Guilty as Sin (6 page)

“Come on,” she called, ignoring the sting.

Folding her wings, she tilted into a power glide, the wind whistling past her ears

the way she loved. If she was showing off a little, well, so what? Gods, the exhilaration

of flight was better than any sex she
‟
d ever had.

As she wheeled away, Dax followed, much neater in the air than she
‟
d expected, for

all his bulk. It was no more than a five-minute flight to the Slopes, the slum where

Fledge
‟
s school was situated, but in that time, he executed half a dozen loop-the-loops

and a barrel roll so extravagant it stopped the hearts in her chest. All with a grace so

athletic, so careless, a less mature person would have been envious.

“You must have given your parents conniptions as a child,” she said as they

spiraled down toward a high-walled alley. “I imagine you still do.”

He shot her an odd look. “No,” he said. “They
‟
ve never worried about me.”

Touching down lightly, he furled his wings, politely making room for Lise in the

narrow space.

Settling her plumage with an irritated rustle, she strode past him, throwing open a

rusty door in the wall.

“Lise!” Smiling, Fledge rose from the ramshackle table set in the shade of a single

scrubby tree. But she wasn
‟
t alone.

28

Verse:

My vran, my vran

I gave my vran a velvet vest.

Chorus:

One (clap) velvet vran,

Two (clap, clap) vested vran,

Three (clap, clap, clap) verdant vran,

Four (clap, clap, clap, clap) vexing vran,

Verse:

I vow my vran, my vested vran

My vran, my vran

My velvet vested vran

Repeat Chorus

Traditional rhymes and stories for the very young collected by Fledge, Story Witch

of the Ten Nations Fair, edited by Miriliel the Burnished, 10,370 ATF (After the Firsters)

* * * * *

Despite himself, Dax
‟
s eyes widened. In his experience, a school was a place of

learning, of quiet and concentration.

This was chaos.

The yard was miniscule, no more than a small patch of hard-trodden earth. A

swarm of dirty-faced Grounded children of indeterminate sex tumbled past him, their

attention fixed on Lise. They surrounded her, all shouting at once, shoving at each other

with pointy little elbows.

Not in the least discomfited, Lise chuckled, clamping both hands over her belt

pouch. “Candy? Veil-it, I believe it slipped my mind,” she said blandly, though the

corners of her sweet mouth curved.

It was one of the first things he
‟
d noticed—the satiny pink of those pretty lips—

such a contrast to the cool intelligence in her luminous gray eyes. Each iris was

surrounded by a darker rim that gave her gaze an impact he felt clear to the base of his

tail.

“Line up, tallest to smallest,” she was saying, “quickly now.”

29

The little Grounded woman with the shiny brown hair started chivvying the

children into a ragged line. The tallest boy had at least an inch on her, yet she moved

with quiet authority, and the children shifted obediently enough as she sorted them out.

This must be Fledge, the woman Mirry was so besotted with. Jan too, if his cousin was

to be believed. Dax studied her with interest. What was it they found so appealing?

Something collided with his shin, ricocheted off and landed on his foot with a solid

squelch.

Startled, he looked down to meet the tearful gaze of a mite with tangled curls and a

snot-smeared face. She was sitting on his boot. Melting brown eyes went wide, her

lower lip trembled and her face scrunched.

Poor little love. Dax bent, scooped her up in one arm and regretted it immediately.

Uh-oh. Wet, warm and smelly.

Swiftly, he crouched and propped her up against his knee, keeping her steady with

a gentle tail around her middle. “Hey,” he said softly, “don
‟
t cry, little one. I
‟
ll get you

some.”

As if by magic, the tears dried up and the child smiled, her small teeth

astonishingly white in her dirty face. She popped a grimy thumb into her mouth and

clutched his tail with the other hand.

“Here.” Lise handed him a small stick of some lurid pink confectionary.

The other children stood in a loose semicircle behind her, watching. Some nibbled,

others crunched, but every eye was fixed upon him. Just as well he wasn
‟
t standing up,

thought Dax with an inward shrug. Once he
‟
d reached adolescence, he
‟
d realized it

wasn
‟
t possible to make himself look smaller, so he didn
‟
t try.

“Thanks.” He passed the candy over to the tot, who accepted it with all the poise of

a dowager empress.

“I
‟
m Fledge.” The little Grounded stood before him, flanked by a couple of the

older boys. Glowering, one of the lads fingered an object in his pocket, something with

a razor edge no doubt.

Fledge
‟
s russet-brown eyes assessed Dax, lingering for an instant on his hair. “You

must be the cousin Mirry was expecting.”

When she smiled, Dax caught his breath. Rip the Veil, so that was why—

“Daxariel,” he said.

“This is Nell,” said Fledge, tweaking the baby
‟
s toes. “She doesn
‟
t usually care for

men.”

Dax dug in a pocket and produced a handkerchief. Avoiding the stickiness of the

candy as best he could, he wiped the child
‟
s nose. “She
‟
s gorgeous,” he said. “Even if

she does smell.” He glanced up. “Isn
‟
t she a little young for school?”

Fledge
‟
s expressive face clouded and she turned to Lise. “That reminds me.” To the

boys, she said, “It
‟
s all right. You go look after the others.”

30

Abruptly, she turned toward a rickety table and a couple of chairs set in the shade

of a candlewood tree. With a parting glare for Dax, the boys peeled off to join a group

clustered around a seesaw made out of a rough plank and a barrel.

But when Dax went to rise, Nell grabbed his tail and hung on with both sticky

hands. Oh well. With a sigh, he lifted her into his arms. “I
‟
ve got you, chick,” he

murmured. “Come on.” He leaned against the tree, ignoring the remaining spindly

chair.

“Nell was here when I arrived this morning,” said Fledge. “But not Bitsy.”

Lise shrugged. “She
‟
s missed a day before. It
‟
s not as though you force them to

attend.”

“That
‟
s what Mirry says. They come and go.” Fledge gripped her hands together on

the table. “I just wanted your opinion. Bitsy was going to help me with a painting class

for the little ones today.” She stared at her interlaced fingers. “And I haven
‟
t seen Zemis

since last week.”

Dax had the sense Lise was choosing her words with care. “You know what their

lives are like. There could be any number of reasons.”

Fledge bit her lip and nodded.

“What reasons?” asked Dax and two heads jerked up.

“These children are so poor, they have nothing.” Fledge looked him in the eye, her

face set. “I mean that literally.
Nothing
. The Slopes is more than a slum, it
‟
s an open

sore.”

“And the Prince lets it fester,” put in Lise. “Tax collectors don
‟
t last long around

here.”

“Bitsy
‟
s fourteen, if that,” said Fledge. “I
‟
ve no idea what happened to her parents,

she won
‟
t talk about them. But if she doesn
‟
t sell herself on the streets, she
‟
ll starve. She

can
‟
t afford to be choosy either. Some days her luck runs out and then she stays away

from school—from me—‟til the bruises fade.”

“Why?” asked Dax, though he thought he could guess.

Fledge
‟
s smile was tired. “Because I fuss. Because I pour medicine down her throat

for that dreadful cough. Because…” She shrugged, blinking. “Shit, just because.”

“Does—” Dax had to clear his throat, conscious of a slow heavy burn in the pit of

his stomach. “Does Nell belong to Bitsy?”

“Bitsy isn
‟
t her mother, if that
‟
s what you mean. No one seems to know who that

was, but Bitsy takes care of her, as best she can. And no—” She forestalled his question.

“I
‟
ve tried. Bitsy says she
‟
ll steal her back from me and run away. I believe her.”

There was real sorrow in her soft brown eyes, and behind it, imperfectly hidden,

banked rage. She cared deeply, this small indomitable woman. He guessed someone

had to.

Dax mulled it all over, drifting his palm up and down the baby
‟
s back, over the tiny

bumps of her spine, like a string of beads. He could move quickly if he had to—in flight,

31

for example—but in general, nothing good came of a hasty decision. He
‟
d never been a

mental lightweight, never one to swing in the wind. Calm was infinitely preferable to

emotional excess.

And yet…

Some would say that what Fledge did here was but a drop in an ocean of misery.

He glanced at the ragged children, their faces seamed with hunger and dirt, their eyes

old and tired.
Futile
.

A burning sensation spread in his chest, affecting his breath. Lise and Fledge talked

on, their voices a vague background hum. With a conscious effort, Dax settled his

wings, which had mantled behind him, and stilled his lashing tail. A man his size could

not afford to lose his temper. Dax rarely raised his voice, though to be honest, he didn
‟
t

need to. Looming generally sufficed.

Under his soothing touch, Nell drooped until she was fast asleep, snuffling like a

puppy into his shoulder and leaving a reeking patch on his good shirt.

Fledge sent three of the older kids indoors and they returned with trays of bread

and cheese and a basket of fruit. The children snatched and gobbled, licking their

fingers. A couple, more daring than the rest, crept closer to the table to listen. An older

boy, the one he
‟
d marked as a thug in the making, made a contribution every now and

then, names mostly. His voice cracked with the uncertainty of adolescence, but there

was nothing boyish in the grim set of his mouth.

What a godsbedamned fucking waste. The lad was intelligent, clearly a leader, yet

he
‟
d be dead before he reached twenty, if that. Dax didn
‟
t consider himself an

imaginative man, but he could see the limp body facedown in the rain, blood gurgling

away down some noisome gutter.

He took a firmer grip on Nell, thinking of his sire
‟
s bone-crushing, feather-bending

hug of farewell, of Mama laughing and crying together as she rose on tiptoe to kiss his

cheek, his little sister sniffling even as she rolled her eyes. Dax stared down at the

twitching tip of his tail, his brow furrowed. Veil-it, he
‟
d been blessed.

The fine feathers at his nape quivered.

The gods were shadows behind the Veil, their desires unknown and unknowable,

but all his life he
‟
d had the sense he was meant to accomplish something, something

specific. He had a purpose. When he thought about it logically, it sounded stupid, but

he
‟
d never been able to shake the conviction, and after a while, he stopped trying. The

moment he
‟
d laid eyes on Liseriel the Gray, all those years ago, he
‟
d known he was

right.

Smiling a little, he watched as she peeled the rind from a
gaeta
fruit in a single strip.

The little ones giggled as it grew to an improbable length, but the bigger boys stared at

the flashing blade, unblinking.

It wasn
‟
t a school, not really. What Fledge provided was a refuge, a place where a

slum kid could be sure of getting a meal with no strings attached. From what he could