This was a revelation: the city of Cyre had no wings.

On Gaiam, even the lowest part of the Cauldron would be full of nightwings on patrol and floating rigs held aloft by air-filled envelopes. Narrow towers and many-storied apartments punctuated the city blocks, and above it all was that ragged mountain ridge that formed a ring around the city.

But in Cyre, the skies felt empty. Despite the hulking temples and courthouses and amphitheaters and palace estates, the rooftops of Cyre looked almost flat from above, rolling up and down those gently-sloping hills.

So, up here on the clay tile roof of the inn, Eolh felt naked and vulnerable. He was one of the few on Cyre who could fly. If he took to the air, how quickly would he be spotted? Or would anyone be watching the skies at all?

At first, he stayed as low as possible. He ran along the rooftops, only using his wings to hop from building to building. The fear of the Cyran tyranny had been ingrained in him for nine excruciating years.

But slowly, ever so slowly, he began to molt that fear. He began to understand.

I’m not vulnerable. They are.

On Gaiam, everyone locked and shuddered their windows at night. On Gaiam, everyone kept an eye on the rooftops and balconies, just in case someone was watching from above.

But here…

Here, he could move more swiftly, more silently, and more freely than anyone else in the city. Completely invisible. Even the warm rush of the ocean wind was on his side, lifting him easily into the air.

And with the Queen’s goggles on his face, the whole city was laid bare before him. Even the night could not hide its secrets. He could see the warm outlines of figures, sitting in hidden orchards and plazas tucked away in the confines of square apartment buildings. Bronze statues on high roofs that were patinaed with pale green rust. The rooftop clutch of cages, where someone kept a flock of cooing birds. That sent a kind of shock through him, and all he could think was, poor things.

Up here, he could hear better, too. The clop of metal-shod hooves told him where the nearest drudge and carriage was, and which way it was headed. The nighttime murmurs of conversations through open windows. The crickets, rising and falling, going silent as shadowed figures walked hurriedly down dark alleys.

In a way, it was exhilarating. He had never felt this free back in the Cauldron. There was always some reason to watch your back. But here, he felt as though he could see everything.

There was that immense oblong arena that Annoch had called the Hydroseum. Its high walls led down into an amphitheater where a flat pool of water calmly reflected all the stars above and a few strings of clouds. There were the two grand Via that intersected at the gate.

Eolh fluttered to a stop on the roof of one estate, wrapped with a high, concrete wall. From the roof, he could see four or five guards, standing at the gate, or lazily wandering the dusky gardens.

There was a raucous banging from inside the house, where more than a few cyrans were drinking and talking. Not laughing, but not shouting either.

“He’s gutted it,” a cyran enunciated his words by tapping on the table. “From the inside out. One day, we’ve got deals with the priesthood to last us the next ten years. The next morning, all our contacts have fled. Or are lying in pools of their own blood.”

Another cyran shrugged, sipping from his cup, “It is the will of the gods.”

“Gods be damned! This is my money we’re talking about. The Emperor thinks he can just wave that great, fat hand of his and take it. What am I supposed to do? What about everything I’ve worked for?”

“You mean, what about everything your slaves have worked for.”

“Pah!” the first cyran slumped into his chair, “Xenos can’t be slaves. They’re lesser. Animals.”

“I wasn’t talking about the xenos. I was talking about your cyran slaves.”

“Oh. You mean the servants. I pay them, you know.”

“Yes, but not more than you take from them. Right?”

“Better than a life out in the provinces!”

Eolh listened for a while longer, but the rest of their conversation devolved into bitter griping, and glossing over the difference between servitude and slavery, as if they were siblings. Still, it was interesting.

Always, on Gaiam, he had assumed that the Cyran Empire was single-minded. He had never considered that they might enslave their own kind. But, of course. Only a cyran could be so cruel, and see it as kindness. When the conversation revealed nothing further, Eolh kept moving.

There was so much to learn.

At another window in another estate, he stopped to listen to the screams coming from inside. Sounds of passion, though genuine or paid for, he could not be sure. Either way, he flapped away once he realized what was happening.

As night grew cooler, and even the rushing warmth from the ocean began to chill, he came to the Veneratian - a gargantuan, domed forum that sat in the flats between the hills. It was almost large enough to be a hill unto itself, made of brick and concrete and capped with bronze.

A cluster of seven smaller domes surrounded it, squeezing against it, though they looked like they had been added long after the main structure was set. Spires spiked out of the domes, each one was tipped with an elongated flag that trailed like the tail of an eel in an ocean current.

The entrance was an open portico, supported by giant marble columns. His talons slipped on the steeply slanted roof until he found a rounded, concrete edge to perch on. Here, he could gaze upon the square below.

Though it was near the heart of the city, the streets were quiet here. A cluster of black-robed priests ambled out of a temple and into the side streets. A lone droid stumbled lamely across the square. And not much else.

In the center of the square, there was a fountain. The statue of a goddess rose almost as tall as the nearest building. Long flowing hair crashed down around her shoulders. Her back was arched, and she stood on one leg as she reached high into the air. How had they carved all those muscles from stone? Even the thin folds of her clothes seemed to cling to her body.

She held a stone carafe over her head. Water poured from its rim, making an endless splashing in the pool below where dozens of stone-wrought cyrans were rising out of the water, delighting in her gift. They seemed to worship her, to look up at her with fearful, euphoric awe.

Who was she? He wondered. Certainly no god that Eolh had ever heard of. He had not thought about it before, but he supposed the cyrans had their own gods. Their own versions of humanity, immortalized in myth.

Were these gods at all like the gods of Gaiam? Or were they just as cruel and corrupt, like the cyrans themselves?

The thunder of hooves broke the stillness of night. A team of drudges, shining in polished bronze, were hauling a close-topped carriage that hovered on a cushion of air. The driver sat on a high seat at the top. She pulled up to the steps of the Veneratian’s portico and when the carriage came to a halt, all the drudges stood eerily still, all that thunderous clopping frozen in silence. They didn’t wicker or grunt, they didn’t stamp their feet or chew on the leaves of nearby bushes. They didn’t breathe at all.

The driver waited, in the twinkling darkness of the night.

So, Eolh did too. In a single day, he had seen hundreds of carts and carriages in Cyre, and this was by far the most lavish.

Crickets sang with the steady rush of the ocean breeze. The driver cleared her throat, and sniffed at the quietness of the night. Once, she got up to check something on her drudges, but mostly she sat quietly, bored, waiting on the floating bulk of that huge vehicle.

Voices from the portico.

Two cyrans in sleek suits, whispering intently to each other as they walked out of the Veneratian and down the steps. When the driver saw them, she climbed down from her seat, and brought out a set of carpeted steps that she placed at the foot of the carriage.

The two lords sauntered did not even spare her a glance, though she was frozen in a bow, waiting for the lords’ approval.

Finally, one of the lords crooked her head, and took the other by the elbow, encouraging him to ride with her.

As a listener, Eolh had honed a certain kind of sense. Body language could reveal so much about a conversation. About how invested the conversers were, by the way one whispered and the other shook his head in disbelief.

This looked interesting.

Eolh tensed his muscles, quietly rolling his shoulders and flexing his flight feathers.

As the two lords disappeared into the carriage (they had still not said a word to the driver), the driver picked up the steps after them, and climbed back up to her seat. The drudges were stirred into motion, and the clop-clopping of hooves slowly turned the carriage around.

Eolh glided down. Opened his wings to slow his fall, and perched, quietly, on the roof of the carriage, his talons sinking easily into the soft wood. He laid flat, with his ear as close to the back of the carriage as possible, so he could hear the hushed voices inside.

“How long do you think he’ll stay awake this time?” A man’s voice. Watery with age and nervousness. “All of my shipments have ground to a halt since the Emperor returned. You should see my books. Nothing but red this month. What about our protections? Our agreements? All of my contacts in the priesthood have gone dark. He says a few words, and the whole system turn inside out.”

“Esius, my old friend, now is the time for patience. He is the Emperor.”

“I hate him.”

“We all do,” the second voice said. A woman who sounded like she was already bored with this conversation. “But this is why you must have reserves. In a few more weeks, or a year if the gods frown upon us, he’ll go back to his throne. Back to sleep. And he won’t be seen again in our lifetime. This little interruption will make no difference in the long run, as long as we pretend to worship him and make a show of staying in line.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“That’s what my Grandfather says, and look where it got him.”

“Yes, but Lord Deioch is Lord Deioch. Look at Consul Vorpei. Even she has run off world, afraid of his wrath.”

“Don’t be a fool, Esius. Vorpei has run offworld because she has a plan. What is that planet called? Oh, nevermind. It doesn’t matter. The Emperor is nothing more than a force of nature. He will pass, like any storm, leaving nothing but a few drops of water in his wake. Just stay out of the way, and you’ll keep your head.”

“Of course, you are right,” he said. “You are always so wise, for someone so young.”

His flattery seemed to appease her greatly. And then, because the man seemed to sense his advantage, he moved the conversation to a new question.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about your thoughts on Kirine.”

“Kirine? That old upstart?”

“I know. He’s nothing more than a tribune, and a tribune he will stay. But some of the other tribunae and aediem seem to agree with him more, as of late.

“Commoners,” she spat the word out line an insult. “They’ve always followed him around. What little good it does them. Nothing a few coins won’t change. Or knives, I’m sure.”

“Did you hear what he said about the avians? Citizenship. For birds.”

“Oh,” she clapped her hands and laughed, “Incredible. I knew he was mad, with his populous platform. Can you imagine, provincials with the right to vote?”

At that, she laughed again and this time, the man, who was trying to stay in her graces, laughed with her.

“No, old friend,” the woman was suddenly serious now, “I think that Kirine will do what he always does. And the Veneratian will remain unchanged. Unmoved by his pathetic pleas. As it should be.

“So, you don’t think he could cause a rift?”

“I think he knows exactly what the Veneratian can do to him. The true Veneratian, not the lower benches. I’m sure you remember that wife of his...”

“Yes,” the old man said quietly. “Yes, I do.”

As the carriage floated gracefully over the stone roads, Eolh listened as two venerators discussed and insulted this Kirine, and the other “xeno-loving aediem and tribunae.” But always, they returned to this Kirine.

They said his name with such disgust. As if there was something that separated him from their ilk.

Maybe, at least, there was one cyran who was less despicable than the rest.

***

On his way back to the inn, he almost got lost. By the time he saw that squat facade, overgrown with vines, he just wanted to crash through the window and collapse into bed. He didn’t even care if the sheets were clean.

But as he flapped to slow his speed, as his talons swept over the potted flowers on the windowsill, his stomach dropped.

The room was dark. The beds were empty.

No an-droid.

No fledgling human.

Even that damned merchant was gone. Did she sell us out?

He ran to the door, and yanked it open. The hallways were dark, but he could hear the tink of glassware from downstairs.

He flew down the stairs, to find Annoch Polcatus sitting at the bar, several empty cups in front of her. Slumped, with her head in her hands, and muttering to herself.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, far more calmly than she should have. Her words were barely slurred.

He grabbed the lapels of her worn, gaudy coat, and cawed viciously at her, “Did you do this?!”

“It wasn’t my fault!” she blinked blearily at him. “I did you a favor, staying here. I could have run, too. They came in with a whole squadron of soldiers. Look, I didn’t know we had been followed. But someone knew you were here.”

“Who?” he growled.

“Priests,” she shrugged, as if that was all the answer he needed.

“Priests,” he spat back at her, “What the hells does that mean?”

He was still holding her by the collar, but she seemed not to mind. As if she was used to getting roughed up on the streets of Cyre. She looked more tired than anything.

“The priests belong to the Emperor. They came looking for you, and when they didn’t find you, they took took your apprentice instead. And your an-droid.”

Eolh let her go. He sagged against the wall, sighing with defeat. So gods damned tired. How had this happened? They had taken so many precautions. They had gone as quietly, and secretary as possible. How had they been found so easily?

In a single night, everything had fallen to pieces. And, Eolh thought, why isn’t there any sign of a struggle? He would have to go back and check, but all of his gear… the goggles, the carbine, they were untouched.

“Did you sell us out?” Eolh said.

“I wouldn’t do that!” she balked. “Eolh. Come on. We’re avian. At least you’re safe, right? I mean, you can always find a new apprentice, yeah?”

Eolh would’ve laughed if he wasn’t burning inside. Hating himself for being so stupid.

Why did I let him come here?

“Something else,” Annoch said. He had almost forgotten she was there. She was holding out an envelope. It bore the Emperor seal, already broken. Inside, there was a scrap of paper. “They gave this to your apprentice. I don’t know why. I think they were confused. They were so gentle with him.”

“Read it to me.”

“It could be a trap. Cyrans are crafty, you know.”

“Read. It.”

She looked at him, her eyes only a little glassy. Then, she held out the letter, and cleared her throat.

“Honored One, our Glorious Emperor, god and overlord of the Cyran Empire - may it ever grow - invites you to his holiest temple. Please allow this humble entourage to escort you, with all haste. Your safety is guaranteed.”