Chapter 7

In the morning, the room still smelled of burnt wood. After their run, the sign language course was typical, which focused primarily on tactical signs ever since the ultimatum from Chaldea. Tactics went over a few different flying formations, though Neviah could tell the recruits didn’t learn much. Everyone was waiting for the last class of the day. When they moved to the flight field, Neviah dragged her feet while everyone else practically ran there.

“What’s the matter?” Corban asked.

The truth was she still felt awful for the embarrassment Corban had to go through, the snickers and wide-eyed stares people gave him for having a companion though he couldn’t fly. While everyone flew around today, they would remain on the ground, reminding the Chayya of his disability.

“I’m fine,” she said to her companion’s concerned face. Once they were on the field, everyone was told to mount up. Corban lowered his shoulder for her to get on, and there they were: the eyes, everyone watching them while pretending not to. There was pity on some of their faces, and that cut deeper than any snicker would have. They pitied Corban while they resented her for bringing the humiliation down on him.

She sat atop Corban while everyone’s feet were tied around their Chayya. The human instructor came up to them and raised an eyebrow to ask if Corban wanted Neviah’s feet tied. He nodded. She looked forward with her back straight. She didn’t know why he was making it worse by having her feet tied like the other recruits, but it added to the guilt.

“Today, we will practice taking off, gliding, and landing,” one of the Chayyoth instructors said. “The training ropes do not come off until next week. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

“First, a few reminders. Now, during the first flight, I saw some of the humans snapped around like an egg in a jar.” The recruits laughed. “This is because you Chayyoth are used to jumping straight into the air and pumping your wings.” The instructor demonstrated by jumping into the air and flapping his wings until he was ten feet off the ground. Straightening his wings, he let himself glide to the ground in a tight circle. “When you have a man on your back…or woman,” he added as an afterthought, “you need to run forward a few steps before going airborne. “This will prevent your companion from being jerked around as much. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

The Chayya instructor’s companion hopped on his back. “Gliding and landing will be the same technique you have used since you were young, but keep in mind you are heavier with your rider. This means you need a longer landing path. Follow me!” the Chayya finished as he ran forward a few steps and sprang into the air.

The human recruits all hunched low as the Chayyoth joined the instructors in the air. Asa and Rafal remained, standing a few feet from Neviah and Corban. The last pair of instructors on the field hesitated but after a nod from Corban, they took off after the other recruits.

“What are you guys doing here?” Neviah asked as Rafal walked them closer. No one answered her. “Wait, what’s going on?” She was missing something, she was sure.

When Rafal stopped, Asa said to Corban, “If this works, there is no going back.”

“Going back to what?” Neviah demanded. Their plan flashed through Neviah’s mind like a bolt of lightning. Was he trying to heal Corban? Could Asa heal old wounds?

“Do it,” Corban said determinedly.

When Asa reached out his hand and placed it on Corban’s neck, a wave of energy washed through Neviah’s body as Asa healed Corban. It felt like a cold shiver but warm, making them both gasp. Her vision suddenly went blurry. She took off her glasses to rub her eyes, but she didn’t need to. Her vision was perfect. She put them back on for a moment in disbelief. Blurry. When Asa healed Corban, he must have indirectly healed her by accident. Healed Corban. The Chayya was whole!

She looked on in astonishment as two brilliant white wings opened, one on each side of her, stretching for several feet in each direction. Without hesitation, Corban ran forward and pulled them into the air. Neviah dropped her glasses, closed her eyes, and grabbed ahold of as much mane as her hands could grasp.

Corban’s body jerked as they moved higher and higher. They spun once, taking them out of the gravity of Alya and out over Uru. Though Neviah saw nothing through her tightly shut eyes, she could feel the transition. There was a loud screeching sound in her ears that she couldn’t quite place. Then she realized it was coming from her. She was screaming uncontrollably at the top of her lungs. Her head swam, and she knew she was close to passing out. Her voice turned hoarse, and she sobbed into Corban’s mane.

Her body suddenly jerked as Corban landed. “Let me down!” she demanded, screaming it over and over until he cut the rope on her feet with a claw. She didn’t wait for him to lower his shoulder but jumped to the ground, where she stumbled and lay on her hands and knees, her body racked by uncontrollable sobs.

“What is wrong with you?” Corban demanded, the last word coming as a growl.

She ignored him, wondering if she should just go ahead and throw up or try to hold back the bile rising in her throat.

“Why are you so afraid!” he yelled, walking around to where he could see her face.

“I just am!” she yelled back, rising to her wobbly feet. They were standing face to face, though she had to crane her neck to look at him.

“You, the girl who marched into the desolate north, who faced a dragon, braved desert and sea, and fought through legions of undead to face the most feared abomination the world has yet to see, are afraid of something so trifling as heights?”

“I just told you I was! What can I say to drive this home for you, Corban? I-can’t-fly!”

“Why?” he yelled, his hot breath blasting in her face.

“I just can’t!” she repeated.

“Tell me!”

“Because that’s how I die!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. Silence fell as they stood staring at one another. Tears flowed freely from Neviah’s eyes. She rested her head against his cheek as she whispered, “That is how it ends. A fall kills me, Corban. I can’t fly, or I’ll die.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, wrapping a furry arm around her and pulling her close to his neck. “I didn’t know. Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive. It is my fault, you see.” She decided to be completely honest. “That’s why I chose you as my companion. I knew Re’u wanted me to ride a Chayya, so I thought if I chose a flightless one, I wouldn’t be going against his wishes, but at the same time, I wouldn’t have to fly. I’m so sorry. I know it’s been torture having me as a companion.”

“Fifteen years ago,” Corban began, his voice thick, “my companion Micah and I were sent with a host of one hundred companions to put an end to a group of Se’irim who were raiding a border village.”

Se’irim were squat and hairy creatures with claws that could cleave stone and teeth able to bite a spear in half.

“The Se’irim are not who we should have been worried about. They are fierce in combat but lack the ability to fly, making them easy targets for our archers. The enemy was quickly broken but we pursued them beyond our border into the mountains. There was a horde of several hundred Shedim waiting for us. They flew down from the highest peak with the sun behind them and were on us before we’d taken our eyes off our quarry below. We fought back fiercely and managed to gain the upper hand. There were humans with the Shedim, and they’d set up siege weapons.”

He paused to take a steadying breath. “Micah was fighting a particularly nasty Shedim above us when the bolt tore off my right wing.” He unfurled the wing and looked at it, now whole. “I remember spiraling out of control and seeing Micah a great distance from me, falling too. He didn’t scream or flap or anything that most falling riders do. He calmly looked over at me, smiled, and gave me a salute with his sword. Everything went black after that. Then the worst thing imaginable happened.”

“What?” she asked as fresh tears ran down her cheeks.

“I woke up,” he said, turning his head away.

“How did you survive the fall?” Neviah asked softly, stroking his mane.

“There was a forest below us. I broke several bones, and my remaining wing was a mess, all but ripped off, but the trees slowed my fall enough to spare my life.” He was silent a moment before saying, “Micah was not so fortunate.”

“I’m so sorry. I couldn’t imagine.”

“I was in a dark place for a long time,” Corban said. “I went through the motions, but I wasn’t really living. I was a cripple. Everyone pitied me. I couldn’t escape their staring eyes because I couldn’t fly. For so long, I wished I’d died at the foot of that mountain with Micah.”

He looked at Neviah. It was her turn to look away. She added to the humiliation when she chose him as her companion.

“Then, one day, out from behind the clouds came a girl, a stubborn girl who chose me as her companion.” Neviah smiled and turned to bury her face in his mane. She wasn’t stubborn. Was she? “I knew she was destined to be a rider, and so I had no choice but to accept. I was angrier than I’d been in years. I was angry until I met her friend Asa, who could heal someone simply by touching them.” She made a mental note to give Asa a good punch for leaving her out of their plans. Then again, she knew she would have fought the idea.

“And you realized you might be able to fly again.”

“Yes, and it terrified me.”

“No, it didn’t,” she insisted. The Chayya couldn’t possibly be afraid of anything.

“Try falling a hundred stories and see how it makes you feel.” He had a point. “But I wasn’t just afraid of being in the air again. I was afraid that by flying with you as my rider, I was fully replacing Micah. I felt like I was betraying him in a way, so I turned down Asa’s offer of healing.” He looked at her, but she was at a loss for words.

He was baring his soul to her. “Then, I got to know you. You have his spirit, Neviah. You’re a fighter, yet you are gentle. I’ve watched you with Victoria, and only one who truly loves her friends would be so patient. When Tanas sent his ultimatum through his Shedim messenger, I knew Re’u was telling me that it was time; I just didn’t want to admit it until now.”

Neviah nodded. “So, you overcame your fear and let Asa heal you.”

“Not at all,” he said. “I decided to let Asa heal me, yes. But if anything, I’m more afraid now than ever.” He couldn’t continue, but he didn’t have to. At last, Neviah understood where he was going.

“You are afraid I will die the same way Micah did.”

“And now you tell me you have prophesied your own death, a death brought about by a fall from a great height. I can’t lose another companion.”

She rubbed between his eyes as she put her forehead on his cheek. “Maybe we’ll die together,” she said.

Corban was quiet for a while. Then he suddenly laughed. “I believe that is the first time I’ve ever heard the words ‘maybe you will die’ in a way that was supposed to be comforting.”

She laughed, too, which felt so good after such a good cry. “I guess I don’t really know what I was trying to say.”

“Come,” he said as he started back toward the city. “Let’s walk back to Uru before it gets late. If we get lucky, maybe we will die on the way, so we won’t have to do the run in the morning.”

“I am an idiot, though, aren’t I?” Neviah said.

Corban raised a single white bushy eyebrow.

“I know Asa is a healer and yet I never made the connection.”

“I admit,” Corban said, “I was surprised you hadn’t considered it.”

“I guess it’s just that he is always healing people who are bleeding, sick, or in some type of pain. It never occurred to me he could heal people of past injuries.” She touched her face where her glasses should have been.

They continued to chat as they walked but didn’t talk about the big question that needed answering. What were they going to do about Neviah’s fear of heights?