Taigan sighed. “Yes. Some of us know. Why do you think I came to Dhai to find omajistas? What better way to fight the enemy than with the enemy himself?”

“I’m sorry,” Lilia said. “I’m just not what you think I am.”

“It’s a pointless exercise,” Taigan said. “I’m losing time. The world is losing time.”

“But my mother–”

Taigan’s palm thumped hard into her sternum. Lilia lost her balance. Tipped over the cliff. Her ankle knocked a jutting spur of rock. Pain. The freedom of falling. She had a moment of abject terror. Shock.

Taigan’s dark form, the edge of his coat fluttering in the wind. Gazing down at her, receding, falling away and away and away…

This is a long fall, she thought. It’s a mistake. He’ll stop it.

“Fly, fly little bird,” Taigan called.

Her mother used to call her that. There were three intonations in Dhai, and “Li” with the third intonation meant “bird.”

But she had always been broken, for as long as she could remember.

And broken birds didn’t fly.

Lilia pinwheeled her arms, clawing at air that whistled around her; a pretty, perfect song.

Songs. Trefoils. Oma.

If she could just–

She grabbed at all of it as she fell.

Her fingers found only air.

Lilia opened her mouth to scream–

Jutting branches and twisted tree limbs splintered beneath her. Snapped her ribs. Raked flesh. Crack and heave. She broke through the low canopy of stunted trees at the base of the cliff and crashed into the sandy streambed below. She landed on her right side. Her right shoulder fractured beneath her. Her right arm snapped.

She rolled another few feet into the soft ravine, sliding to a halt among heavier river stones at its bottom, her blood smearing the rocks.

Lilia saw her own twisted arm, her hand folded back unnaturally, fingers grazing her wrist. Her mouth filled with saliva. Screaming. She wanted to scream. Blackness juddered across her vision.

Fly, fly little bird.

Chapter 25

25