

They spoke rapidly, their speech slurring and blurring together.

Someone laughed, a loud, boisterous sound, and Driz’s mouth tugged into a reflexive smile.

Safely hidden behind the barrier of stone, she was a little less alone.

She peered at their three wagons, longing to go rummage through them, certain they were full of treasures. A rifle leaned against the side of one, its barrel shimmering with the faint residue of blight, along with traces of gunpowder.

Driz shivered. It was common to find raw blight in the wild, but its distillation and purposeful use unsettled her. Like with everything else, humans had figured out how to exploit the powerful remains of the dead gods for themselves.

Goyles were forbidden from interacting with blight. It cursed its users. Driz was already enough of an abomination to risk touching the stuff.

Driz stayed there, melding with the stone, listening until the crackle of the fire quieted and the music and conversation stopped.

When she eased away from the boulder, several alarmed beetles fled from where they’d been burrowing into her hair.

She caught one and ate it, enjoying the crunch between her teeth.

She moved on, flying east again, to where a dark unnatural line snaked its way over the land. As day walkers, humans had difficulty at night, their eyes not equipped for it, despite their fires and lights.

No one was around when Driz swooped down at the broken end of the line. Piles of materials lay stacked and ready. Wood and iron impaled the earth as the humans staked their claim to this land that was not theirs. It wasn’t Driz’s either, but she didn’t want to have to leave it.

She poked around, finding bits of food and paper wrappings. A pair of old worn boots rested by a rock. Driz picked them up, inspecting them curiously before replacing them.

The metal stakes they used were long and weighty. She rolled one between her hands and glanced at the large pile.

They wouldn’t miss just one.

Driz landed with a splash in the shallow stream. Pressing herself to the wet rock, she edged through the gap behind the waterfall, which wasn’t much more than a trickle after the absence of rain since the spring. It took only one step to duck into the open-topped grotto beyond.

She added the railway tine alongside the other treasures. After some consideration, she placed it between a dented metal pot, still charred with black soot, and a pair of looking glasses made of rusted wire, though one of the lenses was missing and the remaining one was cracked. Driz didn’t mind.

While she was at it, she reordered her glass bottles. She’d previously grouped them by color, but now she made an alternating pattern of green and brown and clear, with her favorite blue one in the center.

Pleased, she took one last look over her collection before ducking back through the gap and beneath the water, wetting her wings and enjoying the sensation of it sliding along the joints and webbing.

A muted firefox had wandered into the canyon, and it dipped its delicate snout into the stream.

Driz froze so as not to startle the skittish creature, and a second younger one trotted from the shrubs.

As it drank too, a quivering silver fish caught its attention.

The kit cocked its head this way and that, and then it pounced, splashing through the water, chasing the elusive flash.

The older firefox flicked its whiskers and flattened its large ears, looking thoroughly annoyed.

Driz laughed. Both foxes glanced at her before scampering away as quickly as they appeared.

“Sorry,” Driz called, though she knew they could not understand her. “I will leave.”

The firefoxes did not want Driz’s company either. Perhaps the other goyles were correct, and it was better to be alone.

Driz left the canyon for her guests and kicked up to find a better place to watch the start of the dawn.