Chapter 1 - The Six Wings

Chapter 1: The Six Wings

Jyra woke with a start, and couldn’t figured out what had wakened him. Then he heard a pounding on the door, followed by a loud, slurred shout: “Jyra, yew get out ‘ere, boy!”

“Coming,” Jyra said, getting up to unlock his door. Oh, great, he still sounds drunk... As Jyra opened the door, he noticed that Rosie was nowhere to be seen. She must have been frightened by Father’s pounding, and ran to hide, he thought.

Daemon’s fist narrowly missed Jyra’s face, and Jyra jumped back as his father charged into the small shack, filling the doorway.

He never gets this bad, Jyra thought, an instant before a long, thick arm caught him and threw him against the side wall. Stunned, he couldn’t move as his father reached down and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him into the air. Jyra struggled for breath, trying to pry the strong hand from his neck. Then he felt a hard object press against his chest, looked down as best he could to see a rifle, held by his father, ready to be fired. He braced himself for the projectile; but instead of the blow hitting his heart, it was pushed aside at the last second and shot through his side instead. He was suddenly released; and as he fell to the ground, he could dimly make out the flash of a silver sword leave Daemon’s body as the man collapsed.

*****

After Sun had left Jyra on the street, she had gone back to where she had hidden her blade; she felt that, before the night was out, she would need it. She was half right. It was actually past midnight when a small gray-and-white cat - apparently, Jyra’s - came for help, sensing that her master was in trouble. Sun had come back into the town, seeking the place she had fought the man who had knocked Jyra down - the man was gone, but the impression his large body had made was still there, in the mud - and going from there the direction she had seen the boy head. All this took about five hours.

He’s just like me, she had realized, when he had told her about his father finding him. He just doesn’t realize the truth behind the lies…

Sun went out and bought supplies. Her rations were enough to feed just herself for a meal or two, but Jyra would need more than that. He was a growing boy, Sun justified. One meal a day just wouldn’t cut it. Because she knew that he would be coming with her when she left this village; at their contact earlier, when she had helped him up, she realized that this was the one she was looking for. It was her duty to find and gather all the Wings together, as the Wing of the Day.

Sun had found her way back to Jyra’s house, which she had found when going back earlier, but halfway there she realized that someone was approaching fast from that direction. It was Rosie (but, of course, she didn’t know that at the time), and she was trembling. From this Sun gathered Jyra was in danger, and continued on, but faster, sword ready. She barged into the shack, saw the gun with trigger half-pulled, and charged into Daemon’s side full-speed. She wasn’t in time; when she heard the gun go off she looked around. Seeing Jyra on the ground, blue-faced, with blood spilling out of a horrendous wound in his side, Sun’s protective side got the better of her and she went all-out against Daemon, until the man was nothing but a giant, bloody hunk of Swiss cheese.

*****

Through bleary eyes, Jyra saw a woman approach him and felt a hand on his cheek.

“Oh, God, Jyra, you’re so lucky I was here. Hang in there, kiddo.” Sun’s voice was frantic, but she controlled it as best she could.

“S-Sun?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Don’t go dying on me just yet; you’re needed by many.”

“It…hurts…” Jyra’s voice seemed so far away now; and if his was distant, then Sun’s was light years away. It barely reached him now as he faded away, his vision blurred by pain and the oxygen that had hit his lungs full force after nearly three minutes without it.

“I know it must hurt a lot,” Sun murmured. “Just bear it a while longer.”

*****

Everything was pain, and the pain was a field of flowers.

Jyra walked slowly through the field, stooping once to touch one of the flowers. Two taller blossoms than the one he was reaching for barely grazed his neck and his side, but when they made contact it burned like fire. The one he’d been about to touch suddenly grinned at him with a mouth full of blade-sharp teeth and bit his hand.

“Don’t trust those close to you!” the flower cackled. “They’ll either bite you or run away!” At this, the flower grew, gaining familiar human features as it did, until his mother stood before him. She smiled sweetly and turned away, fading into the distance, as does a gull bound for the sea.

“Mother!” Jyra cried, trying to follow. But the flowers around him turned into thorny vines, wrapping around him, holding him down. The thorns dug into his skin until the ground beneath him turned red with his blood. Still he strained toward where his mother disappeared, calling, “Mother! Mother, don’t leave me!”

“OI! Stop moving around or you’ll hurt yourself worse than you already are!” A stern, annoyed female voice sounded from close by. As Jyra came awake, he became aware not only of the pain in his side and neck, but of his partially-healed broken leg and a faded bruise on his head. He reached for the bruise, eyes still closed, but someone else’s hand stilled his own. He opened his eyes to see Sun glaring down at him.

“Are you deaf or stupid? I just told you to keep still!” she growled.

“Su-Sun? What’re you - ”

“Never mind, let’s just say I came in the nick of time. But you still sustained some serious damage; you’ve got some bed rest ahead of you.”

“What happened to Father?”

“He’s dead; I killed him,” Sun said bluntly.

“What?” Jyra exclaimed.

“It was either that or watch you die, which I did NOT intend on doing. I don’t like watching helpless people getting themselves killed, especially when you’re one of the Six.”

“One of…”

“The Six.” Sun looked sidelong at him. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what the Six Wings are?”

“Of course I do,” Jyra answered, remembering his mother’s legend.

“Good, then I don’t have to explain everything to you. It’s a pretty long story as it is.” She took the kettle, which was steaming steadily, from the fire and poured the hot water into a cup. Steam rose from the mug as she blew on it. “Here; sit up while you drink this so you don’t spill it and scald yourself. I’ve had enough panic attacks without you injuring yourself more. And listen while I’m talking; no interruptions.”

As Jyra sipped carefully at the tea, Sun began.

“You probably think that the legend if the Six Wings is just that - a legend - but it's not. Maybe I’ll prove it to you, but not right now; I don’t exactly want to burn the place down. The legend is called ‘Six Wings’ because wings symbolize freedom, which is what this world desperately needs.

“You were not found by your father. While you were still unconscious I had a little look through that man’s room, and I found the proof of ownership for someone named ‘Jyra Thomas’, signed and sealed. He bought you as an infant and told his wife that he’d found you. I’m almost the same as you; my grandparents bought me as a gift to their daughter and her husband, but the reason for their choice was completely different.

“You see, the government hires people to go undercover and find people suspected of being a Wing. That guy was one of them. The stuffed shirts have heard the legend, too, and they’re afraid we’ll storm them and upturn their well-established ‘peace’ - and they’re not far off the mark.”

“Why didn’t Father - Daemon - kill me right off, then?” Jyra asked.

“Oh, not calling him your father anymore? That’s good.” Sun grinned. “The traits typical of one of us aren’t visible until puberty. You just turned thirteen, no?”

“The day after we met,” Jyra answered.

“Well, there you go. Anyway, my grandparents told me that I wasn’t born free the night before they…died. I was given Hihane the day before, so when they and my parents died I just left. I met an old woman who told me what I was - what I had been for three years - and what I have to do. She also told me of people who had been the Six Wings in days past…”

She drifted off. Jyra waited.

“What happened to them?” he asked when she didn’t go on.

“They all failed. Every one of them; five generations in total. Obviously, or we wouldn’t be under the rule of der Böse Gott.” She spat the words. “But I’m gonna succeed.” She said this more quietly. “I’m different from the others; I know I can do this.”

She was silent for a long moment. “But I’ll need help,” she said at last. “One teenage girl’s not winning against a man claiming to be a god, no matter how phony he is. The first thing we gotta do is find the other four Wings and establish some kind of relationship; we’ll decide what to do next after that.”

“We?”

“Of course. You’re a Wing, too, remember? You and I are chosen; we have no choice. Not that I resent that. I hate this kind of life and I always have.” She looked at him suddenly, concern in her eyes. “How’re you feeling, by the way?

“All right; the tea’s helping.”

“That’s just jasmine. Healthy, but not exactly medicinal.” She sighed in relief. “It’s good that you’re feeling better, though. When I got to you I could barely feel your pulse, and you were bleeding so much you could’ve swam in it. My knowledge of healing is limited; you were out for five or six days before I could bring your fever down. I was sure most of the time that you were going to die.”

“Wait, how long, again?”

“Well, you were delirious for the first day, and then you were still out of it a day after I finally got your temperature down. So, probably about a week. You have a smart cat, by the way. She ran for help before that guy - Daemon, right? - started attacking you.”

“How do you know that?” Jyra asked.

“She told me,” Sun answered. “Well, not so much ‘told’ as ‘thought’. I have a bit of ESP when it comes to animals, especially cats. Maybe the cat part comes from my being a Leo.”

“You’re a psychic?”

“Not exactly, more of an animal-whisperer. But that’s not important. What is, is getting you rested up and ready to go as soon as possible. Posthaste. So give me that empty teacup and go back to sleep.” Sun took the cup from him and set it on the nightstand, filling it with cool water rather than jasmine tea. She gave Rosie’s ear a little scratch - Jyra hadn’t noticed her on his pillow - and sat in the chair. She pulled a little book out of a hidden pocket in her cloak, opened it, and began reading to herself. It seemed to Jyra that she was both a little more and a little less at ease than they met the previous week, as if both wary and composed at the same time.

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