Bird of Prophecy

Tara squinted across the Skygreaves’ foothills, the afternoon sun reflecting off the tall grass so brightly that she could have been gazing at the ocean. Tiny shadows milled like slow-moving ants about a mile downslope, but even with her glasses on, she could barely distinguish between troll and human.

“We’ve still got at least ten minutes,” Kaukko said, clicking his pocketwatch closed.

“I know,” Tara muttered. She shaded her eyes with one hand. “I just like staring into the sun.”

“The Council isn’t exactly known for their punctuality,” Yllenor agreed. She glanced up at the shadows on the foothills, one pointed ear twitching, then went back to the book in her lap. “The recovery team doesn’t look like they think so, though.”

Tara tried to sense any indication one way or the other from the tiny people, but to her human eyes, they hardly even looked like they were moving, let alone conveying anything non-verbally. She sighed and slid back down behind the crag to join the others.

“Whatever it is might not happen for a long while, realistically,” Shori said. He, like Yllenor, was reading a book, but his was written in his own hand. His pen tapped against his scruffy chin as he spoke, half to himself. “Looks like their last major vision — the locusts passing over Valley Falls — did happen in the right place, but the timing was off by a solid eight and a half hours. And before that, the wildfire of ’24? That started almost a full day before they thought it would.”

“Fantastic,” Tara said, settling her back against the stone, cold out of the direct line of the spring sun. “Anyone bring a deck of—”

A shadow flickered over the group, and they looked up. Yllenor was the first up the rocky outcrop, followed closely by Kaukko, Shori, and — after some scrambling — Tara. “Keep your heads down,” hissed the elf, holding the springy cloud of her hair flat to her head with both hands. “I can see them, which means my dad could see us.”

Tara inched up the stone until she could just barely see the first few shapes below. They were closer than before, approaching the mountains at an angle towards Tara’s left. She could see the glints of armor and swords, now — and they were running towards something, another shadow in the grass, smaller and flat to the ground. “What is that?” she whispered.

“A bird, I think,” Yllenor said. “A giant bird.”

Kaukko shuffled to the side, peering over the rocks from a different vantage a little further down. His long, black ponytail whipped in the wind as he moved further from the mountain’s face. “Why would the Council have sent a team headed by your father just to pick up a bird?” he asked.

“It did come from the mountains,” Shori said from the other side of the crag.

Tara glanced from the indistinct scene on the downs to Yllenor at her side, trying to read what was happening on her sharper-eyed friend’s face. But Yllenor stared, unblinking, her forehead slightly furrowed, and gave no indication of what she saw. Tara turned her eyes back to the hills.

An electric shiver crept up her body like snow drifting against a tree. She still couldn’t see what was going on below, but something about it felt… not wrong, but heavy, like a dead man had suddenly risen from the earth before them — a sign that she recognized, but couldn’t interpret. “Do you feel that?” she whispered, the words catching on a lump in her throat.

Yllenor’s reply seemed to come to her across a vast distance: “Something big.”

Shori hummed, a wordless tune starting high and falling in gentle cycles like a leaf floating to the ground. The art in his voice took hold of the wind, guiding it to slow in a similar pattern until the air was entirely still. Tara could just barely hear the hoofbeats of the horses, but Yllenor’s ears perked up.

“What are they saying?” Shori whispered, his voice harsh in the silence.

“I…” Yllenor said, leaning further forward, ears straining. “I think they’re…. talking to it? I guess it… crashed. Must be injured.” Her eyes widened and she slid down, her leather boots somehow barely whispering on the stone. “It’s a person,” she said. “A winged person.”

Kaukko and Shori exchanged a look. “An… Airsong?” Shori said.

“No, she has arms and wings,” Yllenor said. “I couldn’t see while she was lying in the tall grass, but my dad picked her up and started running off towards Eimuural.” She sighed heavily, crossing her arms. “And he saw us.”

Tara and the boys groaned in unison.

“We could just…. not go home,” Shori suggested, his smile endlessly optimistic.