Princess Aeri's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Aeri stood on her balcony at first light, wings spread to catch the wind north. But the wind came wrong. It came hard and cold from the mountains, dragging a wall of black cloud behind it. Snow whipped past her face. The gusts slammed her wings back against her shoulders. She staggered inside and shut the doors. She could not fly into that. The storm would tear her from the sky and drop her on the crags below. She pressed her palms to the cold glass and watched the clouds swallow the northern peaks. Her whole route vanished behind gray. A week of open sky, and now this. She had waited years to have a place to go. She would not die reaching it on the first morning. "Not today," she said. She turned from the window. On her desk, in a nest of straw, her rat lifted his sharp dark face. She scooped him into her hands and held him close. His whiskers brushed her thumb. "We have a place to search now," she whispered. "We just have to wait out the sky." A knock struck the door. Aeri flinched and the rat squirmed. The door eased open. Her sister Ava leaned through the gap, her pale brown braid over one shoulder, her pink gown catching the gray light. Ava was eighteen, softer than Aeri, and had never once feared her wings. She crossed the room and looked past Aeri to the storm. "You were really leaving," Ava said. Her voice caught. "This morning. Without telling me." "I was going to leave a note," Aeri said. "A note." Ava sat on the edge of the bed. She stared at the rat in Aeri's hands, then at the map pinned open on the desk. The scrap of cloth still marked the northern peaks. "You found where you come from, and you were going to slip out at dawn." Aeri set the rat down and knelt in front of her sister. "The storm stopped me. Not you. When it clears, I still fly." "I know." Ava wiped her eyes fast. She reached into a fold of her gown and drew out a small folded map, worn at the creases. "Then take this. I copied Father's charts of the border passes. The safe ones. If a storm catches you again up there, you'll know where to land." Aeri took the map. Her sister had spent hours on it. She had known Aeri would go, and had helped her go anyway. "Come back," Ava said. "Whatever you find. Promise me." "I promise." Aeri hugged her. Outside, the storm howled against the spires. It would break in a day, maybe two. When it did, Aeri would climb into a clear sky with her sister's charts in her pocket and her rat on her shoulder. For the first time, she would not fly north alone.