The next trip, the man they put up behind him was silent and looked exhausted. He said not a word until they landed, and then it was only a whispered “thank you,” as he dismounted.

The third trip, however, and the passenger being a tall, cadaverous looking man with haunted eyes, the ones who helped him strap himself to Kiron looked faintly familiar. Enough so that he glanced back in puzzlement as Avatre took off.

“Think you know them, do you?” the Winged One said in his ear. “You probably do. They were two of your little friend Aket-ten’s teachers.”

But they weren’t wearing the medallions of the Winged Ones, his mind protested.

He didn’t say it aloud, but he had forgotten, for a moment, that with these people, he didn’t have to say something aloud to be heard. “They aren’t Winged anymore,” the bitter man said, in a tone of venomous anger.

Not Winged? But—that wasn’t possible, surely, you were either Winged or not—

“They fought the Magi. The Magi didn’t like that, so they kept the ones who fought instead of letting them come back to the temple to rest, and used them until they burned them out. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t die of it.” Not only hatred but fear, and the kind of anger that gripped Kiron like the talons of a vulture. “Then, the Magi brought them back as a lesson to the rest of us. They’re no more god-touched now than you are.”

“At least they’re alive,” Kiron offered, feeling it was a weak solace, but still—they were alive when all those acolytes in Tia weren’t. They might not be Winged anymore but thousands of people weren’t Winged—

“I wouldn’t call it living,” the bitter man said, acid etching every word. “A man can live without a hand, a foot, even an eye, but what happens when you take part of what he is? He’s better off dead! I’d say that, and they’d say the same!”

Kiron had no good response for that. There was no good response for that. All he could do was to guide Avatre through the night, and wonder what, if anything, the angry man thought he could do about it.

“I’m sorry” seemed a bit inadequate, but it was all he had.

The man didn’t say anything more until they reached the estate and landed. Then, once he was down on the ground, he gave Kiron a searching gaze.

“You’re a good lad,” he said. “Just do what you came to do as best you can, and don’t take more on yourself than you can be responsible for.”

And with that he staggered away, limping heavily and leaning on the arm of an attendant, and if there had been time, Kiron would have hurried after him to demand a meaning for such cryptic remarks.